Tag: Magic
I have yet to find any biographical information on the multi-talented Georges Holmes, but this performance is from the French tv show La Piste aux Etoiles, from the same 1959 broadcast as Les Marcellys in my previous post. Also, his first name is spelled the French way, and the few words he speaks are in French, so let’s assume he’s French. He’s a tap dancer, acrobat, magician, and object manipulator. He’s quite the human smokestack, and also does one of my favorite “stupid human tricks,” the back roll with the cup of water. A variety artist full of variety!
I don’t know about you, but I still remember as a kid upsetting my parents by trying the old trick of yanking a tablecloth out from underneath some dishes and glasses with, er, mixed results. I’ve also written about this trick, including an advanced variation, in this blog post. But now I can offer a more scientific explanation….
You may not think of pickpocketing as entertainment, much less physical comedy, but it can be both. I still recall with delight Philippe Petit’s street act in the days before the World Trade Center walk, which included juggling, tight rope walking, and other stuff, including some very amusing picking of spectators’ pockets. Now comes this fascinating article in The New Yorker about another entertaining pickpocket, Apollo Robbins.
Due for release on March 15th, this movie about Vegas magicians looks to be a hoot — and to have a good deal of physical comedy. Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and his former partner (Steve Buscemi) must reunite to take on an up-and-coming street performer (Jim Carrey). Any similarity to Siegfried & Roy and to David Blaine is purely coincidental! (heh heh) Add in Alan Arkin as the elderly magician who inspired Burt and you have quite a heady mix of comedic talent.
If you’re in the world of magic, you’re no doubt already familiar with Yann Frisch, whose videos are going viral and whose many honors include winning French, European and World magic championships in the past few years. I, on the other hand, had never heard of him, but was schooled once again by Tanya Solomon, author of an earlier and very popular guest post for this blog on comedy magic.
I did a post on flair bartending a while back, but have never seen anything like this. Thanks to Jeff Seal for the link.
I was just about to move on from the topic of magic (see three previous posts) when Billy Schultz sent me this article by Chloe Veltman from American Theatre magazine. Nothing about physical comedy, but a lot about magic as theatre.
When I knew that Ben Robinson and Julian Olf would be contributing their writing on magic as guest posts, I asked my friend Tanya Solomon to recommend some good comedy magic to me. I’ve always had some interest in magic, but never pursued it and basically know very little. Tanya on the other hand is a veteran New York variety performer who combines all sorts of clowning, dance, and magic in her performances — plus she even works part-time in a magic store! When she came back to me with a thorough list of recommended videos, I thought it would be great if she would expand it into another guest post for the blogopedia. Take it away, Tanya (but don’t make it vanish)…. —jt
We continue our look at magic technique with this revealing analysis of the performance of the great magician, Cardini, by an old colleague of mine, Julian Olf. This article first appeared in a 1974 popular entertainments issue of The Drama Review (TDR) that I worked on as an editor in my grad school days at NYU. Even back then I realized that Julian’s take on magic as a form of acting offered a fresh perspective, and re-reading it today only reinforces that opinion. So happy to have tracked Julian down, and much thanks to him for kindly granting permission to share his work with readers of this blogopedia.
Ben Robinson is both a master magician and an historian of magic, author of Twelve Have Died: Bullet Catching, The Story & Secrets and of The MagiCIAn: John Mulholland’s Secret Life, as well as numerous articles for major magic publications. Just last month, Ben’s decades-long research into the use of magic in silent films came to fruition with publication of his latest book, Magic and the Silent Clowns — a subject that had received scant attention until Ben’s work. Concurrent with that, Ben helped curate a fascinating show at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image entitled Magicians on Screen, including both a magic performance by Ben and a lecture-demo on the subject of magic and the silent clowns. In fact, Ben had first proposed the idea to the museum back in the 80s. Patience is indeed a virtue — though persistence sure helps! This blogopedia is very pleased to be able to share the first chapter from Magic & the Silent Clowns, and to be able to match Ben’s enthusiastic prose with a few video clips.
And now for something completely silly. It’s Mookie the Mimegician, who combines illusion mime with magic tricks. Think about it: now you don’t see it, and now you still don’t see it.
If the name Georges Méliès rings a bell at all, it probably makes you think of that wacky Trip to the Moon movie from the Dawn of Film that was okay in its time, but… that time was long ago. Yes, Méliès almost single-handedly invented special effects, pioneering such techniques as stop-action substitution, dissolves, multiple exposures, and time-lapse photography, in the process creating the science-fiction film genre, but nowadays his corny sense of humor, flimsy storytelling, and overuse of the same gimmicks make the work seem dated. In fact, it was out of fashion by the time the Keystone Cops came on the scene in 1912
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin