News from Mark Mitton

The Calder Foundation celebrated its 25th anniversary last night at the Pace Gallery on West 25th Street. It was a star-studded event. Entertainment was arranged by yours truly, and included the incredible contortionist Elayne Kramer (currently starring in the Big Apple Circus), the beautiful Andrea Adam and her snake Ka, drummer Brian Rosenworcel from Guster playing with Gryphon Rower-Upjohn and Dave Nuss, and master puppeteer James Godwin.

James Godwin (photo: Arthur Marker/BFAnyc.com)

Elayne Kramer (photo: Arthur Marker/BFAnyc.com)

 Performing magic for Arne Glimcher
(photo: Arthur Marker/BFAnyc.com)

Andrea Adam with Ka
(for more photos of the event, click here)

Once again, my old assistant Luke Leafgren brought me to Harvard to do a show for the students. Last year he had me perform at Winthrop House, but he has since become the resident dean at Mather House (known for its lively social life, and fun events…), so I headed up to Cambridge to admire his snazzy new digs and show the students and House Masters some magic as part of the Mather Gathers series.

House Masters Christie McDonald and Michael Rosengarten took this picture:

One result of translating lessons from magic into terms that scientists can understand (on a good day) is that it brings me great joy to organize discussions between scientists and practitioners with shared interests.

On April 23rd, with my friends Greg Calbi and Nils Norén, we organized a scientifically sound evening at Sterling Sound and Red Rooster Harlem. We invited top scientists with an interest or specialty in sound into the studio where Greg Calbi creates his magic. Greg is a legendary sound mastering engineer; his work is the final step in the recording process. He played one example after another of the kinds of choices that he needs to make each day to make a recording “sound right”. Then we all cabbed up to Harlem for an amazing feast at Red Rooster where Nils Norén served us every single thing on the menu. Nils is Vice President, Restaurant Operations of the Marcus Samuelsson Group.

It was a great evening!

Greg Calbi talked about his work at Sterling Sound.

Nils Norén hosted our incredible dinner at Red Rooster.

We were so lucky with the weather this Earth Day weekend. I performed at a lovely private event at an estate in Rhinebeck during the day, and then drove to Beacon to see my friend Bo Gehring, an inventor/artist who does amazing things with sound waves.

Bo Gehring with self-portrait (L) in his studio (R)

Comedian Tom Shillue was kind enough put me on his show last night, down at Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower East Side. It reminded me of the old days, back in the early 90’s when we used to perform at Surf Reality together. Fun times!

My friend Stephen Ringold puts together a Christmas Carol show at the Morgan Library & Museum every December. Here he is as Scrooge. Check out Pierpont Morgan’s extraordinary library, which is worth a visit any day of the year.

  
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My old friend John Bushey — a magician and escape artist from Duluth, Minnesota — turns 50 next week. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, his sister and his friends threw him a surprise birthday party at Twin Cities Magic in St. Paul. Guests flew in from Chicago, Virginia, New York and even AUSTRALIA!! A bunch of us stayed overnight in the magic shop.

Here is the gang the morning after. John is the 3rd from the left.

For the third year in a row, I attended the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. This time it was held in Washington DC. My friend Stuart Firestein and I always manage to have a series of adventures at this conference…

One night we found ourselves at a party at the Spy Museum, and from there we went over to the Air and Space Museum where Jeff Lichtman from Harvard presented mind-blowing images from inside the brain showing how our neurons are connected to each other. His talk was followed by a very fancy party hosted by Zeiss, the manufacturer of incredible microscopes. In fact, this party was so fancy that they served miniature, two-bite, baked Alaskas and chocolate mousse-filled brownies for dessert. Friends from Columbia University brought over the CEO of Zeiss, James Sharp, and had me do a bunch of magic tricks for him. Then James Sharp took us over to Jeff Lichtman, and I did magic for him as well, and was able to ask him questions about his amazing presentation.

Tipped off by my friend Moran Cerf, we then headed to the third party of the night. Stuart used to drive a cab in DC many years ago and when he heard the address, he worried that it was in a dangerous neighborhood. But that didn’t stop us! Late at night, we pulled up at an Animal House-like party in a 2-story home FILLED with students where we found Moran and Christof Koch, (the Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science) in the middle of the throbbing crowd.

It was a fantastic and very nerdy night.

Performing magic for James Sharp, the CEO of Zeiss:

My old assistant, Luke Leafgren, is a Ph.D. candidate and the acting resident dean of Winthrop House at Harvard. This week he brought me to Cambridge where I lectured on Perception at Ken Nakayama’s Vision Sciences Lab during the day, and did a show for the students at Winthrop House at night. It was just like old times, working together with Luke, and we had a great time. Thank you, to all the students who came out and packed the Junior Common Room at Winthrop House!

    
L: With Luke in Harvard Yard; C: Ken Nakayama and a student help out with a magic trick, while parrot behavior expert Irene Pepperberg looks on; R: The show at Winthrop House.
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The Harvard Crimson videotaped the show and did this interview:

My puppeteer friend Tim Lagasse got married to the lovely Melissa Johnson last week. I have known Tim for a long time. Many years ago he helped me on one of my shows at the New York International Fringe Festival with shadow puppetry and other special effects, so when he asked me to perform at his wedding, of course I was delighted!

It was an amazing Halloween-themed event. Our mutual friend James Godwin – a puppeteer and performance artist – officiated, there were puppetry and burlesque performances, and costumed guests did a choreographed dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. I was dressed like a surgeon and performed psychic surgery on James: I produced Melissa’s ring (and lots of gory stuff) from his stomach, and then “killed” him. It was so much fun!

The New York Times wrote up the whole story in its Vows section today, and you can see a slideshow there too.

Here I am demonstrating a hypnotic effect with the happy couple.