Magic Is Dead: My Journey into the World's Most Secretive Society of Magicians

Daniel Madison, Laura London, Jeremy Griffith, Xavior Spade, Doug McKenzie, Alex Pandrea, Adam Wilber, Franco Pascali, Danny Garcia, Tony Chang, Eric Hu, Larry Fong, Dynamo, Penn Jillette, Eric Jones, Mark Calabrese, Shin Lim, Peter Turner, Demian Aditya, Dan and Dave Buck, Elliott Terral, Damien O’Brien, Dee Christopher, Alex Harris, Matt Whittake

I realized, was that while it also fought against the passage of time—always clinging to its past—time itself has become the art form’s greatest asset. For secrets, too, can evolve, and the way we come to understand how deception is a part of us—and who we are, as a collective whole—can also become more clear and complete.

“So, how do you know what tricks you want to include? There seems so much to choose from, you know?” “Well, I always start with the character, the star of the show,” he said. “So, to me, Drummond is the James Bond of magic, right? If James Bond did magic—the Daniel Craig version, a little rough but still composed—how would that look? How would he a

you’ve turned into the man you were supposed to be.”

“One hundred percent. When I am playing, no one else is there, it’s just me and my own decisions. It’s my choices. I don’t want to have to think about making the right choices for everybody else.” “Do you think life is a constant battle between those two things? Trying to be the most complete version of yourself while also trying to understand that

They locked in a deal with Netflix for an eight-episode series titled Death by Magic, which documents DMC as he travels to a series of cities, performing street magic related to that city’s history. He also re-creates a stunt of some kind that has, in the past, killed someone in that place—utilizing magic, obviously, to escape the stunt unscathed—i

Hearing how my friends had come to invent their tricks fueled my ambition. My goal at the start of this entire adventure had been to understand the mind of a magician, someone who sees the world through the lens of deception—people who strive, as a career choice, to hack the concept of reality for the entertainment of others.

Much like a magician, Anthony instilled a sense of adventure and wonder in people—an honest quest not only to experience humanity and all its complexities through food and culture, but, more than anything else, the determination to give that same sense of discovery to an audience. He once said that travel—much like magic—is about the gorgeous feeli

We went through the trick’s beginnings step by step. The small, in-between moments typically reveal opportunities in which to pull off a sleight, so it’s crucial to intimately understand every step of the trick in order to dig in and insert a deceptive method.