25 June 2013

Calgary: The last Garden Variety Show

From James Jordan's Twitter feed:


24 June 2013

Please help flooded Calgary magicians!

Updated June 25th to add Ryan Pilling's fundraising efforts at BC's Magic Festival.
Updated at 13:06 to add additional method of fundraising through Garden Variety Show ticket sales.

The Calgary Magic Circle has a PayPal link up that you can use to contribute money to help Calgary based magicians who have suffered losses due to the recent flooding.  If you live in the area, you may also donate books, tricks, DVDs and gift cards by contacting Gwyn Auger.

Other ways to reach out to those impacted:





Thank you Gwyn for letting me know.

Stay safe Calgary.  I hope the recovery is swift.

Dave Attwood interviews Julie Eng

On June 12th, Dave Attwood interviewed Julie Eng.  Julie "talks about growing up in magic and living the life in Toronto."

Listen to the interview at Dave Attwood's site.

23 June 2013

Bill and Chico on cover of Rubber Chicken

From Bill Abbott's Twitter feed:

22 June 2013

Port Coquitlam’s mayor to saw a Farquhar in half

From the Tri-City News:
Don’t be fooled when you see Port Coquitlam’s mayor at the first annual Magic Festival on Sunday.

Greg Moore will not only cut the ribbon for the inaugural event at Leigh Square Community Arts Village, he’ll also saw a woman in half.

“It’ll be my wife,” Maple Ridge resident and festival organizer Shawn Farquhar said. “It’s all in good fun.”

Moore will take to the stage at 2 p.m. on June 23 and will be followed by a free family magic show by the Vancouver Magic Circle, Canada’s largest magic group headed up by PoCo’s Alex Seaman.

Read more.

Chad Juros honored for cancer fundraising efforts

Chad Juros is a counsellor at Sorcerers Safari magic camp.  Congratulations Chad and keep up the great work!

From Shore News Today:
Egg Harbor Township resident Chad Juros was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991 at age 3. Four years later, he relapsed and spent 17 months in the cancer ward, during which time his father, Dr. Donald Juros, kept his spirits up by teaching him magic tricks.

Sadly, soon after he was released from the hospital, his beloved father was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and passed away in 2000. In January 2003, Chad was once again confronted with grave illness, and when he recovered, he decided it was time to make his father’s dying wish his own living wish.

He founded the nonprofit Spread the Magic Foundation to fulfill his father’s hope that he would “continue to spread the magic around the world.” Today, Juros is an accomplished magician and inspirational speaker whose performances raise money for pediatric cancer care.

Read more.


[via Wayne Kawamoto]

21 June 2013

More Luminato 2013 reviews

From The Globe and Mail:
Monday evening: George Brown House, an Ontario heritage building situated just south of the University of Toronto, is named, of course, after the distinguished Father of Confederation and founder of The Globe, the newspaper that became the newspaper you are reading. Normally off-limits to the great unwashed, Brown’s stately home was the venue chosen by Luminato’s go-to magic man, David Ben, to showcase the extraordinary legerdemain of American magician Steve Cohen.

The setting proved an apt backdrop for Cohen’s act, which owes a considerable debt to Johann Hofzinser, the 19th-century Austrian known as the father of card magic. At New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Cohen’s unofficial home, he typically entertains audiences of no more than 50. For the Toronto cohort, only slightly larger, the diminutive Cohen – nattily attired in morning coat, waistcoat and striped trousers – deftly stick-handled his way through a series of jaw-dropping tricks, each seemingly more difficult than the last.

Read more.

From Mooney on Theatre:
I straightened my bowtie and tucked in my pocket square this evening to see Steve Cohen perform his show Chamber Magic at George Brown House for Luminato, where the dress code is as fancy as the attendees (let’s just say that for this evening anyhow, his sobriquet The Millionaires’ Magician was well deserved). The show, a classic parlour magic display designed for close audiences, sent me running home to the interwebs to try to figure out how some of his tricks had been performed. I’ll say only this: even online, magicians are pretty tight-lipped.

The pleasure of a magic show is in allowing yourself to be amazed – and it’s nice to be able to stay amazed. Cohen’s skills are really a pleasure to watch as he performs of variety of tricks that are indeed bewildering and delightful. You understand that, on some level, something must be happening somewhere you can’t see it, but that feels beside the point for a moment (except to the gentleman sitting a bit in front of me, who murmured his guesses to his companion frequently). When the card is turned or the glass fills with the correct colour of liquid, we in the audience both expect it and cannot fathom it.

Read more.

From Opus One Review:
We enjoyed being fooled. We pay good money to people who can trick us. We long for the impossible, and what Miguel Puga does is impossible, but there it is.

To help us catch him in his onstage trickery while we are seated in an auditorium, Sr. Puga shows some of his illusions live on a big screen, so we can scrutinize his hands. For openers,  he mixes a deck of cards, draws the Ace of Hearts out of the deck, mixes again and draws again, until he has ‘randomly’ drawn out all the hearts in sequence from deuce to King. While his assistant at the piano, Ms. Paz Sabater, plays Manuel de Fallas’ El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician), Puga turns the cards face down and their backs spell out EL AMOR BRUJO. Impossible! How did he do it? I’ve no idea, but I want to see him do more ‘magic’. And he does.

Read more.