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yessadirichards · 1 year ago

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Swedish singer Loreen wins Eurovision Song Contest for 2nd time at event feting Ukraine

LIVERPOOL, England

Swedish singer Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her power ballad “Tattoo,” at a colorful, eclectic music competition clouded for a second year running by the war in Ukraine.

The diva from Stockholm beat acts from 25 other countries to take the continent’s pop crown at the final of the competition in Liverpool. Finnish singer Käärijä was second in a close-fought battle of the Nordic neighbors.

Loreen, 39, previously won Eurovision in 2012 and is only the second performer to take the prize twice, after Ireland’s Johnny Logan in the 1980s. It’s Sweden’s seventh Eurovision victory, matching Ireland's record.

“I am seriously overwhelmed," Loreen said. “This is so beautiful.”

She said returning to the contest that helped make her a star was “like coming back to a family. We’ve had an 11-year-long relationship. We know each other by now.”

Britain hosted Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine, which won last year but couldn’t take up its right to hold the contest because of the war. Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine as the contest was underway, and Ukrainian media reported a strike in Ternopil, home town of Ukraine’s Eurovision entry, Tvorchi.

Under the slogan “united by music,” Eurovision final fused the soul of the English port city that birthed The Beatles with the spirit of war-battered Ukraine.

The sights and sounds of Ukraine ran through the show, starting with an opening film that showed 2022 Eurovision winners Kalush Orchestra singing and dancing in the Kyiv subway, with the tune picked up by musicians in the U.K. — including Kate, Princess of Wales, shown playing the piano.

The folk-rap band itself then emerged onstage in the Liverpool Arena on a giant pair of outstretched hands, accompanied by massed drummers.

Contestants from the 26 finalist nations entered the arena in an Olympics-style flag parade, accompanied by live performances from Ukrainian acts including Go A, Jamala, Tina Karol and Verka Serduchka — all past Eurovision competitors.

Now in its 67th year, Eurovision bills itself as the world's biggest music contest — an Olympiad of party-friendly pop. Competitors each have three minutes to meld catchy tunes and eye-popping spectacle into performances capable of winning the hearts of millions of viewers.

Loreen's anthem of intense love had been the bookies' favorite and won by far the most votes from professional juries in Eurovision's complex voting system. She faced a strong challenge from Käärijä, a wildly energetic performer whose rap-pop party anthem “Cha Cha Cha” won the public vote.

Israel’s Noa Kirel came in third with power-pop anthem “Unicorn,” while Italy’s Marco Mengoni was fourth with his ballad “Due Vite” (Two Lives).

The varied tastes of the continent were on display in a contest that took in the cabaret-style singing of Portugal's Mimicat, the Britney-esque power pop of Poland's Blanka, echoes of Edith Piaf from La Zarra for France and smoldering balladry from Cyprus' entry, Andrew Lambrou.

From Australia — a Eurovision contender despite its far-away location — guitar band Voyager evoked head-banging '80s stadium rock. Croatia’s Let 3 offered a surreal antiwar rock opera, and Austrian duo Teya & Salena sent up the music industry in Poe-referencing song “Who the Hell is Edgar?”

Electronica duo Tvorchi paid tribute to Ukraine’s resilience on “Heart of Steel," coming sixth.

Britain's Mae Muller drew the unenviable final performance slot of the night with her jaunty breakup anthem “I Wrote a Song.” She came in second to last place — but at least avoided the humiliation of getting “nul points,” or zero points.

While votes were cast and counted, Sam Ryder, last year’s runner-up for Britain, performed his new single “Mountain,” accompanied by Queen drummer Roger Taylor. A “Liverpool Songbook” segment featured past Eurovision stars performing songs from the city, including John Lennon’s “Imagine,” “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive and the unofficial civic anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone" — with the audience joining in, as a tribute to both Liverpool and Ukraine.

About 6,000 fans watched the show inside the arena, and tens of thousands more at a Liverpool fan zone and at big-screen events across the U.K. The global television audience has been estimated at 160 million.

