Welcoming a new Friend: Jason Maiuri

Please join me in welcoming our newest friend, Jason Maiuri!

Based out of Niagara Falls, Jason has been a long-time reader of the blog. Jason's experience includes touring with Claude Haggerty Magic, working with Frederic Clement, working as a scenic carpenter and stage electrician at the Shaw Festival, and working for Greg Frewin.

Jason is developing a "Magic is Medicine" act to present to dialysis patients as a way to help pass the time during their long four hour treatments.  (This is a project close to the heart for Jason as he lives with kidney disease and is dependent upon hemodialysis.)

He is very grateful for his mentoring from Ken McCreedy.

Visit Jason's website at  https://www.magician.org/member/jasonmaiuri

Thank you Jason, for befriending Canada's Magic! 

Richmond: Vitaly Beckman

From the River Rock Casino:

Fresh off Broadway in New York City, Vitaly Beckman brings his latest and most ambitious production to the stage with An Evening of Wonders on Wednesday, June 5, 2019, to the River Rock Show Theatre.

Hailed as one of the most unique and innovative illusionists in the world, he stumped Penn & Teller on their hit TV show Fool Us

Combining breathtaking visuals with Vitaly’s captivating style, An Evening of Wonders is an interactive theatrical experience that takes the audience on a magical journey. Vitaly blends art and illusion where paintings spring to life, photographs become mini-movies, and audience members see their faces vanish from their own driver’s licenses.


Read more and buy tickets.

[With thanks to The Magic Demon for letting us know!]

Broken wand: John Bernard Boissonneault

Recently we were notified by Dennis Schick, the editor of the Broken Wand in the International Brotherhood of Magician's magazine, The Linking Ring, of the passing of John Boissonneault. 

  

Dennis also pointed out that the more ALL of us share news and information about magic with the REST of us, the better off the entire magic community will be.

I take this opportunity to ask you to not just ASSUME that we already know about some magic news that YOU hear about. Please tell us about it. We would always rather hear some news SEVERAL times rather than not at all!

Our thoughts go out to John's family and friends.

-----

From Legacy:

BOISSONNEAULT, John Bernard "Little John" Peacefully, on Monday, August 20, 2018 at his home in Georgetown. John, in his 61st year, loving father of Shana (Chris). Proud Papa of Taylor, Kendall and Autumn. Great-Papa of Lila. Dear brother of Marie (Tony), Annette, Bernice (Mike) and Chris (Gord). Sadly missed by many nieces, nephews and friends. 

Read more.

Gordon Precious, world record holder

From the Discourse in Magic YouTube channel:

At 94 Years of age, Gordon Precious goes Heli-Skiing with his son for a world record attempt!

Watch him glide down the Cariboo Mountains with ease in the gorgeous British Columbia.

By my count, that puts the total of Canadian World Record holding magicians to nine! 

• Doug The Great:  Heaviest Stilts Mastered.  [Guinness World Record]
• Scott Hammell:  Highest Suspension Straitjacket t Escape. [Guinness World Record]
• Lucas Wilson:  Fastest Suspension Straitjacket Escape. [Guinness World Record - 2011]
• Carisa Hendrix:  Longest duration fire torch teething. [Guinness World Record - 2012]
• Michael Francis:  Most one-handed coin rolls in a minute. [Guinness World Record - 2013]
• Mark Correia:  Longest Amount of Time Wearing a Straitjacket. [World Record - 2014] 
• Gordon Precious:  Oldest heli-skier [World Record - 2019]
• The Sentimentalists:  (Chris Mysterion and Steffi Kay) Most items transferred from one mentalist to another.  [World Record - 2017]

Welcoming a new Friend: Gwyn Auger

Please join me in welcoming our newest friend, Gwyn Auger!

Based out of Calgary, you may know Gwyn as The Magic Assistant.  She has been a long-time supporter of the blog (in 2015 she offered up a prize for you dear readers).   In 2011 she published "How to Be A Wizard of Odd."  Gwyn's also written a number of articles for Vanish Magazine. In 2014 and 2015 she took home the prize for "Best Assistant" at the PCAM conventions, and earned silver medals in both 2016 & 2017!  Gwyn co-created WowFest - Calgary’s Magical Arts Festival and she’s on the social media team for the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
 

In addition, Gwyn was recently featured in the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's Alumni Link. You can hear her interviews with Dave Attwood (2014), FCM Video (2014), Beyond Fame (2019), About to Break with Taylor Hughes (2019) and Illusionary (2019).  (Keep an ear out for an upcoming Newman and Price podcast interview too!)

Visit Gwyn's website at TheMagicAssistant.com

or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @magicassistant

or Facebook at  www.facebook.com/magicassistant

Thank you Gwyn, for befriending Canada's Magic! 

Discourse in Magic with Matt Johnson (plus 60s docs)

Via iTricks, Matt Johnson featured on the web series "60 Second Docs" in the episode "The Bittersweet Ache of Escaping." (embedded at the bottom of this post)


From Discourse in Magic:

On episode 158, Matt Johnson joins Jonah to discuss escapology, adding human elements to your magic, and recreating your brand. You may know Matt for his water tank escape on Penn & Teller: Fool Us or for his semi-place finish on Britain’s Got Talent.

Matt remembers a wind-up box at his grandmother’s house sparking his initial love for magic. While not a magic trick, it still gave him this magical feeling and caused him to want to know how a little box could play music. At the age of twelve, he started learning tricks and, after performing for Matt’s siblings’ birthday, a magician took Matt under his wing. Soon, he was attending his local shop every weekend right through his teen years.

Read more and listen.

If you do what other people do you will be one step behind ANYONE. Dare to be different. Do something new! @likemattjohnson https://t.co/FUJWcj0DnY pic.twitter.com/WprQ7ew6So

— Discourse in Magic (@discoursenmagic) April 29, 2019

From the 60 Second Docs YouTube channel:

Magicana recipient of AMA Literary and Media Fellowship

Congratulations to David Ben, Julie Eng, and everyone else who has poured their energy into Magicana, the 2018 recipient of the Academy of Magical Arts Literary and Media Fellowship!


From the Magicana Twitter feed:
A note to subscribers: the content of this post is embedded from another website and is not available to preview. To view the content of the post, please visit http://CanadasMagic.blogspot.com. Some of the embedded code may be visible in this notification.

Magicana is the 2018 recipient of the Academy of Magical Arts Literary and Media Fellowship. It is a true gift and honour to be given such an important and prestigious award. It’s inspiring that the AMA sees our work—our effort—as progressive, and worthy of such recognition. pic.twitter.com/4AqPrLv3eq

— Magicana (@sharingwonder) May 5, 2019