The two creepy head-characters rode the Northern Line, pushed an empty pram down the platforms, and sat down to play trains at Hamley's toy-store, as a publicity stunt for Mind Gap, a new theme park ride designed by stage conjurer/hypnotist Derren Brown (previously) that will open in March 2016 at the Thorpe Park theme park in Chertsey, England. — Read the rest
Tonight a woman pushed her hubby as a joke from the front of the balcony. He fell and caught the upper circle on the way down, and was…
— Derren Brown (@DerrenBrown) August 3, 2013
Mentalist and conjurer Derren Brown got a hell of a shock during his Saturday night show: a woman pushed her husband off a 45' balcony "for a joke," sending him over the edge. — Read the rest
Boing Boing reader tw1515tw mentioned this essay by mentalist Derren Brown on how to overcome awkward situations. Most of Brown's strategies involve behaving irrationally to disarm the other person.
Here's one of Brown's tips:
— Read the restHow to handle aggressive situations
This is simply about not engaging with your aggressor at the level they expect.
Mentalist/magician Derren Brown's new memoir, Confessions of a Conjuror, is a very odd sort of book. Technically, it's a kind of autobiography, but what it really is is a kind of meandering shaggy dog story that presents narrative in the same way that a great conjuror presents a trick. — Read the rest
The Science of Scams is a new project from Channel 4 and mentalist/magician Derren Brown that aims to debunk the paranormal industry's lucrative claims about ghosts, fortune-telling, telekinesis and other assorted woo woo. Brown and C4 produced seven videos purporting to show the kind of "paranormal" activity held up as evidence of the supernatural and released them on YouTube for several weeks, allowing people to make what they will of them. — Read the rest
Earlier this week, UK mentalist Derren Brown predicted the winning lottery numbers on live television — watch it here. It was a neat trick, and people are still trying to figure it out.
The video above offers a plausible explanation of how he did it. — Read the rest
Great stand-up bit about homeopathy, new age "thinking," and other follies. (Salty language ahoy) (Via Derren Brown) — Read the rest
Mentalist and conjurer Derren Brown's taking a new show called "Enigma" on tour across the UK. Derren's a terrific performer who does an absolutely baffling mentalist act that combines applied psychology, prestidigitation, and a fabulous performing style that'll have you scraping your jaw off the theatre floor. — Read the rest
In this six-part video, Richard "God Delusion" Dawkins interviews stage hypnotist/magician Derren Brown about the techniques used by "psychics" to fool people (and maybe themselves) into thinking that they have extrasensory powers.
Richard Dawkins interviews Derren Brown
(via 3 Quarks Daily)
Last week, I went to see mentalist/magician Derren Brown perform live at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End, catching the start of the run of his latest show, "Derren Brown, Mind Reader: An Evening of Wonders. It was absolutely fantastic. — Read the rest
I've just finished Derren Brown's absolutely charming and fascinating book "Tricks of the Mind," which is one of those impossible- to- pigeonhole, eclectic nonfiction books that pulls together its subject matter in a genuinely novel way and ends up influencing how you see the world around you. — Read the rest
I just ran into master hypnotist and magician Derren Brown at a party and he was such a nice — and impressive — guy that yesterday I went out and picked up the first video of his I could find in a shop: the DVD for season one of Trick of the Mind, the show he did for Channel 4. — Read the rest
The New York Times profiles Derren Brown, a British mentalist whose stage performances and TV specials are apparently a huge hit in the UK. He seems to be a master of Neuro-linguisitic Programming. From the article:
— Read the restBrown taught himself hypnotism, branched out into standard forms of magic and began performing in pubs and at parties.
A small (51 men aged 24 +/- 3 years) study published in Neuron tasked experimental subjects with practicing the ancient Greek mnemonic technique of "memory palaces" and then scanned their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging, comparing the scans to scans from competitive "memory athletes" and also measuring their performance on memorization tasks.
Jane and I have been having a great time with The Code, a magic effect created by actor and magician Andy Nyman. It's made by Theory 11 and consists of a deck of playing cards and a one-hour instructional DVD that includes several excellent mind-reading routines you can perform with the deck. — Read the rest
William Dement, former dean of sleep studies at Stanford, a man with 50 years of research behind him, once told a reporter for National Geographic – “As far as I know, the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.”
Last month, I blogged a fascinating profile of Apollo Robbins, a stage pickpocket with an almost supernatural facility for manipulating attention and vision to allow him to literally relieve you of your watch, eyeglasses, and the contents of your wallet without you even noticing it, even after you've been told that he's planning on doing exactly that. — Read the rest
Juggling happy mutant Mat Ricardo is putting on another one of his glorious east London variety shows! He writes,
— Read the restMat Ricardo's London Varieties is back – and we only have two more London shows this year!
Next one is June 14th – that's NEXT THURSDAY – and it's a cracker of a line-up.
India's UCO bank has opened a lockless branch in Shani Shinganapur in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, a town known for its piety and with a reputation for being crime-free:
— Read the rest
The legislator said bank officials carefully studied households in the township before starting the branch.
Dr Ben Goldacre's UK bestseller Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks is finally in print in the USA, and Americans are lucky to have it. Goldacre writes a terrific Guardian column analyzing (and debunking) popular science reporting, and has been a star in the effort to set the record straight on woowoo "nutritionists," doctors who claim that AIDS can be cured with vitamins, and vaccination/autism scares. — Read the rest
