My mother, Cay Mitton, turned 80 on December 7th. We celebrated this joyous occasion with the family in Superior, WI, and the ladies at Mom’s church worked hard to put on a lovely reception for friends and neighbors. Thank you to all the people who turned out for the festivities! Mom really enjoyed her special day.
Mom as a young girl – Church ladies – Unwrapping gifts
[click to enlarge]
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.
The video from our panel discussion at the Philoctetes Center last October 4th has been posted on YouTube. Participants in this discussion included George Bisacca – conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Laney Salisbury – author of Provenance, and yours truly.
Pay special attention to the section between minutes 50 and 55, and find out when a ruler is not a ruler…
[If you have trouble viewing this video, click here]
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.
I am in Rome for a few days this week, to attend the opening of the Calder exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni (coinciding with ‘Alexander Calder - Monumental Sculpture’ at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome), and to participate in a panel discussion tonight with Sandy Rower (Calder’s grandson and the President of the Calder Foundation) and art historian Elizabeth Hutton Turner on ‘Calder and the Art of Perception‘.
Last night I performed at an after-party hosted by Larry Gagosian at the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, a spectacular Roman palace.
I just did a photo shoot on a rooftop with my Italian photographer friend Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini. Seba is a traditionalist and prefers to shoot on film, so it’s a surprise to see how his pictures come out.
I love these shots! Mille grazie!
(Click pictures to enlarge).
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…
Just got back from a small magic convention in Toronto called 31 Faces North. I flew up there with my friend Charles Reynolds, who was Doug Henning’s magic consultant for many years. We all had a lot of fun.
If you’ve ever wondered what magicians do when they get together, check out these photos:
This past Sunday I visited the Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island with a group of artist friends and a journalist from New York Magazine. My friend Peter Steinberg is a nuclear physicist at the lab, and he was kind enough to give us a tour of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Here are some photos from our visit, taken by Evan Morris:
And here’s Peter explaining about the RHIC:
Thanks for a fascinating tour!