400: David Berglas - International Man of Mystery, Part One

David Berglas has an affect on me.

Okay, that is corny. But it is true that he has influenced and inspired more magicians and mentalists in the world than can be counted. Not only has he changed how we look at magic, David Berglas has significantly changed magic on television.

The BBC called him the “Godfather of TV Magic”. Born in 1926, Berglas escaped to Britain from Nazi Germany at age 11. He first became interested in Magic in his 20’s and studied psychotherapy at university before becoming a professional magician in 1952. His groundbreaking TV show in 1986, “The Mind of David Berglas” paved the way for all others to follow up to this very day. He is the author of several books including, "The Berglas Effects" and "The Mind & Magic of David Berglas", among others. And he is an multiple award winner of several prestigious organizations and is the Past President of The Magic Circle.

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I was part of a momentous meeting organized by Spyros Melaris in 2002 when he arranged a dinner meeting with David Berglas and his wife, Ruth, with Banachek and his wife, Heidi, and me and my wife, Kathy. It was a wonderful, memorable dinner with Banachek sharing his spoon bending to David and magic talk late into the evening. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no photos of that evening exist except those in our minds.

It was at that first meeting that we all became good friends and I am glad that we could get together again for this podcast where David talks about his beginnings in magic, work both in front of and behind the cameras on television and film, plus lots of stories about celebrated names of magicians, most of whom are long since passed.

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Magicians' Valhalla

Although the list below is not exhaustive nor in any particular order, it does reflect the names of many well-known (and some lesser known) magicians, spouses and assistants who passed on in 2017. Some may not be as well-known to you, but they were my personal friends (hey, it is my blog!). If you are unfamiliar with any of these names, then it would behoove you to do a little online search of what these people have contributed to our craft. If you have someone you think was overlooked, then please post the name in the comments below on this blog.

Those whose names are highlighted were featured or interviewed here on The Magic Word Podcast. You can click on their name to revisit and listen to their voices again. David Oliver put together a video of some names and dates of passing of these (and others) in a YouTube video. Click Here to see that video.

Phil Messina

Daryl Easton (Martinez)

Bob Cassidy

Jim Zachary

Ed Thomas

Jessica “Shedini” Moore

George Kovari, Jr.

"Chuck" Kirchner

John Moehring

Eugene Burger

Tom Jones

Eddie Gibson

"Fast" Eddie Silverman

Kenneth Silverman

Paul Diamond

Peter Diamond

Steve Baker

Kevin King

Celeste Evans

Tim Glancey

Ian Ogilvy

Trevor Dawson

James Hamilton

Mike O’Dowd

Bill McIlhany

Michael Giles

Harold Greenbaum

Philip Morris

Ray Goulet

Lee Delano

Fantasio (Ricardo Roucau).

Deanna Shimada

Heidi Larsen

Johnny Fox

Happy New Year! I've got mine. Have you ordered yours yet? Click on the graphic above to visit Amazon.com and purchase your 2018 calendar while helping supprt The Magic Word Podcast. Or you can Click Here.to visit the Amazon.com site for more inform… — Happy New Year! I've got mine. Have you ordered yours yet? Click on the graphic above to visit Amazon.com and purchase your 2018 calendar while helping supprt The Magic Word Podcast. Or you can Click Here.to visit the Amazon.com site for more information. Thank you and Happy Holidays!

335: Howard Hamburg - Voices from the Past

Howard Hamburg has been around a long time...a very long time. And he has conferred with and confided in the some of the legends of our magical art. You name them, and Howard has a true, first hand story about them. Howard brings history alive with his marvelous stories of personal relationships with legendary magicians. There are some great stories in here and some performance tips along the way, too. At the beginning of this podcast, Howard talks about his attendance at "Escorial" in El Escorial, Spain which is an invitation-only card magic convention hosted by Juan Tamariz.

A spectator places ANY 2 face-up spot cards on the table the magician removes a joker from his deck and places it face up onto the table as well. The performer mentions that the number 7 is considered a lucky number among Americans, the number 8 is considered a lucky number by the Chinese, but 13 is the performer's lucky number for certain cards in the deck.

Time Stamps for this podcast:

00:04:35 - Howard talks about the "Escorial Convention"

00:17:15 - Howard begins his stories about magician friends beginning with Michael Skinner

00:43:16 - Eric Citron, owner of The Great American Magic Company is introduced as our new sponsor

00:48:11 - Howard resumes our conversation talking about how different his generation was from others.

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272: Time for Change with Cosmo Solano

Follow the money.

Cosmo Solano is a magic creator. His first creation that caught the attention of most magicians was his Quantum Connection (a.k.a. "Q") and later his International Pocket Change. Both took years of Research and Development before he was ready to take anything to market. Certainly there are those occasions in the world of "simultaneous inspiration" in which the same idea is thought of and worked on by someone else somewhere in the world. But our measure of who created it first is largely dependent upon who actually got it to market first.

In this podcast, Cosmo Solano talks about his creation of "International Pocket Change" and his conversations with Gregory Wilson.who marketed"Exact Change". He talks about the chronology of the creation and how the two differ. This is a rather sensitive subject for Cosmo and he was reluctant to publicly discuss the matter. But I believe he thought it was important enough to contribute to the conversation and perhaps encourage others to speak "on the record" about their experiences of dealing with Gregory Wilson.

This chat moves along our conversation of "magic thievery" in our community and will hopefully encourage others to share their stories here, on forums, and/or in the social media. #MagicCereal

From the creator of SHOPAHOLIC!, "Q" and NEWSWORTHY!comes an organic, all natural magic effect with everyday objects! International Pocket Change (a.k.a. IPC) is an easy to do, entertaining and MIND BLOWING effectwhere your AUDIENCE predicts the amount of pocket change you have in your pocket!

Available at www.hocus-pocus.com. Your 1-100 prediction is right on the money! *Easy to do *Start clean and end clean *36 remarkable routines

Cosmo tells us his side of the story in conversations with Gregory, much of which he was not just recalling from memory, but from notes he made at the time during their conversation.

He also talks about his cynicism of sharing his creative ideas with other magicians and how he no longer has an interest in marketing anything to the magic community in the foreseeable future. He also talks about his Quantum Connection trick that launched his name as a magic creator. He concludes with saying that some magic being released today is not particularly "quality magic" but feeds the appetite of voracious magicians. He is optimistic about the future of magic as long as we recognize those who are the creators and do not feel we are "entitled" to everything. He suggests that people new to magic give back to the community rather than just taking from it.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here.

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