Dear Magical Friends:
The Magic & Mystery School staff has had quite a ride this past month! While Jeff and Eugene are currently at the World Magic Seminar (please drop in on them there in the special ‘McBride’ room if you’re attending the convention), they’ve each been making their own kinds of news these past few weeks.
A Magical Vision, the film Michael Caplan created about Eugene Burger had its international premiere in October 2009 in Indore, India at the Global Film Festival, which was very exciting. Now, A Magical Vision is available for a limited time to watch on line as part of the Spirit Enlightened Film Festival — it is among the most viewed film currently, with 3800 views last time we checked. So, if you haven’t seen this, do it now, and then spread the word and the link:
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/2422/A-Magical-Vision
A DVD release of the movie will be coming soon, as soon as the Spirit Enlightened Film Festival ends at the end of March.
Jeff McBride, of course, has just returned from a whirlwind tour in the Netherlands (Magic GONGA), and Italy (Turin, Venice & Milan). He was hosted by Ferdinando Buscema, one of Italy’s leading corporate magicians. Along-time student of Jeff and Eugene, he has now become Jeff’s Italian Tour Manager, and we’re delighted to have him on the team!
This week Ferdinando will be performing at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Our congratulations for such a success! If you’ll be in L.A., make sure and drop in to see him. You’re in for a treat!
Ferdinando is our guest columnist this month, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy his description of the fantastic Ballo del Dogeand Jeff’s other adventures in Italy. Enjoy!
From Ferdinando:
Greetings to you all!
We have just awakened after 7 days and 1171 miles on the road with Jeff and my partner Anna: an unbelievable experience!
This Italian tour (de force) has been a huge success: Jeff performed, lectured, held a Master Class and received outstanding reactions from all the friends in both Torino and Milano!
The highlight of Jeff’s tour has of course been his performance at the Ballo del Doge in Venice, the hottest party of the Venetian Carnival. According to Vanity Fair, it is “The most exclusive, sophisticated and sumptuous ball in the world.” Having been there, we can only wholeheartedly agree! What a magical experience!
The creator of the event — Mrs. Antonia Sautter — is a most refined costume designer, having created the masks and costumes for Stanley Kubrik’s final masterpiece “Eyes Wide Shut”.
Jeff was the headliner of the show, and his masks’ act was highly acclaimed by the 400 masqueraders attending the party! A greatest hit!!
After Jeff’s departure back to Las Vegas, it took Anna and me a few days of “recovery”, after a breathless immersion in Jeff’s energy and enthusiasm. Jeff is a volcano of ideas, information, books, movies, music, stories, laughter and… magic of course!! We got an overwhelming dose of inspiration!
Having had the great fortune of spending a lot of time with Jeff, Eugene and all the Magic and Mystery Tribe, the one lesson that I always get is:Â Be brave and dare to dream bigger dreams! Jeff sets his own bar very high, and through his own example, gives the other permission to do the same.
Learning from the Masters means learning to dream bigger dreams!
Greetings from all the Italian friends, who look forward for having Jeff here again soon!!
PS: a small piece of secret knowledge I discovered about Jeff: he looooves to drink Sambuca and Limoncello! 🙂
That’s all for this Museletter. Thanks for continuing to read our news and ideas. If you know a friend who might enjoy keeping up with our musings, please send them a copy and invite them to sign up themselves!
Greetings magical friends,
Abbi found this quote from Jeff Hoke that takes a look at the difference between humor, science and art:
“Humor says: ‘Ha Ha!’
Science says: ‘Aha!’
Art says: ‘ahhhhhh!'”
We were wondering what you, our readers thought that Magic might say….??
February 18th, 2010, is the next WONDERGROUND with an entirely new show line-up. Jordan Wright, our company manager, has updated our website:http://www.vegaswonderground.com with the new information.
Just a tip to you, our Museletter readers, plan to arrive at WONDERGROUND **EARLY** to get a good seat. We sold out last month. If you can’t be with us in Las Vegas, you can watch us, at http://www.streetofcards.tv streaming live on the internet anytime after 9pm (Pacific time) on Thursday night.
