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Magic and
juggling page - stuff to look at and stuff to try
I haven't included my own complete geek list...most of these kind of
sites eventually link to each other somehow, anyhow...this is just something to get you
started on great web resources...if you didn't know this kind of stuff was out there...
| Flourishes - if you
right click, and Save Target As, you can keep little video clips for
study
Pencil
Spinning by David Weis
Pen
Spinning
Pentrix
- plenty of videos to watch (you can't really learn this in words)
Lots of links to Flourish Pages here
- playing cards, etc |
| Juggling
string figure sites which should probably be under games and
puzzles...hey ho... |
| Magic - bear
in mind a lot of magic sites will set you simple tests to get into hidden
pages - just testing if you are a complete novice. If you have done some
magic (like me) you should find most of these challenges straightforward,
but if you are devious and ingenious and persistent you might be able to
exploit Google to find the answers needed - and then you've earned access,
I reckon...
Places to learn stuff you can do
shops
(Often with demos): Be Warned: they may be ethical traders, but it's easy to spend a lot of money on
'secrets' (because the description sounds amazing) and end up with some
black thread, some obscure instructions, and a lot of practice to do!
Street
Magic from elusionist - no, they don't tell you how David Blaine does
it, and yes, they are selling you stuff (some of it is extremely good,
however)
There are some tricks
you can learn here, and stuff to buy
Warning: spoilers
if you really don't want to know how David Blaine floats or the Statue of
Liberty disappears, then just don't look, OK? I just don't want you
thinking it's some kind of superpower (there are enough religions messing
with people's minds as it is...)
* Float like David Blaine - it's an old
trick called the Balducci Levitation
(illustrated) - Wikipedia
also contains complete exposures of all the levitation methods
(words), but PLEASE REMEMBER TO PRACTICE A LOT before you show it to other people.
Simply disillusioning others is not the point.
* Making something big disappear - well
for all sorts of answers you can always go to The
Straight Dope, but I think pictures tell it better - try here
- and no, I don't feel bad about exposing stuff (I found these links with
a few moments and Google). |
| pseudo-psychic stuff
I really do hope you don't believe Uri Geller has special
powers (except to entertain) but then I am a Freethinker, so I hope you
don't believe in any gods either. That's just me - I may well be going to
your hell eventually - but it can't be much worse than living on a planet
run by people who believe in Tooth Fairies and Santa Claus ("you
can't kid me, there ain't no Sanity Clause") - and insist that to
have political power you have to (claim to) believe in Jesus -
that's really scary. Having said
that, I find that total skeptics can be awfully boring and dogmatic, too.
I still like to leave a little room for mystery and the unknown.
Ian
Rowland's site is excellent, if you are interested in the powers of
the human mind - those things Derren Brown is currently
demonstrating in
the UK - and Ian covers all these issues with humour. I enjoyed the video
of his lecture to The Skeptics Society, although it is a bit more
technical and less show-biz if you're used to Derren on tv; but I do
recommend his Cold
Reading book, and would like to thank him for Val Andrews' Book
Test - which I bought direct from Val, and it is truly simple and elegant (but you'll need
to get into his Magicians Only page for that...) And check out his
links page (if you have a few months to spare)...and his Permanent
Paranormal Objects...oh, get
out of here, just go visit...
And for discussion of the crossover
between NLP and magic, try
here - I recommend all of Andrew T Austin's links, at 23nlpeople,
anyway - though we are drifting away from show-biz, or pseudo-psychic
stuff,there...
* Project Alpha - for
agnostics and atheists. James Randi set up and trained some kids to
fool the parapsychologists. One now has a career appearing as Banachek
* If you want someone intelligent, funny
and devastatingly incisive about both sides in this bickering match read
ALMOST ANYTHING by Robert
Anton Wilson, or if you can't read, get his tapes here.
Don't say I didn't warn you..... Fnord |
| puzzles and games
Grand
Illusions - educational page and shop for strange toys |
| Just WOW
Speed
Stacking Cups one of those co-ordination evolutions of our earlier
exploration of juggling - hyped up by the affluent leisure culture (just
like unicycles, skateboards, surfing - you name it) - see the real time
displays of the champ, Emily Fox, here
if you suspect this is a bit geekish - THEN go Wow!
NB: Uses Windows Media Player |
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