Law and Magic Blog

Law & Magic: A Collection of Essays Now Available

The book Law & Magic: A Collection of Essays made its debut at the AALS meeting in New Orleans. It's available at CAP's website (discount!) and also via amazon.com and bn.com.

Jonathan Creek Season Four DVDs Will Be Available Next Month

Season four of Jonathan Creek will soon be available on DVD (January 19, 2010). Here's a list of the season four episodes (Jonathan's knowledge of magic and psychology help him solve all the puzzles; his cluelessness about women continues to be his most endearing quality).

The Coonskin Cap: a classic "locked room" mystery in which Jonathan and his new sidekick Carla solve the case of the Daisy Chain killer.

Angel Hair: Jonathan figures out how a woman grows back her hair in a couple of days.

The Tailor's Dummy: why does someone jump out a window but throw his pet parrot out first?

The Seer of the Sands: why does a skeptic kill himself after receiving news that his girlfriend's husband has finally agreed to divorce her?

The Chequered Box: Jonathan clears a police officer of murder; one of the principles of magic is the key to this one. This is a really good episode.

Gorgon's Wood: Jonathan solves the theft of a piece of porcelain.

The late magician Ali Bongo (born William Oliver Wallace) was the inspiration for Adam Klaus, the magician for whom Jonathan works on Jonathan Creek.

David Renwick wrote the part of the flamboyant Adam Klaus in Jonathan Creek after meeting Bongo on the set of his sitcom One Foot in the Grave, where the magician had been overseeing the filming of a guillotine trick. Bongo continued to advise on the show, and seemed to have enjoyed teaching actors. "They have a sense of drama," he said, "and that is the most important part of magic."

See more here.

The Haunted Pool Room

Just in time for Halloween, another haunted house story, but this haunted house story is one about a haunted pool room, called--what else--the Flying Saucer, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The pool room is a converted train station. Paranormal investigators are hot on the trail. Read more here.

An Interview With Jon Ronson (the Men Staring at Goats Guy)

eSkeptic has an interview with Jon Ronson, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, here. The film opens wide this November.

Some Magic on "Drop Dead Diva"

In "Grayson's Anatomy," tonight's final episode of the season for the series Drop Dead Diva, the protagonist, attorney Jane Bingum (Brooke Elliot) dreams that she is the star witness in a showdown between the two men who attract her most: colleagues Grayson Kent (Jackson Hurst) and Tony Nicastro (David Denman). Paula Abdul, presiding as the judge, calls on each man to demonstrate why he should win Jane's heart. Tony dances--one interpretation of what lawyers do. But Grayson breaks a magic wand and makes scarves appear. Of course Judge Abdul announces she'll give her ruling after the break, and then Jane wakes up.

This comedy is fun to watch; it takes on real issues of ethics and hot button legal issues, and includes a little of the supernatural, since Jane harbors the reincarnation of dead model Deb, Grayson's fiancee. Lawyers, models, and the afterlife--something for everyone.

The Charm of Making Money

In this week's eSkeptic, Karen Stollznow writes about psychic advisors and the economy. People continue to seek out such advice, especially in rough times. She gives examples of individuals who rely on advice from psychics for business deals and real estate (people wanting to sell their homes sometimes  bury statues of St. Joseph in their yards). She also notes the example of the recently charged Jerome Kerviel, who seems to have relied on psychic advice and ended up in a quite a financial mess. But hope endures.

I've posted about these topics a couple of times already (see here and here). But they continue to enchant.

Man Accused Of Killing Relatives In Naples, Florida, Says "Spirit" Was Involved

According to this CNN story, the man accused of killing his wife and five children admitted to a Naples Daily News reporter that he committed the crimes, and said that his mother-in-law "made him do it." "Her mom pretty much made me do it -- the devil, her spirit, whatever she worships." Here's CNN video on the story. Here's more from the Naples Daily News about the confession and state of mind of the accused, Mesac Damas, and about his flight back to the U.S. 

Woman Falls To Her Death From University of Toronto Building's Roof

The Toronto Star (star.com) has this sad story about a ghost hunter originally from Indiana, who fell to her death from a University of Toronto building on September 10. Leah Kubik was looking for specters with her friend at 1 Spandina Crescent on the university campus and tried to follow him, apparently across the rooftop. She fell to the ground, several stories below, and died later at a hospital in the city.

University spokespeople say they do not understand why the pair was looking for ghosts at that particular location, which is not known for hauntings. "Richard Fiennes-Clinton, who leads ghost tours of the university's campus, said: `This particular college itself doesn't even really have any kind of substantial ghost stories to it. There's certainly a lot of other buildings around the university that do have stories.'"

Read more here.

Update: according to this article in the University of Toronto's college newspaper, The Strand, investigators are now saying Ms. Kubik and the man with her were not ghost-hunting. "Police reported that the couple had been ghost-hunting, but later withdrew the claim. Toxicology and autopsy results have not been released to the press. Neither the man nor the woman was a university student."

Thanks to Tiffany Rad for the tip.

Staring At Goats, Big Screen

The Guardian's Andrew Pulver has this "first look" at George Clooney's adaptation of Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare at Goats," which premieres at the Venice Film Festival, and is set to open wide this fall. The film centers on a U.S. army unit that investigates (and seems to believe in) psychic powers.

The French and the Spiritual

Simon Marsden, a photographer interested in ghost hunting and photographing ghosts, says there are as many ghosts in France as in England. But "[T]hey [the French] are slower to reveal them and talk about it." He also suggests that the French Revolution, with its physical destruction of things, stripped both the cities and the countryside of places where ghosts could leave their imprints. "'These places are haunted by the absence of things. It's as if [the French] are not allowed to use their imaginations...."

I don't know about that. That sounds to me like an appeal to the usual view of the French as traditional Enlightenment types, overly rational. While they can be rational, they can also be imaginative. Jules Verne was French. Victor Hugo was French. Coco Chanel was French. All pretty imaginative types. Is the suggestion that the French aren't as likely to believe in psychic phenomena? I don't know about that either. Nostradamus was French (real name Michel de Nostradame). Camille Flammarion was both an astronomer and a spiritualist, who is credited with having invented the word "psychic." Is Mr. Mardsen saying that the French are private, that they don't talk openly about private things? Now, that's true, I think, but it's true as well, I believe, for many British people as well. Read more here.

On the French, see Sanche de Gramont (Ted Morgan), Portrait of a People (1969), Graham Robb, The Discovery of France (2007), John Steinbeck, The Short Reign of Pippin IV (reprint 2001)(a very funny fiction about a descendant of Charlemage called to rule a newly reinstated monarchy), and Theodore Zeldin, The French (1996).