For a mere ten smackers you can join legendary illusion designer and historian Jim Steinmeyer for a new lecture: Thurston the Great and How History Fools Us  The story of Howard Thurston, America’s greatest magician from 1908 to 1936, presents a number of intriguing puzzles. The people who knew him best seemed to have been completely […]

By Richard Kaufman Have you ever had a recurring nightmare where people who have no business performing magic are suddenly on TV performing magic they have no business doing? Me, too. There were quite a few of those TV specials in the distant past. But thankfully, mercifully, this particular one-hour TV special from 1982 is […]

Seeing is believing, right? Well it shouldn’t be, because we see with our eyes, and our eyes, as science continues to prove, are about as reliable as an inflatable dartboard. Indeed, the two squishy organic cameras and accompanying gray matter whose evidence we use to do pretty much everything are prone to all kinds of […]

For almost nine years, Erick and Kim Olson have been running Wizardz Magic Theater, a magic show held every Monday at the Seralago Hotel & Suites in Kissimmee, Florida. That nine-year anniversary is something to be proud of; few magic shows (or any show, for that matter) survive that long, and after almost a decade, […]

Throwing cards is a vital skill. Impress your friends, annoy your family, blind your enemies.  For legal reasons I have to remind you that blinding people with playing cards is illegal, not to mention impolite, so don’t do that. In the video above, Brian and Jason of The Modern Rogue are joined by magician and […]

Patrick Terry has been performing magic for over 20 years, but it’s his work as an actor, filmmaker, and producer that fuel a new show called MAGIC HOUR debuting in New York City next week. Terry won’t take the stage as a magician, but will rather play the role of host as he interviews each […]

While many of New York’s newest magic shows are shiny and polished, some underground shows trade in buzzwords like “experiential” and “immersive” for the experimental and the intentionally imperfect. As a professional mind-reader and a comedian based in New York, Eric Dittelman wanted a way to test out and refine new material in front of […]

When Tristan Duke talked to Jack White about putting a hologram on a record, Duke told him that there wasn’t a guarantee it could be done. Record engineers were also telling Duke that it wouldn’t work. “Though I wasn’t sure and I couldn’t guarantee, I had an intuitive feeling…I was pretty sure it was going […]

No one likes seeing their work stolen, and thanks to the open, often Wild West-like nature of the internet, copyright infringement seems easier than ever. Places like YouTube make it so easy to upload content that just when you think you’ve beaten back one copyright claim, five others can take its place. So what is […]

When I was writing about video games for a living, there was one question that plagued literally every publication I worked at: “Are video games art?” The question was as pointless as it was pervasive. Discussions on the topic would go round in circles for weeks. Feelings would be hurt. Very few people in the […]