Thursday, September 27, 2007


VENICE BEACH PANORAMA, originally uploaded by venicewow.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Sick fuck, has a great pass

Collingswood magician faces new set of sexual assault charges

by South Jersey News Online

Wednesday September 26, 2007, 12:04 PM

Jeffrey Leach, 45, of Collingswood, a magician who performs under the name Ron Geoffries, was charged Tuesday with 11 counts of sexual assault and related offenses, accused of molesting a female victim between 1995 and 2005 starting when the victim was under 10 years old.

Leach is charged with four counts of sexual assault, a second-degree crime; two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, a second-degree crime; and five counts of aggravated criminal sexual cContact, a third-degree crime. Each second-degree charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment upon conviction, while each third-degree charge carries a maximum five years. His favorite trick is the hippity hop rabbits.

It is alleged that Leach engaged in sexual contact with the victim on numerous occasions in Collingswood. The investigation began after the victim recently disclosed the alleged assaults to a relative following news reports of Leach's arrest on Sept. 18 in Ocean County, where he is charged with criminalsexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child as well as making her squeeze his sponge balls. Leach was released on bail the day following his arrest on the Ocean County charges. He immediately went to a magic shop and told his friends, "I'm gonna be famous"

Judge Samuel D. Natal of the Superior Court in Camden today set Leach's bail at $40,000, cash or bond, on the Collingswood charges. Leach, who was recently admitted to a hospital, remains hospitalized and is expected to be processed on the charges upon his discharge.

The investigation is continuing. Anyone with information is asked to call Collingswood Detective Edward Correll at (856) 854-1313, ext. 237.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Bicycle Guardians


Bicycle Guardians, originally uploaded by stuartjudah.

Theory11


Theory11, originally uploaded by stuartjudah.

Guardian Back


Guardian Back, originally uploaded by stuartjudah.

In my "In Box" • Aaron Fisher

Hey Gang,

The pass has long been considered one of the true enigmas in close-up
magic. Every generation discovers this valuable technique - a few
brave souls master it, but most people give up in frustration or
shame.

Here's some good news. The pass doesn't need to be as difficult as we
make it. Of course, it's a good idea to do the shift as silently and
efficiently as possible. But that's only half the battle.

I've written an article on the topic you may find helpful. To check
it out, click the link below. This topic may arouse some passionate
opinions. Think about the writing - then leave a comment. Your ideas
alone can help our discussion move forward.

As always, if you can't click on the link for some reason, just copy
it and paste it into your web browser.

Here's the link:
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?8K8vPZnLq9d4k36o58ATMA




Gratefully,

Aaron Fisher

The Fisher King

Marketing is when you motivate someone to pick up the phone.

As a subscriber to Aaron Fisher's online mailing list, I received an email today, with a link to Aaron's Blog. He's started an interesting discussion about the pass, as well as sharing a bit about Theory11. Always a good read, Aaron has no trouble breaking things down in ways that I can understand.

I hadn't talked to him all summer, so I figured I'd give him a call. We made quick plans to have lunch in 20 minutes. I met him at his Hollywood apartment and he was excited to unveil a trick that he showed me months ago as an idea. Now it was fully fleshed out product, a dvd with 45 minutes of performance, instruction, psychology and real life experience.

I typically don't watch magic dvd's. I don't know why not, I just don't. But when a friend gives me one, It's hard not to want to see their work. It's good clean, commercial magic, that will entertain and fool. Hell it looked so easy, I could probably pull it off. Now that's got the making of a good seller.

You got to like a guy who names a trick after his favorite psychedelic rock band. The trick is "Panic" with the advanced handling "Wide Spread Panic". Straight forward and visual. Well shot and edited. Very comprehensive. Aaron's years on the lecture circuit and his comfort level in front of a variety of audiences and venues, makes him a natural on this dvd. He's calm, he's focused, as he discuses focus and tension (a couple of his favorite topics).

We had lunch at his favorite Peruvian restaurant not too far from his place. The food delicious and the conversation relevant and interesting. Hanging with Aaron always sends me home thinking about a bunch of different things, from card tricks to marketing, the internet, content and spicy fish.

It was a nice afternoon of magic.

Shuffle, originally uploaded by ralphunden.

Monday, September 24, 2007

HD Video Review

Aug. 16, 2007 2:45PM Santa Monica 3rd St. Promenade

Kozmo pt. 2

Interview with Koz about street performing. Interesting chat with a guy who’s out there working making a living doing what he loves. . . on his terms.

