How many magic tricks should we learn? We may want to amaze any crowd. Or do we want to improve critical thinking skills? Magic tricks are there to "enrich our lives."
Should we watch the youtube video of the most famous world magic tricks revealed? The dove is stuffed inside a box and then flies out rather than coming alive from a picture. And so on.
It isn't fun to find out the answer - whether it is the top 10 or the greatest 100. The point of magic tricks is that they are illusions and we like mystery and the unknown as long as there is humour.
What about breaking the Magician's Code? This shouldn't happen should it? And to make it worse, it was a TV program in the late 1990s that revealed some of the oldest tricks and some sleight of hand tricks. There were lawsuits by professional magicians over who invented what, criticisms that the explanations were inaccurate. And then some had to change tricks as the underlying method was revealed so where's the mystery and fun?
And how did David Copperfield make a plane disappear? With smoke and mirrors.
This first illusiosn was at Disney World in Orlando - a bit of magic through the disguise of ivy and the acrobat on stilts. And below that? The magic of the natural world - this is the Titan Arum in the green house in Niagara Falls 10 years ago. These are the plants that smell like rotting flesh, and this particular variety is the largest plant in the world. I have a 2 foot tall variety of Arum - still very stinky.
