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No. 19
- Monday 1st February 2010 Next update Monday
15th February 2010
The Munster Society of Magicians will host a
lecture by Ali Cadabra next Monday 8th February at 8 30pm in The South Court Hotel,
Limerick. Ali Cadabra, from London, is a well known children's entertainer there and
has previously lectures at the prestigious Kidology conference.
The Mystic Circle of Magicians held their
President's Dinner back on the 21st of January and a great turnout were welcomed by
current President Fred Corvenio. Magi in attendance were treated to a superb
lecture from Roy Davenport. Roy comes form a dynasty of performers, the
Davenport family, and his respect, love and appreciation of our craft shines through.
His lecture consisted mostly of manipulation techniques, and while much of it will most likely
be beyond the technical grasp of many present, it was a joy to watch. All explained in
the beautiful comedic hilarious nature that Roy exudes.
Lecture over and time for tea. Over 45 sat for dinner. Outside
of conventions it is very rare for our community to gather and catch up in the way we did this
night, as mentioned by Mystic Circle President Fred Corvenio in his address. Fred also
informed us that the Mystic's one day bi-annual convention will again take place this year in
Drogheda around October / November time. Keep an eye on IrishMagicNews for details when they
become available.
We laughed and joked our way through our soup, chicken and dessert.
Paddy Ward even managed to sneak a kiss from our very attentive and attractive Romanian
waitress. Well sneak might be too mild a word ... but I digress. Dinner over
and on to our cabaret show. Against a spider backdrop we lapped up entertaining spots from
Roy, Fred Corvenio and Ruairi O'Connor with Roy returning to close to show to thunderous
applause. Roy's stagecraft is an utter joy to watch and a lesson to us
all.
Your editor knows only too well the challenges and hardships one endures
when organising an event like this. Plaudits must go to Fred and all the guys at the Mystics
for putting together a great night. Kudos also to those who turned up, many travelling from
far flung places such as Belfast, Limerick and Arnott Street, Dublin 8. It was the
perfect tonic to those January blues.
You can view our flickr photo stream of the night below. By clicking
on the photo stream as it is playing you will be brought to our flick page where you can view full
size versions of the photo's.
Speaking of flickr. We have decided to
add a flickr Gallery page to our website. This will document any and all events we
attend. If you attend Irish magic events that we are not present at please consider
taking a few snaps and sending them to us. We will upload them to our flickr page
for all to see. You can access our flickr page at any time by clicking on our flickr
gallery image in the right panel.
Paddy Gibson is a name some of you may remember from
Issue 14. Young Dublin based magician Paddy came second in the stage section and won
the originality prize at the most recent J-Day. J-Day is The Magic Circles' Young
Magician's Club convention. Footage of the act Paddy performed has been posted on his
Youtube channel. Enjoy!
Tony Baloney aka Anthony Galvin
will present his Komando Konjuring for Kids lecture for the SBM on
Tuesday 8th February at 8:30 pm in The Victoria Hotel in Cork. Tony Baloney has
made his living entertaining children for fifteen years, performing all over Ireland, as well as
seasons in Lapland, Greece, and further afield. In this lecture he shares his experiences and
ideas on routining and making magic entertaining. The lecture is free to any bone-fide
magician. Full details are available from the Southern Brotherhood of Magicians
website www.sbm-magic.com
MagicMart is the new buy
& sell service for the Irish Magic Community by IrishMagicNews. Whether you are
looking for a particular item or wish to sell some effects, costume, AV or sound equipment
this is the place to let the entire community know. For the moment we intend to work
this on an honours system. We let the seller advertise your goods for
sale. We will include the sellers contact details. Prospective
buyers may contact the seller directly. We ask buyers to let the
seller know they found them through IrishMagicNews. We hope the seller
will keep an accurate record of the goods sold through IrishMagicNews. All we ask
for is a very reasonable 10% from the seller. We hope this sounds fair to all of
you. Obviously this system is wide open to be abused but we hope our good
will, open minded trust and good standing within the community here will make it work for all
concerned.
This offer is only open to private individuals and not intended to be
used by dealers to offload stock. IrishMagicNews will bear no responsibility as to the
condition of items and encourages the seller to carry out due diligence. Any transaction
conducted is between the buyer and seller only. IrishMagicNews is simply a vehicle for
connecting you.
To kick off our MagicMart we have a number of items for
sale from Dublin magician RuairÍ O'Connor. If you have an interest in any of
the items listed below you can contact RuairÍ by emailing him here. Don't forget to let him know you found his
stuff on IrishMagicNews.
