It's been an interesting year. Here's a look back.
January
Due to a fire on the upper floors of the Monte Carlo Resort in Las Vegas, "Lance Burton: Master Magician" is briefly cancelled. Fortunately, the show resumes in short order. Click here to read more.
Teller (of Penn & Teller) teams with Artistic Director Aaron Posner to reimagine Macbeth as a supernatural horror show. The show debuts at the Two River Theater Co. in Red Bank, New Jersey to glowing reviews. Click here to read more.
Crackle, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company, announces the premiere of "Penn Says," an unscripted series for the Internet that stars outspoken magician, comic and pundit, Penn Jillette. Camera in hand, Jillette speaks his mind. Click here to read more.
February
Chief Judge, Vaughn R. Walker, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, dismisses a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against Uri Gellar. Judge Walker decides that the United States District Court in San Francisco does not have jurisdiction over Geller, a British subject, or an English company that holds rights to him. The controversy was over a notification sent by a corporate employee that requested YouTube take down a posted video clip. Click here to read more.
Universal Studios announces that it will overhaul its former Earthquake! attraction in Orlando, Florida and create a newly themed experience that relies on what Universal calls the first large-scale, permanent use of "musion," a variation on the Pepper’s Ghost illusion. Used here, the illusion will allow actor Christopher Walken, the star of the attraction, to seemingly interact with audiences. Click here to read more.
We learn that the talented big guy, Penn Jillette, can also dance. The 52-year-old Jillette practiced up to five hours a day and lost some 47-pounds. He was eliminated in the first round, but showed the world that he had moves beyond his famous “Blast Off” illusion. Click here to read more.
March
Comic magician Tony Douglas is added to the Las Vegas Riviera's adult-oriented "Crazy Girls" show to add comic relief. I’m sure that Douglas is great, but I have a feeling that most of the audience isn’t coming to the racy show to see magic. Click here to read more.
20th Century Fox releases "Shutter,"which features spirit photography. Spirit photography, which became popular during the mid-19th century with the introduction of film cameras and the rise of Spiritualism, was the result of believers seemingly finding images of ghosts and dead people in photographs. The theme remains popular in lots of magic and mentalism, for example, in Andrew Mayne's Ghost Vision. Click here to read more.
The Society of American Magicians Magic Center Foundation announces a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the organization’s new facility. The vision of the Foundation is to create a world-class magic center in Austin, Texas that includes a magic museum, research library and performing arts theater, a project of the Society of American Magicians (S.A.M.). Click here to read more.
April
In front of a studio audience and live TV, and after inhaling pure oxygen for 30 minutes, David Blaine breaks the world record for holding one's breath. He remained underwater in a glass sphere for 17 minutes and 4 seconds on Oprah (the former record was 16 minutes and 32 seconds). His world record, however, is short lived. Click here to read more.
Revision3 launches "Scam School" starring magician Brian Brushwood. Each episode follows Brushwood around town as he "schools" ordinary folks on how to scam friends and score points with strangers. Click here to read more.
For the entire Spring, Celebracadabra blends the world of magic with celebrities and reality television. Seven TV and film stars attempt to learn and perform magic tricks and compete for the title of "Best Celebrity Magician." Each week, the celebrities tackle a magic genre that included: close-up, stage, street, escapology and more. Celebrities were eliminated until only one was left, which turned out to be C. Thomas Howell.
The series offered conflict in true reality show style. However, the magic wasn’t inspiring enough to encourage lay-people and magicians to talk about what they had seen the next morning around the water cooler (the contestants weren’t professional magicians and even with great coaching, we simply can’t expect them to perform exceptional and entertaining magic). While the show shined at times, most people seemed indifferent to the contestants and results and there was little rooting and favorites. Click here to read more.
June
"Women in Boxes" premieres at the Cinevegas Film Festival. The film was the first to cover the story of magic assistants who distort their bodies into impossible positions while a magician cuts her in pieces, stabs her, sets her on fire, and crushes and dismembers her. Click here to read more.
July
The long awaited IBM/SAM 2008 Combined Convention occurs in Louisville, Kentucky. Some 2000 magicians from around the world gather for lectures, shows, close-up and stage contests and more. Click here to read more.
Pixar’s latest animated feature, Wall-E, featured "Presto," a short about a magician who has trouble with his strong-willed rabbit. The premise is that a stereotypical, old style magician uses real magic, a top hat, which acts as a portal to a wizard's hat, which allows him to reach through and grab and produce objects, including his rabbit. Click here to read more.
September
David Blaine’s latest special, "Dive of Death" runs on network television. His latest stunt had him hanging upside down for some 60 hours, and near the end of his special, we were treated to his version of a bullet catch. Unfortunately, the long-awaited ending, Blaine's "Dive of Death," was a disappointing and embarrassing stunt that fell flat. Click here to read my review.
"CRISS ANGEL Believe," the long awaited Las Vegas show and collaboration between Criss Angel and Cirque du Soleil, previews to select audiences. The negative feedback turns out to be the initial tip of a very negative iceberg. Click here to read more.
Jeff McBride stars in his own show, “Magic At the Edge” at the Palace Station Casino in Las Vegas. His outstanding show runs through Thanksgiving. I review his show during my visit to Las Vegas. Click here to read my review.
"The Mentalist," Gerry McCambridge, is awarded the "Merlin" Award for "Mentalist of the Decade" by The International Magicians Society. McCambridge is the first Mentalist in the organization’s 40-year history to receive the Merlin Award. During my visit to Las Vegas, I review his excellent show. Click here to read my review.
The 450-acre Orlando Florida tract for Doug Henning's "Maharishi Veda Land," his transcendental meditation theme park, is offered on the market. Henning announced the park project in 1989. Once slated for Niagara Falls, Ontario, the park was to feature rides and attractions that reflected themes of enlightenment, knowledge and entertainment. A building was to appear to be suspended over water and an attraction was to explore the molecular structure of a rose. The magic community was deprived of one of its strongest advocates when Henning left the art and pursued transcendental meditation. Tragically, Henning died of liver cancer in 2000. He is greatly missed. Click here to read more.
October
Equating "Criss Angel Believe" with "Showgirls," the infamous movie about a stripper who becomes a showgirl, Richard Abowitz of the Los Angeles Times castigates Angel's new show. The comparison to the film is not just about plot as "Showgirls" was a notoriously awful film. Again, tip of the iceberg. Click here to read more.
Magician and collector Syd Radner, long associated with the memory of Houdini, announces a new Houdini museum. The museum, which will be based in Massachusetts, will display many of Radner’s Houdini-related items and other magic props that are currently in Las Vegas. Click here to read more.
November
Kozak signs a five-year, five-million dollar deal to appear at Bob Kephart's Comedy Stop at the Trop, which is located in the Tropicana Hotel/Casino in Atlantic City. Kozak's run begins December 26th and will run indefinitely with a 6 pm show each night, seven days a week. Click here to read more.
December
During a performance of the fan illusion, an assistant is injured during David Copperfield's stage show.
A new weekly television series, MyNetworkTV's "Masters of Illusion," promises to showcase magicians from around the world. The shows, which will be filmed in front of live audiences without camera or computer tricks, will feature over 70 top magicians that include: Jeff McBride, The Amazing Jonathan, Dan Sperry, Rick Thomas, Ed Alonzo and more. The show will begin to air in January, 2009. I hope that this one is good. Click here to read more.
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