Dear Friends:
Jeff is off in France as I write this, teaching a 5-day workshop with Juan Tamariz, and Gaeton Bloom. We have a piece of fantastic news, before I introduce you to our guest writer for the month:
Jeff McBride will receive the prestigious Merlin Award for Most Innovative Magic Show 2010 on October 21, at a special ceremony during Jeff McBride’s Wonderground at The Olive on E. Sunset Road in Las Vegas. At the same event, Eugene Burger will be receiving the Merlin Award for Close-Up Magician of The Year 2010.
The Merlin Award to magic is what the Oscar is to the movies. It is the most prestigious award given in the world of magic. Since 1968, the Merlin Award has been presented by the International Magicians Society as a recognition award. The International Magicians Society is listed in the Guinness World Records as the World’s Largest Magic Organization with over 37,000 members worldwide.
Some of the world’s greatest magicians have received the Merlin Award, including Harry Blackstone, Doug Henning, Channing Pollock, David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy, Penn & Teller, Criss Angel, Sylvan, Tabary, Paul Daniels, Peter Marvey, Jeff McBride, Max Maven, Luis de Matos, Brett Daniels, Juliana Chen, Shimada, Mahka Tendo, Sorcar, etc. Many show producers have also been honored with the Merlin Award, including Kenneth Feld, Elena Palchevski, and Alberto Sperduto. For the complete list, go towww.IMSmagic.com and click on “Merlin Award Recipients.”
We have a very full schedule in October, with several corporate shows, the class in Street Magic coming up, the Master Class for Mentalists with Ross Johnson (still a space or two available…hurry!), and, of course Magic & Meaning.
Our guest writer this month is one of our favorite performers and good friends, who has been coming to Magic & Meaning for many years. George Parker is a true wizard, performing over 300 shows a year for many years now, helping various organizations all over the world find new and better ways to operate. He is an amazing magician, and even more amazing thinker. I know you will enjoy what he has to say about the subject of Serendipity!  Ladies and gentlemen – George Parker:
Do you like chocolate chip cookies? I like the taste, but I like the bite even more. However, if Ruth Wakefield had been in control of her shopping, chocolate chip cookies would not have been invented. She intended to make chocolate drop cookies but didn’t have the right kind of chocolate. Instead, she broke up a candy bar and put the chunks in the mix. Silly putty was a byproduct of the search for an alternative for rubber in WW2. The inkjet printer was discovered by a Canon engineer who accidentally put his soldering iron on his pen and noticed that ink was shooting out.
These are cases of serendipity: an invention by accident. I have always loved the experience of happy and surprising discoveries. I’m a big believer in accidents and coincidences; they are a big part of my creative process. The word ‘serendipity’ was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. He formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip. The main characters were ‘always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’. The secrets of how to trigger these discoveries is in the definition. You can’t force serendipity, but you can invite it by:
aiming to find something (the quest)
allowing accidents to happen
keeping an open, alert mind (sagacity).
The last thing is particularly important because we’re always going somewhere, even if we’re not aware of it. Even the most uptight, anal-retentive person can’t avoid accidents. But our senses will only perceive what our mind allows them to perceive. So a one-track mind will notice very little of what’s going on and will look at the world in the same way every day.
To open your mind you need to get off track on a regular basis. That turns out to be difficult for most people because we tend to resist experiences that are out of our comfort zone. A sober-minded person often resists spirituality. A very spiritual person resists sober-mindedness. Republicans resist Democrats and the other way around. Creative people tend to resist pragmatism and pragmatic people resist exploring more options. But our mind becomes lazy if we hang on to our own beliefs too long. Explore in all directions: switch your daily routine regularly. If you take a break, don’t just rest, but do something opposite from the thing you’re taking a break from. If you’re a physical person, do thought experiments. If you’re a thinker, surrender to dance, bioenergetics or sex. Switch religions every month! You’ll discover that beliefs are just beliefs and you can play with them to evoke new ideas.