My last piece of wisdom to leave you with this month is something a New York City taxi driver told me as he looked through the rearview mirror: “Man, you gotta work with the tools you got.” It was also said by Rousent, many years ago, in a different, not-so-street-savvy way: “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.”
Yours in the art of wonder-making,
Jeff & Abbi
FROM TOBIAS:
Greetings, friends. Jeff has just returned from his trip to Holland and Italy. I thought you might enjoy seeing this photo of him, along with his host Ferdinando Buscema and Ferdinando’s wife Anna, all taken at the Ballo del Doge in Venice just a couple of nights ago. Enjoy!
A special thanks to all of you who responded to my recent writings regarding both “what it takes to be a real wizard,” and, more importantly, your wishes and thought for things we might offer at the Magic & Mystery School to satisfy your wildest dreams. I’m still sorting and compiling the latter set in order to pass it on to Jeff and Eugene…but some of your ideas are really fantastic, and we’re truly grateful that you’ve offered them.
Also for those of you who may be attending the World Magic Seminar, know that Jeff and Eugene Burger will be in their usual room just as you enter the convention area. Be sure and drop in to visit and discover all the latest from these two modern masters.
Finally: We have a few spots left for the March master class which follows the World Magic Seminar by just a few days. Sign up now to reserve your space – classes later in the year generally fill up much earlier, so this may be one of your last chances this year to make a last minute decision to attend.
http://www.magicalwisdom.com
Best wishes.
Tobias Beckwith
Greetings friends,
I’m off to Europe to do the show of my dreams. I will be the star performer at Il Ballo del Doge, in Venice, Italy. It is the grandest of all the masquerade balls to lead off Carnevale in Venice.
Imagine being among the world’s greatest masqueraders in the mask capital of the world! We’ll be sharing our own photos and stories from that event soon, right here – but for now, here is a photo from last year’s event! (Click the photo for a link to many more…)
Il Ballo del Doge 2009
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
The following inspirational passage was sent to us by a friend and fan of the Museletter. Thanks to Jeff Fisher.
WORDS FOR A NEW YEAR
Inspire – Me to be great
Perspire – I will and work hard I shall
Aspire – to be even greater than my teacher
Retire – I will and pass my knowledge on
Expire – My work done, my legacy lives on to Inspire once again.
ARE YOU CURIOUS?
Dorothy Parker once said, “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
I am naturally curious, and my magical adventures fill me with the experiences that I share with our students here at the Magic & Mystery School…. I guess I am a magical messenger, in some strange way.
I’ll return from my adventures in Holland and Italy toward the middle of this month. At that time, I will be preparing for a number of interesting magic experiences here in Las Vegas, including the World Magic Seminar Teen Weekend. Immediately following that event, Abbi and I will be hosting a three-day Master Class here in Las Vegas. We will be joined by our friend and legendary close-up wizard, Eugene Burger.
In his book “The Art of Worldly Wisdom,” the wise sage Balthasar Gracian said:
“Make your friends your teachers, and mingle the pleasures of conversation with the advantages of instruction.”
That is one of the reasons we created the Magic and Mystery School, to share high quality time with some of the brightest thinkers in magic. Many of the teachers here at the school are my dear friends… they will be yours too!
Will you join us?
Your friend in the art of magic,
Jeff
Greetings Magical Friends,
Abbi here, watching the rain coming down in Las Vegas, while Jeff is in Florida doing a corporate gig. I decided to stay home for this one so I could prepare for our upcoming Mysterium event. If you’re going to be in the Las Vegas area, I hope you’ll stop in! Learn more about it:vegasvortex.com.
I thought I would take a few moments to check in with all of you and say hello! This Winter, I’ve been reflecting on the balance of holding on and letting go, balancing the opposites, and staying in the flow. I’ve been going through drawers in the kitchen, shelves in the closet, cabinets, bookcases and cupboards… and moving things out, opening space for the new to come in. I’ve been giving away stuff in great heaps and piles, and have made many trips to the local Goodwill. Out with the old, in with the new.
