Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear
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Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear
sounds strange, but a clockmaker from France ushered in magic’s golden age. Jean Eugéne Robert-Houdin, France’s most famous magician (and from whom, in 1891, Harry Houdini sourced his stage name) used his background as an engineer to revolutionize magic not only in the ingenuity and complexity of props, but in the presentation of the craft. He saw
... See moreIan Frisch • Magic Is Dead: My Journey into the World's Most Secretive Society of Magicians
Penn & Teller have never shied away from revealing the secrets behind some of their tricks, especially if divulging the method will make the audience’s experience more memorable. “If you understand a good magic trick, like if you really understand it down to the mechanics and the core of its psychology, the magic trick gets better—not worse,” T
... See moreIan Frisch • Magic Is Dead: My Journey into the World's Most Secretive Society of Magicians
As we sat down at a nearby table, I thought back to what Ramsay and Madison and all the guys had been trying to explain to me for the past year. This was the gravity of a magic moment—one of astonishment, an experience layered in psychological and emotional revelations. The purpose of a trick isn’t merely to fool the spectator, but to make them fee
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