Yellowjacket: My only beef with Criss Angel is that now he is dating Cameron Diaz. He is a great performer, has a great TV show, is in a band, and now on top of all that he gets to date Cameron Diaz! Man, some guys have all the luck!

Personally, I prefer watching Blaine over Angel. I have not had the opportunity to see Derren Brown work, but I would certainly like to.

Rick get yourself on youtube and have an all night derren fest.

Jason

Jason:

You are wrong on everyone here doing magic tricks.

Personally speaking, most of my work no longer involves use of any "magic tricks." There are some performances that utilize some, but most do not use any.

I also happen to know that I am not the only exception.

Generalizations are generally right but are specifically wrong.

Tony

Tony that's the point of the kevlar jacket because mentalists in general don't even consider themselves magicians.They detatch them selves from the reality of what they actually are doing ie magic tricks.Dunninger was the same stayed out of the magic scene yet he did magic tricks,the reason being for some inane reason people believe what mentalists do is real even tho its just tricks.

Jason

Jason:

I fall under the "category" psychic entertainer. Magic methods are only used when I have to put on my mentalist or magician hat, but the majority of my work these days falls under the PE umbrella.

And I'm not shooting at you much.

Tony

The first post makes a comparison between Criss Angel using camera tricks and Uri Geller claiming that he doesn't use tricks at all, i.e. that he's using real powers.

This comparison is flawed.

Criss Angel clearly is not a charlatan, he's admitted trickery both implicitly and explicitly on several of his shows. I've only seen a few of his shows, and the admission was made on all of them.

Also, I've seen the videos on Youtube. I wrote a long post about these videos, but the short description is that I don't believe these videos prove that Criss Angel used camera tricks to accomplish his effects.

In any event, even if Criss Angel does use camera tricks, the comparison makes no sense to me. Criss Angel admits he uses trickery. Geller has always claimed he doesn't.

Criss Angel dating Cameron Diaz has brought out the fact he had a wife... and was cheating on her... so, do not envy the guy... it seems he is falling into the dreaded celebrity destructo trap.

Doc's the equivalent of psychics? Nah.... here is the difference... there are a lot of good and bad doc's out there - just like psychics... however, the doc's and other health care professionals must oversee their own profession.. hence why they are professionals... including auditing, disciplining, expulsing etc. the bad apples... and this is helped by patient complaints, law suits etc. Psychics, on the other hand, do not have a licensing body, continuing education requirements, exams, audits, or official standards. Hence, that is why Psychics means...? Many things to many people with no standards, leaving anyone calling themselves a psychic to hopefully have morals and standards that they use their art to help versus exploit people (yes, MDs could be scum too - but there are a ton of steps to remove their license and they cannot be legal practicing doc if they turn out to be scum)....

For the sake of discussion, "trick" is too much of an emotional laden word. Maybe people could keep calmer by sticking to "we all do effects"... as for the age old "magic" vs. "mentalism"... to me they are heavily linked, distinguished by how the person wants to take certain methods and concepts and go forward to do certain objectives/get certain themes across... i.e. character, presentation, etc.

Where it gets dicey is where shut-eyes and open-eyes end up cross-eyed i.e. someone who started off using methods of let us say CR, billet switches, etc. starts believing they have "real psychic powers" that, even if they mean well, could result in disaster. There are shut-eyes who still are quite honorable and treat their systems as a spiritual connection and give advice as if they were a pastor/friend... good for them! The ones who start using their influence in ways that can harm the person i.e. not even knowingly exploit... but by having so much influence and letting their own 1 POV opinion stop a person from doing something that might have huge consequeces in their lives turns my stomach.

(Dr. Parallel - doc's are supposed to educated, inform of all risks, and give a recommendation to a patient, but not decide for them or push them to their own view... it actually goes against the notion we are there to help a person grow, become more in control of their lives (or at least influence it) and avoid taking their responsibility away from them... who are we do know what is right for another human being?

Again, many of us, if we wanted to, could start a cult. Those who have make good money and show up on Montel and other shows. But anyone with a brain and morals despises them.


Oh... major difference between Cyril and Criss re: stooges, camera tricks etc...

Cyril uses them much much better and has a much better sympathetic human character (i.e. not a Mindfreak)... hence IMHO he gets away with more and people don't mind as much - they want to see him succeed. Plus, with the exception of the Spideyman pub stunt... most of his stoogecraft is very well cloaked.

