Magic News Network

Magic & Mad Science - Dr. Derek Livingston

   "Our focus is sharp, but our light faded," so wrote the famous, or perhaps infamous scientist and magician Derek Livingston in 1965. The man commonly associated with the dangers of quack-science or a magician's claims of super-natural powers, was born on this day in 1936.

Dr. Livingston's phrase had many possible meanings but all were tied to his confusion of magic and science.

Dr. Livingston's fame and infamy arise from the same experiments in the late 1950s and 1960s with laser technology (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) as well as his life-long love for magic.

Dr. Livingston worked his way through the distinguished and ivy-draped halls of the country's finest schools. He was not from a wealthy family or noble ancestry but relied upon the kindness of others for his housing, food and supplies. In 1955, the then Mr. Livingston, took up work at the prestigious Bell Labs whilst he considered the question of light's structure. Was light made up of waves or particles?

He supplemented his income by performing magic shows for co-workers and their families in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was known for his deft sleight-of-hand and charisma. His show was billed as "lasts 20 minutes, more than an hour's worth of magic, you'll remember for a lifetime."

It was an old question. Prior to Sir Isaac Newton's corpuscular theory, light was thought to be made up of particles. Newton demonstrated his wave theory by showing light could be reflected and refracted with mirrors and prisms.

Korn & Benn Baffle Beach Bunnies

   We were breezing through this morning's edition of The Malaysian Star

while we waited for Mr. Lazybones and his son, Mr. Lazybones, Jr. to open the Mystic Hollow Dough-Nutz Cafe and Bistro. All they had to do was open the drive-thru window but that was apparently taking too much effort or planning, so we waited in our gas-guzzling '82 Ford Granada and tried to find a decent channel on the factory-equipped AM radio.

Unlike the Lazybones family, the young courier for The Malaysian Star delivers to the home daily and well-before anyone is awake or aware that we are borrowing the paper for a few hours.

Chris Korn and J.B. Benn filmed their presentation of street magic on the beach in the island nation. Whilst it makes for great shots of well-tanned bathing buddies, it makes the use of pulls or Toppits impossible or awkward.

Young Tom Rose Makes it Big

"Magician Tom Rose is proving himself to women, reporters, and women who are reporters.

In an article entitled "Leader of the Pack," Sarah Foster, falls head-over-high-heels for this young magician with an apparently very bright future:

    I MUST admit to being a bit of a sceptic, so when Tom Rose gets out his cards, I'm less than enthusiastic. Of course, he is a magician, and knowing I'll be writing about him, he has to show me a trick. I only hope, for both our sakes, that it doesn't go horribly wrong.

The first surprise is when he waves a wad of cash - 300 to be precise - saying that if he fails to guess my card, the money's mine. With an eye on the pile of 20 notes, I decide to up my game.

Free Magic Trick - Don Timo's Subtle Mystery

Thomas Hardy the III -- son of great magician and inept mathematician, Thomas Hardy IV -- was, as the British are keen to say, keen on helping the younger, newer, more fragile and feminine magicians find their footing.

Some have said this is simply a dressed up way of saying father was a cad and a shoe-fetishist.  Those who knew him best have publicly denounced this criticism but never under oath.

See, expert testimony of Harry Blackstone, Jr. in Commonwealth v. Hardy from 1968:

    Q: "How well do you know Tom Hardy, aka Li'l Tom Hardy America's Foremost Psychic Entertainer?"

    A: (Mr. Blackstone) "I would say pretty well. He worked with my father's show and later on mine."

    Q: "Is he a cad and a shoe-fetishist?"

    A: (Mr. Blackstone) "'Cad' is such an ugly and anachronistic word.  I think he liked to help the younger, newer, more fragile and feminine magicians find their footing."

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Letters to the Editor

Dear Inside Magic:

How can I help get the message of Inside Magic out to the entire world? I am so impressed by the quality reporting, columns, guest essays and gratuitous images of Britney Spears, Melinda, and Sabrina the Teenaged Witch that I have found myself reading it without stop. 

But much like Beatles’ song, ‘I can’t get any satisfaction’ until I know that the entire magic world knows about the website. 

My friends say I spend too much time reading your site and that my hair smells like that cheese you shake onto spaghetti because I don’t even want to wash my hair when I shower. 

I am afraid that Inside Magic will have a new article that I might miss or that circus clowns will creep into my bathroom when my eyes are closed (during the application, rinse, repeat process), try on my clothes, and eat me.

So my question put bluntly is this: I figure I have about 28 days on this Visa card I got through an internet cite I found when I was surfing for herbal remedies to remove the stench from my head – without pain or requiring me to close my eyes – and I’ve got quite a credit limit on it.

I wanted to make a donation to Inside Magic to help contribute to the only website that I really care about.

   Also, why don’t you have something where I can send your site out to other people that I have met on the internet? 

