Diary of A Gob Act
Sometimes gigs are well planned and run smoothly. Other things can get a little intense at the last minute, to put it very mildly. This...
Recovery Week Night 7 – Aaaaaand I’m Spent
And we're finished. That was a fascinating week. Though the schedule wasn't quite as intense as the above photo implies (I wasn't actually doing all...
Recovery Week Night 6 – The Unsung Heroes
Saturday night, and the Castle almost feels back to its old self. It obviously wasn't nearly as full as the normal Saturday nights (which are...
Recovery Week Night 5 – Tactical Manoeuvres
Even on a normal night, directing the flow of people and performers around the Magic Castle can be a challenge. Last night bought an additional...
Recovery Week Night 4 – You Don’t Know Jack
Jack Goldfinger is the current entertainment director at the Magic Castle. Famous over the past few decades as half of Goldfinger and Dove, including an...
Recovery Week Night 3 – The Classiest Cafeteria in Town
(Daily updates as the Magic Castle recovers from the halloween fire. See also: introduction, night 1, and night 2.) One of the main things that keeps...
Recovery Week Night 2 – Interview with Mark Haslam
(Daily updates as the Magic Castle recovers from the halloween fire. Introduction here, and night 1 coverage here.) Last night was a big improvement on...
Magic Castle Recovery Week – Night 1
(This is a follow-on from yesterday's post here) Since there is so much public interest right now in what's happening at the Magic Castle, I'm...
The Magic Castle: After The Inferno
It's going to be an interesting week at the Magic Castle. For those who don't know, the building narrowly escaped destruction last week due to...
Magic, Writing, and Using Distraction for Good, Not Evil
One of the reasons I enjoy teaching is the unexpected things you learn from your students. For the past seven years I've been teaching the...
Unexpected Linguistics
One of my favourite routines to perform is a card trick in Mandarin Chinese. The language skills involved came from my high school's compulsory "study...
66 Hours in Transit
Sometimes being on tour can be glamorous. Interesting cities, nice hotels, exciting people. Other times, not so much. You might, for example, due to a...
Balloon Art After Dark in Hollywood
This is one of my favourite photos so far of 2011. It was taken in July at the Hollywood Fringe opening night party, and features...
Simon’s Search Page – Learning About The Universe Since 2004
This is a slightly longer post than normal, and goes into some mildly technical software stuff. Hence if you don't care about any of that,...
The Chocolate Scale: Why Mediocre Things Still Impress People
Ever had this experience? You see a show (or read a book, or see a film, or whatever) that you think is pretty average. It...
Political Analogies for Operating Systems
It's come up a few times that I'm currently using an 11" MacBook Air as my main computer. I bought it back in March because...
When Magic, Photography, and Late Nights Collide
Shuttersleight is a website run by three members of the Melbourne magic crew: YC Lo, Yao Wong, and Julius. Even though it's been sitting dormant...
Madness? THIS IS EDINBURGH!
The Edinburgh Fringe is over. For a first time fringe appearance from two relatively-unknown-in-the-UK performers, it went astonishingly well. Good audiences, good responses, a better...
The Spontaneous Prolonged Jaw-Drop
There's a moment I love when watching performance art. It's them moment when, at some point during a show, you suddenly realise that your mouth...
Manipulators – Hit The Gym
Getting attention in a festival of 2,500+ shows is challenging. Amusing promotional videos can help. So we made one. The idea actually came from a...