Magic Effects
Templar (Outlaw Effects) € 90 Cobra Sharpie (Alakazam) € 65 Quarte (Gaetan Bloom) € 200 Red Carpet (Palter) € 120 Pro Wooden Mult Billiard Balls Red € 25 Smash and Stab (Dobson/Rose) € 85 Stainless Steel Blindfold (Osterlind) €
45 Add a Number Pad Leather(Mentalist Pad Jerry O Connell) €
30 Mind Spy Wallet Leather (Alakazam) €
45. Fabulous Cicada Bugboard (Jon Riggs - Impression Device
examinable) € 60.
PA
Yamaha SPX Pro Mixer € 125
DB Technologies Entertainer S400 PA System €
600.
Keith Barry, currently on tour
with The Asylum, appeared on TV3's Xposé on the 28th January. Keith, featured working out
with celebrity trainer Paul Byrne, is staying in shape for his run of dates around the
country. You can check out all the tour info on www.keithbarry.com and to view the
Xposé piece click on the grab on the left which will bring you to TV3's website. Then just
scroll through their clip library. Speaking of Keith, we have added a few snaps we took at
The Asylum show in Dublin's Olympia Theatre to our flickr page. See how many magicians your
recognise, other then Keith that is.
Thank you to James
Hobart who becomes our most recent Leprechaun. It is
though donations like James' and those of all our Leprechauns so far that this site continues to
thrive. Thank you one and all. If you or your club or society would like to throw some
money in our tip jar you can do so through PayPal by clicking on the Become a Leprechaun
Button directly below our banner. If you are not in to the PayPal thing we do also accept
postal donations by cheque or in person donations also.
That's it for another
fortnight. Remember if you have any news let us know. Also please consider taking
some pics at events you attend for our flickr page. Till next time, take
care, Brendan.
Special Update - Tuesday 19th
January 2010
With 100 days to go to The IBM Ring 85 Convention
in Belfast this coming May online registration is now available on the Ulster Society of
Magicians website. A great weekend awaits and those who register before 1st March will be
entered into a free draw, the winner of which will win their convention registration
back. Head over to the USM website and register now by clicking on the BOOK ONLINE NOW
icon below.
No. 18 - Monday 18th January 2010 Next update Monday
1st Febuary 2010
Fred Corvenio, President of The Mystic
Circle of Magicians will host his President's dinner on Thursday coming, the 21st of
January at the North Star Hotel, Amien Street, Dublin 1. Roy Davenport will star as
the special cabaret act. Roy will not only perform a cabaret spot but will also deal
and lecture.
The night will start with Roy dealing from 6 - 7pm. From 7 -
8 pm Roy will present his acclaimed lecture. This is followed by a 4 course dinner
which is followed by a cabaret show starring Roy Davenport. This fantastic
jam-packed night is unbelieveable value at €35 a head.
We, as magicians here in Ireland, rarely get to socialise at events such
as this. It is a wonderful opportunity to relax with seldom seen friends. For those travelling from outside the pale The
Mystic Circle have organised terrific rates with the North Star Hotel. B & B is
€59 per room. This rate is a room rate so whether you are staying alone or sharing a room B & B is included for up to two people at this
rate. You can contact the North Star Hotel on Tel: +353 (0) 1 8363136 or see
http://www.northstarhotel.ie
If you are planning on attending this event please contact Mystic
Circle President Fred Corvenio on +353 (0) 86 7272600
SPONSORED POST
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The starting price point for a unique and smart looking site is remarkably
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David Penn lectured at the SIM the first Tuesday of
Febuary and Nevin Cody reviewed it for IrishMagicNews.
I was not sure what to expect from David, I have seen a
few of his DVD’s, some bits on you tube and over the years saw him demo effects on his stand
at convention. If I was to be honest it was a January night with snow and ice all over
and I was tempted not to take the journey from Kilkenny to Dublin. But boy, am I glad I took
that journey?
David delivered a very polished lecture and all real-world
workers. He believed and speaks about how we need to deliver top quality magic when
performing. Our art requires it and one comment he made stuck with me when we perform magic
we “change people’s memories forever." Wow,
think about it. That’s what we do and that goes too for a bad performance. We
still change their memory but not for the good of our art. The first half of his lecture took
us through a number of effects starting with the production of a glass of water one we have
seen before from Pat Page and David took us through some changes he worked on with Pat. He
then moved on to the production of an eight ball and his full routine around this. He had
some lovely thoughts and effects for business cards especially his business card transpo. I
would be very surprised if some of these ideas did not make it into some of the member’s
sets.
