I'm sure this has been said before. If you ever have the chance to see Marc Desouza do his lecture on the history of magic- take that opportunity. It's awesome. I learned more than what I had initially expected to learn. In fact, I fealt so dumb: I didn't know any of the information regarding the history of magic past Ancient Egypt through the 1800s. I've only studied the Ancient Egypt period, and the 1800s to present. I'm a history 'fan.' Magic was still going on during that 'forgotten' time period in history. I learned so much, and Marc's powerpoint presentation was probably one of the highlights of the convention I attended.

Matt Tomasko

That sounds good, I like Marc. Where did you see his lecture??? I remember him from the Baltimore IBM convention.

-=tabman

Matt: Can you help me get in touch with Marc? Did he have any handouts at his presentation? Thanks in advance. Clay

Hi All,

Thanks for the kind words Matt and Tabman, Hey, how are you doin'? Long time no see.

Anyhow, I first put the program together for a literary society who asked that I do the presentation. This was a much smaller and shorter version of what I'm doing now. Dr. Lawrence Hass invited me to present an expanded version for the Theory and Art of Magic symposium at Muhlenberg College a few years ago. At his suggestion, I added the PowerPoint presentation as well as expanding the scale of information and routines performed. Since then, I have repeated it at The University of Delaware and for a few magic conferences, including the Harrisburg Day of Magic (actually two days, but who's counting) where Matt saw it and the MAES Convention last year. I will be presenting it for The New England Magic Collections Association in a few weeks in Watertown, MA and again in November for the McNichols Round Table group in Linden, NJ.

Clay, I don't have any collateral materials at present, but would be happy to discuss it with you off-line, or on-line if there is sufficient interest.

The name of the presentation is The History of Magic Through Performance, tho I've subtitled it, with apologies to The Complete Shakespeare Company, The Complete History of Magic (abridged).

Marc DeSouza