Naquada

Jack Parker passed away a year ago, on the 30th June 2007. It is no exaggeration to say that Jack was one of the best card magic creators of our time. He was an inspiration to many card magicians and showed just what it takes to develop a great magic trick. A lot is owed to Jack Parker.

His good friend Andi Gladwin, published a book on his card magic last year; 52 Memories, with contained 52 pieces of Jack’s best work, and you known when people like Richard Kaufman, David Acer, J C Wagner, and Paul Harris and David Regal sing his praise, it was a huge loss when Jack died long before his time, and we should remember his life.

To celebrate his magic, Andi Gladwin will be sharing a video of his magic every day for the next week. If you’ve never seen Jack Parker perform before this is a perfect opportunity to experience him performing some of his best creations. The video marathon will have a new video posted each night at 12am (GMT) each day this week at http://www.andigladwin.co.uk/jack-parker/

You can also get the book 52 Memories directly from Andi, which without doubt is one of the best books on cards I have read from some time.

So its been a little quiet on the blog the last month, mainly due to wedding planning commitments (invites, information sheets, websites and so on), but also due to some of the other projects I’ve been working on.

The Magic Convention Guide is now up and running well and attracting a lot of visitors, especially now that you can search for and book hotels for conventions through our partners on the site. The Home Counties Magical Society Website is also going great, with literally thousands of visits now per month!! I’ve also now joined the management team at what I think is one of the best Magic forums on the internet, The Magic Woods.

I’m very proud to have been asked me to come on board to The Magic Woods Team and help further the forum. There are some exciting things that I hope to do with conjunction with The Magic Woods Forum over the next year.

Recently The Magic Woods completed a Q&A session with Teller from Penn and Teller that ran for over a month, and other names that have frequented and openly discussed magic with the members have been Ben Hart, Simon Drake, James Randi, Jeff McBride, Jason Palter, Dynamo, Angelo Carbone, Justin Miller, Michael Paul, Jay Sankey, Whit Haydn, Eugene Burger, Cardone, Zenneth Kok, Paul Zenon, Keith Pascal, Nathan Kranzo, Banachek, Paul Daniels, Daniel Garcia, Steve Dela, Luke Jermay, and Daryl.

It’s also always been my goal to join The Magic Circle, in fact I actually joined as an associate member when I was much younger, but neglected to really pull my finger out and do my exam. The Magic Circle don’t run associate memberships anymore, so it’s all or nothing now!!

Our Society now has in it’s midsts The Regional Representative of the Magic Circle for the Home Counties, Keith Churcher who is a Member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star. This of course means that if your in the ‘Home Counties’ area, which includes Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, arranging your Magic Circle entry has never been easier. and you can contact him for more information.

This morning Keith kindly delivered my welcome pack, which is a bit daunting when you see it in black and white (and a splash of colour!).. It looks like our regional exams might be around September, just in time for the wedding!!

So I just need to work out, and polish my routine, practice, relax and practice a bit more!!!

Fingers crossed, and sorry to everyone over the next few months who will have magic forced on them whilst I’m practicing…

I said previously that I’d been busy, and hence the blog has got a little side tracked, so what have I been up to.. Well quite some time ago a site was set up to list Magic Conventions, talk Magic Conventions, review Magic Conventions, and cover.. well.. pretty much everything you needed to know about Magic Conventions..

The sites been a little dormant for a while, but after a long period of dust settling on the site, I’ve taken over running it, and The Magic Convention Guide is back and cranking up to running at full speed again!

I’d like to express my sincere thank yous to Table Magician Noel Qualter, Creative Design Agency – Monster Creations, and Publisher and fountain of all knowledge Andi Gladwin, for their generosity, and agreeing to let me loose with their original project.

I have some very exciting ideas for the site, and I hope that you will support it’s growth. As well as the features that were part of the site before, I’ll be offering a lot more, including more interviews from the convention celebrities, convention gossip and rumors, and even practical things like a list of hotels in the area of each of the conventions (as well as the reviews), I’ve teamed up with a number of hotel providers to allow you hopefully an easy method of finding hotels near to the convention centers, and we hope to get the inside track on whats coming up. You might even see the odd game on the site to fill those convention gaps.

This site will now be running to generate money for two organisations, we will be donating all money from the site to The Home Counties Magical Society, and The Conjuring Arts Research Center. I hope as visitors, and contributors to the site, you will help me support both of these worthy organisations. Advertisers should contact me for information on how to sponsor the site, or advertise on it.

I’m also now looking for a team that will help me with information, although anyone can submit a review of a hotel, or convention to the normal email: info@magicconventionguide.com, I’m looking for a small team to cover conventions outside the UK, again if you are interested in joining the team, please let me know on the above email.

If you know of any conventions not listed, please let me know, and I hope, together, we can make a site dedicated to magic conventions, and how to survive them.

