CBS Magic Special

Check this out.. from CBS

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Press Release :: Tuesday, November 28, 2005

MAGICIAN AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONIST KEITH BARRY TO STAR IN HIS OWN UPCOMING ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL ON CBS
Released by CBS


MAGICIAN AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONIST KEITH BARRY TO STAR IN HIS OWN UPCOMING ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL ON CBS

Magician and psychological illusionist Keith Barry will star in his own upcoming entertainment special on the CBS Television Network. The special will feature Barry displaying his vast range of magic skills on celebrities as he demonstrates his intuitive capabilities and amazing talents.

Barry, already a popular talent in his native Ireland, has become a Hollywood force to be reckoned with over the past two years. Fueled by the success of his 2004 MTV Spring Break special, his live stage show, "Brainwashed," debuted with 19 sold-out shows in January 2005, and was later showcased at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. In May, Barry performed his live show at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas for their 10th Anniversary celebration as part of an all-star lineup that included Coldplay, Bon Jovi and Nine Inch Nails. His television shows have been broadcast in over 26 countries.

Barry's talents range from card tricks and sleight of hand to psychological manipulation and instant induction hypnosis. In addition, his repertoire includes death-defying acts such as catching a bullet in his teeth and driving while blindfolded. He has performed these illusions and on a wide range of celebrities in his stage shows and specials.

Keith Barry's special will be executive produced by Michael Davies and Eamonn Maguire and produced by Michael Bloom.

Harry Anderson & The Big Easy

I know many of you remember Harry Anderson, the actor, from his starring rolls on Night Court and Dave's World. If you've ever been to Harry's one man show in New Orleans or spent time hanging around his magic shop, then you remember Harry as the Magician and the Performer.

During the recent Katrina disaster in New Orleans, I often thought about Harry and wondered where he'd fled to.. or IF he'd fled. Harry's a different sort.. you know.

At one time a friend told me he'd talked to Harry and that he was with relatives in Texas. I had a email address, but before I could write I heard that he was in Los Angeles.

Anyway, I'm rambling here.. Harry has returned to New Orleans, at least for the time being, and appears to be stirring a few souls.

Here's an interesting article from the LA Times.. CLICK

Thanks to master word-crafter, Tim Quinlan, at Inside Magic for the heads up..

David Blaine Medical Report

Two years after David Blaine's imprisonment in a plastic box at London's Tower Bridge, doctors have released the post-stunt medical report in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.

For those who believed David was never actually in the box, here's something to consider..

Blaine lost a total of 54 pounds during the ordeal and reduced his body mass index from 29.0 to 21.6 during the 44-day fast. Doctors also reported a number of chemicals found in his blood that are not normally found in the blood of men who fasted overnight. This was indicative of the body breaking itself down in search of nutrition.

"The opportunity to study the effects of refeeding after prolonged fasting is rare,"
doctors wrote.

Blaine, 30 years old at the time, took three days to recover his sensation of hunger. Also, doctors were slow to start him back on a normal diet, giving him a combination of vitamins and liquid for the first few days.

Surviving on water alone, David was visited by approximately 250,000 during his stunt...

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As I mentioned earlier, I've read every theory in the book as to how Blaine accomplished this feat. Many had to do with him not actually being in the box during the stunt, or secretly receiving nutrition to aid his cause..

Since articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine are medical in nature and without hype , we must assume that David did, in fact, remain in the box without nutrition for 44-days. I don't know of any group of doctors who would risk their reputation for that of David Blaines... JMHO

Happy Thanksgiving !

I hope you all have had a great Thanksgiving. In fact, I hope each of you has digested soo much turkey that you don't want to see another one till next year, which won't be long from now.. actually.

I't about ten thirty Thanksgiving night as I write this, and I'm planning on being at Best Buy at five in the morning to pick up a new laptop (for me) and six portable DVD players for some of the kids.. Wish me luck.. I won't go to bed until after my little excursion, so I'll work on the next issue of Magic Roadshow for awhile..

Honestly.. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Street Magic - The Ranking

I haven't wrote much lately about marketing. Actually, I've been busy working on my sites and writing newsletters. Keeping sites active in the search engines can be a full time job if you don't stay on top of things...

