talkmagic.co.uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh7en7d42Ww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPdA7nvz ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4yTRvZt ... re=related

Mr Randi is famous for his debunkery, but he was a professional magician once upon a time!

Here he is, with some conjuring, some mentalism and an escape.

I think hes great! Really cheerful and contagiously enthusiastic about magic, and his audience seem to be having fun.

Who would have thought the scourge of psychics could be such a lovable granda! I wish I could meet him.

how old are you?

Loved the rope trick. That really made me laugh.
OOTW dragged a wee bit.

I think Randi is carrying out the world's biggest misdirection. He's covering the small move with the big one.
The big move is his debunking.
The little move?
His supernatural powers.

Seriously?
Yep.
He NEVER ages. He looks the same now as he did when he challenged folks like Hydrick and Popoff.

He's a flippin' immortal!

Your right.

He's probably some sort of ancient god, living for ever,
making little jokes
and attacking psychics like Gandalf attacks orcs.


We know your type, Randi.

I have always been a fan of Randi despite being a psychic reverend myself. I think he is a wonderful showman and very funny and charismatic off stage.

And when you listen to him you hear a very Canadian accent. It will be difficult for Brits to tell the difference between Canadian and American but after living here so long I think I have figured it out now.

just ask him to say out of this world...

if he says "oot" then he's a Canadian...

It's even easier than that.
Just look at the top of his head when he talks. It's a well known (but little utilised) fact that when Canadians speak, the top part of their head - everything from the top lip and above - moves up and down while their jaw remains still.
(With apologies to all Canadians, except the ones I know, and non-watchers of South Park.)



Mark - is it really that tough to tell them apart?
With all the "aboot" and "eh" and other general Canadian-ness I didn't think it was all that tricky to tell them apart.
Then there's French and Canadian-French... sometimes they don't even sound like the same language.

BigShot wrote:Then there's French and Canadian-French... sometimes they don't even sound like the same language.

That's because they are not. When the French moved to Canada, in an effort to maintain their cultural integrity the language atrophied while the French being spoken in France continued to evolve. The French being spoken in Canada is more like the French that was spoken in France a couple of hundred years ago.

I have noted that Big Shot claimed never to have heard of Randi on another thread. However, now he seems to know all about him with regard to Popoff and Hydrick.

Mind you, I think he has it wrong about Hydrick. The main debunker of that gentleman was a rather daft chap whose name escapes me for the moment. He wrote a book where he seemed very pleased with his debunking but then spoiled it all by saying it was perfectly possible to rise from the dead after being crucified.

I must be getting old. I can't remember his bloody name. He wrote well regarded books on magic too.

Where do you get these ideas, Mark?
I quite specifically said I didn't like Randi's approach in the things I'd seen of him. As in - I knew who he was and have seen some of his stuff, and wasn't keen on his approach. How was that not clear?

Besides, a lot can happen in a month. Since that conversation and in the related videos to the ones posted above, I saw more of his stuff - including his outing of Popoff and Hydrick.

A quick bit of Google-fu suggests you may be thinking of Dan Korem.

Gary Dickson wrote:

BigShot wrote:Then there's French and Canadian-French... sometimes they don't even sound like the same language.

That's because they are not. When the French moved to Canada, in an effort to maintain their cultural integrity the language atrophied while the French being spoken in France continued to evolve. The French being spoken in Canada is more like the French that was spoken in France a couple of hundred years ago.

Even stranger.
I had a chat with a French Canadian when I was living in France and other than the accent didn't have too hard a time understanding him (maybe that's because my modern French is rather sub-par though).

The main difference that strikes me is the extremely slack (and somewhat nasal) pronunciations in Canadian French.

Yes indeed. It was Danny Korem. In fact I wrote something on here some time ago about it. I also wrote this on the Genii Forum and received a message from Banacek who seemed to be in great delight about it. His delight however faded when I informed him that I did not approve of a rather vulgar line of patter used in his show.

Anyway here is what I said:
.............................................................................................................
I came across a very odd book by Danny Korem in a Christian bookshop. If you are wondering what I was doing in a Christian bookshop I will tell you. Satan sent me in on a spying mission. You'd think he would do his own spying but he tells me that he was busy at the time. There were a lot of wars he had to start that week.

I purchased this book. It spent 80% of it's space debunking psychics (and one in particular) and then spent the last 20% trying to convince the reader that it was perfectly within the bounds of possibility to rise from the dead.

I showed it to Satan and he had a good laugh.I think he was mentioned in the book and rather liked the publicity.

My two favourite parts of the book were the following. First, where he says he used to be Jewish but isn't any more. I found that highly amusing because once you are Jewish you are stuck with it no matter what religion you join later. I am a psychic reverend and minister of some church or other.I forget the name of it. It cost me $35 to be ordained on the booth of a psychic fair. Yet I am still Jewish.
Danny still thinks he isn't according to the book.

The other part of the book I loved is where he goes backstage to visit Kreskin and threatens to expose him if he does not stop claiming he is psychic. George got a trifle peeved at this impertinence. I just hope that he put it down to youthful stupidity. No wonder Kreskin keeps well away from magicians. They are rather doltish at times.

I don't think many magicians know about this book.
It is called "Powers" subtitle "Testing the Psychic & Supernatural". Published by Varsity Press. No doubt you can get it at your local Christian Bookshop.

On a sidenote I once spoke to a manager of a Catholic bookshop in Dublin. It also sold all sorts of religious artifacts and holy prayerbooks. The shop was busy with nuns, priests and other holy people including myself. The manager amused me greatly by saying that the biggest problem the shop had was shoplifting.

Perhaps nuns should be paid more.

Back in the day when my father (www.perfectmagic.com) put on magic conventions we had James Randi show up as a guest. He offered to put on a lecture, the only time slot that was available was around 11:30pm. He was incredible. He didn't do a single trick just talked about his experiences, We didn't expect such a turnout, especially after a full day of magic from some of the greats. This was not planned he didn't charge anything. He held us in that room for about 3 hours and nobody wanted to leave. The only people that were disapointed were those that did not attend.