767: Randy Wakeman - I've Been Around for a Long, Long Years

Randy Wakeman has been around for many decades and was often seen lecturing and performing at magic conventions. Nonetheless, I have always seen him as an “underground” magician who appeals to the true sleight-of-hand experts. He is one of those guys who has “been there, done that, has the t-shirt” as he was one of the regular performers about the Chicago Bar Magic Scene before the turn of the last century. He has written several books on magic (card magic mostly) and is still relevant in our community as a performer, teacher and author.

While at the recent Senior Tour close-up convention in St. Louis, The Magic Word spoke with Randy as part of the convention report content. He was preparing for a workshop, so we didn’t get a chance to go in-depth as I had wanted. But we agreed to get together at the 4F convention in Buffalo a couple months later. True to his word, we sat down to complete our chat which results in this episode. The content of our chat in both places was a little disjunctive, so the editing required us to put the second conversation first then plug in the chat in St. Louis and finish with our talk while in Buffalo. This sounds more confusing that it actually is, but I know you will understand and enjoy our chat.

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558: Darryl Rose - All Done With Kindness

Darryl Rose is one of the Council members of The Magic Circle (TMC). This week we talk about TMC, some of its history and about magic in the U.K. I had planned to chat with Darryl at this year’s F.F.F.F. convention where he has occasionally acted as emcee of the “Great Britain Show”. But since the convention was canceled for this year, we had to chat via Skype. This week we chat about magicians creating new material, new apps, new content and new ideas in this digital age. Darryl also talks about being a part-time professional performer while maintaining a full-time career in television where he has been awarded an Emmy! One of the interesting things we chat about is being on the other side of a “pitch” meeting for television He tells us the importance of getting your image on social media and on television, when possible. We talk about entertainment and magic in the U.K. and the differences between there and in the U.S. plus performing at weddings. And as an aside, we chat briefly on a health update on Simon Lovell.

Arturo Brachetti in a guest spot on John Fisher's 'The Best of Magic' from 4th October 1989. From The MagicWeek Video Archive http://www.magicweek.co.uk

Please visit the website and support our sponsor, TheMagicBookShop.com If you are looking for old, rare or out-of-print books, then please search their site. Or if you have a book or a collection of books to sell, then please consider selling to The… — Please visit the website and support our sponsor, TheMagicBookShop.com If you are looking for old, rare or out-of-print books, then please search their site. Or if you have a book or a collection of books to sell, then please consider selling to TheMagicBoodShop.com They also have all the newest magic books, too! And don’t forget that you will receive a 15% discount on all purchases when using promo code: magicword when you check out.

528: Roger Dreyer - Room For Houdini

On our recent trip to New York City to see the Derren Brown show, one of the “must see” stops is the Fantasma Magic shop and to hopefully get some time with the owner and proprietor, Roger Dreyer. In this week’s episode, Roger gives us a personal guided tour of his collection. The photos in this blog accompany the audio podcast so you can see some of the items he talks about in this week’s episode.

This was the video discussed by Roger Dreyer where Kamarr the Magician was on David Letterman in 1988.

The Houdini Museum of New York is a museum exhibiting memorabilia related to the escape artist, Harry Houdini. It is located at Fantasma Magic, a retail magic manufacturer and seller located at 213 West 35th Street, Rm 401, New York, NY.

DATELINE NEW YORK CITY OCTOBER 2019: Roger Dreyer gives a short tour of the Fantasma Headquarters on local television news segment.

This week we travel from Houston Texas to New York City to the world headquarters of Fantasma Magic. There we are given a personalized, guided tour of the magic store and the extensive Houdini collection.

During this episode, it is mentioned that the 2019 Official Houdini Seance will take place in Niagara Falls. But if you would like to see excerpts from the 2012 Official Houdini Seance, then you can contact Arthur Moses to purchase a DVD of the event for $17.00 U.S. You can contact Arthur at aem1957@sbcglobal.net or you can buy the online video by Clicking Here.