About once every three weeks or so I go online and check my various sites rank on various search engines to see whether my time was spent for naught. Google has been performing one of her famous 'dances' the past few weeks, and a lot of sites got their cages rattled. Guys who were on top dropped out of the top one hundred results, which can be devastating to say the least... particularly if you depend on your site for income.

When all is said and done, content is STILL king. A site with an abundance of original content will stay near the top regardless of the shuffling Google, Yahoo, and MSN may perform.

Two of my primary keywords on www.StreetMagic.info , actually keyword phrases, are Street Magic, and Street Magic Secrets. I have dozens of keywords, but these are two of the primary.

If you go to Yahoo at this moment and enter 'Street Magic Secrets', My primary site, Street Magic Bullets, is the #1 site in the world in their rankings - ahead of both Penguin and Ellusionist I might add... Entering the phrase 'Street Magic' finds me at #4 out of thirty-six million listings.

The same is true at MSN, except I have the #1 site listing in the world for both street magic and street magic secrets .

If you check street magic secrets at Google, I have the #3 site out of forty-something million listings.

What does all this mean.. Well, if you keep in mind that I DO NOT submit my site to search engines, and I DO NOT use Search Engine Optimization Companies, then it can only mean one thing...

Again.. "Content is King.."

If you publish original content to your site, and keep it fresh and topical, the search engines will find YOU. I don't have a gazillion inbound links to my sites. I don't use gateway pages to try to gain a numerical advantage over the competition. And I do not depend on any external programs to generate content pages for me or my site.

Google, MSN, and Yahoo are all getting better and better at separating the winners from the pretenders. Their analogical programs are starting to recognize original content, as opposed to artificially generated content, and reward and/or punish accordingly. They are also putting more emphasis on original content that is original to that particular site, and not taken or reproduced from another site. If they find an article on another site that is 87% or more similar to an article on your site, they can punish you both. ( If you re-publish articles, try to change the wording, or add to, just enough to fall below the 87% mark..)

All I'm saying is.. you don't have to be a Penguin, Ellusionist, or other high profile site to get to the top of the search engines. It just takes patience, regular additions to you content, good content, and NO SHORTCUTS...!

National Security Agency Reveals X-Files

Some have believed for many years that the government has concealed information related to UFO's. Others believe our government has actually captured extra-terrestrials and have them stowed away at secret locations under federal buildings and in the deserts..

Who knows?

Our National Security Agency (NSA) is the agency responsible for the safe keeping of these little green men, and all info related to their capture and/or sighting.

They were recently forced to answer a complaint in court in Maryland as to why they will not release this info under the Freedom of Information Act.

Here is a PDF copy to the actual, formerly top secret, document..

http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/yeates-ufo.pdf

What NOT to Buy this Christmas

I'm NOT going to recommend anyone run out and get in the Christmas spirit just yet. It's not even Thanksgiving, and it just ain't right...

But, I DO realize some of you are smart enough, smarter than me at least, to have actually conducted, or be in the process of conducting, that great Christmas tradition.. Christmas Shopping!

What should you buy me - uh.. your friends and family this year? Technologically speaking, are there any clear cut "must buys-don't buys" on your list? Should you consider a CRT monitor for their super price, or perhaps a large screen CRT for their hdtv? What about desktops and laptops? Cheap, mid-priced, loaded?

Should you consider a sub-3 megapixel camera IF you can pick one up for less than seventy bucks? What about a 256MB Flash-based MP3 player?

PC Magazine has you covered. Read about the real diamonds, and real dirt, of this Holiday season in Lance Ulanoff's informative article..

CLICK

Magic Roadshow # 35

OK.. It's time for me to tell you how to access the latest issue of Magic Roadshow.

All the articles were listed in the last post..

Access it HERE

You Just Missed It..

Did you receive a new issue of Magic Roadshow in your inbox about five minutes ago? If you didn't, that means that you're not a subscriber, and you don't get 48 to 72 hour advance access to each issue.

Here's what you missed..

(1) Perfect Practice ~ Finally, the whole dirty little story.. R.Carruth

(2) Be Bold - Be Funny ~ Professional advice to improve your humor.. John Kinde

(3) Coin Thru Glass ~ Amazing video

(4) Magic - the Cups and Balls ~ Magic's classic trick examined in Detail - tutorials

(5) Magic Slate ~ A thousand dollar effect with a two dollar slate

(6) The Floating Note ~ Video and solution to Mike Bornsteins classic effect

(7) Viper on Putfiles ~ More industrial strength card flourishes

(8) Criss Angel on Putfiles ~ My favorite Angel effect of the entire series.

