Finding a good magic set that will lead a child or beginning adult on the road to learning magic is not as easy as you think! Many magic sets are poorly designed with badly made tricks inside. And finding one that has good teaching so the learner does not become frustrated is even more difficult. National Geographic to the rescue! This great set comes with excellent tricks that a child or beginning adult will enjoy performing, and all are taught with both included instructions and an online video for each trick. Note that there are two versions of this set, and the “Mega Magic” set for only $5 more is the one to get.
https://www.amazon.com/NATIONAL-GEOGRAPHIC-Magic-Step-Step/dp/B09M1D7JX9?th=1
By Vanessa Armstrong
David Blaine has an adventure documentary series in the works that will ultimately air on the streaming platform, Disney+.
The show is called Beyond Belief With David Blaine and comes from Nat Geo and Imagine Documentaries. Through the series, Blaine, according to Deadline, will “hunt for extraordinary people—including shamans, fakirs, and magicians who perform magic that defies what doctors and scientists think is possible—and convince them to share their secrets.”
This series isn’t the first time we’ve seen Blaine on television, of course. The magician has had nine television specials, the last of which was 2016’s David Blaine: Beyond Magic where he performed for very famous people including Patrick Stewart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and David Beckham.
This series is different, not only because it’s a series and not a standalone special, but also because its premise. Instead of undergoing death-defying stunts or performing magic for very famous people, Blaine will travel around the world to seek out magic from other people and cultures. Given Nat Geo is producing it, it will likely have some unbelievable arial shots of different landscapes that Blaine visits.
Disney+ hasn’t set a release date yet for Beyond Belief With David Blaine, though we can likely expect it within the year.
You know that bit in Ghostbusters when Bill Murray yanks at a tablecloth in the ballroom and jokes that “the flowers are still standing”? While his version of the trick may not have been entirely successful, others have made entire careers off of the ability to pull cloth away without disturbing the contents covering it (including this guy, who is incredibly naked when he does it). How do they do it? The answer, as usual, is science.
How to Win at Everything is a show on National Geographic TV that explores the physics and psychology behind a variety of weird and wild stuff, and recently posted a clip on its website about the science behind the tablecloth pull. The show called upon tablecloth pulling expert Matt Ricardo, who shows what happens when you pull the cloth at the middle, and then again at the edges.
Newton’s first law of inertia states that objects tend to resist movement, and in the case of the tablecloth pull, that resistance comes from friction from the object as well as the bunched up cloth. When pulling from the middle, friction is reduced because the cloth stays smooth, and everything stays put. When pulling from the edges, though, well… hope you have a broom handy.