Under spring sunshine, fans flocked in their thousands to a Eurovision party zone in the city’s dockside area ahead of the contest. Many were draped in flags of their favored nations or dressed as their favorite acts.

“Just to come down and see people from all different nationalities, all different cultures — it’s good fun,” said Australian Martin Troedel, sporting a kangaroo on his hat. “Frankly there’s some quite odd acts, which is what I love about it. You never know what to expect.”

Liverpool embraced Eurovision, and Ukraine, with businesses across the city flying Ukrainian flags and a program of cultural events introducing locals to the art, music and food of the eastern European country.

But organizers said they turned down a request by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make a video address. The European Broadcasting Union said that would breach “the nonpolitical nature of the event.”

Founded in 1956, Eurovision is a European cultural institution that has produced breakout stars — ABBA and Celine Dion are both past winners – alongside performers whose careers sank without a trace.

In recent years, it has once again become a platform that can launch stars. Italian rock band Måneskin, who won in 2021, have played major U.S. festivals and opened for the Rolling Stones on tour. Ryder has had a No. 1 album and performed at the Glastonbury festival.

“Now, the music industry, the world, knows that if you appear at Eurovision, you could be in for a great thing,” said Steve Holden, host of the official Eurovision Song Contest podcast.

Follow AP coverage of Eurovision at https://apnews.com/hub/eurovision-song-contest and of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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antoine-roquentin · 7 years ago

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In 2015, Ukraine’s president signed a law whose critics say stifles debate on the historical record of World War II and whitewashes local perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Law 2538-1 criminalized any rhetoric insulting to the memory of anti-communist partisans. And it celebrates the legacy of such combatants – ostensibly including the ones who murdered countless Jewish and Polish citizens while collaborating with Nazi Germany.

The law generated some backlash, including an open letter by more than 70 historians who said it “contradicts the right to freedom of speech,” ignores complicity in the Holocaust and would “damage Ukraine’s national security.”

But as with similar measures in Europe’s ex-communist nations, the Ukraine law generated little opposition or even attention internationally — especially when compared to the loud objections to a similar measure in Poland that was signed into law on Tuesday by the president. The law had passed both houses of parliament in recent days. The United States and Israel joined historians and Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust authority in decrying the bill.

“The Ukrainian and Polish laws are similar, but in Ukraine’s case we didn’t see anything even close” to the avalanche of condemnations that Poland received, said Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee and a longtime campaigner against Holocaust revision in Ukraine. “I wish we had; maybe this law could have been stopped in Ukraine.”

To activists like Dolinsky, the singling out of Poland reflects the ongoing politicization of the debate on Eastern Europe’s bloody World War II history. They say the conversation is distorted by geopolitical tensions involving Russia, populism, ignorance and unresolved national traumas.

There are clear similarities between the Ukrainian and Polish laws, according to Alex Ryvchin, a Kiev-born Australian-Jewish journalist and author who has written about the politics of memory in Eastern Europe.

“Both seek to use the legitimacy and force of law to enshrine an official narrative of victimhood, heroism and righteousness while criminalizing public discussion of historical truths that contradict or undermine these narratives,” he said. Yet, he noted, “The reaction to the Polish law has indeed dwarfed the response to persistent state revisionism elsewhere in Europe in spite of the fact that the rate of collaboration was generally lower in Poland than in Ukraine and Latvia.”

The Baltic nations of Lithuania and Latvia were pioneers in nationalist legislation that limits discourse about the Holocaust in their territories. Critics say these laws also shift the blame for the murder of Jews, which was done with local helpers, to Nazi Germany alone. They also seem to equate the Nazi genocide with political repression by the Soviet Union – which many in the former Soviet Union blame on Jewish communists.

