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.
(click to enlarge)

In addition to helping select the speakers for the conference, I moderated two panels - one on Art, Science and Innovation at Work, and one on Action and Perception. We brought down two art pieces from New York - O2 by Zilvinas Kempinas, and Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere by Alexander Calder.

Physicist Peter Steinberg from the Brookhaven Lab tweeted: “What a blur. Morning panel (me, Kempinas, mitton, Bart-smith) went, um, swimmingly once we noticed common interest in hydrodynamics.” A great time was had by all!

Crowd gathering to see Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere by Alexander Calder
(set in motion by Sandy Rower).

During the day there were presentations by the attendees, and at night there were magic and variety shows. My toy inventor friend Mark Setteducati is one of the main organizers, together with Tom Rodgers and Elwyn Berlekamp. For many years now, they have had me host the parlor magic show and the main stage show. This year we had two lovely Chinese magicians on the bill: Ruxian and Wang Lu. We traded magic secrets at a party at Tom Rodgers’ beautiful Japanese-style home outside of Atlanta.

Here are some pictures from G4G9 (click to enlarge):

 
L to R: Logo by Scott Kim; Ruxian does the Chinese Linking Rings; magic with silk scarves; card manipulations; post-show with Ruxian and Wang Lu, mathematician John Horton Conway and his son Gareth, Swedish magician Lennart Green, and G4G organizer Mark Setteducati.
[Photos by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen]

It should be noted, by the way, that 8-year old Gareth Conway (pictured above) can recite the first 130 digits of pi in 40 seconds.

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.
[click to enlarge]

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

I have always wanted to see a pantomime in Scotland, and this year I was lucky enough to catch a performance of Robinson Crusoe and the Caribbean Pirates at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh. The show did not disappoint… It was filled with topical references and outrageous comedy. Allan Stewart (as Robinson Crusoe’s mother) and Grant Stott (as Blackheart the Pirate) had the audience rolling in the aisles, and one of the highlights was when Stewart did his spot-on impression of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ superstar Susan Boyle.

(Find out here what happened when the real Ms. Boyle came to the show a week later).

This is what happened on New Year’s Eve, when a neighbor shot his bottle rocket across the street instead of up in the air. Kaboom!

  
[click to enlarge]

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

“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.