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The Year in Review, 1926

To All our Magic Friends, We Wish You a Happy New Year!

2019 is upon us and we thought it would nice to look back on 1926.  We intend for this to be a yearly feature but didn’t think of it until now so we are starting with earlier years and working our way up to the present day.  We figure by the time the sun burns out, we will have matched the year in review with the previous year.  We’re happy…

Potter & Potter Magic Auction 2 Days Away

Two days away from Magic Only Auction

We heard from Rebecca Kaufman of Potter & Potter Auctions that this December 15th, the distinguished auction house will hold an online only magic auction.

Magicians and collectors will be able to select from more than 200 magic collectibles, posters, books, ephemera, and apparatus.

While the auction will traditional in most ways it will have no live floor or…

What Goes Into Inventing a New Magic Trick?

What goes into inventing a magic trick?

That’s a question we are trying to answer as we develop, possibly for sale, an effect that could be popular with close-up magicians.  Because that’s what we do, close-up magic, it seemed natural to make commercial offerings of the tricks we do for audiences in the amateur rooms at The Magic Castle.

So we have this trick that audiences seem to enjoy and it…

Houdini Magic Shop Owner Aids JFK Investigation

Geno Munari, magician and owner of Houdini’s Magic Shop in Las Vegas and, most importantly for us here in Southern California, Disneyland, had a key role in finding historical documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Harry Connick, father of performer Harry Connick, Jr. served as district attorney in New Orleans and in that role ordered the destruction of files related to JFK’s…

Science Channel Greenlights Houdini Series

The Science Channel is set to carry a docuseries titled Houdini’s Last Secrets.  The series purports to be an expose of Houdini’s effects by looking at the scientific and engineering allegedly utilized in the effects performed by the great magician.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will feature not only engineers and scientists but illusionists to “unravel the mystery around the…

Russian Magician, Magu Takes on India

Sharing a sentiment of many magicians, Alexander Magu, tells the Indian newspaper The Pioneer that if it weren’t for  magic, he would be working on Russian Railroads.

He saw a trick at the age of 17 and became hooked.  Now he is performing around the globe and will be in India for a series of shows.  It is his second tour in India.

“It isn’t a profession very highly preferred or chosen. It’s all…

List of the Richest Magicians in the World

Who is the richest magician in the world?

We won’t give away the secret but the compilation at The Silver List surprised us.  And we are not easily surprised.  We figured for sure we could correctly identify all persons on the list but we were wrong.  We beat ourselves up when we make a mistake so this was crushing for us.

You can check out the list here.

We thought for sure there would be some…

Magician and Teacher Jay Sankey Rocks

This will seem like more like an endorsement than Magic News.  And it is an endorsement but not paid or even asked for by Jay Sankey.

Mr. Sankey has released, by our last count, a billion or more effects on the market and has very effective email and Twitter campaigns.  It could be that he also is in Instasnap, Facegroup or the other sites the kids use to share important selfies and ponderings…

Magician Sebastian Walton Continues to Impress

Young magician and sleight of hand specialist Sebastian Waltoncontinues to impress his peers and, perhaps more importantly, his audiences.  When we last caught up with young Sebastian he had just won the Magic Circle Stage Magician of the Year.   He was the youngest, at just 20 years of age (we don’t know what 20 years is in metric so we’re using American data).  That was way back in 2016.  We…

Magicians, as a whole, are prideful.  We worry about our image, practice sleights to perfect them before presenting, write and rehearse patter, and of course comb our little remaining hair and clip or appropriately decorate our nails.

So our admission is hard to make.  We are shaking at the keyboard as we type – likely attributable to the unsteady shocks in the Los Angeles Metro Bus – but still…

Nick Lewin’s Ultimate Color Changing Deck

We first met Nick Lewin through Pop Haydn when Mr. Lewin was performing on the same bill with Mr. Haydn.  To be honest, we didn’t know what to expect.  Mr. Lewin took the stage with a befuddled look on his face and seemed to be overly relaxed in his approach to the magic.  Yet, he blew us away.

His Slow Motion Torn and Restored Newspaper was a thing of beauty, his Linking Finger Ring was a thing…

Magnetic Magic is Marvelous.

This article is about magic and magnets.  If you are offended by either, you can skip to the website listed at the bottom to see the best array of magnets but we don’t know why you would, if you are truly offended unless you are only offended by the combination of magic and magnetics and like each individually just fine.

Just like we don’t know why we read from the back of the magazine first or…

Inside Magic Review of Honey Bee Playing Cards

Any deck of playing cards are magic cards and if there is one thing we love it is cards.

In the 12 decades we’ve been performing, we have always used cards.  For the first part of our career, when we were young and impetuous (assuming impetuous means what we think it means), and we are reluctant to admit this but know we are among friends, we even used bridge dimensioned decks with borders and…

Congressional Resolution on Magic Stalls

We learned today that the Magic Resolution stalled in House of Representatives

We’ve all done it and by “we” we mean “us.”  Read through the U.S. Congressional and Senate dockets, looking for magic-related items so that we can spring into junior lobbyist and fight for or against the bill by whipping up support among the very influential “magician vote” and donate tens of dollars to candidates…

What Does Magician David Copperfield Pack?

Some magic-oriented questions keep us up at night.  We toss and turn – our own body, to be clear – and stare at the top of the tent, wondering things, magical things.

Last night (and we’re writing this on our Palm – not the ancient electronic organizer but our own palm – so it is still last night technically) we wondered aloud, “What is the strangest thing David Copperfield has ever packed for a…

Errors in Magic – As Taught by NASA

We don’t know about you and what you love.  From some of the emails we receive daily at InsideMagic ([email protected]) we do know that there is a wide variety of love in the Inside Magic community.  Some of the love is even magic related, so that’s kind of nice.

We received a link to a NASA document that has nothing to do with magic at all.  But in a special way, it is instructive to us…