(9) Xtreme Beginner ~ Who pays the bills?

10) 5-Pointed Star ~ The government wants to GIVE you a little something

If you go to the sign up form to the right of this post and sign up now, I will personally forward you a copy within the next twelve hours.

2014

.. 2014 ......

What does it mean? Could it be?

Find out by watching THIS (flash file)

New Magic on TV

Two things..

One - John Scott Shepherd (Life or Something Like It) is developing a new series titled 'Illusions' for , I understand, Spike TV. It's about an illusionist and his former FBI sister who go on a search for the killer of the illusionists wife. Rumour has it that Penn & Teller have signed on as consultants for the series, which should be interesting.. I'll let you know more when I hear it...

Two - ABC has signed up for two more thirty minute segments of T.H.E.M., due out sometime this winter. I think THEM was probably my favorite hour of magic on TV last year. They tried to 'wow' the audience with magic and not stunts.

As a side note.. I will mention that I enjoyed the Criss Angel Halloween special. No stunts, just magic.. I really wish Criss would stick to the magic and leave the hindu tricks to someone else.. With Johnny Thompson and Banachek assisting him, he could come up with some really good effects for his series if he wanted to go that route..

Penn & Teller Special

For you Penn & Teller fans out there.. keep in mind that their new special is this coming Sunday on NBC ( Sunday, November 13th from 7 to 9 p.m. EST )

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PRESS RELEASE:

DUO MAKES ENTIRE SUBMARINE DISAPPEAR IN TWO-HOUR EVENT SLATED FOR NOVEMBER 13

BURBANK, Calif. -- October 12, 2005 – Rogue magicians and eight-time nominees and two-time Emmy Award winners Penn & Teller ("Penn & Teller Go Public," "Penn & Teller's Bulls***t") travel to the Caribbean to present amazing feats – highlighted by making a submarine disappear – in the first magic special ever performed entirely underwater. The two-hour NBC special titled, "Penn & Teller: Off the Deep End," will premiere Sunday, Nov. 13 (7-9 p.m. ET).

Filmed offshore of Grand Cayman and the Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas, the special features classically inspired and traditionally staged magic performed for the first time on the ocean floor. The clear, clean blue-green waters off of Grand Cayman offer a great view of a submarine, but even with more than a hundred scuba divers surrounding the ship, Penn & Teller can make it disappear.

In addition to the never-before attempted disappearing submarine illusion, highlights in the special include acts with hungry sharks, "psychic" dolphins, and the duo actually walking on water in a newly-devised super illusion.

The duo's trademark "sardonic" commentary accompanies each feat, and as they do in their Las Vegas stage act, Penn & Teller also reveal for the audience members who want to know: how they pull off their illusions.

Multi-platinum recording star Aaron Carter ("Aaron's Party," "Saturday Night") makes a guest-starring appearance for one of the tricks.

"We've been living in the Las Vegas desert for years," said Penn (Teller never speaks onstage, on-camera or off-the-cuff). "Nothing but cactus, sand, scorpions and Wayne Newton. And we realized it was time to do a show underwater. Magic needs a good head-soaking."

"In my 25 years of production, this was the most complicated shoot I've ever encountered," said executive producer Mark Wolper ("Salem's Lot," "Helter Skelter") He recalls that "Steven Spielberg told Larry King about the perils of filming 'Jaws' on the water, saying, 'it was like being in a kind of war zone. It was madness trying to make a film on the water and trying to second-guess the ocean and the currents and the winds.'"

Highlights of Penn & Teller's television credits include "Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular," "Penn & Teller's Home Invasion," the TV movie "Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread," and the previous NBC special "Don't Try This at Home."

In addition, Penn & Teller have appeared on a wide range of television, including NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Miami Vice," NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Hollywood Squares," NBC's "Today," NBC's "Saturday Night Live," "The Drew Carey Show," "Friends," "Dharma & Greg," "Home Improvement," and "The Simpsons."

Their cable series, "Penn & Teller: Bull***t!" is in its third season. The controversial show, which received two 2004 and 2005 Emmy nominations and the 2004 Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy/Variety Series, tackles the frauds and fakes behind such topics as talking to the dead, alien abductions and even feng shui.

