November 13, 2009 – Friday the 13th

The Magician’s Foundation Inc. held their Annual Stage Magic Competition in Phil-Am Theater last November 13, 2009 and it was Friday the 13th. And I think it was successful. It was directed by my good friend Rannie Raymundo and hosted also by my two good friends, The Chubster and Ruther who did a very good job in entertaining the audience while the contestants were preparing for their act. I was there as one of the judges for the competition.

I haven’t been into magic gatherings for quite some time that’s why I am a bit excited to be there and seeing and chatting with some old time magical friends like Lou Hilario, Leodini, Rael, Boy Alvis, George Mamonluk, Alex Lagula, Bibo Ablay, Tony Paler and many more. Glenn “Yoyo Master” Angeles was also there and did an excellent performance as an opening number. And by the way, my son, Herc Galahad is protesting why Yoyo Master didn’t win in the competition that night! Hahaha!

I forgot to mention that Paul Pottasy was also there watching and taking pictures!

As I have said earlier the competition went well and most of the contestants are really good BUT I did not enjoy it that much!

Why? Because instead of me enjoying the performances, I was judging it! You know as a judge, aside from looking for the performer’s perfection of his skills, you also have to be critical of his imperfection. And that sucks! Because sometimes I really don’t want to look at the imperfections but since it’s my job to do it, so I have to do it.

But after the competition it served as a reminder to me as well. It reminded me about all the basic skills that a performing magician needs to constantly practice and be aware of. And that my 3 most important rules of magic must be strictly observed. What is “my 3 most important rules of magic”? It is practice perfectly, practice perfectly again and practice perfectly some more. You might notice that I add “perfectly” from the word “practice”. Because I don’t agree with the saying that “practice makes perfect”. I believe that it is “perfect practice makes perfect”.

It also reminded me that magic, aside from providing entertainment, is all about creating memorable illusions. It is not about the props that you wheel out on the stage but it is about the experience that you give to the audience. It is all about enchantment!

I could still well remember the wisdom that I got many years ago from the Maestro himself Rael, who was also a judge in that competition. He said that magic is not in the apparatus, it is in the magician. And after so many years of performing in front of a live audience doing big illusions, I should say that I definitely agree with him and that advice had never left my thought.

 Anyway I was happy because the majority of magicians who watched the competition and the lay audience as well agreed with the result of the judging. So, congratulations to Magfi’s 2009 Open Stage Magic Competition Champion – Master Dem and also to the rest of the winners.

Special thanks to Alakim for the trust and confidence on me to judge the competition. Congrats to every person involved in that affair! Thumbs up for the job well done!

www.hermanaquino.webs.com

www.hermanaquino.multiply.com

“Wow, I never saw it that way before…”

I think it was more than 5 years ago when Mr. Anthony Pangilinan interviewed me in his own talk show then entitled “A Second Look”. We discussed a lot of things but there is one comment that he made that somehow stuck in my mind since then. He said “Wow, I never saw it that way before…” You might be wondering what made him say that words. Well it is not what I did that made him say that but what I said about how I view our art.  I told him that magicians have always been misunderstood but its understandable since magician have always been so secretive and some magicians have also, sad for me to say, been the cause of confusion because they themselves have little knowledge if not totally ignorant of what magic is really meant for.

Sometimes you could hear some people say “I don’t want to be fooled” or “you are fooling me!” after seeing a magician does a trick. Sometimes you might also hear comments like “magic is not real and it is an insult to one’s intelligence”.  I am not saying that they are wrong to have that kind of thought because nobody wants to be fooled by anyone anyhow.  But magic is not about intelligence and fooling people, magic is about illusions and the wonderful feeling this illusions can give to us.

Some people see magic as trickery, deception, an insult to one’s intelligence. And there are also some people who are mature enough to see magic as pure entertainment, all for fun. But there are very few who saw magic as a reminder and an inspiration.

A reminder for what you might ask. A magician uses the art of deception for entertainment, its principles and techniques in convincing the people to see what logically is impossible, be made to seem possible. When the magician uses those techniques and principles and was successful in “deceiving the audience”, I believe he deserves an applause because he did his job well in entertaining his audience and the audience is aware that what they saw are just illusions. And after the show they went home happily entertained like a child with the sense of wonders that they experience while watching the magic show. That is why magic is often referred as the art of “honest deception”.

