Magical Moments with Prof. Baas

Once a magician, always a magician! This is what comes to mind when I think of the octogenarian Prof. Baas of Mysore (alias B A Srirangaraj).

Prahlad Acharya, Giridhar Kamath, and myself drove down to Mysore on January 15 to spend an eventful evening with the 88-year-young senior magician; an experience that will always remain in my good memories.

Prof Baas, who has been a little under the weather due to the cold winter, took all of five minutes to return to his jovial and enthusiastic self – sharing jokes and anecdotes from an exceptional memory that puts the rest of us to shame!

He promptly proceeded to enthral the amazed trio with some devastating magic effects, including his inimitable magic closing umbrellas! The best effect of the evening was one where a freely selected card (no force) turned out to be the only card with a different back, and matched with the only card in the wallet!


Photo Caption: Prof Baas’ highly entertaining
card effect has Giri & Prahlad in splits...

The hours spent together breezed past in no time, and we look forward to spending more time exchanging magical thoughts with this gifted magician. I use this opportunity to wish Prof. Baas good health and longevity; May the Grace of God continue to shine on this talented personality.

You may send in your good wishes and letters to Prof. Baas at # 1050, 4th Stage, T K Layout, Kuvempu Nagar, Mysore 570 009.

Nakul

PS: This article originally appeared in the January 2007 issue of VMN.

Magic in the Blogosphere

I welcome the Magic Academy's foray onto the blogosphere with magicweekly.blogspot.com, and this gave me the idea to write about magician bloggers.

But I was in for a shock! Most of my favourite blogs have either disappeared, or have not been updated in some time, like my own indianmagician.blogspot.com (which has warranted an update in a long time). Most missed among these is John W LeBlanc's Blog - www.escamoteurettes.com/blog (Update on 30/1/2007: John is back! Do drop in to his blog!)

Let me share a couple of thoughts on two notable blogs, and express the hope that all my blogger friends find the time and more thoughts to share.

cardopolis.blogspot.com - David Britland, the accomplished author of many magical tomes maintains this blog. These "Random Thoughts of a Magical Nature" are truly a treat for all serious performers, because David shares the real secrets behind a good performance. And sometimes, in a generous mood, he shares some magic effects too!

thinkingmagicians.blogspot.com - Walt Anthony’ blog for the "Thinking Magicians," truly lives up to its name. Walt defines a 'Thinking Magician' as one who "rejects the limits & clichés of today’s trite & stale ideas of what a “magician” is or how “magic” is performed".

Blogs to keep an eye include: intenselymagic.blogspot.com, magicunlimited.typepad.com, magicandconjuring.blogspot.com, ibmsnightmare.blogspot.com, www.magician.org.uk, peacelovesmusings.blogspot.com, and loads more!

Nakul

PS: This article originally appeared in the November 2006 issue of VMN.