The Magic Convention Guide can be found at : http://www.magicconventionguide.com/

I’ve been pretty tardy with updating my blog, mainly down to a number of reasons (all good) that I’ll go to in another post at some point, but last Monday, Clive, Ian, Mo and Simon invited me up to The Magic Circle in London to see Joshua Jay.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not a member of, and have never actually been up to The Magic Circle itself, so the prospect was quite exciting, and, of course the double plus was that I’d also get to see Joshua Jay lecture.

The Magic Circle itself is located not far from Euston Station, and from the outside looks very unimposing. Turning the corner into Stephenson Way, a pair of doors with the Magic Circle Logo on them hides the wonders inside. Walking in, I was greeted by The Magic Circle’s security guard, given my guest pass for the evening, and we headed up to the Devant Room to watch the examinations for that evening.

Standing at the back of the room, watching the performers getting ready, and waiting for them to start, I actually started to feel quite sick. That nervous; I shouldn’t be here kind of sick, I’m not sure why. I think it might have been some sort of sympathetic nerves for them, about to perform for those sitting in the room, ready to mark them and establish if they were the caliber to join the ranks of The Magic Circle. I think it was the stone cold thought that soon, that might be me sitting in front of the same audience, waiting to be judged.

Once the auditions were over, we headed down to the Club Room. It was nice to bump into a few people I knew; Sav, Andi Gladwin, Noel Qualter, Iain Moran, in fact there probably were more people I knew that I didn’t get a chance to talk to during the evening, as it turned out to be quite a busy night..

Almost too soon after sitting down, it was time to head up to The Magic Circles own theatre, a 162 seater custom theatre located on the top floor of the building. I’ve never been to a magic club that really boasts such great facilities as The Magic Circle, it’s not many clubs thats can seat 162 and project the lecture onto a back screen behind the performer.

Joshua’s lecture was excellent, although I’ve read most of the content of his set in various publications it was great to see Joshua himself perform them. It’s actually quite thought provoking that Joshua is so young, and so talented.

After the lecture we headed down to the the club room for some drinks (again, a club room with it’s own bar!!), to chat and savor the atmosphere. It’s quite overwhelming, but a great place to be..

..I just need to polish up my skills to get through the interview and audition…

Pixar Studios, creators of Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Cars, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatoullie, also create ‘short films‘. Normally to accompany the features films (you may have seen ‘lifted’ if you went to see Ratatoullie). Pixar have now started on their latest short, a film based around a magician character and his long suffering rabbit.

The film, entitled ‘Presto’, is described as featuring a turn-of-the-century magician named Presto DiGiotagione, who’s become famous for an astounding rabbit from a hat trick. His rabbit Alec become more and more dissatisfied as he shares none of Presto’s wild success.

One day while Presto is out eating a lavish dinner, Alec is left behind, locked in a birdcage with a carrot tortuously out of reach…

via: HCMS website

I’ve seen all the previous shows Derren has done, indeed I’ve seen this show at least twice, and after a busy day up in London I headed back to Reading to meet up with two other members of HCMS and two non magical friends to see the show.

Thankfully Derren has also opened a west end run of this show this time, and the Home Counties Magical Society hopefully will have some interesting news about that event in the next few days.

Last year Derren didn’t do a run in Reading (possibly to do with the Reading crowd managing to, lets say deviate most of the effects from their intended outcome year!!) but thankfully he’d decided to give them another chance and return to the Hexagon this year. We had back of the flat stalls, center tickets, a very good view point. I think one of the nice things about Derren Brown shows is that the tickets are very reasonably priced (unless you pay the £200 odd on ebay!!) and the programs are a fair price at £5.. anyhow… On entering the theatre I instantly spotted a Malloy Master Prediction box hanging above the stage, that was quite exciting in itself, since I’ve been wondering how it worked (now I know!). The stage was set in the guise of a Victorian front parlour, think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, seances, mediumship and mystery, fitting the show very well

Before I go further, I should warn you there are some spoilers in this review, so.. if you’re lucky enough to have tickets to the remaining sell out shows.. go away.. come back after the shows run is over.. You’ll just enjoy it more…

(more…)

The Magic Woods has started it’s voting process on The Magic Industry Awards. The Magic Woods Awards are awards given to magicians, tricks and institutions in the magic industry, by fellow magicians. Nominations are made by magicians on The Magic Woods forum, and then anyone is welcome to vote on The Magic Woods Awards website. The awards cover everything from best new trick, to best magic website, and the awards are run annually in April. The nominees looks very good for this year, including our own Home Counties Magical Society Website!!!