Aug. 16, 2007 3:24PM Stuck in traffic

Aug. 30, 2007 4:19PM Paradise Cove, Malibu CA

Sights and sounds on the beach. Scantly clad young women looking fine. Beautiful waves. Some of the houses on the beach. Getting used to the camera. Studying how it processes light in different situations.

Sept. 1, 2007 9:42PM Universal City Walk • Flattop

Always entertaining. This cat “Brings It!”. Lots of energy, total funk. An interesting way of moving so that it looks like missing frames. I’ve been trying to adapt some of these sorts of movements with my card work. Processing low light very well, a tad grainy. I’d like to do some sort of video project using him. He really captures my interest on many different levels. I’ve shot footage of him on several different occasions. in 8 minutes he’s gathered a sizable crowd. Crazy dancing and great interaction with the crowd. Inspiring. Gets a kid from the audience and makes him pop dance.

Sept. 1, 2007 9:55PM Universal City Walk • Sajama

Band working fountain court on a CROWED night. Place is hopping. Shots of Neon and funky architecture. I love going to work at the City Walk.
Sept. 3, 2007 12:04 PM Chat with Polly in her Prius

104 degrees. Drive through window at In n Out Burger. Minutia, home movies.

Sept. 6, 2007 7:07 PM Universal City Walk • Me at work

I try and shoot my act on video weekly. I review what I’m doing from a variety of angels. This is an on the fly way of shooting. Because I’m really a work trying to make money, I’m not paying to much attention to the camera, it just keeps rolling. This is a frustrating way to work because I can never get the shot I want. Occasionally I can enlist an operator.

Flip stick (flashed), Mental Photography is a Bad Ass deck. I’d buy one myself if I didn’t have so many of them. Coin Manipulation Routine to Chaplin Music. Off my mark with the music, caught up. only off by a couple of beats. Coin falling up looked good.

Sept. 12, 2007 7:16 PM Universal City Walk • Me at work

Close up’s on one handed cuts.

Shooting from above. Nice shot, 4 handed poker deal into Doc Daley’s Last Trick. Control and shuffles looked good.

Widened the shot and moved the camera farther away. Watching how people react to me dancing around playing with the cards. Trying to get someone interested with out looking like I care.

More practice footage (Margarita shooting) Poker Deal

Extreme close up of my shuffle work. Got to say it looks good to me.

Sept. 13, 2007 2:54 Pasadena • Danny Sylvester & Sharon Little chat after lunch.

Sept. 20, 2007 7:39 PM City Walk • Me at work

Panoramic Shift, fancy cuts, (hands close to lens) One Handed Four Packet Cut. Hand to Hand Coin Rolls. 1,2,3 and four coins rolling over my fingers. Kirk revolve coin vanish. Looks like a slow night at work. Roll out to star. Changed camera angle. Fuck up the 4 Ace production, glad no one was watching. I love the way cards feel. Bare Handed single card production. Flashing at the same point each time.

Sept. 23, 2007 7:10 PM Polly at home getting ready for the Premier.

Sept. 24, 2007 10:11 PM At home practice

Played around with using the iTunes visualizer as a background to coin manipulation. In darkened room it created a silloet like in the ipod commercial. Neat effect I stumbled on after a few bong hits. Came up with a cool production for a coin using the darkness to my advantage. Card manipulation. Tripped out.

Shot similar footage in better light. Not as interesting. Shots of some of the art hanging in my office.

That’s all folks

Dirty Sexy Money Premiere

Last night Polly and I attended the premiere for “Dirty Sexy Money” at the Paramount Theater on the Paramount Studios Lot in Hollywood. It was a lovely affair. Always nice to get all dressed up and be part od a scene.

Over the last couple of months I’ve taken several opportunities to get up close and personal studying the day to day activities in the making of a network TV show. On any given day there are approximately 100 people working long hours to see that each show is written, rehearsed, shot, edited and delivered to you for the first time ever, this Wednesday night at 10 PM on ABC. A lot of people have a lot money riding on new shows. Always interesting to see what a fickle public will allow into their homes and embrace as entertainment.

