937: Jim Cunningham - The Spirit of Eugene

Jim Cunningham is the voice behind the Eli Marks Mystery Series, penned by John Gaspard. For many seasons, he was affiliated with both the Minneapolis Twins (baseball) and the Minneapolis Wild (hockey) teams. But his real passion is for all things spooky. Many years ago, he called on the Master, Eugene Burger, to help him develop a seance which he still does to this day.

In this episode Jim talks about what it’s like to be a sports announcer personality and how he gets jobs as a book reader for Audible.com books. He shares a very interesting story about how he met and got to work closely with Eugene Burger. Jim also tells about his affinity for all things that go bump in the night. This is a perfect episode for this Month of Boo.

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The winner for Week #2 was Michael Skowronski. Congratulations, Michael. A Houdini Legacy Deck of cards will be awarded to a different winner each week in October. These beautiful cards were designed by the Past National President and artist, John Midgley. If you are interested in learning more about these cards and the cause, then please visit their website at https://houdinicards.com

908: Christian & Katalina - Mind Trippers

Military veterans, Katalina and Christian Painter have made a successful career of entertaining with their two-person mind reading routine coupled with their comedy mentalism act. For many years they traveled across the U.S. together entertaining on college campuses. After a few years, they decided to “settle down” in one location and limit their travel .They found a niche market in their hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, where today they present a weekly show entitled the “Mind Tripping Show” in the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites.

This episode is a bit different from most our episodes. Typically we chat about a variety of topics with our guests. But this week we got off on a tangent from the very beginning and stayed focused on that throughout the episode. Specifically, Christian and Katalina talked about how they developed their show, how they found the venue, how they market the show, how it has evolved, and why it is still successful as they are reaching 20 years with this show. There is invaluable information in this episode, particularly if you are considering finding a venue for your show and what you need to do to prepare for it.

For more information on the New York Magic Conference, please visit: https://newyorkmagicconference.com and to learn more about the Salute to Magic and purchase advance tickets, please visit: https://salutetomagic.com

867: John Cox - What's New With Houdini?

As we end our “Month of Boo'“ on The Magic Word Podcast, we close it out on the 98th anniversary of the death of Harry Houdini who passed on Halloween (October 31st), 1926. It is fitting that we have a chat with the internationally noted expert on “all things Houdini,” John Cox. John is the blogger of “Wild About Houdini” which is a daily blog about the master of escapes. He always seems to find some interesting nugget about Houdini’s life that has been long overlooked or “escaped” his attention.

If you are more of a visual person, then you might enjoy watching our conversation that was recorded over Zoom.

This week, John Cox talks about the many variations of the “Houdini Seance” since the first one by Bess Houdini first held on the year following Harry’s death. These modern day seances includes the current “Official” one hosted by Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz and the “Original” one hosted by Tom Boldt and Bill Radner. John also tells us some details about Houdini’s trial in Germany, plus he updates us on the books he is writing including the elucidation on Houdini’s diary from his early years before he rose to his legendary status.