A Magician's Life

Bruce Cervon (1941-2007)

I hate starting the blog like this, but I am very sad to report that magician Bruce Cervon passed away last night, May25th. I am especially morose about this as Bruce and I worked together at a couple of venues and had some great conversations and stories to share.

From the Whaley's Who's Who in Magic:

Cervon, Bruce, AIMC (Akron, Ohio: 20 Jun 1941-2007) Stage name of Andrew Bruce Cernava, a grandson of Yugoslav immigrants. Inspired around age 7 when father taught him a one-hand cut. Soon self-taught from Gilbert Mysto Magic set & the card section reprint from Hoffmann's Modern Magic. Pro close-up & stand-up magician since 1964 when he moved to Hollywood.

1971 AMA Best Lecturer.
AMA Best Close-up Magician 1973, 1976.
Expert court witness on gambling.
AMA Treasurer 1978-94 & Secretary since 1994.
Co-publisher (with Louis Falanga & as successor to Larry Jennings) of L&L Publishing since c1990.
Wrote The Real Work: Card Secrets of Bruce Cervon (1976, 64pp), The Cervon File (1987), Ultra Cervon (1990, 186pp, with Stephen Minch), etc.
See Mike Maxwell, Bruce Cervon's The Black & White Trick and Other Assorted Mysteries (1989, 151pp), and Stephen Minch, Bruce Cervon: Hard-Boiled Mysteries (1998m 192pp). Produced The Vernon Chronicles (4 vols, 1988-92), including as Vol.4 co-edited (with Keith Burns, He Fooled Houdini: Dai Vernon a Magical Life (1992, 308pp).
Tricks in Genii, Pallbearers, Epilogue, Ibidem, Cardiste, Hierophant, Talisman, Linking Ring, Magic & Spells, Magick, MUM, Richard's Almanac, & in books by others.
TV segments.
2 audios; 2 videos ("Ultra Cervon).

What an accomplished magician and an all around nice person. Bruce will surely be missed by us all.

In other news, Paul has taken a day out of the office to work with friend and magician Robert Baxt about a new project that they are being especially candid about. I had an opportunity to take a candid shot of them working and talking about something in the offices yesterday, but I can't make heads or tails of it:



And check out this video of Robert performing a levitation. While I'm unsure if this has anything to do with the above photo as far as a new project goes, it certainly is interesting and entertaining:



If the above embedded object doesn't work for your web browser, you can check it out here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZMaQfosV1dI

Regardless, make sure you keep tabs on the web site for more details when this new project hits!

Until next week when Paul returns,

Mike