341: Houdini-Opoly with Dick Brookz and Dorothy Dietrich

Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz own and operate the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. They have both led extraordinary lives and worthy of talking more about their Houdini museum, the Houdini seance, and the former Magic Townhouse in New York City. They talk about all these things but the purpose of this particular podcast is to help the magic world learn more about their newest project, "Houdini-Opoly"

They have been working on this board game for over two years and with the Kickstarter campaign now being fully funded just before this podcast was released. So not it's on to meet their "stretch" goals to pay for the "enhancements". Thanks to your support, it appears that it will be in production soon this year. The Magic Word Podcast is selective in providing a platform for promoting individuals or pet projects. But this is one I support and think is of particular interest to our community. But even if you choose not to support the cause and buy a game, the rest of our chat is interesting as we talk about the old Magic Townhouse in New York City and why it closed and the museum moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania. We also discuss the Houdini seance and the museum.

Help the Kickstarter Campaign and get your "one of a kind" collectible Houdini board game. You can't escape the fun!

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The contest is over and we congratulate Pat Darienzo who won a copy of Danny Archer's eBook. — The contest is over and we congratulate **Pat Darienzo** who won a copy of Danny Archer's eBook.

178: Day 3 - Abbott's Get Together 2014

Day three of the Get Together with a Magic Minster session at the local Methodist church followed by the stage competition. I was busy at the library putting together and uploaded Day Two's podcast so I missed the competition. But at 1:00 I hosted the cruise talk show version of "now You See It with Scott Wells" in the afternoon followed by the professional close-up show that was more than capably hosted by Ali Shelly. Performers included Kayla Dresher, John Shyrock, Joshua Jay and Shoot Ogawa. It was as strong of a close-up show as I have seen.

After the close-up show, it was time for tech rehearsal for the evening show which I compered. It was a night of firsts. All of the acts were performing at the Get Together for the first time. Also, the first act, Losander, received the first standing ovation of the convention. Of course the day concluded downtown at the Legion Hall and Clancy's.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:02:13- Enjoy breakfast with George and Nina Shindler, Losander, Marion and Ted Outerbridge, John Shyrock and my wife, Kathy as we share stories about problems encountered on the road.

00:15:14 - Enjoy a special edition of "Now You See It with Scott Wells" that featured a talk focused on the cruise ship industry with some of the busiest working pros at sea today. Guests include Fred & Bobbi Becker, John Shyrock, Chris Mitchell, Chris Blackmore, and Howard Mincone.

01:12:52 Joshua Jay brings us up to date on the upcoming conventions he is involved with producing including the Session, Magic-Fest and the Genii Bash.

01:16:56 - Underground magician and illustrator Tom Gagnon talks about how his creative process plus some of the books he has written and illustrated.

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Looking out toward the Bristol Channel during twilight at Weston Super Mare - site of the Bristol Day of Magic

098: 2013 Bristol Day of Magic

I attended the 53rd Bristol Day of Magic on May 12th along with about 400 other magicians from across the U.K.; however, I was one of the few (maybe three) from the U.S. along with Joshua Jay and Arthur Benjamin who were other performers on this outstanding bill. I was brought in as the "compere" or Master of Ceremonies for the evening gala show.

This podcast features some sounds of the convention and chats with some of the organizers, attendees and performers.

00:02:36 - Mandy Farrell, organizer, starts us off by giving us some history of the Bristol Day of Magic and laying out what we can expect over the next 24 hours.

00:11:00 - Eric Roumestan, from France, talks about his upcoming workshop on coin magic and his inspirations for creating his way of loading coins on the volunteer.

00:26:30 - John Billett, winner of the first Bristol Bucket Award, talks about mentalism and his path into the art.

00:34:00 - Danny (somebody) talks about the new book "Frankly Disillusioned" by Dean Metcalfe.

00:41:15 - Dean Metcalfe joined us to talk about some of his life experiences that are in the new book (available from http://FranlyDisillusioned.com/)

00:50:06 - Soma, from Hungary, talked about the importance and use of music in your act. He also talked about his :road to fame: through contests from his first win in the Junior Stage Competition in Hungary to his first place win at the 2009 FISM context in Beijing.

01:12:42 - Arthur Benjamin, the MathMagician, talked about the way he came about to incorporate math into his magic performances and the similarities of logic, puzzles and math. You can check out a sample of his performance that he gave at a T.E.D. talk by Clicking Here.

01:36:47 - Colin McLeod, from Scotland, along Tim Stacy, from Bristol, and Mandy Davis, from London, talked in the bar after the convention about all the fun everyone had during the event.

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