News from Mark Mitton

April 22nd was a most extraordinary night. I had the honor to present at two different events with two most distinguished Nobel Laureates.

The evening started with a reception at the Century Club for Dr. Gerald Edelman. His Nobel prize was in medicine and then he went right into neuroscience from there, almost 40 years ago. He was hosting the board members of his Neurosciences Institute. He spoke about perception, and then asked me to explain the connection between magic and science from my perspective, based on my apprenticeship to the misdirection master Slydini. The  group included people like Oliver Sacks, so it could not have been more exciting. After my talk, Dr. Edelman joined me for a brief Q&A session. Eric Edelman, one of Dr. Edelman’s sons, has been instrumental in helping me find the language to translate my deception model into language and concepts for scientists. He helped with arrangements that night too.

From the Century Club, I jumped in a car to Chelsea Piers for the annual ‘Stars of Stony Brook‘ gala, honoring Dr. C.N. Yang, a prominent theoretical physicist. His Ph.D was with Edward Teller at the University of Chicago, and then he was Enrico Fermi’s assistant for a few years before his many discoveries. I had been asked to incorporate Dr. Yang’s theories into a fun and funny presentation. At one point, Dr. Yang joined me on stage and helped me make objects float across the stage… breaking the laws of physics. Please submit any questions regarding parity violation, string theory, or the Yang-Mills theory (you know, non-Abelian gauge symmetry ;-)!). Many thanks to Peter Steinberg of the Brookhaven National Lab and Robert Crease of Stony Brook University who helped coach me on physics.

Below are some photos from both events:

Clockwise: Dr. Edelman presents to the board of the NSI;
Presenting on magic and perception;
On stage with honoree Dr. Yang [image taken from video screen];
Stars of Stony Brook gala.
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New York is an amazing place filled with hidden treasures. One of those treasures is the home theater in the loft of artist Suzanne Bocanegra and Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer David Lang. Suzanne and I used to work together and she came to my panel discussion with Chuck Close and Adam Gopnik last summer and invited me to do a show in her home. Last Friday, about 90 people crammed into a space that normally holds 40-50 to see my new perception show, tentatively titled “Accepting Mystery”. We had a very diverse New York crowd, ranging from writers and scientists to fashion models and artists, and it was wonderful to be able to try out some new material and hang out with the audience afterwards.

Thank you all for supporting the show, and thank you - Suzanne and David - for your incredible generosity!!

L to R: Perception magic with Nino from Norway; optical illusion with Professor Stuart Firestein from Columbia University; prominent New Yorkers in the audience.
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We just had Fashion Week here in New York. Carolina Herrera was kind enough to invite me to her runway show in Bryant Park to see her beautiful new collection. I also had fun performing for Austrian supermodel Iris Strubegger and Marc Jacobs and his team at the premiere of the new fashion movie La Demimondaine at The Box. This innovative new film was shot on the Red Camera, a camera that is changing the fashion industry because it can shoot digital video, audio and stills at the same time.

Click here to watch the movie (shot at The Box) and here to watch a short clip about the making of the film.

Cellist Sean Grissom’s ‘Holiday Vaudeville’ show at the Kennedy Center is now in its tenth year. I have been on it, together with the Alexandria Kleztet, for five of those years. It is such a fun show. We perform for two nights together and always have a packed house. Our day off is usually spent sightseeing in our nation’s capital. This year, we visited the Washington Monument.

  
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Just managed to get a copy of this picture taken at the Galerie Gmurzynska party in Miami. This is the moment when Sylvester Stallone discovers that the signed and ripped-up photo of Rambo in his hand is now restored and mismatched, like a David Smith sculpture. That’s his lovely wife Jennifer beside him in the black dress. Peter Stevens of the David Smith Estate is looking on in the left of the picture.

Photo by Joe Schildhorn of the Patrick McMullan Company.
[Click to enlarge]

Ben Davis said the kindest thing at the end of his review of Art Basel Miami:

“If you had to ask me the best thing I saw in Miami… I would say that it was the close-up magic of the amazing Mark Mitton, world-class magician who had been flown in from NYC to perform at some special events for the weekend! Seriously, if you ever get a chance, go see Mark Mitton. Very few artists are as good at their craft as Mark is at what he does. He has some interesting things to say about art too.”

As you can imagine, my mom was overjoyed. Me too. Ben is a fascinating guy. Check out the article that he wrote about art and craft.

Two nights later, I found myself working at Michael Capponi’s home on Sunset Island, at a benefit for hip hop producer Russell Simmons’ Diamond Empowerment Fund.

Here I am doing a trick for Russell – if you look carefully you’ll see that the magic wand is actually a diamond bracelet (specially created for the D.E.F. event) in the hand of the woman on the right.

Photo by Christopher Fay.

Art Basel Miami was amazing this year. I am so grateful to the Galerie Gmurzynska for bringing me down to perform at their party for Sylvester Stallone and Princess Michael of Kent at the Setai. What a night it was. There were mermaids in the pool, and fabulous people all around.

I did a trick for Mr. Stallone where I had him sign a photograph of himself, ripped it up, and asked Peter Stevens – the Executive Director of the David Smith Estate – to hold the pieces in his hand. Then I had three women, including Jennifer Flavin (Mrs. Stallone), “weld” the pieces back together in Peter’s hand in a “new unity” (a tribute to David Smith), and when he opened his hand, Sylvester’s signed photo was restored but all the pieces were mismatched.

Sylvester Stallone was a delight to spend time with. He told me stories about growing up in Hell’s Kitchen in New York, the neighborhood where I studied magic with Slydini. Princess Michael was lovely and charming, and told me all about her new book.

Last night I performed a special magic show at Carolina Herrera’s boutique at Saks Fifth Avenue, in celebration of Fashion’s Night Out and the beginning of Fashion Week 2009. Check out the article in Vanity Fair!

Here I am producing a ring from Mrs. H’s sleeve:

More photos to follow later…

My friend Thomas Fraps, together with the magicians from The Flicking Fingers, organizes a magic festival in Munich every summer. This year was the third time I performed there, and I worked with British comedian Noel Britten who is known for his hilarious walking tours of Bath. Three months a year, he and his wife work with orangutans in Borneo.