When a magician say that “I’m a magician”, he is actually saying that I will try to deceive you with the best of my effort but it is okay because you are forewarned and you loose nothing, you even gained a child like sense of enchantment even for a brief moment.

On the other hand magic is also a reminder to all of us because if a magician who is honestly telling us that what they are doing are just illusions and yet somehow, in the back of our minds sometimes we doubt that what we are seeing looks real already. And the only reason that holds us back into believing that it is real is because the magician said that it is just an illusion. Imagine what would happen if someone with a not so honest intent will use the art of magic and deny that he is using it. Just imagine how many people he will be able to deceive easily. And the magician is reminding us to be careful to “those people”. Because “those people” exist and they are very real and they call themselves various titles except the title of “magician or illusionist”.  And the most dangerous mindset that a person could have is to believe that he or she is too smart to be deceived because anyone can be deceived at some point. I have been a magician and have been practicing and still continue to study the art of magic for more than 15years and I honestly say that I could still be deceived by some of my fellow magicians. Because knowing the secret and the principles of magic and being aware that magic is being used is not a guarantee that you will never be tricked by a magician. So a magician is our friend who is always reminding us to be very careful and cautious to “those people” because you see “those people” everyday and they all look credible, intelligent, sincere and honest. And “those people” use the art of deception on you without you being aware of it.  “Those people” are the ones that had to be exposed!

Magic as an Inspiration? How? Well, I could probably explain this in a very few words. If you see a magic show, and I mean a really good magic show with a very convincing magician, you could say in your mind that “here is an ordinary man who seems to be able to do impossible things. I am also an ordinary man and maybe if I tried hard enough I might be able to do something that I once thought is impossible too. I may not be able to make doves appear out of thin air or cut a woman in half but I could probably do something that I thought I could not do before.” And when you saw someone being cut in half on the stage, just like in a movie, you know that it is just an illusion but why does the magician do it? Maybe, the magician is saying that sometimes we experience some kind of problems in our life that seems to be too much for us to bear that we feel we are being torn apart. And then the magician on stage will do something impossible, he will restore the divided body as if telling us that if you really needed help, there will always be someone who will help us in putting us back together in one piece, and that gives us hope.

That is the reason why Mr. Pangilinan said, “Wow! I never saw it that way!” during my interview and then he followed with, “that is very interesting!” while his head is nodding.

I would like to thank Mr. Anthony Pangilinan for being a great host and giving me the chance to think aloud about magic in his show entitled “A Second Look”. It is one of my most memorable interviews. And also thanks to Ms. Jo Palaypay for choosing me on that episode.

By the way I have a new website, you can check it at:

www.hermanaquino.webs.com

www.hermanaquino.multiply.com

The world’s greatest magician has invited the remaining top ten illusionists to his castle for a night of incredible feats. Each will perform their finest routine and whoever impresses him the most wins all of his coveted secrets. However, hidden motives swirl. Someone is out to kill him instead! Slip past fiendish puzzles and hide from shadowy figures, where nothing is as it seems. Find the culprit before it’s too late!

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

The Conjurer

Sorry Martin but Britain is obsessed with Derren Brown. For those out of the loop, Derren is a British magician, illusionist and a mentalist. He recently successfully ‘predicted’ the national lottery which can be seen here:

As you can see he didn’t ‘predict’ anything, he merely recited the numbers after they were drawn. The trick is how he got the numbers on the balls. One punter filmed his theory which I think is spot on:

I thought it was a fantastic trick but what frustrated me to no end was the explanation which was dragged out in a one hour special a few nights after the lottery ‘prediction’. To summarise, Derren apparently predicted the numbers by asking a group of 24 people to guess them. Once he had their answers Brown said he added up the numbers for each ball and divided them by 24. A BBC article outlines this much better than me. He uses the term ‘Deep Maths’ to describe this ridiculous process.