In 2010 Lithuania — a country where Nazi collaborators virtually wiped out a Jewish community of 250,000 — amended its criminal code, prescribing up to two years in jail to anyone who “denies or grossly underestimates” the crime of genocide or “other crimes against humanity or war crimes committed by the USSR or Nazi Germany against Lithuanian residents.”

Similar legislation in Latvia from 2014 imposes up to five years in jail for those who deny the role of “the foreign powers that have perpetrated crimes against Latvia and the Latvian nation,” without mentioning the involvement of Latvian SS volunteers in murdering nearly all of the country’s 70,000 Jews.

The denial of local culpability during the Holocaust is at the root of opposition to Poland’s law, which sets a maximum of six years in jail for “whoever accuses, publicly and against the facts, the Polish nation or the Polish state of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich” or ”grossly diminishes the responsibility of the actual perpetrators.” On Tuesday, President Andrzej Duda said he would sign the laws (which he did later in the day), finalizing them, but also refer them for review by Poland’s highest court.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in the past has been criticized for not calling out his country’s Eastern European allies on these issues, called the Polish legislation “baseless” and said Israel opposed it. The U.S. State Department in a statement suggested it could have “repercussions” for bilateral relations with Poland.

Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s scheduled visit to Poland this week was canceled after he criticized the law, which Israel’s embassy in Poland said was generating anti-Semitic hate speech in the media.

Back in Israel, the Polish Embassy condemned what it called ignorant remarks by Yair Lapid, a prominent opposition leader. Citing his credentials as the son of a Holocaust survivor, Lapid said the Polish law is designed to hide how Poland was “a partner in the Holocaust.”

Jewish organizations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said for their part that they understand the Polish frustration with terms like “Polish death camps,” which seem to shift the blame for Nazi war crimes to Poland – one of the few Nazi-occupied countries where the Nazis did not allow any measure of self-rule or integrate locals into the genocide.

And the term is especially offensive in Poland, where the Nazis killed at least 1.9 million non-Jews in addition to at least 3 million Jews.

But, many Jewish groups added, the legislation in Poland ignores how many Poles betrayed or killed Jews and is therefore detrimental to the preservation of historical record and free speech.

Dolinsky in Ukraine isn’t a fan of the Polish legislation, either.

“But I don’t quite understand why it and only it provoked such a strong reaction,” he added. “We needed that strong reaction two years ago in Ukraine. This fight needs to apply to all these cases. For the pressure to be effective, it shouldn’t be selective.”

Dolinsky believes that Ukraine — which, unlike Poland, shares a border with Russia — is getting a free pass from the West because it is subjected to hostility from Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine amid ongoing psychological warfare against the Baltic nations, often involving the deployment of Russia’s mighty army around those countries in blunt loudspeaker diplomacy.

“There is a lot of Russophobic sentiment worldwide and it means international silence on countries with a conflict with Russia,” said Joseph Koren, chairman of the Latvia Without Nazism group.

“Poland and Hungary are in a different category,” agreed Dovid Katz, a scholar of Yiddish in Lithuania and longtime campaigner against Holocaust distortion there. The singling out of Poland and Hungary, he said, is “not least because the issues of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and restrictions on democratic expression in these countries have never been perceived primarily through the same binary lens of pro-and anti-Putin.”

Under that alleged cover of silence, in Ukraine and the Baltic countries there is a rapid lifting on taboos that had been in place for decades on the honoring of war criminals, even including SS volunteers who enthusiastically participated in the mass killings of Jews and Poles.

Largely ignored by the international media, Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis last week gave the final approval for a law that offers financial benefits to all World War II veterans – including SS volunteers who murdered Jews. Latvia is the only country in the world known to have an annual march by SS veterans, which takes place with the approval of authorities’ on the country’s national day in the center of its capital, sometimes with mainstream politicians in attendance.

Last year, the municipality of Kalush near Lviv in Ukraine decided to name a street for Dmytro Paliiv, a commander of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician.

