Tuesday 26 February 2008

Winston & Me

We go back a long way, me and the Great Man. When I was first getting into magic, age 13, my favourite book was 'Magician's Magic', which describes how Churchill was repeatedly fooled, one wartime evening, by a trick called Out of This World. It's such a classic that magicians still perform it regularly, and no less than Derren Brown featured a version not long ago. I've been a Churchill fan for as long as I can remember, so it was both a surprise and a total delight, when his Memorial Trust agreed to include Moi, in their annual round of Travel Fellowships.

What this means, is that I can fulfil a long cherished aim of visiting Las Vegas, and studying there with the world's best magic teachers! I'll be attending an extended Masterclass with the astounding Jeff McBride (recently featured on Criss Angel's shows among others) and the remarkable Eugene Burger (ditto the Beeb's recent series on magic, and a zillion others). Then since they know everyone who's anyone, hopefully I will get to meet them too, and suck their brains dry. In a nice way, of course. Previously I only experienced Jeff & Eugene's teaching in Amsterdam, for a visiting Masterclass. For a magician, it's life-changing. In an age when Magic, like everything, is increasingly commodified, (ie made into something you can supposedly buy), it's amazing to have the experience of learning it the 'old-fashioned' way - aka the ONLY way, until about 100 years ago. Thank you, Winston.

3 comments:

stevebishop said...

Congratulations on the Churchill thing!!! And welcome to blogging!

Anonymous said...

I really don't get the debate about old school magic vs. new school magic. I don't believe that it helps the magic business to knock "new magic". If people don't like the fact I paid for tricks, then I can simply make them disappear...because I know magic. Who care if I paid someone for them. Eat your heart out churchill.

Anonymous said...

not good news

http://publicsafetyawareness.blogspot.com/2011/01/rob-rasner-news-rob-rasner-convicted-of.html