Carl Ballantine passed away at age 92. [more inside]
posted by ObscureReferenceMan on Nov 9, 2009 - 14 comments

Sixteen years ago, Dungeons and Dragons aficionado Dr. Richard Garfield had an idea for a game. He mocked up a few black and white cards and then he and a friend played the very first game of Magic: The Gathering. The first modern collectible card game, Magic was a runaway success and within five years Wizards of the Coast, a company with Magic as almost its sole product, purchased TSR Inc, the publisher of Dungeons and Dragons. [more inside]
posted by 256 on Oct 28, 2009 - 176 comments

Chop Cup. There is a fault in reality. Do not adjust your mind. [more inside]
posted by lazaruslong on Oct 4, 2009 - 44 comments

Albinos often face mistrust and discrimination, perhaps because they tend to be portrayed as evil in popular culture. But in Tanzania and Burundi, weird delusions that albinos have magical powers mean that they are actually being hunted down, murdered and dismembered to harvest their supposedly magical body parts. One group of albino kids are trying to spread some sense by forming their own "magic" sports team.
posted by w0mbat on Sep 27, 2009 - 19 comments

Derren Brown: The Events. On Wednesday 9th September 10:35, Derren Brown will predict the National Lottery immediately before the draw. On Friday he will reveal how it was done. As part of a four week series for Channel 4, he will be controlling the nation live, conducting a nationwide psychic experiment and finally a special on how to beat the casinos.
posted by ashaw on Sep 8, 2009 - 324 comments

In which a chimpanzee is shown reacting to sleight-of-hand on a Japanese television show. [SLYT. Overuse of sound effects.]
posted by Liver on Aug 24, 2009 - 104 comments

Machu Picchu Post. Cute animation about an air mail pilot in the Andes and his strange encounter with a boy and his llama. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Jul 2, 2009 - 10 comments

"Necronomicons: The Scariest Book in the World" - A talk given by Daniel Harms, author of the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, on the history of the Necronomicon(s) - taking in Abdul Alhazred, John Dee, assorted aquaintences of HP Lovecraft, some rather dodgy sounding occultists from the 70s and a man known only as Simon. Previously.
posted by Artw on Jun 21, 2009 - 24 comments

She did it again. The Orlando Magic took no chances as they extended their undefeated record at home in the playoffs. The Magic remain undefeated when Gina Marie Incandela sings the national anthem(YT). Since first singing the national anthem for them in February, the team has won every game she sings at. Five years ago she was diagnosed with PDD-NOS autism and she now is a poster child for early intervention(YT). Not to get in a rut singing only the national anthem, Gina has released a CD single.
posted by geekyguy on May 30, 2009 - 30 comments

Dai Vernon chased down card cheats and swindlers to make him a better magician. It paid off. One of the best magicians of the twentieth century, Dai first made his name in 1919 when he became The Man Who Fooled Houdini. Watch his version of the classic routines the cups and balls and the linking rings. Vernon also mentored many magicians throughout his life, including Ricky Jay. Vernon died at the age of 98 after years as the Magician in Residence at Hollywood's Magic Castle.
posted by Bookhouse on May 22, 2009 - 25 comments

Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, Available in Various Sizes
She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt ... There is one thing, though, and that is that whenever I wear the wolf shirt I have a lot less issues with involuntary urination ... You are the wolf pack leader ... If you like it then you better put a wolf shirt on ... If you are planning on spending exactly $9.14 on yourself this year, this better be the purchase ... Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather.
posted by swift on May 19, 2009 - 64 comments

Dick Cavett conjures up the great Slydini. Part 1., Part 2. "It was like seeing a man walk up a wall. Nothing prepared you for it. Right at the start, a solid, heavy silver dollar, held before my eyes, vanished into thinnest air. And by no method I knew of. Certainly no sleeves. The two hours flew too quickly."
posted by Xurando on Apr 14, 2009 - 20 comments

A Crooked Gambling Supplies catalog from 1960, a 1914 Cyclopedia of 5,000 Puzzles, dozens of magic posters from the '20s to the '40s, and more fun ephemera from Old Catalog's flickr sets.
posted by madamjujujive on Mar 11, 2009 - 15 comments

Gamarjobat: well-dressed, colored-mohawk-wearing Japanese mime-magic-comedy duo. They may even fight crime, too. 1, 2, 3, 4
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing on Jan 12, 2009 - 9 comments

"Some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me." In 1979, Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher composed "The Rainbow Connection" [midi] which served as a radio hit and song for the The Muppet Movie. It was nominated for an Academy Award and reviewed in the allmusic guide as a song in which "Kermit the Frog sings with all the dreamy wistfulness of a short green Judy Garland." Enclosed are some performances of it I hope you enjoy. [more inside]
posted by cavalier on Dec 3, 2008 - 61 comments