I was very disappointed  to see Derren pass a trick off as fact. Despite ending his explanation with ‘and it was all just a trick’, many people might have believed his explanation as fact, science or ‘deep’ mathematics. I respect that magicians aren’t meant to reveal their secrets but if they do decide to give an insight into their art, they should follow through and tell the truth.

Hey everyone first off I want to thank you for all the emails I received while my site was down. I really appreciate the nice words and comments you guys left me. Also thank you for your patience and understanding. For anyone who did know or is new to the site I am a Los Angeles based Illusionist. Known amongst the magic community as the Urban Illusionist I felt that my look towards magic and the reputation I had obtained captured my audiences attention very well. I decided though that I wanted to take my site down and redesign a bit and come up with new illusions. I have done that now and you will see my best and most challenging illusions and stunts coming the holiday season and all of the year 2010. Another thing that I have come back with that is different is imagine the impossible. I spoke with a few illusionists, mentalists, hypnotists, and escape artists around the country and designed imaginetheimpossible.us  It is a site that hosts multiple artists and updates you on there show dates and profession. Most artists are performing year round, traveling the country on tours, as well performing private shows in their based towns. Professional mentalist / hypnotist Paul Carpenter is coming out towards the middle of November, which we will be meeting up and discussing some ideas together as well as filming footage together. Keep up to date email me your information or add your self to the mailing list for updates and check the site regularly for new up and coming videos and information on whats new. Again thank you for the kind words and its good to be back! Shock You Soon!!!!

www.gregrileyonline.com

www.imaginetheimpossible.us

For those in South Florida, I’ll be doing a public performance of my full evening show in Miami Lakes, and will be premiering some new material in the show!

DYLAN ACE-Live on Stage!: Saturday, November 28, 2009 @ 8pm at the Main Street Playhouse (located within the Shops of Main Street), 6766 Main Street, Miami Lakes, Florida 33014, (305) 558-3737.

Tickets are only $10.00 and can be purchased at the door starting at 7pm. For more information visit my web-site WWW.DYLANACE.COM 

Hope to see you there!
Dylan
www.dylanace.com

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Already out in stores, check out the current issue of the popular Chinese weekly entertainment magazine i-Weekly, from Mediacorp Publishing Not only is there a smashing feature on J C, the man’s on the cover too!

The featured pictures are a combination of the ones from our recent  St James event on 6 Oct (see my blog posts for full details), as well as, stuff on stage from our Clarke Quay gig… the one year contract that’s now over.

We’re all geared up for our new stint at Singapore’s biggest club, St James, come January 2010. Sexy Magic/ Urban Illusions is gonna be bigger and better! If you came for our event last week, you’d been given a teaser of things to come

For J C’s thoughts on his new i-周刊 magazine feature, feel free to read his blog at www.backstagebusiness.wordpress.com

A big thank you to kind folks who alerted me about my feature on Diva Asia yesterday as well… it’s a reproduction of my article from The New Paper last weekend, where I invited them into my humble abode for the very first time.

The online news portal, which prides themselves as covering the “classy, quirky, extraordinary”, did a feature on me last year too. Click here to read it on DivaAsia.com.

I think it’s a great idea to have a news portal of sorts for women. Taking a step forward, I wonder if there would be a market for a women’s only newspaper – content directly targeted at this specific consumer group.

As crazy and bold as it may initially sound, I honestly this might just be a success because there wouldn’t be a lack of interested advertisers, good content aside. Today’s modern woman has evolved tremendously anyways.

By the way, here’s something completely random…

Okay, no one’s paying me anything to say this but I just totally love this viral video! It made me laugh out loud because it was simply hilariously wicked – and creative, current, very very hip. I haven’t had time lately to watch television, so I don’t know if there’s a TVC. It’s only online that you can play such a long commercial. Very nicely done!

It’s a very nifty idea from Samsung really, duo LCD camera screens on the front and back, considering how often it is these days that people always take self-taken “zi-pai” (自拍) pictures of themselves.

Besides the video above, check out the one below… apparently, there really is someone on Facebook called Petra Fry. Petrify. Geddit, geddit? Hurhurhurhurhur… Sorry, I’ve always been a Greek mythology geek!

