LANCE BURTON CASTS A SPELL OVER MISS USA

All 51 reigning Miss USA contestants and the reigning Miss USA visited with Lance Burton during their stay in Las Vegas. Crystle Stewart is the reigning Miss USA was sawed in half (only temporarily) in a magic trick on stage before the entire full house at The Lance Burton Theatre in The Monte Carlo Resort & Casino. Lance Burton personally met each of the lovely ladies after the show filmed a segment for the live telecast which will air on April 19th on NBC.

DAVID BLAINE'S GREATEST TEACHER? RICKY JAY

Ricky Jay's new show "Rogue's Gallery" opens at the Somerville Theatre tonight and Boston.com has published a profile of the magician to promote it. "The show marks a number of firsts for Jay - among them, serious audience participation and the introduction of materials from his personal collections (show bills of singing mice; posters of Houdini imitators; images of Jay's grandfather, an amateur magician who introduced Jay to the craft). The way audience members interact with those materials will determine the direction of the performance.No tricks have been recycled for "A Rogue's Gallery," which is largely improvised, and four decades into a career, that's no small feat." David Blaine is quoted in the piece and refers to Jay as his greatest teacher. "As a youngster I saved up all my money for a ticket to see 'Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants,' says Blaine. "It gave me a very serious, entirely different respect for magic. I can't think of anybody else alive or historically that was so impactful on so many levels. He really did inspire most of my take on magic. "

DAVID COPPERFIELD PERFORMS AT THE AMERICAN COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS

David Copperfield produced Album of the Year winner Taylor Swift during this evening's broadcast of the American Country Music Awards using his signature "Elevator."

BRIAN BRUSHWOOD IS A TWIT!

Magician and "Scam Master General" Brian Brushwood of the Revision 3 show "Scam School" will be live on Leo Laport's "This Week in Tech" (TWiT) at 6PM EDT. TWiT was one of the early online shows that inspired me to start the Magic Newswire podcast and I am a loyal listener to this day. In fact, our show was the "Podcast of the Week" on another of Leo's shows, "Net@Nite" with Amber MacArthur! in September of last year. Enjoy watching Brian on TWiT here:  Video chat rooms at Ustream

WATCH BRIAN BRUSHWOOD GET SCAMMED

The most recent edition of Scam School features Brian Brushwood doing more magic than scamming. Internet celebrities Cali Lewis, Zappos CEO Tony Hseih & DIGG co-founder Jay Adelson are featured. Best of all. it appears that Brian finds himself getting scammed by Tony near the end. Enjoy!

KEITH BARRY WINS CRITICS CHOICE AWARD

According to RTE, "Irish magician Keith Barry has won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Magician at The Las Vegas Review Journal's Best of Las Vegas Awards. Barry beat David Copperfield, Penn and Teller and Criss Angel to claim the prestigious award."  Barry completed a one month run in Vegas and spoke with the Magic Newswire just hours before the premier at Planet Hollywood . Barry shared his personal history as a magic performer and  offered his opinion on other Las Vegas magic acts.

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LISTEN TO OUR INTEVIEW WITH KEITH BARRY: Watch Keith's infamous "Hand Stab" in this video:

IS DAVID COPPERFIELD WORKING FOR MICHAEL JACKSON?

Not according to Chris Kenner. Various online news outlets appear to have been caught up in the April Fools Day shenanigans which pop up every April 1st. Everyone from Yahoo News, MTV UK and Perez Hilton have been reporting stories along the lines of, "Michael Jackson is a huge fan of magic and has enlisted the help of illusionist David Copperfield to add some magic to his upcoming run of concerts in the UK." David's producer and friend Chris Kenner told us by phone today, "I don't have any idea where this came from. I have been getting hit with emails all day asking about this and there have been no such discussions." WHEW... I'm glad that we waited for secondary confirmation before posting anything.

30TH ANNIVERSARY FOR BEST MAGIC

Best Magic and Costume in Anaheim has been serving magicians and entertainers since it first opened its doors on April Fools' Day of 1979. Despite the inauspicious (or suspicious?) date of opening, the small shop has grown in popularity and respect year by year. OUur friend Naphtalia stumbled into the shop while training for a marathon and discovered a kinship with other performers who encouraged to explore magic. Today she consults for, and develops, aspiring acts. "I like to encourage young ladies into magic," she says, "because you don't see many women magicians...and we need more of them." The nucleus of this store os its' quiet manager, Gene Kano. "Our best advertising is, and will continue to be, word-of-mouth," he says. Without fanfare, he has a successful brick-and-mortar shop in an age where Internet commerce is becoming the norm. Happy Birthday Best Magic!

RICKY JAY'S ROGUE'S GALLERY

Ricky Jay is beginning a tour of his new show, "A Rogue's Gallery: An Evening of Conversation & Performance" and is interviewed in The Phoenix prior to its' run at the Somerville Theater. In Jay's own words, "It's really different — it's a new show. It's an odd combination of visual and historical and magical and autobiographical and improvisational. The improvisation is the one thing that makes it really different. I call on people from the audience not just as participants in the sleight of hand but in steering the direction of the verbal material. Some of the choices will be determined by things I've collected over the years, such as posters. So their choices and those images will determine the material."

MNW #103 :: DOC EASON

Doc Eason is known today as one of the premier bar and close-up magicians in the Magic. Most recently, Doc was honored by the Academy of Magical Arts at their 41st annual awards ceremony where he was named "Close-up Magician of the Year." This was not Doc's first award from the AMA as he was named WC Fields' Bar Magician of the Year in 2005. Know for his long run at John Denver's Tower Restaurant in Snowmass, Colorado, Doc began his career in magic at the age of 30 when he met Bob Sheets. Bob became his longtime friend and mentor helping to shape Doc as the magician that he is today. Doc talks about his time with Bob and JC Wagner as well as talks about working on the television show "Masters of illusion."

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