The playful mind will be open to accidents and notice unusual opportunities. At first, it will feel strange because we learned to control everything in our lives and suppress uncomfortable feelings. But soon you will start to love this strange feeling of being open to chance. Then you will stack one invention on the other just like Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics. He was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced the double-helix structure of DNA in the fifties. And LSD itself was a case of serendipity, according to Albert Hofmann, who conducted the pharmaceutical research LSD was a byproduct of.
I’m not promoting the use of drugs of course. If you can’t handle alcohol, coffee, or whatever drug you can be addicted to, stay away from it. Because addiction is a sign of a one-track mind. And this type of person has little chance of running into serendipities.
That’s all for this week. We’ll be back in just a couple of weeks with more news, and maybe even some photos of Jeff’s recent travels.
Best to all!
Sincerely,
Tobias Beckwith
“Glorious, stirring sight! The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today — in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped — always somebody else’s horizons! O bliss! O my! O my!”
—Kenneth Grahame, 1859-1932, British Writer
Greetings magical friends and family,
I have been on the road most of the summer and am looking forward to having some downtime here in Vegas soon.
Fall is a truly awesome season in Las Vegas, and we have quite a few events that you should know about:
THE NEW BREWS IN THE MUSE!
We have been cooking up some new events in our alchemical laboratory! Read on to learn more…
DO YOU HAVE THE POWER TO READ MINDS?
Ross Johnson joins us once again this year, bringing you the real secrets to successful mentalism! This has been one of our favorite events in the past several years.
http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events/view/423
MAGIC AND MEANING:
Share quality time, in small groups, with some of the greatest thinkers in magic… does that sound like a good time?
http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events/view/416
MAGIC AND MEDICINE:
Does magic have the power to heal? If you love magic and happen to involved in the healing arts, then you will want to experience this!
http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events/view/422
WONDERGROUND SEPT 16TH – 7:30 UNTIL 12 MIDNIGHT
Join us for the most amazing night of the month! If you cannot make it to Vegas then see us streaming live onwww.streetofcards.tv 8pm pacific time
WONDERGROUND PLAYER SPOTLIGHT ON BIZZARO!
He showed up one night at WONDERGROUND and never went away! One of the most feared and loved players can be spotted wearing his trademark red fedora. Wonder why he soooo rocks the house? Read more about him at his website or see him live or on the streaming broadcast on www.streetofcards.tv
WONDERGROUND awarded “MOST INNOVATIVE SHOW OF THE YEAR!”
On October 21, Jeff McBride will be receiving the prestigious Merlin Award for Most Innovative Magic Show 2010.
At the same time, the Dean of the Magic and Mystery School, Eugene Burger, will be receiving the Merlin Award for Close-Up Magician of The Year 2010. The International Magicians Society is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Largest Magic Organization with over 37,000 members worldwide. The Merlin Award is to magic what the Oscar is to the movies. It is the most prestigious award given in the world of magic.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Ahhhh! I will be back home with Abbi in a few days and I will be hosting Skype sessions from the Mystery School in Vegas. If you “want in” on the newest way to share magic… just look here:Â http://virtual.magicalwisdom.com/infopages/view/skype
See you online or here in Las Vegas,
Jeff
Greetings Magical Friends, Wow! Great news! The LA TIMES just ran a very interesting story on WONDERGROUND! Richard Abowitz is a writer who often covers the Las Vegas magic scene. He spent an entire day with us as we prepared the August Wonderground event, interviewing the cast and even the audience at our venue. You can see his article here: Wonderground conjures a little magic in the night
The Wonderground PlayersI would like to thank our creative team for all of the great work they’ve been doing: DJ Leo Diaz – music/sound In upcoming Museletters, we will spotlight some of the current performers that have been contributing their art to the festivities. We are blessed to have so many creative people sharing their magic! It would be impossible to list everybody here, so we are working on a new site. You can read more about ALL of our artists here: http://www.vegaswonderground.com News Flash: Enchanted Butterflies Cross The Ocean!Here is a great photo, sent from our good friend Arturo Brachetti. He is, without a doubt, the world’s greatest quick-change artist, and he has been featuring our new effect, Butterfly Blizzard, in his show, backed up by a symphony orchestra.