What a hot and sexy modern day Medusa! Hahaha… Enjoy your mid-week Wednesday!

Magicseen magazine is Europe’s largest magic magazine and we have been featured in several articles in the past. Both Ning & I have had individual features and our “The Impossible Record” world record act was also covered in the previous issue.

The magician who was on the last cover of magicseen was none other than the living legend David Copperfield. Incidentally, he is the first ever American magician ever to be featured on magicseen magazine. Being a U.K. magazine, their natural focus is to spolight European magic talent.

This upcoming issue (Nov 2009), Ning and I have the distinction of being the first ever Asian illusionists to be featured on magicseen! This is a tremendous honour to be chosen among all the other great magic talent in this part of the world.

Presenting our cover!

The Nov 2009 issue will only be out in a few weeks but we wanted to reveal the cover on our blogs for our readers first!

We really love the cover and think it is reflective of our urban styles. (Observant readers will note that we have used this photo in a different form before.) We also wanted to create a cover that has never been seen on magicseen before. Ning holding the magazine in her hand is reminiscent of Davinci’s never-ending reflection and is a ‘magicial’ visual effects in itself.

For this issue, we did one of the most in-depth interviews ever and went into detail of our work in the last 12 months. Being a magic trade magazine, we discussed our approach to our mega illusions and performances as well as our stage characters and onstage relationship.

I also shared an original illusion design in the Masterclass section of the magazine that teaches magic effects and techniques.

Magicseen has grown by leaps and bounds over the 5 years and is a fantastic alternative to non-US magic trade magazines for the international magic community. We are so proud to put Singapore on the map in another way once again!

Thanks to everyone from the magicseen team who made this happen!

David Blaine…You would have definitely heard  about him and if you have not then am here to tell you-  David Blaine is an American illusionist and  endurance artist by Profession. He is best  known for his high- profile feats of endurance, and  has  made his name  as a performer of street and  close-up magic. He is  the one who is set and  broken  many world records.  He is also known as  “Modern  day Houdini”.

Magic got into David.  He was your regular street magician who got gigs at rich parties.  Because of  his talent and uncanny character, he was able to draw up connections to ABC.  After seeing a tape of his magic, they requested an interview and began planning a special. David Blaine: Street Magic, his first special, was the beginning of a new era. The special was not about disappearing tigers and thick  stage lights; it was the streets, real people, and David.  This had never been done before.  The show was an instant success.  People still talk about David Blaine’s levitation.  At only 24 years old, David Blaine became famous.  A few years later he released David Blaine: Magic Man, which showed him performing around the world.  His other two specials, David Blaine: Vertigo and David Blaine: Frozen in Time, only contained a few segments of his street magic.  The specials revolved around the stunts.

David Blaine became a stunt man after his idol, Houdini.  His first stunt, getting buried alive for seven days, had the approval of Houdini’s granddaughter.  He did the stunt to promote his second special, David Blaine: Magic Man.  According to a letter Magic Directory received, David Blaine: Magic Man was named after an old website.  Since then, David has been frozen alive, trapped standing on a poll over a hundred feet from the ground, and viewed hanging from a crane over the River Thames bridge in London.  He likes to get trapped in secluded areas with no food. He also hold world record of holding breath for 17 minutes and 4.4 seconds (previous record was of just 32 seconds shorter). Each stunt seems to be more dangerous.  David Blaine will probably continue performing magic and stunts to his ‘audience’ for the rest of his life.

Here are some videos of David Blaine’s Magic Tricks:

Street Magic (I)

David Blaine eats a snake and bring him back

Changes Coffee Into Money

Criss Angel (Born 1967 in East Meadow, NY) is a noted American Magician and Illusionist. He is the star of the popular A&E Series “Criss Angel Mindfreak” and is also a headline performer at the LUXOR Hotel/Casino in “Criss Angel Believe” in Las Vegas. He has appeared as himself on a number of Television series including “Las Vegas”, “Gene Simmons Family Jewels”, “CSI:NY”, and many others. He is the only magician to win the coveted “MERLIN MAGICIAN OF THE YEAR” Award twice, in 2001 and 2004. Birth name is Christopher Sarantakos.