Some internet cites have those and they are really neat. You type in peoples’ names and it sends them the link to the cite and you can include a message like, “Hey, look at this cite!” or “Hey, this is a neat cite!” or “Hey, this cite has pictures of Britney Spears taking herbal supplements and doing magic tricks!” 

Please let me know. I have many friends on the internet that would love (but not in a gross way) to visit the cite but no one has told them about it. 

It doesn’t seem fair that they would have to search for the cite themselves when the internet is all about having things done for you not things you do for yourself. 

SCAM Continues to Impress

Introduction and Apologies

We promised publication of this article/review several weeks ago but for some reason, we could not find ability to finish the project. This piece is a subset of several lengthy volumes summarizing, reviewing, and praising the weekend in Columbia.There are few things in life we enjoy more than attending the South Carolina Association of Magicians convention in beautiful Columbia, South Carolina.

We live by two doctrines in our writing: 1) lack of inhibition is not the same as talent; 2) the perfect is the enemy of the good and the good is a foe of the adequate.

So while this article is not as long as it has been, it is at least done. If you are bored, very bored, you can read the following to see how many different styles and approaches we tried and how poorly we have edited the various attempts into this final draft. You can also take a big virtual marker and circle how many times the word "charm" or "charisma" is used.

We're thinking of converting this article into a kid's meal place mat for a chain of family restaurants and what better way to distract a hungry, sugar-crashing youngster than a good game of find the thematic inconsistencies?

Amazing Randi Stable Post-Bypass Surgery

   We wish we had more information but here's what we know now about James Randi's condition. 

We spoke with the James Randi Educational Foundation ("JREF") today.  "His condition is still stable," the representative said.  The doctors believe he will have a "full but not quick recovery" following the surgery. 

The JREF posted the following notice on their web site yesterday.

We will follow up on the story as more information becomes available.  The Randi family is in our prayers.

Absence of Evidence Equals? Steve Cohen Featured

Ft. Lauderdale's very own Sun-Sentinel covers Steven Cohen, The Millionaire Magician.

We've noticed a pattern in the coverage of Mr. Cohen. The stories are always upbeat and complimentary. Whether coincidence or the work of great press relations, we can find no article or review critical of his performance, his publications, his approach to magic, or even him.

We're not hoping to find negative info; we're just surprised there isn't a single article out there given the tremendous amount of media attention.

Even if he had the best of all possible press agents, there would still be one or two disgruntled or just formerly gruntled magicians or associates to lambast him on some internet blog. But we didn't find any.

While we certainly agree with St. Thomas Aquinas that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" but statistically, when an event does not happen over-and-over, that has to mean the thing causing the event to happen probably doesn't exist.

Conjuring Arts Research Center Opens!

We  heard about a new development in an old science. 

The New York Sun reports this morning on the opening of the Conjuring Arts Research Center" described as the "only publicly accessible, fully staffed, nonprofit magic library in America."

The new library is set just south of historic Herald Square in the heart of the city that never sleeps.

Harry Houdini later in life expressed interest in starting a magic school and library in the city. A century later, founder William Kalush has accomplished this vision.

Want to know which illusionist first sawed a person in half or which Albany-born magician performed for Abraham Lincoln's guests at the White House? You now have a central place to find answers to such questions, after making an appointment to visit.

Mr. Kalush said he hopes the center will draw writers, historians, collectors, scholars, enthusiasts, film producers, and performers who are seeking to study the history of magic and its vibrant connection to the present.

You can see the collection online at http://www.conjuringarts.org.

The new library boasts tons of old books -- over 9,000 volumes covering magic history, bibliographies, even fiction works related to magic.

Magic Road Show Announces Winner - US!

   Hollywood's Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for this year's Academy Awards yesterday morning. We were delighted to learn we had been named an award winner.

Each year, the world's press gathers in a small hotel ballroom at 4:30 am (California Time) to hear former Oscar^®-winning actors announce with tired voices the year's nominees.

The ballroom is filled with excitement and anxiety. The scene is alive with the incessant flashes from photographers and filled with the aroma of expensive coffee, stale cigar smoke, halitosis associated with skipping a full breakfast despite brushing ones teeth, and perhaps the occasional wafting of anxiety-induced flatulence.

We were as shocked as anyone awake at that ungodly hour to learn Quinlan's Inside Magic was a winner. Sure, we weren't nominated for an Academy Award. But we learned of our special awards at the same time we were listening to the Academy Award Nomination Feed.

We're not disappointed the Academy again overlooked our considerable talents and unabashed support of their current starlets. (Even though we have mentioned Lindsay Lohan over 287 times in this year's articles -- even though she had nothing to do with a single story).

Frankly, we'd rather not win an Oscar^® at all if the only type we could get would be one of those "Special Oscars^®."