NOW YOU SEE IT.. AND SEE IT.. AND SEE IT

Derren Brown in his show at the Garrick theatre. Photograph: Tristram Kenton From the UK Guardian: "Award-winning "psychological illusionist" Derren Brown is well-known for his mind-bending tricks, which often leave the most sceptical individuals open-mouthed with disbelief. Even so, Tim Davies was not prepared for the spooky sense of deja vu he felt soon after he arrived at Blackpool Opera House and sat back to watch the controversial magician's latest live stage show. It did not take long for the 60-year-old lecturer to work out why everything seemed so familiar. It was, he says, exactly the same show that he, his partner and two daughters had seen in another Blackpool venue a year earlier."

BANNED MAGICIAN ON VIDEO

The Express and Star sent a "Video Reporter" out to visit with Magician John Milner after "hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons last week when he was told he cannot demonstrate a trick using a lit cigarette to customers in his own shop because of the smoking ban." Watch John in action:  

SONGS AND MAGIC WORK FOR ROMEO

From InsideBayArea.com: "Romeo, who even jokes onstage and in interviews about the oddness of juxtaposing song and magic, does start out facing some audience skepticism. But after a stunt or two, he shows his magical chops, and by the time he introduces his Leading Lady (Kristy Michelsen), who has performed with him 17 years — since high school — he's pretty well convinced everyone he's not just another crooner dabbling in abracadabra. As he produces Michelsen from what was an empty, glass-sided case he covers with a silk cloth, Romeo sings Darin's "Dream Lover," and the magic/song blending begins to make some sense. What takes more getting used to is the way his tuneful presentation takes much of the standard breathless mystery shtick out of the act. You have to remind yourself that not every pop singer gets impaled on a sword or escapes from a padlocked wooden crate midtune."

THE ULTIMATE CELEBRITY MAGICIAN, LIVE!

C Thomas Howell, hereto-after known as "The Ultimate Celebrity Magician," will be live tonight for you to chat with in the forums at ELLUSIONIST.COM. The conversation begins at 6PM (Pacific) and will last for one hour. Want to know how he and David Regal managed to squeeze that T-Rex Chicken into a box foR Kid's magic? Want to ask him what he really thinks of Hal Sparks at this point? If so, you should go HERE tonight and ask him yourself!   

AND THE ULTIMATE CELEBRITY MAGICIAN IS...

The Finale of Celebracadabra has aired. The winner has been announced and C Thomas Howell has been crowned as the Ultimate Celebrity Magician! Listen now to our final installment when both contestants discuss the friction between them, the challenges they faced and the strategies that they adopted to make it all the way to Las Vegas! LISTEN TO PART 3 WITH HAL & TOMMY! (Subcribe to the "Magic Newswire" via iTunes HERE.) VIDEO :: CHRIS "KID" REID'S FINAL "RAP-UP":

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VIDEO: TOMMY & DAVE'S POPCORN ORGASM

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SIEGFRIED & ROY WELCOME 5 NEW CUBS

From KNX News Radio :: "Siegfried and Roy are welcoming five new tiger-cubs to their exotic habitat on the Las Vegas Strip. Siegfried Fischbacher says working with the tigers is the perfect rehabilitation for Roy Horn... who was critically injured by a 380-pound Bengal tiger, while on-stage in 2003. Siegfried says caring for the tigers gives Roy a reason to get up in the morning. There's talk of a one-night-only comeback for the illusionists next year, but Siegfried says he's not sure about that."

HAL SPARKS & C THOMAS HOWELL RETURN

Hal Sparks & C. Thomas Howell return to the Magic Newswire for Part Two of their conversation with the Magic Newswire on this, the evening of the final episode of the show on VH1. Tommy tells the tale of the T-Rex Chicken & Hal Sparks tells us who should not have made it as far as they did during the show. LISTEN: PART 1 OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH TOMMY AND HAL LISTEN: PART 2 OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH TOMMY AND HAL (Subcribe to the "Magic Newswire" via iTunes HERE.) PREVIEW TONIGHT'S FINALE!

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MAGIC SERIAL KILLER

According to Variety, "Director Stuart Cooper is slated to begin production on the Russian/American indie thriller "Magic Man," produced by Gregory Raskin and Russian action star Alexander Nevsky. The film will focus on a magician who may also be a serial killer. Nevsky, who appeared in the Russian films "Moscow Heat" and "Treasure Radiers" will star in "Magic Man" alongside Billy Zane, Richard Tyson, Estelle Raskin, Jed Allan and Andrew Divoff. "Magic Man" will be the debut for indie production companies Raskin Productions and Hollywood Storm."

HOME SWEET HOME VEGAS STYLE

Penn Jillette's unique private residence, known as "The Slammer," find's itself in the company of other Las Vegas celeb homes in an article entitled "Home Sweet Home, Vegas Style."  A more unusual house is that of magician Penn Jillette's (of Penn and Teller). Located west of Las Vegas, the 6,000-square-foot home is called "The Slammer" because Jillette purposely designed it to resemble a maximum-security prison.

Like Newton's castle, it has been featured on more than dozen TV home shows and has won several architectural awards for its innovative design. 

In fact, according to the Santa Monica design firm that created the house, the project started in 1994, when Jillette decided to make additions to his fairly normal-looking 1978 chalet-style home with a steep A-frame roof.

The company added a cylindrical tower to serve as a hinge to a 2,500-foot extension. Because the 6-foot, 6-inch Jillette wanted to be able to wander the house late at night without disturbing his guests, the architects created a separate master bedroom suite connected to the main house via a 75-foot catwalk.  The house also has a half-dozen secret rooms - Jillette is, after all, a magician - as well as a coroner's outline of his partner, Teller, in a kitchen, along with an apparent line of blood leading there from the shower.

CAN HOUDINI EVER ESCAPE MURDER PROBE?

Because it has been well over a year since any new information has been reported on this topic, we thought it had finally been laid to rest. Unfortunately,  it appears that the possibility of an exhumation of the body of Harry Houdini may still be in the works. A first suggested in the Kalush book, "The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero," there is a theory that  Houdini's relentless debunking of the Spiritualist movement, resulted in his murder. The authors point to a pair of October 1926 incidents in which Houdini was viciously punched in the stomach, once by a college student in his dressing room and later by a stranger in a hotel lobby, attacks that Kalush suggests may have been arranged with malicious intent. Houdini died days later in Room 401 at Grace Hospital in Detroit. In an article from today's issue of Publisher's Weekly entitled "No Bones About It," bestselling crime writer Kathy Reichs, also a board-certified forensic anthropologist, talks about the release of her most recent novel "Devil Bones." When asked what we can next expect from her writing,  mentions her involvement with a team that's supposed to dig up famed magician Harry Houdini, though there are “still legal issues to work through.” There are conspiracy theories that Houdini was murdered, says Reichs, “and of course we want to see if he's still there.”

1. Proposed Houdini Exhumation (Wikipedia)
2. Houdini exhumation to test for poison (NY Daily News)
3. One final trick for Houdini: exhumation (MSNBC)
4. Professor Needs More Land for Bodies on Corpse Farm (Wired News)
5. Houdini: spy, sleuth, and murder victim (The Independent)
6. Murder investigators might dig up Houdini (The Tribune)
7. Houdini Exhumation Furor (Jewish News Weekly)