It was very clear David regularly works for lay audiences
and was able to answer all question put to him with some of he’s real life experiences. One
very good example for me was when he was looking for his coinvexed coins and as he searched
and struggled to find them he was explaining if we were a real audience he would be doing
another trick. Its always nice to see when you get someone who is thinking and not just going
through the motions of their lecture.
The second half was mainly about the topit and how to work
with it and reset between tables. This was fantastic and very magical. In the
days after, talking to a few who had attended, all conversation was about the topit. It
reminded me of a story from Paul Daniel’s when doing his chop cup around different locations
in the early days and Ken Brooke would always know where he had been. When Paul asked him one
day how he knew Ken told him that’s where the orders for the chop cup would come from. I can
see an order for some topits going some dealers way after seeing David perform. David also
discussed approaching tables and how to get everyone at the table involved. He finished with
his coinvexed routine and a very nice fork bending routine for reception walk around work.
Over all it was a fantastic lecture lots to think about for all of us tempted to say IT WILL
DO and learn an effect this week and are out doing it the next. Remember we “CHANGE THEIR
MINDS FOREVER” so we have a huge responsibility to deliver the best the audience deserves it
our art deserves it and your fellow magicians deserve it. For those of us who were there we
will all remember the rose trick, an amazing mind reading effect, one I am sure everyone will
do at some stage in the future... but lets leave that one for
ourselves.
“The world’s a stage and most of us are desperately
unrehearsed” (Sean O’Casey)
Keith Barry brought his Asylum show to the
Olympia for an almost sold out run of 5 nights earlier this month and IrishMagicNews were
invited along to report on proceedings for you.
The first show of Keith's five night stand in Dublin fell on
probably the coldest and most closed-roaded night in living memory in the capital.
Despite this a crowd of almost 900 people, including Danny from The Script and
girlfriend Irma, turned out to witness a show that they lapped up from beginning to
end.
Based
loosely on the crazy and mad goings on in Asylums, with many of the routines referencing
actual events that have been recorded in such institutions, Keith weaves his way through
predicitons, premonitions, memory and savant demonstraions. Of
particular interest to magicians will be a very nice & original presentation for
MM's Kurotsuke which allowed plenty of scope for comedy and a nice touch
on a gumball prediction popuralised by another well known American mentalist.
In the second half of the show Keith induces manifsations in audience
members to illustrate the typical disorders that patients in asylums suffer from. It is
in essense a stage hypnosis bit. The is the first tour Keith has performed a full stage
hypnosis segment in. While he certainly knows what he is doing a little more experience
will add tons of business to this segment.
Keith has huge rapport with the audience, is very likeable and personable on
stage and since the last time your editor saw Keith live, on his very first tour, has come to
feel very comfotable on a big stage.
Keith has had a few nay-sayers in the magic business over the
years. What you can't knock is that the guy is doing
the business, putting bums on seats in tough economic times and is now a big star to who it
matters, the paying punter. Keith is a man who is not afraid to work hard either.
Early morning radio shows, paper interviews, TV spots, turning up to this and that, are all
part of the job description. Most people don't realise the sacrifices one makes.
Therefore any rewards are well justified.
Keith did hint he will return in the summer for some more shows so if you
missed it this time round you don't have too long to wait for round two. For all tour
information see www.keithbarry.com
The Manchurian Approach: Hypnosis for
Magicians with Anthony Jacquin. Harry Guinness writes to let us know that Anthony Jacquin
will present a weekend hypnotism workshop on the 27th & 28th February in Dublin City Centre.
At a venue yet to be confirmed the event is open to anyone with an interest in hypnotism. The cost
of the workshop is €450. Full details from Harry below...
Concepts Become The Hypnotist. Learn an observation/attitude-based hypnosis
model. Learn how to perform with hypnosis. Apply it to magic
and mentalism. No history and theory lessons. Just tuition
and practice. Mixture of classroom training and public
performance.
DAY 1: In intensive practical sessions everyone will learn a solid but flexible
approach to hypnotizing. Training and supervised practice will continue in the afternoon on the street
and in bars until late.
Intro: Subject selection: Set Up: Set Piece: Inductions: Fractionation:
Testing: Re-Induction: Suggestion: Catalepsy: Corpsing: Amnesia
DAY 2: Further classroom training to cover in depth more specialized knowledge.
This will be put into the context of typical magic settings including impromptu, street, walk around,
stage and TV.
IBM convetnion Update.
Steve Dela, who is headlining the IBM Ring 85 Irish Magic
Convention, was the subject of a three page article in the January 2010 issue of Magicsen
magazine. He lectures tonight (Monday 18th January) at The Magic Circle and
currently presents his own monthly show with guest artistes in London and
Brighton.
