Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/ssOCHBRMe9U

Hey Fun Seekers! I have released new products in the Mystery Shop (go to the shop page and scroll to the bottom). Here is the trailer I created for Kodama.

Currently I'm preparing for tonight's weekly Mindscape close up show, and gearing up for some big events in the coming weeks and month. As well as preparing for the biggest event of my life. Comment below...first person to correctly guess what the biggest event is gets a free Gnostic deck.

Enjoy!

Each month we will randomly select a new twitter follower who has retweeted any of the @stuartpalm tweets. The winner will get a free Gnostic Playing Card deck. And possibly more! (Other projects and t-shirts in the works)

Blessings! SP

Four ways to win decks below!

Follow @stuartpalm on twitter for the chance to win free decks of Gnostics. For a limited time, every 50th follower will receive free decks! I was never much of a tweeter until recently, so I need to catch up to others on building this social community. Onward!

Secondly, first person to share this on twitter gets a free deck!

Also...third person to comment on this post below receives a free deck...Do it up!

Insanity!

Card Monkeys!... Share a video of yourself on Facebook doing something amazing with a Gnostic Deck and the best video will win four free decks! Just tag me in the video...Good luck!

Otherwise decks are available on the shop page of this site... HERE

Great review of Gnostic Playing Cards. He got a bit confused and called Lawrence the artist and illustrator but other than that I think it covers and represents the deck very well. Enjoy!

REVIEW VIDEO

The Gnostic deck went out for printing today. This new specialty printed deck will be available for purchase around the end of February 2014.

The Gnostic deck uses imagery hand drawn, painted and designed by Stuart Palm based on imagery from his research into Gnostic and alchemical imagery. The Joker and Ace of spades images have also been individually drawn representing gods from Gnostic mythology.

The Legends Playing Card Co. has proven to create the highest quality playing cards in paper quality, inks and finish. Their first deck The Legends deck, already raised the bar on paper quality, and they have only improved their process since then. All the ink colours in this photo are approximations of the printing colors.

The box will be printed on black mat paper with a gold foil interior. The box inks are all foil pressed metallic gold, rose gold, metallic blue, and white. The two-tone gold/red and rose-gold/black cards are Pantone® spot colored using metallic gold inks. (The blue back card will be a darker blue tone than shown here.)

We look forward to providing this deck for all those with a passion for quality playing cards and an interest in exploring hidden knowledge.

My newest performance option, Sightless Portrait Readings has recieved great responses from the audinces at The Space, a gallery space run by the Cat Street Gallery.  Enjoy the video here!

I am seeing this everywhere today. To begin with I think it's great to see so many people supporting equality, liberty and human rights.

I thought I would be devils advocate for a second because this pink on white image is intriguing.

The basic message is equality.

As an American I was brought up into a Christian society with the idea, "all men are created equal", written into the documents that formed the country. But then I went through and education system that put some of us in a "gifted" program and others into programs to help their "learning disability" and still others labeled "special."

If you are not Christian the notion of all people being created equal comes into debate. While I believe it would be nice for everyone to have the same opportunity to progress in whichever direction they choose, I'm not sure it's possible. There are so many reasons that we are not equal, from stature to intellect to talent, to the economic class we were born into.

There are also many benefits to having diversity in a society. We need people that are better at different things.

I do believe in giving everyone equal respect. Keep in mind that there are cultures where it is not socially the norm to do this. Cultures where there is a definite sense of classes and more respect is given to the elders and the higher class of a given group.

So, Internet, I have two questions for you. Please answer as Humans, not as your nationality, social/economic class, race, religion, or sexual preference.
1. How are we all equal?
2. How should we be equal?

Hey Funseekers!

It's been a bit since my last post, and much has happened. I have recently been in both the South China Morning Post and The Standard newspapers. You can learn more about all that in my recent newsletter through Facebook by clicking here.

I have been busy with many projects lately including work with new corporate clients who I am creating bespoke magic experiences for.  I love working with the companies, focusing on the companies message, and creating a experience or show that delivers that message. I am also very busy with a new lecture I am calling "Human Hacking" which focuses on the knowledge one gains about humanity through working as a magician and how this knowledge can help you be a better promoter and improve sales.  Its funny, I start one of these blog posts with one topic I wanted to talk about and then I end up having so many other things to say.  I need to learn to limit myself better!  What I was going to talk about is...

Cartoons...I have been involved lately dubbing for Japanese and Chinese animation. I have loved cartoons and animation since I was a child, (as most children have, I just never stopped watching them).  I have been greatly interested in voice acting for a long time, it was one of things I always wanted to do, and thought I might be good at, but didn't know how to even begin to pursue.  Thanks to a lot of support and help from friends and my lovely Christine, I have been doing side work in voice acting for the past six months or so.  I'm currently working as many characters on a Japanese series called Inazuma 11 Go! In the photo from the show (above) I dub the big guy with the goggles on his chin and the dark haired guy with the bandage accross his nose on the upper right side.

In the process of studying good voice acting I have been watching new animated programs. I have two new favorites from the US I highly recommend.

