Speaker 1: I love take that new technology and, and kind of reinventing it and presenting as magic. And then five years now, it's, it's all your folks you can, uh, do whatever you want with it'll be in your, in your, in your home.
Speaker 2: Going to magic shops is a big part of my, uh, was a big part of my childhood too. So when I saw, um, your tribute to tannins, I mean, where you are right now, it's, it's astounding. [00:00:30] Um, I vague memories of in the eighties of it. And, uh, and I've been there since, and, you know, through the relocations. And so this is
Speaker 1: A recreation of a 42nd street, one a little before your time. Um, one 20 west 42nd street. It was the world that building, uh, in, in New York where it doesn't exist anywhere in 1970, they moved it. And that's when you, you saw it there on the 15 [00:01:00] Broadway.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can people, um, attend, like how do you actually attend the museum? Is it only invitation only, or do you have to be lucky enough to, to be able to visit?
Speaker 1: Well, we do exhibitions. It's not just for us to keep and hoard it's we do exhibitions outside of here. We take beautiful exhibitions to the New York, New York historical society, and a very different, very different places. So we really do life love sharing it to have people come here. Uh, it's difficult cuz there's so many secrets involved here and everything's very touchable and accessible except for this place [00:01:30] it's except for the magic shop. Everything's not behind glass, you know? Um, so, uh, because of the secrecy park, we decided to do exhibitions outside of it. And the book is a product of that. The book is a way of sharing this museum, uh, and saying why it's important, why magic is important, uh, without having to come to this place, it's a way of making come to this place, uh, you know, by flipping pages,
Speaker 2: You know, I think about how theater's been transforming as well, even in the past couple of years or had to transform. I [00:02:00] mean, uh, do you see, where do you see magic now, now in, in 2021, you know, even as a where you are in Vegas, how has it been and what, what, where do, what do you see magic being compared to when you, when you
Speaker 1: Started? Well, I think, you know, the internet has, uh, had a rebirth of magic of a certain kind and there's been a lot of street magic and close up magic and things that you do in this frame, you know, on a phone. Uh, and I think it's great, you know, um, I've tried to move magic forward [00:02:30] in the live theater way. You know, mostly that's where magic thrives, you know, you can see it's real, it's not a filter, it's not a, an app it's really happening live. And I do 500 shows a year, but I'm trying to move it forward to be a different kind of land, which it's not about car tricks, which are great, or, uh, you know, it's about dinosaurs and spaceships and, and uh, and time travel things that are part of our literature are part of our, uh, you know, our consciousness and I'm taking [00:03:00] those things and talking about my family and all that. So that's the direction I'm, I'm trying to take magic to.
Speaker 2: I was wondering, you know, as you were growing the medium and what TV was, do you see similar to Millie? Like, do you see, um, magic playing a really big role in evolving what the next medium, what the next media are? Um, at the moment
Speaker 1: I'm very fortunate to see technology before anybody else. I see it very, very early people bring [00:03:30] me things all the time and it gives me a chance to take that technology before people are aware of it and use it in my magic. You know, it's all indistinguishable for magic, you know, technology to that's really great as Arthur C. Clark said, but I think I love take that new technology and, and kind of reinventing it and presenting as magic. And then five years now, it's all your folks. You can, uh, do whatever you want with, it'll be in your, in your, in your home. But for the time being, I get a chance to do that. And in the process [00:04:00] I'm inventing new technology myself, uh, which is really rewarding that hopefully will do somebody some good. Um, I think, uh, we're still listening to people what they're doing and how they're seeing the world.
Speaker 1: And that keeps changing little by little, you know, how we're seeing both technology and entertainment, how we're seeing movies now moves are nine hours long now, you know, it's, the streaming idea is so people have to think, oh, even though I think we're not gonna lose that [00:04:30] big screen experience, I think we love that. That's a really important thing to be consumed in the world as opposed to being, unless you have a really big home theater, you know, I hope that doesn't go away, you know, talk about all the, um, Tarantino tinter efforts to, to make that old, um, wild, wild west, um, how the west was won. They'd have these events, people come dressed up to the movie theater and see these a big events and they'd be inter intermission in the middle and there'd be a whole thing [00:05:00] you feel, wow, you're part of this almost Broadways experience, uh, in the theater. I think that's great. And I hopefully don't lose that. I love that people are fighting for that too. Um, while still embracing the fact that we're getting so much content here like this, you know, we're seeing so much like that. It's easy. I like what watching content like that, but there is a spectacle that I also enjoy too. So I think they're valid. And, uh, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: I tend to look at a lot of, uh, NextGen technologies in my [00:05:30] job. And so I'm, I'm very focused on things like VR and AR I hadn't written this down as a question, but it just comes to mind. Have you ever thought about a way to kind of visit the museum virtually, uh, or build something like a, like a, a
Speaker 1: Scan of it we have and, uh, that will, that will come. I'm still trying to get the museum, right. It looks like I got it right. I'm always continuing to build as a, gonna be a plateau where, uh, I will have finished two more rooms that have to be done right now. We just finished the library. COVID helped us create the library. Uh, we kept my staff, uh, employed [00:06:00] and we built this amazing library. You can see it in the book, um, that, that, uh, wouldn't exist if it wasn't for this horrible pandemic. But, um, but anyway, I, uh, we keep expanding and there's two other things I wanted to do, which is the puppet room, because I was influenced in the very, very lead way with puppets puppetry and vental equi. And, um, and also all the magic sets that we're still working on that anyway, there's, there's me in the library that was created by this horrible pandemic.
