How to wing it!

This is really exciting! We’re doing our very first podcast, folks! Kurt who is a pro magician shares a funny story from his magic career. We’d love to get your input and comments if you don’t mind? Enjoy!

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It’s been a while since we posted anything about magic. That’s mainly because Kurt is the expert in this particular field and I know practically nothing about it – and Kurt has been blogging about other subjects recently.

I have a bunch of magicians befriending me on Facebook and they all expect me to be super duper at magic. Then when they discover I know nothing, they move on to greener pastures.

I was on to something at one point but I was talked out of it. I had a death row concept all ready: “So you killed a no-good street walking whore? That doesn’t mean life can’t be magical!” – a sort of traveling magic show for death row inmates. But Kurt said it was a bad idea. I wanted to combine our interests in crime and magic but somehow the idea of entertaining a bunch of creeps on death row might not suit all people.

I understand that. It makes me sick, too. It was just a spur of the moment thing, anyway..

Anyway, maybe we should have another magic post, Kurt?

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Lennart Green, A Most Amazing Magician

I will put this on our blog because I figure it’s about time for a Swede to lay claim to some very good card magic. I am not really a master of card magic, ‘tho I have some very good friends who are top shelf masters in that field. We’ve already discussed my good friends Simon Lovell and Eric DeCamps… but this one… Lennart Green is beyond a doubt one of the best I have had the pleasure to meeting and knowing.

I usually write all of my blogs myself… I make an exception is this case and have culled directly from Wikipedia. Please watch the complete video. While it it long, it’s well worth watching… even more than once. He hails from Gothenburg, Sweden where half of my relatives live (the others live in Malmö).

Lennart Green (born December 25, 1941) is a world champion close-up/card magician, a title which he won in 1991 at the FISM convention in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is known for seemingly chaotic routines which are highly original and display great skill.

Green has appeared on the World’s Greatest Magic television special. He is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, and lectures internationally.

He appeared at TED in February 2005.

TED has this to say on the magician: “Swedish card trick maestro Lennart Green has been baffling audiences for years with card tricks that seem barely under control. In 1991 he won the grand prize in close-up card magic from the International Federation of Magic Societies (FISM), sometimes called the “Olympics of magic.” He might’ve won it in 1985 also, except his act of seemingly impossible card play fooled even the judges.

With his DVD series Green Magic, Green not only showcases his stunning routines, but divulges many of his most closely guarded secrets, including his famous “Snap Deal” (where cards seem to vanish without a trace as they are dealt). His talents have carried his trickery around the world, including an appearance on NBC’s The World’s Greatest Magic.”

Kurt M. Larson

This is hilarious!

Close-up magician of the year Doc Eason doing a card trick:

Wow that’s talent..

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Congratulations to Kurt! He’s only gone and been admitted to the Who’s Who of DRAGONSKULL, Europe‘s Premier award winning site for Performers of Bizarre and Storytelling Magik.

Check out his profile here. There’s only a few people who get the honor and Kurt, I am so proud of you! You really deserve to be there.

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A day in the life of a magician’s girlfriend.

1. Locate his wand. Polish his wand. Yes it’s sickening.

2. Get all the rabbits to fit inside his hat. Avoid squeezing the life out of rabbits.

3. Go to the store and buy ear plugs to avoid hearing the same magic story for the millionth time. Remember to nod whilst he talks – as if you’re interested.

4. Take medicine. I’m anxious he makes me vanish and forgets how to bring me back.

5. Reconsider. Really, how cool is it to dress in tight skimpy dresses with feathers sticking out of your ass, be locked up in cages and get cut in half ?

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More magic!

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Harry Houdini, the world’s greatest escapologist. There’s just no getting around him when your blog is celebrating Magic Week.

Houdini was born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest in 1874 and emigrated with his family to America in 1878. They settled down in Wisconsin where his father served as a rabbi.

In 1882 the rabbi became an American citizen and the family moved to New York and a 9 year old Ehrich (or Harry as his friends called him) became a trapeze artist and with time a professional magician, calling himself Harry Houdini – Houdini after magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin.

In 1899 after Houdini had met his manager, he began focusing on escape acts and especially got famous for his handcuff trick. He went on a tour in Europe where he became a big success. He would escape from jails and prison transport vans.

From 1907 and onwards Houdini would escape from anything man has been known (or unknown!) to escape from: Jail, handcuffs, chains, ropes and a straightjacket. In 1912 he introduced his most famous act The Chinese Water Torture Cell where he would be suspended head first into a big container full of water and would have to hold his breath for several minutes.

Houdini even performed his straitjacket routine hanging upside down from a building!

During the 1920′s Houdini would be spending some of his time trying to expose the frauds within the psychic world by attending seances in disguise and bringing along police and reporters.

Houdini died from a ruptured appendix in 1926 and is buried at Machpelah Cemetary in New York.

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We can’t very well have magic week without writing a little bit about Kurt Moore Larson. He doesn’t like it when I call him one of the best magicians around but please, when you’ve had your own stage show, you are good.

He’s done Sit-down, Walk-around, Bar / Close-Up – and he has performed in an hour and a half Stage Illusion Show, “The Magical World of Kurt Moore Larson” for 5+ years in the ’80′s. He specializes in Close-up (cards/coins/other), Mentalism (mind reading / predictions), Parlor Magic (magic for audiences larger than close-up and smaller than audiences for stage magic), Street Magic (magic typically performed close-up for random people on the street or other public place).

I’m hoping that once he gets here, he’ll perform on the street – that would be amazing!

Right now he is writing a post for Magic Week which should be done any time soon.

Don’t forget to check out his profile on Club Magicians.

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It’s still Magic Week (I know, it’s painfully long, isn’t it?) and here we have Kurt Moore Larson doing his own magic.

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