I visited Polly on set a week or so ago, they were shooting at a downtown location, a beautiful deco building lobby and an alley. Cool stuff, large helium balloons with lights in them, floated above, to illuminate hard to light areas. I like meeting all the people Polly works with, script supervisors, assistant directors, wardrobe and prop people, production assistants, kraft services, catering and transpo, all vital departments, not to mention the talent, and the department responsible for making the stars look fabulous. . . . hair and make-up.

Last night’s premiere was mostly for the cast and crew with a bit of press and a red carpet affair, for the stars to smile and talk to the press about the show. Everyone eventually made it into the theater where we would all watch the pilot on the big movie screen. An interesting production note is that the pilot was shot in New York and roughly half of the pilot was reshot months later in Hollywood. Lavish sets fill a sound stage on the Paramount Lot, where the bulk of the show is shot. Obviously the show was well received, the audience was the people who have traded their Mon. - Fri. personal lives to see that this hour show will enhance yours.

After the pilot, there was a cocktail party ain the lobby. Booze, food and pretty people. This was not going to be a late night for anyone as there was a 4:12AM crew call time. We wondered why they didn’t do it on Saturday Night. One of the producers who is Jewish, didn’t want to do it on Yom Kippur.

It was a lovely night, I had a smashing time. I’m very proud of the work Polly does. Long hours in a thankless industry make for high stress. I love Polly Lucke. Thanks for taking me to a cool party.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

French mime legend Marcel Marceau dies, 84


MARCEAU_marcel, originally uploaded by mckenzee.



Francois Murphy
Reuters

Sunday, September 23, 2007

PARIS -- Marcel Marceau, the world's best-known mime artist who for decades moved audiences across the globe without uttering a single word, has died aged 84.

The Frenchman's extensive tours and appearances on camera brought his silent art to people around the world. His comic and tragic sketches appealed on a universal level, with each audience interpreting his performance in its own way.

"Mime, like music, knows neither borders nor nationalities," he once said. "If laughter and tears are the characteristics of humanity, all cultures are steeped in our discipline."

On stage, he charmed with his deft silent movements, a white-faced figure with a striped jersey and battered top hat.

Off stage, with the costume and the pancake makeup removed, Mr. Marceau was a slim, agile man whose eloquent description and explanation complemented his mute mastery of mime.

In mime, Mr. Marceau said, gestures express the essence of the soul's most secret aspiration. "To mime the wind, one becomes a tempest. To mime a fish, you throw yourself into the sea."

He created the figure of Bip, the melancholy, engaging clown with a limp red flower in his hat, 60 years ago this year.

"The mime Marceau will forever be the character of Bip," Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement confirming the performer's death.

"He became one of the best-known French artists in the world. His students and the show-business world will miss him." The exact cause of his death was not immediately known.

Mr. Marceau traced his ancestry back through U.S. silent film greats Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to the clowns of the Commedia dell'Arte, a centuries-old European tradition, and to the stylised gestures of Chinese opera and Japan's Noh plays.

Mr. Marceau was born in the Alsatian town of Strasbourg on March 22, 1923. He was brought up in Lille, where his father was a butcher. When the Second World War came, his father was taken hostage and later killed by the invading Nazis and in 1944 Marcel joined his elder brother in the Resistance.

He later joined the French Army and served with occupation forces in Germany at the end of the war.

He began to study acting in 1946 under Charles Dullin and the great mime teacher Etienne Decroux, who also taught Jean-Louis Barrault.

It was in Marcel Carne's famous 1947 film starring Barrault, Les Enfants du Paradis, that Mr. Marceau, who played Arlequin, first became known as a mime artist.

He formed his own mime company in 1948, and the troupe was soon touring other European countries, presenting mime dramas. The company failed financially in 1959, but was revived as a school, the Ecole Internationale de Mimodrame, in 1984.

A veteran of dozens of films, one of his best remembered roles was a speaking cameo in Silent Movie, made by American director Mel Brooks.

For Mr. Marceau, mime had a philosophical and political level.

One of his most famous sketches was The Cage, in which he struggled to escape through an invisible ring of barriers, only to find that one cage succeeds another and there is no escape.

In Czechoslovakia before the Soviet-led invasion of 1968, he recalled that audiences understood it as an allegory about capitalism. After the invasion, they saw in it an image of themselves under Russian domination.

"I am a progressive, a man who deals for peace, and who has struggled for enlightenment in the world. I am not just an entertainer," he said.

"I want to be a man who will represent as an active witness my time, and who wants to say, without words, my feelings about the world."