Magic: The Election . Part 2. [more inside]
posted by casarkos on Sep 15, 2008 - 48 comments

How magicians control your mind. "Magic isn't just a bag of tricks - it's a finely-tuned technology for shaping what we see. Now researchers are extracting its lessons (PDF)." [Via BB and MH]
posted by homunculus on Aug 5, 2008 - 34 comments

The Magic Hour: The Roy Sterling Story.
posted by bunnytricks on Apr 21, 2008 - 8 comments

Celemony are a bunch of crazy German software engineers known best for making Melodyne, a family of top of the line pitch correction tools. Apparently they've recently figured out how to do what they do with polyphonic audio. I can't begin to explain how cool this is. Just watch the video.
posted by stenseng on Mar 13, 2008 - 122 comments

The Last Living Entertainer in Vegas [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Mar 8, 2008 - 19 comments

Today on Penn Jillette's video blog he mentions a hilarious crew of Koreans have ripped off an old Penn and Teller trick.
posted by byronimation on Feb 28, 2008 - 52 comments

Apotropaios contains much fascinating information about the (here, mainly British and Irish) folk magic practice of concealing objects in buildings for ritual protection purposes. Yes, mummified Ceiling Cat is averting your evil. One aspect of the practice, the deliberate concealment of garments, has provided us with insight into ordinary costume of bygone days.
posted by Abiezer on Jan 27, 2008 - 26 comments

Lightning calculator and "mathemagician" Art Benjamin goes through his paces in a 15 minute video.
posted by Wolfdog on Dec 19, 2007 - 32 comments

The Plank, classic British comedy (Youtubed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Dec 4, 2007 - 8 comments

Panties for Peace "This is a way for women around the world to express their outrage."
posted by Kirth Gerson on Oct 20, 2007 - 12 comments

RepRap is a self-replicating rapid prototype machine (3D printer) using fused deposition modelling. You can build one, although I'm not sure why you'd need to....
posted by dersins on Oct 17, 2007 - 17 comments

Ricky Jay wants to play cards. Place your bets. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse on Oct 3, 2007 - 38 comments

Irish Magic Comedian Jason Byrne expertly demonstrates a classic trick. (swearing) (lots of it).
posted by Turtles all the way down on Sep 28, 2007 - 27 comments

How do you fit Fred "Rerun" Berry, Shaun Cassidy, Howard Cosell, Kate Jackson, Hal Linden, Penny Marhsall, Kristy McNichol, Donny & Marie, Parker Stevenson, Dick Van Patten, Adam Rich, Abe Vigoda, and Cindy Williams all into a single 48 minute TV show? It would take a magician like David Copperfield, in his first television special in 1977.
posted by The Deej on Aug 18, 2007 - 42 comments

You want to waste as much time as possible before going back to work Monday morning, right? So, stay up late and watch 6 episodes of The Unpleasant World of Penn and Teller, their mid-90s show on British TV. Don't have time for all that right now? Then jump right to a card trick with John Cleese, or their unique version of the Card Stab trick. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to prepare for tomorrow's coffee break.
posted by The Deej on Aug 12, 2007 - 12 comments

Want to learn some coin tricks? There are six fundamental tricks you need to learn: the coin spin, one-finger spin, the walk down, the edge walk, the coin flip, and the coin roll. Once you have these mastered, you can do some amazing tricks with the videos and instructions at Coin Manipulation and from Expert Village.
posted by blahblahblah on Aug 1, 2007 - 13 comments

Planktoon 3D Animation. [Via Monkey Filter via Ample Sanity.]
posted by homunculus on May 3, 2007 - 5 comments

Bay Area Yuri's Night 2007 Bay Area Yuri's Night 2007 Yuri's Night Bay Area will be held at Moffett Field in the NASA Ames Research Center's massive SOFIA hangar, home to the world's largest aerial observatory. Our host for the evening is pioneering space traveler Anousheh Anasari, the first privately funded female to reach orbit. She is joined by Dr. Chris McKay, world renowned expert in astrobiology and terraformation with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames Research Center, as they welcome you to a dazzling array of interactive art installations and science demos, interwoven with musical and acrobatic performances by some of the world's finest entertainers. Complete write up. Partially via MeFi's own lannanh.
posted by loquacious on Apr 6, 2007 - 23 comments

Everybody loves Zombies. Everybody loves killing Zombies. Nobody wants to suddenly wake up surrounded by Zombies. Not when you thought you were just playing a video game.
posted by Elmore on Feb 18, 2007 - 40 comments