Plan Ahead! New Classes For 2011 Just Listed!Our summer Master Class was completely sold out! Take action now to reserve your spot for one of our upcoming courses. We have added some exciting new classes, like these:
The complete schedule for the coming year has just gone live; check it out here: http://www.magicalwisdom.com/events
|
Greetings Magical Friends,
Here’s the hot news from the sizzling hot Summer streets of Las Vegas….
Street Magic in Las Vegas!
We’re hearing lots of buzz in the news about the current political situation in Vegas concerning civil liberties and street performing. The ACLU is involved with protecting the rights of street performers to perform in public spaces, as part of our first Amendment rights.
ACLU Backs Street Performers in Las Vegas
Some of our students here in Vegas have taken action and are demonstrating with their magic on the streets. One of our WONDERGROUND players can be seen nightly weaving magic into the tapestry of Las Vegas night life:
Tim Wise is working on Fremont Street as “Wise, the Good Luck Genie.” Tim is doing a very interesting show where he gifts people with magical objects. People come up to him and “make a wish;” as the genie, he grants their wish by making a magical gemstone appear. Tim’s approach to “gift magic” reflects some of the philosophy of our Magic and Mystery School. Learn more about Tim Wise.
If you’d like to really take a deeper look into Gift Magic, enjoy Dr. Larry Hass’ talk “Giving and Magic” from a recent Magic and Meaning conference in our PEP Talks Online.
What is the Secret of Street Magic?
Watch this video and learn the real secrets behind this timeless style of conjuring.
England’s top street busker, Mario Morris will be a guest teacher at our Focus on Street Magic class, which runs October 8-10. We will take all the students out on the streets of Vegas to watch the pros work and learn the inner secrets of the trade.
More New Magic in Vegas
Paul Vigil is at KING INK at the THE MIRAGE hotel doing his formal close-up magic show. Paul is one of the finest sleight of hand workers on the planet. See his show when you get to Vegas.
Getting Back to My Roots
I’m just back from my High School reunion, where I did a show for my schoolmates and a show for family and friends near my hometown in Goshen, NY. I won the “he still has the most hair” contest for my class!
Don’t forget to drop by The Wonderground this week. See you this week at our fantastic new show, either in person, if you’re in Vegas, or on www.streetofcards.tv if you’re not!
www.vegaswonderground.com
Your friend in the art of magic,
Jeff
“The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth.”
— Marya Mannes
Greetings Magical Friends,
I feel like I’ve just completed an epic cycle. Turning fifty turned many things over in my mind and in my life this year. Some men who turn fifty buy a sports car. I built a library and a movement studio onto my house. I feel that many more people can take turns “driving their inspiration,” in the new Magic School rooms, than could take turns behind the wheel of a “lambie.” Besides, my library gets better mileage than any car, and can take our students to the edges of the universe at the speed of light.
“Books are a uniquely portable magic” … Stephen King
At fifty, I feel it is my halfway point in life, (yeah, I’ll take a hundred years, thank you). At this halfway point, I can reflect on fifty years of past experience, and project fifty more years of extraordinary magical living. I hope you will join me on the next fifty year ride!
At fifty, I’m learning what’s really important in my magical work. It’s not about buying a new big prop; it’s more about using my talents to prop up other people who have dreams and visions that need help. I find great joy in mentoring magic students of all ages, and the more I give, the more I seem to get out of life.
Touring the world with my magic show has given me many rare experiences that I can now pass along to you, my friends. I am blessed to have the faculty at our School to help spread our magical visions in new ways.
McBride Magic School Students in the News
Bill Koch has been studying at our school for many years, and his appearance in the new documentary MAKE BELIEVE is outstanding. This film won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival! Here is a video profile about Bill’s magical work:
I will be home for most of the month of August, working with students both here at the House of Mystery and worldwide, via Skype. I hope to see you here in Las Vegas, or online soon!
Jeff
Photo by Anthony Muir
P.S. For any you that may have missed the recent media blitz about our magic school and WONDERGROUND, here are the links:
Vegas Seven Magazine on Wonderground
http://weeklyseven.com/ae/2010/july/01/man-many-masks