Ukraine’s state television observed a moment of silence for the first time last year for Symon Petliura, a nationalist killed by a Jewish communist for Petliura’s role in the murder of 35,000 to 50,000 Jews in a series of pogroms between 1918 and 1921, when Petliura was head of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

“There is less willingness to speak out on Ukraine in media, in the scientific community and in Western governments, so it seems,” Dolinsky said.

But this alleged turning of a blind eye, he added, is a disservice. “Ukraine needs to join Europe as a civilized member of that family of nations. And for that to happen, it needs to speak honestly and openly about its history,” he said.

To Ryvchin, the Australian author, the “particularly forceful reaction to the Polish law is likely because Poland is seen as the epicenter of the Holocaust,” he said. The Germans built extermination camps only in Poland, according to Holocaust historian Efraim Zuroff.

“Any attempt to distort or disguise what happened in Poland is seen as a particularly egregious attack on the history of the Holocaust and the memories of the dead,” Ryvchin said.

Ironically, Poland is perhaps singled out for criticism because of the country’s vocal civil society and the lively debate it is generating over the politics of memory, Katz suggested.

Even today, he said, Poland and Hungary “have robust liberal movements that themselves counter official government policy on many issues — unlike the Baltics, where dissent is often quashed using the full force of the law.”

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bronva · 2 years ago

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MTV EMAs 2022: Kalush Orchestra hope UK will ‘integrate details of Ukrainian culture’ during Eurovision 2023

Kalush Orchestra feel a big responsibility representing Ukraine at awards shows (Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images for MTV) Kalush Orchestra hinted that the Eurovision Song Contest could return to Ukraine in 2023, as the group took to the red carpet at the MTV EMAs 2022. The Eurovision Song Contest champions featured on the bill at the PSD Bank Dome, alongside international acts including Stormzy,…

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importanceofpatientadvocacy-blog · 7 years ago

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2017 in review: stories of inspiration

From hiking in the dark to changing laws, it’s been a fantastic year for all the amazing organizations we work with at Change Together.

Before 2017 becomes a distant memory, we take a look back at some of the most popular stories of the past 12 months. Click on the titles to be taken to the full stories.

Addressing psychosocial care in childhood cancer

In February, we reported on the newly published Standards for Psychosocial Care of Children with Cancer and their Families. Dr. Lori Wiener, chair of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society’s Pediatric Special Interest Group, explained the importance of the standards.

“As a result of developing these professional tools, there is now far greater awareness of psychosocial services and the availability of standards of care in this area. These standards have enabled individual sites to evaluate their own performance, to implement the standards if they had not already done so and to recognize there may be barriers to implementation and how these could be overcome.”

Facilitating decision making for better, more informed patient choices

The Society of Decision Professionals and the Society for Medical Decision Making partnered to host the inaugural Shared Decision Making Summit.

Tyler Ludlow, SDP board member noted how: “It brought together a broad range of industry representatives, from patients, patient advocates, researchers and physicians, to pharma individuals involved in clinical development, patient advocacy groups and the real-world evidence sector, in order to discuss how decision making could be improved across the wider healthcare sector.”

Improving clinical trial accrual: Malecare’s journey from local support group to advocacy leader

Cancergraph, a mobile app that allows people with cancer to better find clinical trials relevant to them, was launched by Malecare in March.

“Most patients struggle to find trials that meet their unique disease profile. Now, instead of asking cancer patients to do all the searching, Cancergraph distills each user’s health data to provide – in real time – only the specific cancer trials that apply to them,” said Darryl Mitteldorf, founder of Malecare.

Be active – in every sense – and support World Cancer Day 2017

On February 4, 2017, World Cancer Day highlighted the importance of physical activity by inviting the world to host and share their very own #WeCanICan events.

Taking part in exercise helps people live better lives and reduce their risk of cancer, as well as playing an important role in the treatment and recovery process. This campaign got people sharing their activities through social media.