With just over 100 days to the Convention organisers had hoped to
have online registration details available for you today. Unfortunately that is not possible but do
keep an eye on the convention page on the USM website http://www.online-usm.com/Convention.htmlwhere the forms will appear
soon.
In the mean time you can register by post. Just click on the embedded pdf
below, print it out and send it off. A jam packed weekend of magic in a wonderful
location awaits. Full registrsation is great value (see below for the various rates) and full
details on the entire convention are on our Convention 2010 page.
Full Registration £85
Saturday (excluding Banquet) £30
Saturday (including Banquet) £65
Banquet only £35
Sunday (excluding Gala) £30
Sunday (including Gala) £40
Gala Show only £10
Anyone who buys a Full Registration for the convention by Monday
1st March 2010 will be entered into a prize draw to win back the cost of their
registration.
Sad news filtered through since our last issue. Joan
Raffles, wife of Mark, sadly passed away on St. Stephens' Day at the age of
84. Irish magic was
repersented at the funeral service in Blackpool by Quentin Reynolds & Pat Fallon.
Joan was friends with many Irish magicians and was no stranger to Ireland having
performed a run of shows here with Mark earlier in their career.
Another issue under our
belts. Hope you are all enjoying all the latest news. Remember this site is possible
because of the donations we recieve. If you have been considering throwing some money in our
tip jar please do so. Or alternatively drop us a mail or send us a twitter or facebook and
let us kno what you think. See some of you at the Mystic's dinner on Thursday 21st and thanks
to Quentin for spotting some awful spelling mistakes, Brendan.
No. 17 - Monday 4th January 2010 Next update Monday 18th
January 2010
The Keith
Barry publicity machine has kicked into 5th
gear. The Irish Sunday Mirror reports onthe fury created by Keith who orders volunteers to rip up
the bible in his latest show "The Asylum" which is currently on tour around
Ireland.
According to Barry Hartigan & Stephen Maguire of
the Irish Sunday Mirror'Barry shocked members of the
audience when he instructed them to rip out pages of the Bible as part of a sick trick.
"He got them to rip out pages of the bible and tear them into little pieces. All that was
left was pieces of paper with three words 'blindness, madness and astonish' on them which he
had already written on a piece of paper. It was bizarre," revealed on
onlooker.'
The article states that Keith is trying his hand
at stage hypnotism for the first time on this tour saying "...it is
something I've not done before. It will obvioulsy be scary bit will be quite funny at the
same time, it's going to be a very twisted and crazy
show."
In response to the article on his facebook page Keith says,
"Just to be clear.
The bible is not ripped up. A single page is torn out and ripped into small pieces as part
of a Mind reading experiment..........."
While doing some last
minute Christmas shopping on the 21st December your editor bumped into Owen Lean back
busking on Grafton Street. Owen told us that he was back in Dublin for a Trinity College
event celebrating the intriguing careers graduates of their Drama faculty have gone on to
persue.
Owen was slightly dissapointed as his audience weren't in the most
generous of moods. His passing of the hat was only generating around a quater of what it would
normally. Owen went on to tell IrishMagicNews that "anything from €60 ish and
upwards would be a decent hat."
Perhaps the lack of generosity was down to the cold weather or
saving for Christmas persents or perhaps what Owen really needed was to be in the company
of Glen Hansard & Mundy who were busing later that day for The Simon Communities Longest
Day. In 45 minutes they earned close to €1000 for the homless.
Two days later Mssrs. Hansard & Mundy were joined by other musicans
including Bono for more fundraising activities. A video of this ad hoc event can be seen
below.
Dont forget David Penn will lecture for the SIM
this coming Tuesday 5th Janruary. David is one of Europe's leading corporate magicians. He
has been awarded the title of 'Magic Circle Close up Magician of the Year' and the International
Brotherhood of Magicians 'Close Up Magician of the Year'. David's magic has been seen in the
UK on four major TV series including 'FREAKY' on Channel 4, 'Astounding Celebrities' on ITV1 and
'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' on the BBC. His creative accomplishments include the critically
acclaimed 'Coinvexed' and 'Refraction' that are now used regularly by top performers all over the
world. The lecture takes place at 8pm on Tuesday 5th January in Cassidy's Hotel, Cavendish
Row, Dublin 1. Admission is free for all fully paid up members of The SIM. Members of
a recognised magic society will be charged €15 at the door. See the events page or the SIM website for more details.
Slow news issue this time
round given the time of the year. Happy New Year to one
and all and see some of you at the David Penn Lecture in Dublin - Brendan
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