scholar    •    magician    •    consultant

George Carl (1916 — 2000) performs one of my favorite physical comedy acts of all time. In this clip from 1969, he delights spectators at California’s Hollywood Palace with a mixture of clown, object manipulation and pantomime. The act is a comedy of errors in which Carl rapidly attempts to perform rope magic, hand-to-hand, and cigar box juggling. He fails at all of these, because his clothes stick to his body, his hands disappear or his feet just won’t stop dancing. We love him for the same reasons that we adore Chaplin, Lloyd, Atkinson and the other bumblers: He fails at the circus tricks he likes in a way that most spectators do when they get home and try something they saw in a show. He celebrates the clowns that we all are when we knock a toothbrush into the toilette or lean on something that can’t support us. George Carl bumbles beautifully. His is an act that celebrates and helps us laugh at this humbling experience of being human.

His act is also an excellent example of how to combine elements of magic with the art of pantomime. His optical illusions, gimmicks and constant thwarting of spectator expectations continue the tradition of silent magical comedy numbers made famous by nineteenth-century troupes like the Hanlon Brothers. It’s a little known secret that George Carl filled one of the magic slots at the famous Crazy Horse in Paris. This is a venue that Tom Mullica and other world-class comedy magicians worked. If you like George Carl, check out the pantomime of Avner the Eccentric and Arden James too.

I spent this morning of the US Thanksgiving weekend eating leftovers, watching David Blaine’s “Beyond Magic” TV special, reading Jarrett and learning about Hadji Ali. First, I’d like to congratulate Mr. Blaine, Enrico de la Vega, Danny Garcia, Asi Wind, Brett Loudermilk and so many involved in this project for their superb work. The shamanistic, superhuman, yet also very human, themes in Blaine’s choice of material were compelling. Focusing on the space between magic and bizarre variety acts (sword swallowing, water spouting, bullet catching, mouth sewing and more) created ethically challenging moments. The special took exciting, disgusting and troubling risks. It also inspired me to spend part of the day researching one of the vaudeville era’s most mysterious and fascinating performers: Hadji Ali from Egypt.  Here is a wonderful clip of him drinking kerosene and breathing fire in a Spanish Laurel and Hardy remake called Politiquerías. Enjoy:

The winner of best Halloween costume for 2016 may be Choi Soon-sil, whose revelation as an influential shaman-like advisor to South Korean President Park Geun-hye has created a massive scandal. Here is a recent video of Soon-sil being mobbed by reporters:

The political spectacle of this event is a mysterious one of Rasputin-like proportions.

From a North American vantage point, it is difficult to know exactly what is going on and what is being lost in translation. At least three things are clear:

First, there are protests and popular calls for President Guen-hye to step down due to accusations that advisor Soon-sil has had an inappropriate amount of influence upon the leader’s decisions. Second, the President’s popularity rating is now very low. It’s been reported in the 10%-20% range during the last week by a variety of news outlets. Finally, a discourse of witchcraft is being invoked in the political commentary surrounding this event. Law Professor Joung Hwang, affiliated with Korea’s Hangkuk University of Foreign Studies, described Soon-sil as “… a kind of witch who has bewitched our president and has managed to run the state affairs.”

Wow. Is this 2016? This talk of witchcraft and bewitchment sounds more like the language one might read in Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), a biography of Grigori Rasputin, or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. To talk of witches certainly fuels the political spectacle of this event. It also seems like a superstitious and inflammatory statement, particularly coming from a professor of law. As I watch the video of the press mobbing Soon-sil above, I can’t help but see those continuous camera flashes as flames of fire. Burn her, they cry. She’s a witch!

Soon-sil will eventually be outed as a con artist who has done something fraudulent and illegal or not. Her story is certainly a mysterious and compelling one that has something to teach the us about belief and superstition in the 21st century. Labelling her a witch, however, is foolish.

Halloween was yesterday.

@Sebatien Normand

I’d dreamed of visiting this French circus school for four years to learn more about its magie nouvelle (“new magic”) programme. Earlier this month, I finally got my chance. Its name translates to the National Centre for the Circus Arts, but I’ll use its native acronym here and just call it the CNAC, Châlons-en-Champagne. The CNAC is one of the world’s few state-funded circus schools from which students graduate with a diploma in the circus arts. It is the only school I know, which uses government funding to offer a one-year certification program in “new magic” — an interdisciplinary hybrid of traditional magic techniques and contemporary circus. What’s even more impressive is that a few years ago the CNAC turned military funding into circus funding — by reallocating a windfall of euros previously used for armaments to fund a huge expansion of its circus arts buildings. This transformation of arms into arts is beautiful. Maybe instead of shooting one another we should be performing for one another?

You can see many stunning photos of the 2015 expansion in a French architecture article here. Below are some of my snapshots of the CNAC library and la boite noire, “the black box.”

I would like to thank Gérard Fasoli, Cyril Thomas, Barbara Appert-Raulin, Jeanne Vasseur, and the entire CNAC team for being wonderful hosts during my research visit. I would also like to thank Patrice Aubertin and the National Circus School (NCS henceforth) of Montreal for making this research trip possible. The CNAC library contains over 300 magic texts, including rare, French-language and magie nouvelle items that are hard to find elsewhere. I spent three days reading, watching and taking as many notes as I could onsite. My final treat was a peek inside the black box magie nouvelle creation space:

As Gordon Bean and Bill Goodwin once wrote: “No door is as fascinating as the locked one.”I can’t tell you exactly what’s inside, but I will say that it’s a collection of very exciting research and development tools. The future of magic and circus experiments is bright thanks to schools like the CNAC and the NCS in Montreal.

I’m excited to announce a collaboration with National Circus School graduate and professional Finnish circus artist, Kerttu Pussinen. Just two years after graduating from the NCS, Kerttu is working on her first solo show — Particle # B. The show will use circus arts, magic effects and more to visualize principles of physics and quantum mechanics. This is exactly the kind of interdisciplinary experimentation that motivates me as a magic consultant, so I am thrilled to be part of the show’s creative team. With generous support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the TOHU, Particle # B begins its first creation residency in Montréal on October 1st, 2016. Kerttu and I will be speaking about our collaboration at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences this Thursday evening in Toronto.  Please click here to RSVP if you would like to attend this LASER Toronto event.* It would be lovely to see Toronto friends there. In particular, I would like to encourage those of you with a strong interest in physics, quantum mechanics and the performing arts to attend.

* Special thanks to the facilitators of this free event for making our participation possible: Antje Budde (Digital Dramaturgy Lab, Institute for Digital Humanities in Performance at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies), Nina Czegledy (LASER/Leonardo Network), Roberta Buiani (ArtSci Salon, Fields Institute), and Don Sinclair (Computational Arts at York University).