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The Magic Book (Hardcover)
Mike Caveney, Jim Steinmeyer, Ricky Jay; Edited by Noel Daniel
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R1,025
R909
Discovery Miles 9 090
Save R116 (11%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Magic has enchanted humankind for millennia, evoking terror,
laughter, shock, and amazement. Once persecuted as heretics and
sorcerers, magicians have always been conduits to a parallel
universe of limitless possibility-whether invoking spirits, reading
minds, or inverting the laws of nature by sleight of hand. Long
before science fiction, virtual realities, video games, and the
Internet, the craft of magic was the most powerful fantasy world
man had ever known. As the pioneers of special effects throughout
history, magicians have never ceased to mystify us by making the
impossible possible. This book celebrates more than 500 years of
the stunning visual culture of the world's greatest magicians.
Featuring more than 750 rarely seen vintage posters, photographs,
handbills, and engravings as well as paintings by Hieronymus Bosch
and Bruegel among others, The Magic Book traces the history of
magic as a performing art from the 1400s to the 1950s. Combining
sensational images with incisive text, the book explores the
evolution of the magicians' craft, from medieval street performers
to the brilliant stage magicians who gave rise to cinematic special
effects; from the 19th century's golden age of magic to
groundbreaking daredevils like Houdini and the early 20th century's
vaudevillians.
Magic has enchanted humankind for millennia, evoking terror,
laughter, shock, and amazement. Once persecuted as heretics and
sorcerers, magicians have always been conduits to a parallel
universe of limitless possibility-whether invoking spirits, reading
minds, or inverting the laws of nature by sleight of hand. Long
before science fiction, virtual realities, video games, and the
Internet, the craft of magic was the most powerful fantasy world
man had ever known. As the pioneers of special effects throughout
history, magicians have never ceased to mystify us by making the
impossible possible. This book celebrates more than 500 years of
the stunning visual culture of the world's greatest magicians.
Featuring more than 750 rarely seen vintage posters, photographs,
handbills, and engravings as well as paintings by Hieronymus Bosch
and Bruegel among others, Magic traces the history of magic as a
performing art from the 1400s to the 1950s. Combining sensational
images with incisive text, the book explores the evolution of the
magicians' craft, from medieval street performers to the brilliant
stage magicians who gave rise to cinematic special effects; from
the 19th century's golden age of magic to groundbreaking daredevils
like Houdini and the early 20th century's vaudevillians.
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The Brothers Bloom (DVD)
Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rinko Kikuchi, Robbie Coltrane, …
1
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R118
R110
Discovery Miles 1 100
Save R8 (7%)
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Out of stock
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Crime comedy caper starring Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel
Weisz. Brothers Stephen Bloom (Ruffalo) and Bloom Bloom (Brody)
have been professional con artists since childhood, and have honed
the art of swindling fortunes to perfection. When they meet
beautiful but lonely New Jersey heiress Penelope (Weisz), they
determine to pull off one last spectacular heist through an
elaborate scheme that takes them all around the world. But as
Stephen's elaborate web of deception pulls ever tighter, Bloom
begins to wonder exactly who is conning who.
Plato said God invented dice. This we learn from one of Ricky Jay's
fascinating essays in a delightful small volume that takes us from
the earliest forms (astragalithe heel bones of hoofed quadrupeds,
four of whose six sides were used for gaming) to the myriad types
of "loading" and other means of cheating with dice in the modern
era. Along the way we discover that Augustus, Caligula, and Nero
were all inveterate players, that Queen Elizabeth issued a search
and seizure order against the manufacture of false dice in 1598,
and that dice made from celluloid, invented in 1869, remained
stable for decades, and thenin a flashbegan to decompose. These are
the dice of Rosamond Purcell's luminous and seductive photographs,
images which transform entropy to an art form. Jay and Purcell give
us a dual meditation on dice that will educate us and amuse us at
the same time. 13 color photographs.
It includes observations on the convention of promoting such
appearances, digressions on the manner and method of printing
advertisements to do so, and insights into the psychology employed
to that end. All are compiled in a monograph that is itself a
shameless attempt to entertain and elucidate. It is the contention
of the author that neither the tongue of the most florid orator,
nor pen of the most ingenious writer, can sufficiently describe the
elegance, symmetry, and prodigious accomplishments of those who
pass in review within these pages Included are broadsides
advertising: an armless dulcimer player, a ghost showman, a singing
mouse, a chess-playing automaton, a cannon ball juggler, an African
hermaphrodite, a chicken incubator, a rabbi with prodigious memory,
a ventriloquist, a spirit medium, a glass blower, a woman magician,
a speaking machine, a mermaid, a bullet catcher, a flea circus, and
an equestrian bee keeper.
One of the New York Times's "Notable Books" and a Los Angeles Times
"Best Book of the Year": Ricky Jay's brilliant excursion into the
history of bizarre entertainments. Ingesters of stones, stoats, and
swords have long compelled my attention. Signor Hervio Nano, the
fantastic homunculus, defied conventional taxonomy. The
well-trained flea has shown sufficient rationality to drive a
chariot, impersonate Napoleon, or reenact the siege of Antwerp.
Note the enduring popularity of severing from the head its most
protuberant organthe nose. The Bonassus, advertised as unique, was
in 1821 the most numerous hoofed quadruped on the face of the
earth. In an era rich in examples of animal scholarship, Munito was
a star. The multitalented Ricky Jay (sleight-of-hand artist, actor,
author, and scholar of the unusual) wrote and published a unique
and beautifully designed quarterly called Jay's Journal of
Anomalies. Already coveted collector's items, the sixteen issues
are now gathered here in a complete set, with significant new
material and illustrations. A brilliant excursion into the history
of bizarre entertainments, the journal was described in The New
York Times as "beautiful and elegant...a combination of rigorous
scholarship and personal rumination." In a delectably deadpan and
winning style, Jay conveys his admiration and affection for the
offbeat that characterized his best-selling Learned Pigs &
Fireproof Women. The journal covers such subjects as dogs stealing
acts from other dogs, an anthropological hoax involving the only
survivors of a caste of ancient Aztec priests, and the ultimate
diet: eating nothing at all. Jay explains how wags since the
sixteenth century have cheated at bowling; he explores the ancient
relationship between conjuring and dentistry; and he chronicles the
exploits of ceiling walkers and human flies. Crammed full of
illustrations drawn from the author's massive personal archives,
Jay's Journal of Anomalies will baffle, instruct, and, above all,
delight. 150 illustrations.
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