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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672: Chuck Caputo on Anverdi, a Dutch Master

This week we dip our toes into magic’s history to learn about a past Dutch Master, Antonius Albertus de Vries aka Tony Anverdi (1925-1995). Chuck Caputo keeps his memory and his apparatus alive in his collection and his recollection of Anverdi’s props and his life achievements. Anverdi may not be a name commonly known nor remembered by today’s community of magicians, but as we have more and more of our brothers and sisters excavating the lives of past masters, we benefit from that knowledge.

If you would like to view our chat via Zoom, then please enjoy this video of our podcast. Also, be sure to watch the last 15 minutes as Chuck displays some of his prized original pieces from his Anverdi collection.

This week, Chuck Caputo talks about the life of Anverdi and why he is important to our history and his relevance to our magic today. Anverdi’s creations spawned ideas that are accomplished today using digital technology that create “miracles.” And if you watch the YouTube video, you can see some of the props from Chuck’s collection in the last 15 minutes of the video.