Speaker 1: You know, it's pretty amazing library. [00:06:30] And, um, you know, I love the displays. I love telling the stories of the transitions of, of all this stuff. That's me looking in the, the gold age of magic, pretty, pretty incredible. And it goes all the way to how magic's transitioned through the years and, um, ends up with my journey. You know, I'm doing things with, with, with, with aliens and spaceships and, uh, uh, and the death saw, which is, and dinosaurs as me, my big dinosaur named [00:07:00] Frank and, uh, that's yeah, that's pretty good, but it shows why, you know, why did this all happen? So, anyway, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: I I've seen some magicians doing performances throughout this past couple of years that doing some interesting stuff. Have you ever thought about doing either virtual or, or even on the flip side? Totally different thing, but I'm very obsessed with immersive theater. I don't know if you had ever thought of doing things like, I mean, you're in, in a very, the most incredible immersive space right [00:07:30] now, if you thought about that. Well, my
Speaker 1: Whole show is immersive. I, you know, to great pains of having magic happen over people's heads, magic happened on their table. I'm going to the back of the theater. I'm in the middle of the theater. I make a big effort to have the magic happen, immersively around you. Uh, the whole show is that cuz I think it's worth doing, it's worth experimenting with, uh, I, I didn't devise a zoom show. I've got plenty of ideas for a zoom show and people did do it. This is an interesting frame, this very similar it to [00:08:00] a frame that I worked in when I was doing television shows also when I was doing commercials, Kodak commercials, I would use that frame in a very unique way and now people are doing it cuz you know, not copying me, but they discovered the same thing that I discovered, you know, 30 years ago.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned building the, the library during the pandemic and you know, what was everything like? Um, during that time and, and coming back, I don't know when you started performing again, uh, whether it was very recently or a few months back, but you know, what's it been like out there it's been about a year
Speaker 1: Or [00:08:30] so? I think, uh, they shut us down for a while cause people were behaving properly, but we kind of set a standard in my show, disinfecting my hands and wearing a mask and taking off the mask, having distancing, having we had a whole system and everybody started copying what we did cause we kind of thoughtfully, uh, Theise had to do a very safe show for the audience, Anthony too. Um, but people weren't behaving at all. So they shut the whole town down, you know, for a few months and then we came back. But [00:09:00] I think, uh, you know, it's getting back more and more normal every day. You know, people are taking things seriously and um, um, yeah, I'm having a really good time in the shows and I do 15 shows a week, uh, wow. With no days off. And then I go off on vacation for a week and then six weeks more. I'll do that 15 show a week schedule. So it's, I, I wouldn't do if I didn't like it, good time.
Speaker 2: I used to come out to Vegas every year for CES and I'm probably going [00:09:30] to resume doing that. Um, but I
Speaker 1: Love, I love CS by the way I spend so much time. I got a group of friends that we go around and, and that people show me tons of amazing things and I get to, uh, really involve those new thoughts, new approaches to thinking in the magic and I love it. So, um, it's gigantic. Yes. You know, now it is a little bit less now, but it's the biggest, I think it's the biggest convention, you know, uh, there is. [00:10:00] Um, but uh, finding the good stuff is, is really
Speaker 2: Fun. What do you think it is that makes magic still work now? You know, I know who we seem to keep rediscovering that, um, magic's still effective. You know, obviously there are, there are things that still remain true in the, in the brain, but I want, I was curious about your take about why what's still resonant
Speaker 1: About it because we need it. We need it. Yeah. Like we need movies. Like we need movies and music, you know, it transports us magic [00:10:30] as it in a very profound way. You know, it's not real, but you still want to see it as real it's showing the future are possibilities. You know, the infinite possibilities that hopefully we possess in our future for real. And I think that's what, what it is. We, we enjoy that, that, uh, that thing, you know, I we're doing likable puzzles. You know, the people shouldn't like this stuff, you know, we're doing stuff that they don't know, I'm doing stuff you don't know, but you, if I'm likable [00:11:00] enough and I'm telling you in a compelling way, I think, um, that it, it's not a puzzle. It's not an off putting thing. It's an evolving thing. And I work really hard at that.
Speaker 2: What would you say the biggest changes are in what you've been, what you've been doing now, or do you think it's all just kind of a continual
Speaker 1: It's big changes. It's gigantic change, you know, back when you were seeing me as a kid, I was doing these kind of dance, MTV based dance pieces and escape from things and kind of [00:11:30] very, very much that now it's all all about, you know, time travel and spaceships and dinosaurs and oh, wow. Uh, all that really trying to change the language of the art of magic and very, like you said, immersive all around you. And you know, I'm in my own theater here at the MGM, in Vegas at the MGM, we, we are able to create a show where I don't have to move it from city to city. We used to have to tour to Nassau Coliseum and the next day another city, what was I had to move all this stuff. And we [00:12:00] did it really well. We had a big spectacular show, but now I'm really locked into a place where I can, you know, make it truly environmental.