I find this theme recurring outside in the garden. All the dead plants from last season have been pulled out, and indoors, there are lots of tiny little seedlings sprouting… new dreams and visions manifesting, even as I write. The fruit trees I bought a couple of years ago are now big and strong enough to get transplanted from their pots into the ground, so the orchard at the House of Mystery is underway. From the smallest seedling to the largest lemon tree, everything grows, with the help of the sun, the rich earth, and the sweet water.
In the meantime, I’m excited to tell you that I’ve created a new handling for Gordon Bean’s “Jinks” effect, and I’ve been working on the script. Ask me, and I’ll show it to you when you come to the Magic and Mystery School. I will look forward to seeing you!
Your friend in magic,
Abbi McBride
“A grateful mind is a great mind that eventually attracts to it great things.”
— Plato
Dear Friends:
There’s a popular restaurant group here in the Bay Area called “Café Gratitude.” Their mantra is “I am Grateful.” Their menu is a delightful listing of things you can be grateful for: “I am Creative,” “I am Committed” and “I am Worthy,” are just a few. I love going there — the food is delicious, the service great and I always leave feeling better than when I entered… and always feeling grateful. As I sit down to write this, I find myself asking what I’m grateful for this year, and one of the biggest things I’m feeling gratitude for is the incredible community of magicians I am fortunate to be a part of.
At the Magic & Mystery School, we’re always grateful for the wonderful, talented students who come to spend time with us. We’re grateful for all our special guests, starting with Eugene (who is really more family than guest, of course). Our friends Bob Neale, Ross Johnson, Larry Hass, Randy Wolf and so many more that help us with the school always inspire us and make us feel lucky to be associated with them.
And so we thought we’d send this one last Muse Letter of 2009 to tell you, our readers, how grateful we are for you. This past year has seen readership of the Museletter grow beyond the 10,000 mark. That leaves us both grateful and a bit humbled. To think there are 10,000 of you out there who want to read what we have to tell you — well, we’ll continue to do our best to be worthy.
This brings me to a question for all of you. This is something we often ask the students in our classes — but obviously not all of you reading this have been to one of our classes yet. The question is this: “If we could provide one thing, through our classes and events, just for you, what would that thing be?” Let your imagination run wild for a moment. Imagine a million dollar budget, six months to prepare — and all the resources of our magic school and events completely at your disposal. What would you ask for? And please let us know (tobias@yourmagic.com)! I’m sure we’ll get a lot of ideas we can’t do — but you may be surprised at the things we CAN.
Take The Wonderground, for example. Jeff and an amazing crew of artists, magicians, dancers and more revived The Wonderground this past week, putting on an incredible evening of theater, party, dance and fun for an SRO crowd. The evening was described by one attendee as “The best show I’ve ever seen in Las Vegas!” And it was done on a budget of about $500! The photos in this Museletter were all shot last Thursday night at the Wonderground, in case you were wondering. We’ll be doing it again every month on the third Thursday. You can learn more at www.vegaswonderground.com.
That’s just one of the “impossible” things we’ve been able to achieve with the incredible help from our amazing friends. So tell us YOUR dreams, and let’s see if we can make them come true.
Before I wind up, let me leave you with a “New Year’s” thought. Have you made your resolutions? The coming year promises to be an exciting one. The economy is just now beginning to turn. Lots of new green initiatives in the business and technology words are poised to start coming on line. It’s a time for new beginnings. Time to look at your life and ask “Who do I really want to be? What adventures to I want to have? As a magician, what are my highest goals?” We’re all about helping you reach those goals. We love seeing our students make quantum leaps in developing their own creativity, performing skills and businesses. We love seeing you take big chances, unafraid of falling flat on your faces a few times before you soar to the big successes you deserve.
We have a few spots still available for our extended class in January. Perhaps now is the time for YOU to say, “I am committed,” and sign up. Then next year at this time, you can have one more thing to be grateful for — and we’ll have another friend to be grateful for, too!
If that’s not enough incentive, consider this: You’ll be here for the next Wonderground event — which will feature our new friends ArcheDream for Humankind. Click the link (http://www.vimeo.com/7239361) to see them on video — and come to Vegas in January to see them live!
Jeff, Abbi, Bryce, Eugene… we all send you our best wishes for a magical New Year!
Tobias Beckwith
tobias@yourmagic.com