The era of patient-centered medicine at FDA

The Patient-Focused Drug Development Initiative was part of the Federal Drug Agency’s (FDA) mission to put patients at the center of decision making. Now complete, the initiative comprised a series of 20 meetings covering a host of disease areas, from lung cancer to hemophilia.

Dr. Francis Kalush, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research within the FDA, told Change Together: “We have significantly increased our focus on engaging patients to recognize the critical role they play in informing our understanding of living with a particular condition, the therapies they receive and how we might find ways to develop new treatments.”

LIVE WEBINAR: Driving positive change for patients through collaboration and education

Change Together hosted its first live webinar in December, debating how collaboration and education can be used to drive positive change for patients.

It featured Jessica Bateman of the Urology Care Foundation, Steven Gregg from the National Association for Continence, and Phyllis Greenbeger from HealthyWomen.

If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.

11th Annual Aspen Summit for Life breaks fundraising record

A record-breaking 205 people took part in the Chris Klug Foundation’s 11th Aspen Summit for Life. The annual event, which takes place at night, aims to raise awareness of the importance of organ and tissue donation.

Lauren Pierce, Executive Director of the foundation, said: “Not only did we beat participation numbers for our Ride for Life and Party for Life events, we beat our fundraising total by a huge $40,000.” In total, they raised a mighty $172,000.

Newly passed New York Step Therapy Bill will bring better access to critical rare disease medicines

The New York Step Therapy Bill, which reformed insurance law to improve access to vital medications, was signed into law on December 30, 2016.

The bill is designed to improve access to vital medications by reforming the insurance industry directive known as step therapy or “fail first” which requires patients to try and fail one type of medication before being moved on to another, potentially more effective one.

The news was welcomed by advocacy groups and people with long-term conditions alike.

Why it’s critical to ask the right questions during the next phase of health reform

Healthcare policy should be led by the answers to three questions, according to the President of Astellas Americas Jim Robinson.

In an article for STATnews, Jim said policymakers needed to consider how to ensure patients got access to the highest quality care, what could be done to simplify healthcare and how to rethink incentives across the system.

Empowering women to educate themselves about heart disease

WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, celebrated its 18th birthday in 2017.

Set up by three heart attack survivors, it offers women with heart disease social and emotional support and empowers them to tell their stories. It has 20,000 members across the United States and an extensive list of initiatives.

“There’s no other organization or program that I’m aware of that focuses solely on providing the social and emotional support women heart patients need,” Mary McGowan, WomenHeart CEO, told Change Together.

The post 2017 in review: stories of inspiration appeared first on Change Together.

source https://www.changetogether.com/general/2017-review-stories-inspiration

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fernandonaranjo67 · 7 years ago

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¿Sabías de la existencia de una biblioteca de magia?

See on Scoop.it - Informática Educativa y TIC

¿Sabías de la existencia de una biblioteca de magia? Se encuentra en un ático en Manhattan y su fundador es Bill Kalush. ¿Te interesa el tema?

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mickeyotoole-blog · 9 years ago

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2016 Milbourne Christopher Award Winners Announced

Milbourne Christopher was one of America’s foremost illusionists and wrote more than twenty books, was national president of the Society of American Magicians (SAM), and was an honorary vice-president to the London Magic Circle. His collection of magic memorabilia contained prints, paintings, photographs, posters, playbills and drawings of the greatest conjurers in history, and was the largest in…

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#Bill Kalush #Bob Little #Brad Jacobs #Docc Hilford #John Bundy and Morgan #Meir Yedid #Melissa Russo #Milbourne Christopher #The Society of American Magicians

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kim · 13 years ago

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Bill Kalush runs the Conjuring Arts Research Center in Manhattan, collecting artefacts relating to magic that go as far back as 1480.

#Magic #History #Bill Kalush #Manhattan #New York #Cool Hunting #Cool #Vimeo

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yessadirichards · 2 years ago

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Swedish singer Loreen wins Eurovision Song Contest for 2nd time at event feting Ukraine

LIVERPOOL, England

“I am seriously overwhelmed," Loreen said. “This is so beautiful.”

