Magician Jeff McBride attributed David Blaine's popularity to his ability to remain motionless for long periods of time in a recent interview.
Stillness, however, is not McBride's forte. Instead, his Taipei, Kaohsiung and Hsinchu performances, called Abracadazzle, will see the illusionist take audiences on a magical journey as he fuses masks, myths, drama and illusion, reflecting his study of magic's multi-cultural roots.
The program is complimented by music, dance and martial arts techniques from places as diverse as Japan and the US.
McBride's routines will be interspersed with tales about magic and its history. He is also known to include audience participation in his shows - at one performance he pulled a young boy onstage and proceeded to drop coins from the giggling boy's ears into a bucket. Though a simple trick, McBride's stage presence kept the audience enthralled.
McBride's first full-evening show, Mask, Myth and Magic, won acclaim off-Broadway and on world tour. The magician has won plaudits from industry magazines and institutions and was named Magician of the Year by the International Grand Prix of Magic.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
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Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50