TMW Award for Best Trick

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Best Trick
The C.A.N.N.A.B.I.S Effect – Daniel Young & Lee Hathaway
Between The Lines – Michael Murray
The Casanova Closer – Steve Haynes
Extreme Burn – Richard Sanders
iKnow – Jason Palter

TMW Award for Best Teaching Video

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Best Teaching Video
The Casanova Concept – Steve Haynes with Big Blind Media
Don Driver’s Jam Auction DVD – Don Driver
Past Midnight – Benjamin Earl
Here I Go Again – Bill Malone
The Roadrunner Cull – Kostya Kimlat
No Camera Tricks – Richard Osterlind

TMW Award for Best Book

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Best Book
Jack Parker’s 52 Memories- Andi Gladwin
Designing Miracles – Darwin Ortiz
Scripting Magic – Pete McCabe
The Secret Life of Houdini – William Kalush, Larry Sloman

TMW Award for Best Magician

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Best Magician
John Archer
Jeff McBride
David Stone
Shoot Ogawa

TMW Award for Best Website

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Best Website
Magic Unlimited -Tim Ellis
iTricks
Magic Video Depot
MagicWeek
Home Counties Magic Society

TMW Award for Best Newcomer

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Best Newcomer
David Forrest
Benjamin Earl
Justin Lee Collins
Peter Harrison

TMW Award for Lifetime Achievement

Current Nominees for TMW Award for Lifetime Achievement
Wayne Dobson
Michael Ammar
Harry Lorayne
Pat Page
Ali Bongo

Make sure you get over to the awards site and vote for your favorite in each category, voting closes at the end of April

After almost six months of hard work, from conceptual stage to launching last night, I’m very pleased to say that the new Home Counties Magical Society Website is now up and running.

A fully fledged content management system is now in place, and the site provides a full and flexible portal to the magic community and our members.

Visitors to the site will be able to see everything about our Society, from joining instructions, through to finding the location of our Society though interactive maps, you can even get the site to plan a driving route for you!!

As well as the normal Society information, the site provides information about the next lecture, reviews of previous lectures, magic related news and events, show and convention reports.

Members of the society get access to the private side of the site through their own unique username and password, giving them the ability to look through previous society news letters, the DVD Library lists, reviews and new purchases, and other content that is private to the society.

Members can also become more involved in the society through the ability to vote, and have polls on subjects, as well as a number of surprises that we have in store for later in the sites development. Members can also contribute to the site by writing article and news reports.

Advertisers also benefit as we are running a banner advertisement program for magic related companies and magazines, our rates are very very low! If you lecture for us, as an added advantage you’ll get one month of free advertising space following your lecture, which is a great way for members to buy additional items or other societies to contact you following a successful lecture.

We feel that the Home Counties Magical Society now has one of the leading and most flexible society resources for it’s members, and look forward to the opportunity to welcome more visitors and members to the site.

I’m slightly confused about what’s actually happening at Covent Garden now, and what the real agenda is. Beverly Churchill sent me (and everyone who’s emailed her) the same email. Which makes it sound like it’s a simple situation where sound clashes and movement of the public is the problem, she also states that “We believe that street entertainment is a significant part of Covent Garden’s rich heritage“.

However I’m confused by an article in Property Week, that one of the commenters (thanks Lee!!) pointed me towards that states:

Brand and marketing guru Churchill, who has worked at Tesco and with Vittorio Radice at Selfridges, has been taken on by Liberty International-owned Capital & Counties to turn Covent Garden from a tourist trap with tatty market stalls and buskers into a world-class retail and leisure destination with a top-end designer boutique hotel, designer retailers and restaurants. Her most recent job was with retail billionaire Sir Philip Green.

Which is a stark contrast to what we’re being lead to believe in the emails..

PLEASE make sure you join the myspace group that has been set up to show support for the performers. You can take a few moments to sign the online petitions, so please sign both the North Hall petition and the South Courtyard petition. Its very important to sign BOTH!!! You can also voice your disagreement of this by joining the mass email campaign. Just cut and paste the below sentences and send them to beverley-churchill@capcount.com.

I am writing to express my opposition to the reducing of the street theatre performance times by 50% in The North Hall, and South Hall areas in Covent Garden.I urge you to reconsider this direct attack on the livelihood of the famous Covent Garden Street Performers and Classical Musicians. Specifically I’m concerned about the comments made in Property Week regarding “Brand and marketing guru Churchill, who has worked at Tesco and with Vittorio Radice at Selfridges, has been taken on by Liberty International-owned Capital & Counties to turn Covent Garden from a tourist trap with tatty market stalls and buskers into a world-class retail and leisure destination with a top-end designer boutique hotel, designer retailers and restaurants. Her most recent job was with retail billionaire Sir Philip Green.”

Please link to this article, email it on, and spread the word…

Following on from sending an email to Beverley Churchill regarding the proposed changes at Covent Garden I got the following reply from her today:

Dear Andrew

Thank you for your email.

To clarify, we are working on a revised schedule of performances within only one of Covent Gardens performance spaces, the North Halls and Lower Courtyards of the Market Building. This is to overcome the issue of excessive sound levels from clashing performances and the lack of breaks between the shows that has been raised as an issue by other people who live and work in the area.

The schedule will not cut shows by the suggested 50%, but will introduce short breaks between shows to limit the competing noise levels within the two performance areas, while maintaining performance throughout the day for visitors to the area.

We are in ongoing discussions with the street performers on this matter and will continue to work with them to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

We believe that street entertainment is a significant part of Covent Garden’s rich heritage but we need to ensure this works for the whole community.

Kind regards

Bev Churchill