Autograph #238 in Collection.

Iată că cei doi băieţi, e4t şi ILLusionist, s-au ţinut de promisiune şi au dat drumul maxisingle-ului “Diverse Nevoi” pe internet ca şi o introducere pentru primele lor albume solo ce vor aparea toamna aceasta. Maxisingle-ul poartă numele celor doua piese, “Diverse”, care este o piesa nouă pe un instrumental făcut de ILLusionist, iar “Nevoi” este o piesa mai veche refăcuta pe instrumentalul lui ZiQ. Înregistrarile au fost făcute în Sebeş la Splash Studio, de mix/master s-a ocupat Benzen, iar de artwork d2ok.

Tracklist:

01. Nevoi
02. Nevoi (instrumental)
03. Nevoi (acapella)
04. Di Verse
05. Di Verse (instrumental)
06. Di Verse (acapella)

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Din seria “Event” care o are Derren Brown au facut parte predicting the lottery, how to predict the lottery, si acum cea mai actuala vineri seara(trecuta), “how to controll the nation”. In acest “Special” el a incercat sa ne hipnotizeze prin intermediul televizorului sa nu ne mai putem ridica de pe scaun. Watch!

Partea 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj5SJ3THOi8

Partea 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKmN55M-gyU

Partea 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE2iryCfBHI

Partea 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVby9VC86gA

Partea 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAAVTI4LrXo

Partea 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh1lDhCwWJk

Partea 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlD05X_R-1Y

Sper sa va uitati si spor la vizionat !!

Irrational fears. Fooling yourself. Using magic to comfort the hurricane rushing through your veins. Constantly trying to reach a state of solemness, in which the real world is far away, a nightmare, and the present is silent: so calm and peaceful you are willing to forget everything you know, all the responsibilities you bear, all the weary days that lay ahead. It scares you, just the thought of it: it scares the hell out of you and you’re still wondering why. You think you could dissappear, if you just tried hard enough to erase yourself.

Sometimes I wish I were invisible, and had my own set of bodyguards to keep away all those irrational fears haunting me. Hunting me. No magic could save me, no gentle words, no excuses, no shams: it is just me facing the world. And stubborn as I am, I want to find my own way and do it my own way, otherwise I feel offended, held back, disregarded… All those critics everyday is way different than the feedback I am used to receive, and want to receive, therefore improving myself. It ain’t no deal. No compromis. Nothing.

Just one day everything will be solved. I am on the highest summit, looking down on everything that went wrong, I did wrong, I wanted to excuse for but I shouldn’t do. I know I forget easily. The happy things. Those bad things stay forever, and as I am growing older, it seems I lived on mistakes. I have to get used to it, I know. No one is perfect. But afterwards, standing on top of the mountain, there is always so much I want to say and want to do, but it will do no good. Stuck. I can’t do it again. I don’t want to do it again: I will just have to live with the fact I made it somehow.

The illusionist in fairyland. Sounds like a great job to me. Wiping away sadness, chasing away depression, enjoying the sun on my face and roaming all day long in an ever-beautiful world. Welcome to my world. Let me feel you the enchanting breeze, let me make you smile, let me make you forget all your misery…  Childish. Naive. Irrational. It is a temporary cure, and the farther you go into that serene world of yours, the harder it becomes to return to the real world.

Living with or living without the opportunity to escape the society for a while, you can’t stay there forever anyway. So then, will it make a difference, any difference at all?

OK, in the wake of Derren Brown’s seemingly amazing guess at the midweek lotto numbers, several theories on how he did it have been circulating around the net. This I think is the best one…

The Illusionist(2006)

În atmosfera începutului de secol al XX-lea, în inima Vienei, un magician misterios, Eisenheim adună tot mai multă lume la reprezentaţiile sale. Spectacolele, la limita dintre manipulare şi ştiinţă, atrag atenţia Prinţului moştenitor Leopold (Rufus Sewell), care vede în popularitatea crescândă a lui Eisenheim o ameninţare la adresa puterii lui.