House of Deception is dedicated to the history of the deceptive arts, including magic, carnival sideshows and pro wrestling.
posted by amyms on Jan 9, 2007 - 23 comments

Mr. Magic's Rap Attack. An important figure in the world of hip-hop radio, Mr. Magic debuted in 1983 on WBLS-FM in New York City with the first exclusive rap radio show to be aired on a major station. Billing itself as Rap Attack, Magic's show featured Marley Marl as the DJ and Tyrone "Fly Ty" Williams as the show's co-producer. You can get down on it via this classic episode (realmedia) from December 1986, courtesy of WFMU's Aircheck archives.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese on Dec 21, 2006 - 23 comments

Do you hate David Blaine as much as I do? (~NSFW, auto-start, loud Flash video).
posted by JPowers on Nov 13, 2006 - 71 comments

The Magic of NSFW. Ursula Martinez has been discussed here before, but I searched for, and failed to find, the first link (google video).
posted by grumblebee on Oct 15, 2006 - 192 comments

Music in the Head
posted by persona non grata on Oct 4, 2006 - 24 comments

The Ecology of Magic is the abbreviated first chapter of David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous. Abram explores the intersection of phenomenology, synesthesia and linguistics to discover the magic of the alphabet, the sacred winds, and ultimately, the root of animism. Abram finds the locus of these superstitions not in an imagined metaphysical sphere, but rooted in our sensuous experience of the world around us. He attributes much of our cavalier attitude towards our environment to our separation from our own experience, and ultimately, our loss of magic. "The fate of the earth depends on a return to our senses."
posted by jefgodesky on Aug 29, 2006 - 21 comments

Women who practice magic are usually accused of being a witch, which may or may not be true. Some are young girls and some are funny. One is all of these and more [NSFW].
posted by sluglicker on Aug 6, 2006 - 10 comments

Illusions for sale : The Audience Dis*Member. The Ultimate Levitation. The Wakeling Sawing. The Classic Zig-Zag. And many, many more . If you can't conjure up that kind of scratch, you don't feel lucky or industrious, and your celebrity friends can't help, you could always try the Magic Auctions. Just watch out for that beautiful assistant!
posted by milquetoast on Nov 27, 2005 - 5 comments

The glass trick. (Note: includes embedded video. Soundtrack is mostly in Japanese but can be ignored.) I've been a magician for almost 40 years now and am up on the latest tech but I have very little idea of how the performer accomplishes what you see in this video.
posted by lupus_yonderboy on Nov 19, 2005 - 68 comments

computers can read your mind!
posted by tarantula on Nov 11, 2005 - 42 comments

Winning Souls to Christ in The World of Warcraft. There is a trend of Christian gaming enthusiasts who have flocked to Blizzard’s popular World of Warcraft game to proselytize, by violence if necessary, as evidenced by one guild leader who has engaged in “conversion duels on multiple servers where he challenges other players to duel with him. If he wins, they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.”
posted by The Jesse Helms on Sep 23, 2005 - 31 comments

Katrina: The Gathering is the latest great new collectible card game!

I almost don't know how to describe it. A brilliant, concise, very complete, and quite hilarious¹ summary of the the political fallout. It just keeps going and going and going. I think I want to play a game of it.
1 - My options are laugh or cry, so.
posted by blacklite on Sep 14, 2005 - 38 comments

Professional magician Paul Daniels has a weblog.
posted by feelinglistless on Sep 1, 2005 - 25 comments

Turtles, monks, money, and magic "Secretary of State for the Ministry of Cults and Religions, Chhorn Iem, said he had lost count of the number of fraudulent monks and gods that came to his ministry's attention....Police said the turtle was confiscated from the elderly woman, whom they did not name, and taken into protective custody....The monk was released with a caution" - A monk and an old woman tussle over a magic turtle.
posted by troutfishing on May 5, 2005 - 10 comments

Mind control revealed. Derren Brown, magician turned hypnotist, performs amazing feats of mind control and then gives away the basic psychological tricks he uses. The link is to the video clips from England's Channel 4, an article is here. Via boingboing.
posted by blahblahblah on Mar 29, 2005 - 31 comments

Crispin Sartwell is a cryptic and sensational man. The Chair of Humanities and Sciences at the Maryland Institute College of Art, he has translated the Tao Te Ching, published philosophy papers and books, maintained pages on hip hop, founded the American Nihilist Party (and gave a speech to young Democrats urging them to reconsider their votes for John Kerry), taught courses on conjuring and illusion, etc. etc. See also his essay on the pagan cult of mathematics and his thought experiment on music.
posted by painquale on Mar 26, 2005 - 17 comments