Law and Magic Blog

ICYMI: Some Articles on the History of Magic and Magic Performance

ICYMI: Some interesting articles on the history of magic and magic performance.

William George Provan Houstoun, The Grand Cycle of Conjuring Treatises: Modern Magic, More Magic, Later Magic and Latest Magic, 16 Early Popular Visual Culture 123 (2018).

Katharina Rein, Rupturing Illusionism: The Bullet Catch, 16 Early Popular Visual Culture 157 (2018).

Matthew Solomon and Joe Culpepper, Toward a Historiography of Stage Conjuring: Are We Entering a Golden Age? 16 Early Popular Visual Culture 112 (2018).

Gwendolyn Waltz, Stage Conjuring With Film: Influences and Legacies, 16 Early Popular Visual Culture 188 (2018).

Tracy Ying Zhang, Enchanted Masculinities: Gender, Modern Magic and Nationalism in Early Twentieth Century China, 16 Early Popular Culture 172 (2018).

ICYMI: Huvelin on Les tablettes magiques et le droit romain

ICYMI: Henri Huvelin  Les tablettes magiques et le droit romain, 10 Annales internationales d’histoire 1–66 )1901).

 

 

ICYMI: Fritz Graf, La magic dans l'antiquite greco-romain, 2d ed. (2004)

ICYMI:

 

Fritz Graf, La magie dans l’antiquité gréco-romain. Idéologie et pratique, 2d ed. (Paris, 2004).

A Visit to Tannen's, and Some Magic History @atlasobscura @tannensmagic @slaskow

For Atlas Obscura, Sarah Laskow writes about a visit to the fabled magic shop Tannen's, some magic history, and an encounter with magician Noah Levine. Ms. Laskow notes,

 

Even if you know how cups and balls works, in the hands of a skillful performer, you won’t see the movement of the balls, no matter how carefully you look. When Penn and Teller do it in full view it still feels like magic. The same principle applies to New York itself. However many times you walk down a street, paying close attention, some detail escapes your notice, or only exists for those in the know. The grave of Harry Houdini, perhaps the most famous magician in history, is part of a family plot in Queens, and though it might seem like an obvious attraction it spent years in disrepair. I’ve walked past the year-round Halloween costume store on Broadway countless times and never knew of the magic shop in the basement, stocked with throwbacks to the 1980s. Without an invitation, there’s no way to discover the illegal poker room hidden somewhere in Soho, where Levine was once asked to perform. New York itself is an engine of misdirection.