078: Part 1 - The End of the World/Year Podcast

"This is the end, my only friend, the end. Of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that stands, the end. No safety or surprise, the end.” – Jim Morrison, The Doors.

Is the Mayan calendar predicting the end of days correct? Maybe yes and maybe no. But why tempt fate? When is the last time you said that you would do such and such, “if it is the last thing I ever do,”? Well, time may be growing short my friend and now could be the time to do that “last” thing. Whether it’s talking to a long lost friend, forgiving someone, or telling someone you love them, now is the time for all good men (and women) to do what needs to be done. But if December 21st comes and goes with a fizzle, then by doing that “last thing” will be one more thing you can cross off your bucket list.

But one thing is for sure, it is the holidays and I want to celebrate the season and also my one year anniversary of The Magic Word with 77 podcasts in the archive since August 10, 2011. Okay, my calendar is off and it’s actually more than one year. Maybe I have a little Mayan blood in me. So this extended podcast is my holiday gift to you.

This podcast is “Ginormous”, as my grand daughter, Sarah, would say. It is definitely epic with interviews with magicians from around the country, over the border and across the ocean. I talked with a sampling of 15 magicians whom you may know and some you may not. But the variety of topics and their perspective on each subject is more than just a little fascinating. I focused our short chats on their areas of expertise.

But it seems that I was more than just a little ambitious in trying to keep these “brief”. And in the end, I had nearly five hours of interviews. So, rather than uploading this in one long “Ginormous” podcast (at over 130MB), I broke it up into smaller bytes of five, back-to-back podcasts. They are mostly unrelated to one another; however, there is a thread that goes through some of the discussions: the importance of youth involvement in our art to ensure the life, health and future of magic.

To make it easier to locate the chat(s) with the people you want to hear, here is a time chart of where we start the conversations with the following people in this Part One:

00:02:12 – Richard Kaufman, editor and publisher of Genii Magazine, gives us a peek at The Genii Speaks column for January 2013 where he talks about the death of printed magazine and the rise of digital editions. Plus we talk about the rise and fall of desktop publishing in magic and its evolution into less writing and more talking and performing on videos on sites like YouTube http://www.geniimagazine.com/

00:28:58 – Marc DeSouza talks about the magic lecture circuit: the importance of what is being taught, the difficulty of going on tour, and the level of interest and attendance at lectures.

00:45:57 – Banachek discusses the state of magic and mentalism on television now and in the future. http://www.banachek.com/

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069: T.A.O.M. Day 3 in Houston, TX

The third and final full day was jam packed with even more great lectures plus the performances of the professional close-up artists. And the evening show really rocked with The Rhythm of Magic, Losander, Danny Cole and Dani DaOrtiz all hosted by Eric Mead.

I chatted today with Craig Fillesetti about his company, Promystic (http://www.promystic.com/) that produces some of the world's finest and most reliable electronic equipment for the complete conjurer. They have a new product that is worth a look. Next I talked with Losander about the state of the economy in Las Vegas as it applies to magicians, plus some moral and ethical issues dealing with undercutting your fellow magicians. Oscar Munoz weighed in with his opinion of how the convention has been going. Just before our conversation, we learned that Past President Bob Karlebach had died earlier in the day. The conversation turned rather serious as we talked about our own mortality. Next we talked with Richard Kaufman about some of the rich history of Genii magazine (www.GeniiMagazine.com) and the 75th anniversary party for Genii that he is throwing in Florida (www.GeniiConvention.com). Richard also shared his veiwpoint and predictions of the print media as it relates to the magic magazine industry (do you think magic magazines only have about ten years left before everything is digital?) Then finally we did a wrap of the convention with Chip Romero, one of the performers at this year's convention who will be featured with his larger show in Dallas at next year's TAOM convention in Dallas, TX (www.TAOM2013.com).

Download a MP3 file of this podcast by Clicking Here then right click to save the file. You can also download the MP3 media file directly from the RSS feed by Clicking Here.