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One celeb returns to magic ... |
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DOUG REDUX -- The long-missed Doug Henning has been turning up in magic shops across the country
as noted in internet chitchat and in "A Conversation With Doug Henning " (Michael Edwards,
Genii, September 1999). Doug's new web
site (check our Favorite Links) promises some sort of official return in
"Doug Henning's World of Magic 2000." One hopes that the 8-page interview in Stan Allen's MAGIC
in October will at least partially unravel the mystery that surrounds this elusive
and beloved performer.
INTERNET GIRL -- Melinda, featured here last month, will soon host her own web site at www.melindamagic.com,
currently under design by Gary Ouellet's son, Ryan. It will, we trust, lavishly exploit its
highly photogenic subject as it explores her continuing successes in magic.
WILD ABOUT HARRY -- The Harry Potter books mentioned here in June and July 99 have become a wildly
successful publishing phenomenon. Book stores are hosting Harry Potter Wizard Parties
to celebrate. Sign at Borders: "Wear your wizard robe, if
you have one, and please refrain from doing magic until the time of the party."
This might be an
opportunity for some enterprising magicians to capitalize on, but you will have to
be awfully good and awfully knowledgeable about J.K. Rowling's wizard world.
BLACK ART, BLACK HOLES -- In the current issue of Skeptic (Vol. 7, No. 2), magician Bob Friedhoffer describes
his performance of magic for physics whiz Stephen Hawking. Clearly impressed, Hawking
quipped, "That's why I'm not an experimental physicist. You can never believe the
evidence."
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September 1999
MORE BUZZ -- Salon columnist Cintra Wilson again skirts magicland with her
9/15/99 piece, "Entertainment Dies Bleeding in a Vegas Men's Room -- Olé!"
This hipchick journalist, who looked down at magic and Ricky Jay and up at Davids
Blaine and Copperfield in her 5/5/99 "Survival of the Cutest," reviews the fringes
of the Las Vegas entertainment scene. Of interest to magicians, she attempted
to sit through a performance of Dr. Naughty, The World's Foremost X-Rated Comic
Hypnotist,
at the Bourbon Street Casino, where the show drinks featured Blow Jobs,
Buttery Nipples, and Sperm Counts. Eight f-words into the act she walked out
and demanded her money back. Can you do that in Las Vegas? Moving on up (or down,
depending on your tastes) the entertainment food chain, she then sat through
the show predicted to replace Siegfried and Roy's. "Danny Gans is
human filth" was about the nicest thing Cintra could think to say in an impassioned
and highly entertaining skewering of this wildly popular Las Vegas impressionist.
She envisions a bizarre suicide pact carried out by Siegfried and Roy over their
being followed by this act. If her assessment is true, one wouldn't
blame them. Check her archived columns for all the dirty details.
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AUF WIEDERSEHEN -- For all of us high school nerds with our Grant Crystal Silk Cylinders and
our Hippety Hop Rabbits, David Copperfield achieved for us at least partial
validation for our interest in magic (and its associated romantic stigma) when
he began dating the incomparable Claudia Schiffer. Wags called the relationship his best
trick, and David would probably agree. The affair, alas, is over, rating a Time
news clip (Sept 20) and one last look at this photogenic couple. We'll miss you,
Claudia. Don't be a stranger.
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