231: FISM Italy - Prelude

The 26th World Championships of Magic is about to get underway...tomorrow. But first, let's learn a little about FISM and how it's judged and more about the point system and more, plus hear from a few friends I met while waiting to check in at the registration desk.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:59 - Craig Mitchell is joined late in our chat by Shawn Farquhar.

00:09:19 - Peter Rogers and Raymond Crow

00:20:40 - Aaron Crow

00:23:27 - Paul Daniels

00:31:14 - Boris Wild

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230: The Magic Words Over the Years

Over the past three or four years that I have been posting podcasts, I have asked literally thousands of magicians for their "magic words". That is to say, or ask, what is their philosophy of life they live by or what is important to them. Although some answers were indeed "magic words" like Abracadabra, some were funny while others were thought provoking. But most were almost predictable: passion.

And that makes sense for those who are successful in life are successful because they have a passion for what they do, and they enjoy it. Another predominate answer was "fun". And passion and fun go together, you can't have one without the other.

In this unique podcast, I took the advice from a listener who suggested that I put together a podcast with "magic words" from my guests over the years. i took a random group of disparate guests and extracted their "magic word" quotes. It was not as easy as I first thought, as it took me well over eight hours to find, extract, and edit the podcast into what you hear here. But since I had a lot of time on the airplane on my way to Italy to attend FISM 2015, I decided to do it. I would have scrapped the idea if I didn't otherwise have that amount of free time.

I hope you enjoy it and perhaps get encouraged to go back and listen or re-listen to the podcast with the full chat of some of these magicians. You can always use the "Search" function on the website here to find anyone who has been recorded over the years.

229: Francis Menotti - The Absurdist Magician

Francis Menotti is a most interesting and refreshing magician. It is hard to put a label on Francis (mentalist, magician, script writer, artist, or ???). Perhaps he is an enigma from the Renaissance. I almost entitled this podcast as "From a Tangential Mind" because we went off in so many directions during this podcast. Certainly when there is no direction or script, it is easy to get off target. But then again, if there is no target, then how can you veer from it? Hmm. I think you're starting to get the idea.

Francis recently passed through Houston on a nationwide lecture tour and stopped to chat about his magic and his philosophy. It is hard to quantify Francis and for those who haven't heard of him before, then you will get a better picture of the inner workings of a "mind constantly at work" in this podcast.

Francis Menotti's Close Up Act at the Magic Castle, 2008

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This discussion covers a lot of territory from stage performance, to lighting the audience, script writing, structuring a show, philosophy, theory, audience management, volunteer selection, handling butterflies, and so much more. Francis touches on Schroedinger's Cat with a brief explanation, but you can get the one minute education in the video embedded in this blog.

Time is ticking away for you to register for FISM 2015 in Rimini, Italy from July 6-11. Click on the banner above for more information.

Register today for the I.B.M. convention in Jacksonville, Florida. Lots of great talent like Tom Mullica, Boris Wild, Eric Buss, Paul Cummins, the Outerbridges, David and Leeman, Soma, Bill Abbott, Chad Long, David Kaplan, and a lifetime award and t… — Register today for the I.B.M. convention in Jacksonville, Florida. Lots of great talent like Tom Mullica, Boris Wild, Eric Buss, Paul Cummins, the Outerbridges, David and Leeman, Soma, Bill Abbott, Chad Long, David Kaplan, and a lifetime award and tribute to Fantasio plus many, many more top international performers. Click on the banner above for more information. Join your friends and sign up today!