Doc

Didn't he start dating Diaz after the divorce (at least after the seperation)?

Not that anyone's personal life should be a topic of discussion.

According to my wife (who knows more than all psychics put together (she watches Entertainment Tonight)) )... nope, the Diaz thing is what caused the divorce...

(Of course, who knows what is real or not in the world of Magic!)

Not that this should be a topic of discussion (sshhhhh)....

Let's take a break and get some Pie!

They do? When did this happen?

Emerson

I am a Hypocritical @ss at the very least, but wait....there's more(Not Ginsu knives)
I'm trying to put it all together...try to follow this

1) Dunninger was said to have used linking rings, showed one with the gaff, said "Some people do it like this, but not me!" (Paraphrasing here) he throws the ring away and procedes to do linking rings with another gaffed one....many find it clever.....????? I'm not sure.
2) Angel says he USES NO CAMERA TRICKS then procedes to perform a Miracle using them......many find it clever....????? I'm not sure.
3) Johnny Thompson exposes THE THREE SHELL GAME on national TV.... Not Clever...I'm SURE!
4) The Masked Magician exposes magic illusions on TV...same deal.
5) James Randi attempts to expose Uri Geller (For 30 years)...What the????

So URI, ANGEL,and DUNNINGER are the real liers but The Masked Magician, Thompson and Randi are the GOOD GUYS. I'm confused.
Why can't everyone just stick to The Magicians Code and SHUT THEIR PIE HOLE (Big oppening for Tony here )

A very interesting post, Slim.

definitly something to think about.

But who should shut thier pie whole, The good guys or the bad guys?..oops, were not sure who is who.

YellowJacket

I had no idea he was married, divorced, separated, or anything. My daugther mentioned yesterday he was dating Cameron Diaz so I googled it today before I wrote my post. My daughter is 14 and she thinks Criss Angel is hot. Appearantly, so do most 14 year old girls

I'm sorry I brought this up

Didn't he have a girlfriend on the first season? But the news says he's been married five years...I'm confused again. I was surprised today when I heard he was married. I'd REALLY be a hypocrite if I say just about ANYTHING here

The girl on the first season was his wife.

This is a good Sunday afternoon thread. It turned out much better than I thought. It deeply concerns me that anyone would date Cameron Diaz though.

Yellowjacket asked about a quote, "If Uri presents himself as real he is certainly fair game though. Jealous magicians who no one will ever hear of can get their 15 minutes of fame trying to expose a successful performer.”

His question:
I am a little confused on this. You say he is fair game, but if someone challenges him then he is a jealous performer? That seems like a double standard."

I understand the confusion. The two are not mutually exclusive if you think about it though. Uri sets himself up to be challenged...what are the challengers qualifications?

He can be open to challenges with his presentation and that does not rule out being challenged by no-name magicians.

I wonder about any exposure...even in the long ago B.I. (before internet) pretty much any magic secret was available to someone with money. That person could then cry about exposure.

I wasn't pleased with the exposure of the shell game (now exposing something I like is immoral ;-) ). Still, as with any exposure it is irrelevant in the real world.

As for hypocrisy...well, a short bit of thought will show we all have it to a massive degree in some area(s) of our own lives. Our own hypocrisy is of course understandable. The other guy is a no-good (&(*&%.

You do the best you can.

Quoted for truth. I've never understood this either.

You know, Bruce (Dr Spektor) was precognitive in his post.
2 doctors in the UK have been charged with the crimes (almost outrages) in Glasgow airport.
It's a shameful state of affairs when the members of the medical profession behave this way, as well as a chilling reminder of the power of fanaticism (of ANY kind).
Tonight, I go to bed a little more disappointed with the World.
S

Don't worry Steve, there are good guys to help the cosmic balance!

(EXPOSURE OF PRECOG EFFECT) -> there are bad eggs in every profession... and news agencies never cover the 99% of the good deeds of health care professionals except maybe in some Leisure of Health section tucked in the back unless its EARTH SHATTERING... while the 1% who do bad always make headlines. Feel free to use in all of your acts, brohim!

On the bright side - at least they caught those docs...most bad apples stay in the shadows until their activities get so heinous they cannot be ignored.

Yeah, I totally have a double standard on this topic:

boring AND pointless