I received a note from Bob Cassidy: Dear. Friends- I am sorry to tell you that Peggy’s fight is over. She passed away this evening. I will post further details at the site as soon as I am able. Bob And there is a little update — with a picture of Peggy — on Bob’s […]

Coming soon to a real television network — CBS — The Druid Master, Keith Barry, will do his magic stuff and “psychological illusions” and, I suspect, get some real mentalist ratings. The Futon Critic was kind enough to post the CBS announcement, which stated in part: MAGICIAN AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONIST KEITH BARRY TO STAR IN […]

I received a note from John Carney about his show, “Carney’s Wonder Cabaret” — which is scheduled to run only four weekends in December at Actor’s Forum Theatre in North Hollywood. (The first performance starts this Friday.) Word is the show is a “don’t miss” affair. There are times when I wish I was closer […]

I believe it was around 1995 when I dialed a telephone number terminating at a home in Carmel, Indiana. I dialed the number with the best of intentions; to report a slimy little bastard who was apparently duplicating and subsequently selling a video tape originally produced and sold by Michael Close. I believed this was […]

For many years there has been a fun/frustrating/mindless/useless game people play. It’s called the “five foot bookshelf” and the concept is simple: create a list of books pertaining to a special interest to fit in a five foot shelf space, to the exclusion of all others. Theoretically, this should cause the player to contemplate which […]

Now that word is spreading across the Internet that copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Magic” are being delivered, I’m seeing an awful lot of activity here at the digital home of Escamoteurettes in the form of Google searches for hints at what’s between those beautiful covers. The new book by Max Maven, […]

Perhaps the greatest motion picture ever filmed — outside of “Smokey and the Bandit“ of course — has to be “Scrooge“ featuring Alistair Sim. (I like the 1938 Reginal Owen version, too, but to me, Alistair Sim is Ebenezer Scrooge in the same way Timothy Dalton is Bond. James Bond.) Early enough in the flick, […]

I guess I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t entertained by Penn & Teller “Off the Deep End” (a self-fulfilling prophesy of a title if I ever saw one.) According to ratings figures, the P&T television special managed to get beaten by everything except reruns of Reba. Wow. If that’s not bad enough, ABC’s America’s […]

Samuel Effin Jackson stars in a movie currently in production and titled “Black Snake Moan.” In it, Jackson plays the part of Lazarus, an older black bluesman who claims he can cure a white nymphomaniac of her condition by…well, use your imagination. Knowing Jackson — and the details of this production — as I do, […]

Granted we’re only twenty minutes into it, so this is a mid-stream observation. The only thing that comes to mind is this quote: “Here’s a quarter, it’s gone, you’re an idiot, it’s back, you’re a jerk, show’s over.” — Jerry Seinfeld This has got to be the irony of ironies. Let’s see how the next […]