The team previously won an Emmy for the special "Penn & Teller Go Public," and have amassed a total of six nominations for their television work.

Penn & Teller appear nightly (except Tuesdays) in Las Vegas at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Website: www.pennandteller.com

The executive producers for the special from The Wolper Organization are Penn Jillette, Teller, Mark Wolper ("Salem's Lot," "Helter Skelter") and the special's director Star Price ("Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"). Peter Golden ("The Aristocrats") is a consulting producer.

World Record

A special 'Thanks' to BRANDI BARHITE (see footer)for the press release.

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SANDUSKY - Roller coasters aren't the only record-holders at Cedar Point.

A Sterling Heights, Mich., magician working at the park during HalloWeekends broke the world record for card scaling.

Chris Linn, 29, is still waiting for confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records, but has sent in the required videotape, cards and signed affidavits.

Linn was able to single-handedly spin or "scale" 114 playing cards from his right hand to clear 12 feet within one minute.

The previous record holder accomplished the same feat with 106 playing cards.

Guinness did not return a request for comment.

"It is basically dealing cards at an incredibly high speed to a bunch of people," Linn said of card scaling.

"I knew I could only attempt it so many times because it is fatiguing on your arm," he said.

Linn began practicing scaling one year ago to include in his magic and comedy routine.

Linn, a full-time magician, has performed his Chris Linn's Magicomedy routine at Cedar Point for four seasons.

He also performs on cruise ships and at conventions.

"I got a magic kit when I was 5 years old and I have never thought of being anything else," he said.

When Linn realized he was good at scaling, he decided to see if he could break a world record.

Linn went to the Web site for the Guinness Book of World Records, and saw Jeff McBride of Las Vegas, Nev., had set the record in July 2004. Not all Guinness records are in the book, Linn said.

He decided to attempt to break the record at Cedar Point because "Cedar Point is certainly known for record breaking," Linn said.

Only a few members of the public were able to watch him break the record because of space constraints, but on Oct. 23, he did it on his second attempt.

The first time, his hands were cold and it took him a while to warm up. He got only 101 cards.

"The cards had to be brand new and never opened," Linn said. "You had to open them on the tape, and then send the cards with your entry to Guinness."

First, Linn practiced with used cards. A few weeks before the attempt, he broke out new cards.

"I have a big box of 5,000 cards now," he said.

Park spokesman Bryan Edwards said Linn's record and Cedar Point are the perfect combination.

Cedar Point announced Monday a $6 million giant swing called Skyhawk will debut at the park May 6. The 103-foot ride will be the tallest ride of its kind in the world.

"When you think of amusement parks and Guinness, Cedar Point comes to mind," Edwards said.

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Cedar Point magician tosses world record
Wednesday, November 02, 2005 1:36:48 AM

By BRANDI BARHITE
brandibarhite@sanduskyregister.com
Copyright 2005 the Sandusky Register. All rights reserved.
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Magic Roadshow # 34

Guess what?

Yeah.. a new issue of Magic Roadshow is out. This one's good...(as if they all aren't). What I mean is - this one is full of info for magicians of all skill levels. Material is hard to come by for some issues. Not this one..

In this Issue:

(1) Audience Warm-ups - Dennis Reglings solution to bringing your audience alive.

(2) Magicians, Clowns, Success, Marketings, and Being Prepared - by my favorite clown in the world, Esther Beris

(3) Sawed in Half - Fearson's version revisited with NEW video

(4) Ghost Deck - It's halloween, you better pay tribute to the spooks, or "look out - front yard.."

(5) Card Sorcerer - Card flourishes and poker chips caught on video. Learn to mark cards..

(6) All you need is Cards - Free PDF detailing the Beatles greatest feats of mental magic

(7) Colm Mulcahy's Card Colm - Mathematical magic by a mathematical genus

(8) Magic, Close-Up, and Bob - What happens when 225 top close up magicians get together? Be there and find out!

(9) K.I.S.S. - A simple feat of mentalism with plenty of punch

(10) David Blaine's latest - What does David have to say in his latest note

Remember - if you aren't a subscriber, you can subscribe to the right of this post and be notified several days early of the general public of the publication of each issue..

Read it HERE