Există însă o miză şi mai mare în confruntarea, tăcută deocamdată; între cei doi. Logodnica prinţului, Sophie von Teschen (Jessica Biel), este îndrăgostită încă din adolescenţă de magician. Ca să scape de rivalul său, Leopold îi ordonă inspectorului Uhl (Paul Giamatti) să găsească dovada faptului că acesta este un impostor.Un film pe care l-am revăzut!

]]> http://red4news.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/derren-browns-lottery-prediction-how-did-he-do-it/ Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:02:33 +0000 pivory1 http://red4news.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/derren-browns-lottery-prediction-how-did-he-do-it/

Derren Brown appeared to pull off his biggest stunt so far last night when he successfully predicted the National Lottery results.

The illusionist claimed to have printed his prediction on six white balls earlier in the day and these remained in shot, but facing away from the camera, throughout the programme.

After watching the live lottery announcement on BBC One, Derren walked across to the six white balls and turned them around to reveal the correct numbers.

So, how did he do it?

Discussion boards are already rife with theories and speculation about how he managed to pull off the trick.

One popular suggestion is that there was a slight time delay in the BBC’s broadcast of the lottery draw and someone had given Derren the numbers just ahead of the broadcast.

Others believe that the programme used a split screen effect which allowed someone to arrange the correct balls once the result had been announced.

Or, perhaps the balls were sitting on a special device which printed the numbers onto them as soon as they were revealed on the BBC show?

Derren claims to have spent a year working on this latest trick – did he simply work out a system where he could predict the numbers? And how can we get our hands on this information??

All will be revealed – apparently – in a special programme at 9pm on Friday night on Channel 4. In the meantime, we have our own theory about how we think he did it but we are interested to hear what you think. Watch it again on the clip below and then let us know…

OK people, can anyone please tell me (and make sure you whisper it) how illusionist Derren Brown was able to guess/ predict / cheat the winning lottery numbers before it was drawn? Evidently, prior to the British midweek lotto, Mr Brown wrote six numbers on six white balls and left them in full view of the audience. After the lotto draw he revealed the numbers he had chosen and they were the same as the winning numbers and in the same order as they were drawn whats more. Come on skeptics tell me how it’s done? This is why David Copperfield gives me the shits!

Psst He was not allowed to purchase a lotto ticket for this draw.

http://www.thedailydust.co.uk/2009/09/07/derren-brown-to-predict-lottery-numbers-live-on-tv/

Tonight, a british illusionist will try and predict the lottery on live tv.

Check out the article

Cheers

–Pres

EDIT:

http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2009/09/events-win-national-lottery/

Heres his blog.

He predicts it at 10:35 pm on channel 4.

Cheers

–Pres

Coimbra acolhe, pelo 12º ano consecutivo, mais uma edição dos ENCONTROS MÁGICOS, a maior manifestação cultural das artes mágicas do nosso país, que integra sessões de Magia na Rua, no Hospital Pediátrico de Coimbra, no Estabelecimento Prisional de Coimbra e duas Galas Internacionais de Magia, no Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente.

A iniciativa contempla várias sessões diárias de Magia de Rua, em diferentes artérias da Baixa da Cidade, uma sessão de Magia no Hospital Pediátrico de Coimbra e uma sessão de Magia no Estabelecimento Prisional de Coimbra. As duas Galas Internacionais de Magia são o ponto alto da iniciativa, ocasião em que sobe ao palco do Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente um leque de mágicos considerados entre os melhores da actualidade, a nível mundial.Durante seis dias, palcos de vários formatos e para públicos distintos acolhem diversos artistas, cuja versatilidade, singularidade e qualidade transformam Coimbra na “capital da ilusão”, na cidade de encontro de culturas mágicas!

PROGRAMAÇÃO:
Magia de Rua _ Baixa da Cidade
Galas Internacionais de Magia _ TAGV
Magia no Hospital Pediátrico de Coimbra
Magia no Estabelecimento Prisional de Coimbra

Artistas convidados:
Ivan Santacruz, Davide Sousa , Gazzo Osborne, Luke Wilson, Luis de Matos, Jordan Gomez, Marco Tempest, Mark Kalin…