When you think of close-up magic, it’s usually a person doing card and coin tricks. Did you know that people have been doing this for hundreds of years?  

The literary icon Charles Dickens, famed British writer of the 19th century, also loved magic! Charles Dickens was an amateur magician who often performed at his friends’ kids’ birthday parties.

Neil Patrick Harris Chats With Legendary Magician David Copperfield

Kirk Demarais once wrote a book, Life of the Party: A Visual History of the S.S. Adams Company, that is now hard to obtain. But dig if you can because it’s filled with hilarious memories of the mischievous monkey business kids got up to with gags manufactured by the S.S. Adams Company. While the book […]

Here’s Orson Welles appearing on Dean Martin’s TV show in the mid 1960s; they’re both having some fun. Welles was a true magician at heart.  

The Library of Congress looks at the copyrights it holds filed by Harry Houdini for several of his illusions. https://blogs.loc.gov/copyright/2021/03/houdini-and-the-magic-of-copyright/ And here’s the wax cylinder recording Houdini did for his Water Torture Cell:

Richard Wiseman’s quirky antics in this video challenge your powers of observation. Can you figure out the trick?  

Imam was one of the few practitioners of Fakir magic in the United States. This is just one example of his ability to fuse drama with comedy, and make you uncomfortable in the process.

Posted on Facebook by the police in the city of Seguin, Texas, it appears that someone with sleight of hand skills is short changing cashiers at Walmarts around the United States. The poster takes a wry approach, though I don’t know if David Blaine would appreciate the call out. Here’s their post: “Seguin Police Department […]

The Fakirs of old India sat crossed legged on a tattered mat, amid piles of cloth, and performed miracles: charming cobras, Indian cups and balls, the human volcano, producing sparrows from beneath a small  basket, lifting a heavy weight with the eyelids. These magicians learned their trade through an oral tradition that dates back hundreds […]