She said returning to the contest that helped make her a star was “like coming back to a family. We’ve had an 11-year-long relationship. We know each other by now.”

Under the slogan “united by music,” Eurovision final fused the soul of the English port city that birthed The Beatles with the spirit of war-battered Ukraine.

The folk-rap band itself then emerged onstage in the Liverpool Arena on a giant pair of outstretched hands, accompanied by massed drummers.

Israel’s Noa Kirel came in third with power-pop anthem “Unicorn,” while Italy’s Marco Mengoni was fourth with his ballad “Due Vite” (Two Lives).

Electronica duo Tvorchi paid tribute to Ukraine’s resilience on “Heart of Steel," coming sixth.

“Now, the music industry, the world, knows that if you appear at Eurovision, you could be in for a great thing,” said Steve Holden, host of the official Eurovision Song Contest podcast.

Follow AP coverage of Eurovision at https://apnews.com/hub/eurovision-song-contest and of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

#yessadirichards

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scottwellsmagic · 9 years ago

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286: I'm Just Sayin' - Norman Beck

Norman Beck is one of the most interesting guys you probably haven't heard of...unless you are into underground card magic...or an international bridge player. And add to that, he is a survivor of a brain tumor.

Norman Beck should be familiar to those who are regular readers of M.U.M. (the monthly journal of the S.A.M.). Or if you are a world class bridge player and rub shoulders with the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, then you might have seen Norm. You might have met Norm if you have looked for some company to underwrite some high stakes game/event like a billion dollar hole-in-one contest. Or maybe you are a follower of "underground" magicians in the U.S. and recognize the name. But more than likely, you have never met nor even know the name and the sharp mind of the person behind it. A few short years ago, Norman had a brain tumor removed that was the size of a baseball, but he is still sharp and his speech is steadily improving.

For the most part, Norman keeps a pretty low profile and doesn't attend many magic conventions nor associate very much with magicians and he rarely lectures. It was on one of those rare occasions that Norman traveled through Houston to lecture and stay as a guest in my home.

Before the lecture we visited John Moehring who is in advanced stages of Parkinson's Disease. Although we didn't audio record our visit, I can say that it was delightful with lots of ideas shared as Norm showed John a couple new twists on some old classic card tricks (like Fred Kapps' "Homing Card") and I discussed posters and books. Although John's speech is greatly impaired, his mind is still sharp and we wish him the best.

In this podcast, Norm tells us lots of stories and he talks about some of the bizarre events that his company has underwritten; working in restaurants as a table-hopping magician and how he approached tables as well as his philosophy on taking tips; playing bridge with some of the most influential people in the world and what kind of card tricks fools bridge players...and which ones don't; his upcoming article in the June 2016 issue of MAGIC Magazine that has nothing to do with magic except how to be a successful performer as tipped to him by "Whispering" Bill Anderson, a country western singer; and along the way he delights us with lots of entertaining stories.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

Time stamps for trick reviews:

00:59:00 - "Canic" by Nicholas Lawrence - A soda can is one of the most commonly seen objects around the world. Imagine grabbing any unprepared soda can off any one and then ripping the tab off. You place the tab on your spectator's open palm, take the can, and tap it to the sitting tab in your spectator's hand. The tab instantly seals back on the can.

01:01:48 - "Blaze" by Tony and Jordan, Les French Twins - Create an amazing souvenir with the spectator's signed card.that is burned and singed.

01:06:49 - "The Magic of Suzanne" - The Castle Act , 2 DVD Set - Volume 1: Filmed live at The Magic Castle, you'll be captivated by the same show that consistently earns Suzanne standing ovations, and ultimately won her the prestigious award. Volume 2: Go behind the scenes with Suzanne and guest host, Matt Marcy, as they explain step-by-step how to perform some of the tricks from her award winning act.

#Norman Beck #card magic #Whispering Bill Anderson #bridge playing #Bill Kalush

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