784: Jamy Ian Swiss - The Conjuror's Conjuror

Jamy Ian Swiss is the author of five books and co-author of two other books and consultant or contributor to at least eight other books and magazines, frequent performer at the Magic Castle, co-producer of Monday Night Magic, historian, lecturer, teacher, consultant, Senior Fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation, skeptic, and an expert on the intersection of science, magic, and skepticism. He has frequently appeared on television talk and news shows including all the networks with occasional appearances in movies and documentaries.

This discussion was recorded in the Magic Castle when we worked together there in March 2023. In our conversation, Jamy covers the gamut of magic from those who have influenced his life to an esoteric discussion of equivoque and the power of magic has on our audience and a deep dive into a theoretical talk about magic. Nearly everyone who is anyone in magic had their name dropped in this week’s chat by someone who intimately knew them all quite well. Jamy truly is the conjuror’s conjuror.

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644: Joseph Gabriel - A Bird In Hand

Multi-Award winning Broadway illusionist, Joseph Gabriel, single-handedly changed the face of magic with his iconic sleight-of-hand performance when he appeared on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” for the first time. Joseph is known for his signature style of producing various exotic birds and is equally adept at large-scale illusions, mentalism, and comedy audience participation. Soon after his appearance on “The Tonight Show”, Joseph began headlining in lavish Las Vegas review shows, such as the “Lido de Paris” at the Stardust Hotel and “City Lites” at the Flamingo where he headlined for nine years.

In this week’s episode, Joseph talks about the importance of “being so good, they can’t ignore you,” to quote Steve Martin. He has developed his own style of performing and talks about his journey where good things in his career kept happening, including his two year association with the Peruvian legend, Richiardi. In addition to his work with birds, he is also an accomplished artist and maker/performer of marionettes.

This week in magic, one of the highlights in our community was the “Las Vegas wedding of year” of Murray Sawchuck and Dani Elizabeth.

245: Day One - MAGIC LIve! 2015

For the first day of a four day event that had no scheduled activity until 7:30 p.m., there sure was a lot of meeting and greeting of old friends.

In this first day update, we have some time to chat with many of the friends we ran into. With nearly 1,800 registrants, it's hard to get around to have quality conversations with everyone. But it was great that some people gave me some great quality time albeit short due to the veritable whirlwind of magical luminaries swirling around the casino. Monday will bring us the first full day of activities so I probably should get a little rest. I;m still on Central Time so it is nearly dawn in Texas according to my body clock.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:25 - Charlie Randall of H&R Magic Books joins me at the airport for our flight from Houston to Las Vegas

00:07:17 - Chris Philppott and Steve Valentine, mates of mine from the Magic Castle are the first ones that I got to chat with after I checked into the hotel. Steve talks a bit about his presentation that he will give on Monday and Chris talks about his marketed effect, "French Postcards".

00:11:46 - R. Paul Wilson talks a bit about his movie, "Our Magic"

00:13:25 - "The Evil Twins", Dave Cox and Bruce Gold

00:15:20 - Steve Bryan talks about the Little Egypt Gazette and Randy Wakeman joins us to give us a health report on SIMON Lovell

00:22:44 - Kyle Knight and Mistie talks about their current and future schedule also about their performance on "Wizard Wars" and "Penn & Teller Fool Us".

00:31:35- Jeff and Tessa Evason are joined briefly by Gil Eagles and Ken Weber

00:39:26 - Justin Willman is getting married soon and he talks about that. He is also joined by Sean Popp and Shep Hyken.

00:44:38 - Dustin Stinett talks about the upcoming Genii convention

00:52:26 - Ray Anderson, star of Esther's Follies in Austin, Texas talks about the upcoming Texas Association of Magicians convention and his appearance there.

01:01:47 - Dennis Watkins talks about the return of the Houdini play in Chicago next summer for a 15 week run starting in June 2016.

01:06:52 - Steve Chezaday and Carol talk about Abbott's Get Together that just ended and he flew straight to Las Vegas

01:20:11 - Tom Mullica talks about his late night tales he told by his headstone in the graveyard at Colon, Michigan at Abbott's Get Together last week.

784: Jamy Ian Swiss - The Conjuror's Conjuror

644: Joseph Gabriel - A Bird In Hand

245: Day One - MAGIC LIve! 2015

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