This is not a trick review but it is a magic related review.
I recently came across a graphic novel in a comic book store called "Levitation: Physics and Psychology in the Service of Deception" by Jim Ottaviani. Here's the hype:
Hypnotic gestures.
Fancy clothes.
Lovely assistants.
These things may make the magician, but science makes the magic.
Levitation tells the amazing true story of the most dazzling illusion ever performed on stage, and features a cast of characters that seems too good to be true: The Scientist: John Neville Maskelyne, the oh-so-proper British magician and the trick's inventor. The American: Harry Kellar couldn't buy the illusion, so he found another way to get it. The Inventor: Guy Jarrett, the rough-and-tumble engineer who perfected the illusion. The Heir: Howard Thurston, the handsome and charismatic performer who inherited the act from Kellar and then, according to Kellar, ruined it.
Or did he? Join us on stage and behind it and learn not only how to defy gravity, but why people believed you could.
I was surprised after thumbing through it that it presented the history of this famous levitiation accurately according to other texts. It was a great read with superb illustrations depicting these three master illusionists.
What I find most interesting is that things have not changed much in all these years. Magicians, even very famous ones would steal what they could not buy.
At $12.99 this book is a steal and I'm giving a number of them away to my magic friends. (Oops, just gave it away!) I suggest you check out the PDf excerpt here: http://www.jeffpiercemagic.com/levitation_excerpt.pdf
Levitation can be purchased from these different locations:
www.jeffpiercemagic.com
http://www.gt-labs.com/levitation.html
or your favorite comic book store
Jeff Pierce
I recently came across a graphic novel in a comic book store called "Levitation: Physics and Psychology in the Service of Deception" by Jim Ottaviani. Here's the hype:
Hypnotic gestures.
Fancy clothes.
Lovely assistants.
These things may make the magician, but science makes the magic.
Levitation tells the amazing true story of the most dazzling illusion ever performed on stage, and features a cast of characters that seems too good to be true: The Scientist: John Neville Maskelyne, the oh-so-proper British magician and the trick's inventor. The American: Harry Kellar couldn't buy the illusion, so he found another way to get it. The Inventor: Guy Jarrett, the rough-and-tumble engineer who perfected the illusion. The Heir: Howard Thurston, the handsome and charismatic performer who inherited the act from Kellar and then, according to Kellar, ruined it.
Or did he? Join us on stage and behind it and learn not only how to defy gravity, but why people believed you could.
I was surprised after thumbing through it that it presented the history of this famous levitiation accurately according to other texts. It was a great read with superb illustrations depicting these three master illusionists.
What I find most interesting is that things have not changed much in all these years. Magicians, even very famous ones would steal what they could not buy.
At $12.99 this book is a steal and I'm giving a number of them away to my magic friends. (Oops, just gave it away!) I suggest you check out the PDf excerpt here: http://www.jeffpiercemagic.com/levitation_excerpt.pdf
Levitation can be purchased from these different locations:
www.jeffpiercemagic.com
http://www.gt-labs.com/levitation.html
or your favorite comic book store
Jeff Pierce