506: Lance Pierce - Standing on Their Shoulders

Over the years, Lance Pierce has befriended some pretty incredible legends in our industry including Roger Klause, John Cornelius and Michael Skinner. In fact, he is the author of “Roger Klause in Concert” and “The Award Winning Magic of John Cornelius” and the webmaster of The Magic Pebble online forum and the host and organizer of Pebblepalooza, an annual close-up convention in Dallas, Texas He recognizes that the work we are doing today is only because of what we building on, which is the work of the early masters in our art.

This week, Lance talks about first meeting and becoming friends with Roger Klause, John Cornelius and Michael Skinner. He also discusses the development of The Magic Pebble and the close-up convention that became an outgrowth of that forum. Lanced has much advice to share that he freely offers in this podcast.

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 or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

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.

Order your calendar from Amazon and help support The Magic Word Podcast

261: Project Alpha with Mike Edwards

After viewing the highly acclaimed documentary, "An Honest Liar" about the career of James "The Amazing" Randi, I wanted to talk with Mike Edwards, the "psychic" who was "tested" along with Steve Shaw (Banachek) over a three year period in the late 70;s to the early 80;s. I have discussed Project Alpha with Banachek many times privately, on the podcast and on an L&L Video (Psi Series Volume 4 - Psychokenisis) but I had never met or spoken with, Mike Edwards, his partner on the project.

The stars aligned with my travel plans to Phoenix, Arizona and Mike's availability so we were able to find a relatively quiet corner in an otherwise busy restaurant and record this chat. It is a completely different perspective from the one I have heard from Banachek and the revelation during the last few minutes of our conversation figuratively "bowled me over". I was not expecting that news. You might be surprised and excited once you hear it, too.

Recorded: 5/27/2010 Original Alpha Kid, Michael Edwards pays a visit to the foundation and recalls some of the behind the scenes tricks that he and Steve Shaw (Banachek) did during the MacLab test. From Wikipedia: Project Alpha was an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the stage magician and skeptic James Randi.

Click on the banner to visit the page where you can buy "all things by Banachek".

Order the DVD from Amazon and help support The Magic Word.

Rent the movie from Amazon and help support The Magic Word.