In this undated image released by Stan Winston Studio, Stan Winston is shown. Winston, the Oscar-winning special-effects maestro responsible for bringing the dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park” and other iconic movie creatures to life, has died. He was 62. He died at his home in Malibu surrounded by family on Sunday, June 15, 2008, after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio.

photo: Stan Winston Studio

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David Blaine breaks world record for holding one’s breath
by Tara Burghart
USA Today
April 30, 2008

Chicago (AP) — David Blaine set a new world record Wednesday for breath-holding, 17 minutes and 4 seconds.

The feat was broadcast live during The Oprah Winfrey Show and the studio audience cheered as divers pulled the 35-year-old magician from a water-filled sphere.

Blaine looked relaxed afterward and said the record was “a lifelong dream.”

The previous record was 16 minutes and 32 seconds, set Feb. 10 by Switzerland’s Peter Colat, according to Guinness World Records.

Before he entered the sphere, Blaine inhaled pure oxygen through a mask to saturate his blood with oxygen and flush out carbon dioxide.

Guinness says up to 30 minutes of so-called “oxygen hyperventilation” is allowed under its guidelines.

Previously, Blaine was buried alive for a week in a see-through coffin in New York and spent more than a month suspended from a glass box by the River Thames in London.

photo: Hong Kong Space Museum

Sleeveface: One or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion

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How to shoot through a bottle cap with a finger:

Funny Kung Fu Magic Trick - video powered by Metacafe

via Neatorama

Classic Steve Martin on the Johnny Carson Show:

via A Hunger Artist

Another beautiful film by digital artist Philip Scott Johnson:

Check out more of this artist’s films here. Thanks Erin.

Related link:

from CollegeHumor, thanks Erin

Update, November 27, 2007: According to a commenter at Laughing Squid named Nikolaas, this is the magic of Daniel Chesterfield, an alter-ego of Belgian comedian Chris Van den Durpel.

A film review by Shane Lavalette /Journal, November 10, 2007:

Orson Welles is generally known for his 1938 radio broadcast of the science fiction novella War of the Worlds. If not for that, then for co-writing, directing, producing and starring in Citizen Kane (1941), commonly referred to as “the greatest film ever made.” Orson Welles is, however, not so known for his last major film, F For Fake (1974) – a pseudo-documentary and playful meditation on “art, experts and fakery.” Here’s a quick synopsis taken from The Criterion Collection (released the film on DVD in 2005):

Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles’ free-form documentary F for Fake, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career—the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a searching examination of the essential duplicity of cinema.

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Two wonderful stop motion short animation videos via Scott Beale at Laughing Squid:

Paper Darren, by Goodwin Films, featuring the Mute Math song Noticed:

Borrachos, stop motion tribute to avant-garde animator, filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger by Sam3 with music by Little Dragon:

The story of Oedipus in 8 minutes performed by vegetables in the tradition of Ben-Hur. Featuring a potato, a tomato, broccoli, garlic, and Billy Dee Williams as the bartender. Written, produced, directed & edited by Jason Wishnow.

From Angstrom at Timeshard, October 23, 2007:

This rather stoned looking dutch man “levitated” in Times Square and outside the White House this week. Although it is a magic trick his stated reasons are very pranksterish, specifically that he wants people to think about things in a different way.

According to News.com.au: Dutch magician Ramana has been doing his best to freak out American people…

The illusionist, real name Wouter Bijdendijk, hovered several feet above the pavement with apparent ease. His only “prop” was a stick that he held with his left hand.

A household name in his native Netherlands, Ramana has performed for Queen Beatrix and has been honoured in India with the Golden Cloth award, the highest cultural honour ever given to a westerner, metro.co.uk reported.

“This is an art,” he said. (more…)

Here’s Master Magician Kevin James performing at the Las Vegas callbacks on America’s Got Talent:

from p1r4t3s

Hermosa entevista a Marcel Marceau en su gira del adios por México (4:11) / A beautiful tribute to Marcel Marceau in his farewell tour of Mexico (4:11). Mounted on YouTube by pabodo:

Here’s a tribute from Timothy W. Ryback, deputy secretary general of the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris and former vice president of the Salzburg Seminar. (more…)

Epic street painting from the Web site of Manfred Stader and Edgar Muller, european-street-painting.com:

“Turning Riverstreet into a river” is the largest 3d-street-painting ever done (about 280 m² covered with paint).

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Sleights of Mind
by George Johnson
The New York Times
August 21, 2007

Teller demonstrated Miser’s Dream at the Magic of Consciousness symposium in Las Vegas.

The reason he had picked me from the audience, Apollo Robbins insisted, was that I’d seemed so engaged, nodding my head and making eye contact as he and the other magicians explained the tricks of the trade. I believed him when he told me afterward, over dinner at the Venetian, that he hadn’t noticed the name tag identifying me as a science writer. But then everyone believes Apollo - as he expertly removes your wallet and car keys and unbuckles your watch.

It was Sunday night on the Las Vegas Strip, where earlier this summer the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness was holding its annual meeting at the Imperial Palace Hotel. The organization’s last gathering had been in the staid environs of Oxford, but Las Vegas - the city of illusions, where the Statue of Liberty stares past Camelot at the Sphinx - turned out to be the perfect locale. After two days of presentations by scientists and philosophers speculating on how the mind construes, and misconstrues, reality, we were hearing from the pros: James (The Amazing) Randi, Johnny Thompson (The Great Tomsoni), Mac King and Teller - magicians who had intuitively mastered some of the lessons being learned in the laboratory about the limits of cognition and attention. (more…)