890: Katherine Rhodes - Minds Blown

The Magic Circle Past-Vice President and current Examiner, Katherine Rhodes is a powerhouse of a stage performer. She specializes in mentalism and has a unique take on how she creates and performs her show. Katherine also has her light aircraft pilots license (though we never got around to talking about that) and she frequently travels outside the U.K. to present her unique brand of mentalism. She has had long term residencies at venues where she has honed her craft over the years, and the proof is in the results.

This week Katherine Rhodes tells us about her unique perspective performing magic from the distaff side. There are not a lot of female mentalists in the world, but Katherine is one that reigns high among her peers whether male or female. In this episode she also talks about the Magic Circle and the examination process one must go through to belong to this prestigious organization.

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886: Laura London - An Honest Cheat

Laura London exemplifies class, intelligence, and respect. She is the Deputy Librarian for The Magic Circle (TMC) the Counsel Chairperson under President Marvyn Berglas. She has had her own one person show “Laura London: Cheat” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and is now working on a new show. She has appeared on several BBC radio and television shows including Penn & Teller Fool Us. She is often seen in the U.S. at MAGIC Live! where she has twice lectured. She is interested in the history of our art, particularly some of the women in our magical heritage and she is a frequent performer at high end functions throughout the U.K.

In this episode, Laura tells us about her love for books and research as it has led her to a better understanding of where we as magicians, and in particular, women magicians have come from so she can better plot her own future and help write her next one-person show. She has had great help from her friends and mentors such as R. Paul Wilson, Paul Kieve, and Fay Presto. She also gives some great advice on how to be comfortable in performing and in approaching disparate groups while performing strolling magic.

This week’s episode is sponsored by the 50th (and maybe final) Winter Carnival of Magic. It begins next week, so please consider attending because it will be epic. Trust me!

767: Randy Wakeman - I've Been Around for a Long, Long Years

Randy Wakeman has been around for many decades and was often seen lecturing and performing at magic conventions. Nonetheless, I have always seen him as an “underground” magician who appeals to the true sleight-of-hand experts. He is one of those guys who has “been there, done that, has the t-shirt” as he was one of the regular performers about the Chicago Bar Magic Scene before the turn of the last century. He has written several books on magic (card magic mostly) and is still relevant in our community as a performer, teacher and author.

While at the recent Senior Tour close-up convention in St. Louis, The Magic Word spoke with Randy as part of the convention report content. He was preparing for a workshop, so we didn’t get a chance to go in-depth as I had wanted. But we agreed to get together at the 4F convention in Buffalo a couple months later. True to his word, we sat down to complete our chat which results in this episode. The content of our chat in both places was a little disjunctive, so the editing required us to put the second conversation first then plug in the chat in St. Louis and finish with our talk while in Buffalo. This sounds more confusing that it actually is, but I know you will understand and enjoy our chat.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here