082: Part 5 - The End of the World/Year Podcast

We conclude this “End of the World” podcast by featuring three more magicians. You can pick up our chats at the following time marks:

00:00:00 – Eric DeCamps had success with producing his one man show, Pure Magic – A Performance of Contemporary Conjuring. In this chat, Eric talks about how he put his show together and gives advice and suggestions for those who might be interested in producing and marketing their own show. http://www.ericdecamps.com/

0:24:18 – Craig Mitchell jumped into the magic convention business with both feet and made a big splash with his immensely popular IMX conventions in Las Vegas. His next sojourn into the magic convention scene will be “adventurous” to say the least. Here we talk about magic conventions and what might be the secret of success in organizing such events. We also talk about the importance of youth to our art and his six year program in the College of Magic and how we can sponsor an underprivileged student. http://www.sponsorastudent.co.za/

00:47:02 – Paul Draper, mentalist, anthropologist and speaker, brings it all home with his research and perspective on the Mayan (or is it Aztec) calendar and the end of the world.

I want to sincerely thank each of my friends for taking the time out of their day (or night) during this busy season to chat with me for this very special podcast. Please join me by showing them your appreciation and listening to their thoughts, advice and prognostications…and visiting their websites where you can drop them a “thank you” email.

Happy Holidays to all of you from The Magic Word.

Download an MP3 file of this podcast by Clicking Here then right click to save the file.  You can also download the MP3 media file directly from the RSS feed by Clicking Here.

070: Dan Garrett - A Look Forward Into The Past

Welcome to the 70th podcast on The Magic Word. Dan Garrett was passing through Houston during his recent lecture tour entitled, "Forward Into The Past" that was dedicated to Duke Stern and Tim Conover. Dan is a Past President of the Society of American Magicians as well as a full time professional magician, dealer, lecturer, author and generall all-around good guy.

In this podcast Dan talks about his friendship with the late Martin Gardener and the Gathering for Gardner (http://www.g4g-com.org/) and those who attend (i.e. Percy Diaconis, Mark Seddeducati, and others). Dan has a passion for science fiction and online gaming, too, which we discuss. Dan talked about mentoring new magicians and how young people might find a mentor. His interests in magic go beyond the traditional but also include the allied art of juggling. With this broad background, Dan seems perfectly suited for discussing the future of magic including digital magazines (i.e. Kozmo's "Reel Magic" and other paper magazines that have gone digital), conventions, and more.

This was one of the more interesting discussions I have posted but it was also the single most difficult. Easy from the standpoint that Dan and I have been good friends for over 25 years so the discussion (as well as the Coca Cola for Dan and the scotch for me) ran freely. But the audio crashed as it was being saved. We knew that the magic of the moment that we captured on the podcast could not be duplicated. So I spent six hours meticulously finding, saving, pasting and editing this podcast. Despite all my efforts, there are still about ten minutes out of our hour and ten minute chat that were lost. But I tried to make the edits as seemless as possible. I hope you will enjoy this talk with one of the world's leaders in magic. I hope you will also enjoy a couple of sound clips from Firesign Theater to get us into and out of this podcast.

Download a MP3 file of this podcast by Clicking Here then right click to save the file. You can also download the MP3 media file directly from the RSS feed by Clicking Here.