The first is Avatar, the Legend of Korra. This is the second story in the Avatar series (the first being the last air bender, which was a great cartoon, but might have become the worst movie I have ever seen!)  In terms of the look and feel of most of the new animation comming out fo the US, the American companies have sure gained a lot by studying the Japanese.  I love Japanese animation (or anime...although, showing my age, I still think of it as Japanimation in my head)  One of my favorite movies is Ghost in the Shell (It has this great rain sequence!)  which was also made into a fantastic series.  In The Legend of Korra the scenes, the characters, and the animation are all beautiful. And the voice acting is extremely good. I'm a big fan of the world they have crated in this story arc. The time period is later than the first series and it has a bit of a stream punk look to it. If you like good fantasy stories, an Asian landscape and feel and steam punk, this is not to be missed.

The second animated series I have been enjoying is Tron: Uprising. I loved the movie Tron as a child, and the new film was enjoyable, but just didn't do enough for me. The new animated series does all the things that the movie was lacking. It's simple and direct and tells a revolution story in the Tron grid universe. The look and feel of the characters as well as the way they move reminds me of Aeon Flux, which I loved in the 90s!  The voice acting is top notch and includes many famous voices including: Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, and Paul Rubens (Pee Wee Herman, but he's playing a bad guy in Tron). If you like animation, and Tron, you know what to do.

More to come, have a great week...

SP

Hey Funseekers!

Last Thursday was Episode Two of The Bearded Lady and I believe it was even better than the first one! Episode One was fantastic, don't get me wrong, but last Thursday everything was a little bit amped up. There was more music, more magic, more nakedness, more people, and more Fun! Perhaps this has something to do with the fabulous Rum cocktails that Salon #10 whipped up as welcome drinks, and perhaps it has something to do with the excited anticipation of the guests who came for the second time. No matter what it was, I was happy to be a part of it.

*Ellis Does his best Carmen Maranda, singing "The Lady with the Tutti Fruity Hat".

There was a bit of a departure for me from my normal act at this event. I sang!

I hope you enjoy the clip of my take on Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher. It was quite a bit of fun to perform with such a great band. I have always had a desire to be a singer. When I was a child I would perform at all the Church choir functions and I was the male lead in most of the musicals. That means at some point I 

Played Jonah, Jesus, a wise man, Daniel, Moses, and King Wencesloss. This went on until I was in middle school and being in a church choir was something to be embarrassed about. That and my voice started to change. I didn't know what to do about that.

I have always involved myself in singing in some way since. I was in a short lived band in University as a singer, and after graduation made an almost weekly appearance at select karaoke nights for about ten years. That ended when I moved to Hong Kong. It's funny that I sing karaoke less now that I am in Asia. But the experience is quite different from New York City. In New York it is all about the show. It's great if you can cary a tune and have a voice to go with it, but not as important as stage presence. In Hong Kong it's all private rooms. I often feel like I am singing to myself in this context. People here don't automatically applaud, they chit chat while your are singing, they don't really watch if you are trying to put on a performance and its hard to do because the central focus is the screen not the person singing. You don't truly engage the room unless you sing in Cantonese or you sing Lady Gaga....or LMFAO. Basically it's singing practice, and I feel like I am singing for myself. I can do this in my shower.

*The Fabulous Bearded Lady Ensable 

So needless to say, my soul got a great fill of its singing void from this show. Now, I'm no great singing, but I feel now that if I had a band as good as the one at The Bearded Lady, I would feel happy to take on any song in my range. The music at the event was fantastic. We had Latin arrangements from 1943 with Gigi Marentette and Danny DePoe singing and playing trumpet. I love these two! If you get the chance to see them, you are in for a treat. I also got the chance the other day to hear Danny's new album, which he has not put out yet. I can't wait to have a copy, it is my type of music. He described it as Nirvana meet Michael Buble.

But these two were just fronting the band, every member performing was equally impressive. On piano and sax was Jim "the professor" Schneider, who I had the privilege of rehearsing with. I learned a lot from him in a very short amount of time. Bob Mocarsky played, rocking most of the night on piano. On purcussion was David Chala (who I believe is from Cuba?) who kept us in the Latin groove. There was also an Operetic performance from Olivier de Molina which was breathtaking. A burlesque dance with banana leaves from Julie Shah who was sexy and fantastic! and interludes of salsa dancing from Paola Sinisterra; who I cant seem to get a bad photograph of. Even our host with the most Ellis Kreuger sang late in the night, treating us to the theme song of the event, "The Lady with the Tooty Fruity Hat".

*I eat razor blades.

*Olivier de Molina sings!

*Julie Shah dances!

*Salsa with Paola

*Gigi and Danny being amazing!

I also, of course, gave a few performances of the magical sort. I ate razor blades early in the evening, and also performed a prediction effect later. For the late late crowd I did my rendition of the oldest magic trick, the cups and balls. I didn't perform as much close up magic this time because I wanted to get a feel for the party, and I truly enjoyed the mix and mingle. As I'm sure you can tell, I was most excited about singing. It's fun to get nervous again! In future Bearded Lady productions I plan to perform a bit more intimately with mental miracles and close up experiences.

*A touch of the Mental...Brains!

*The old Cups and Balls.

*Our Hosts Ellis and Alex (with a guy I didn't meet) enjoying the performances, and Stefano looking cool.

Thanks again to all those who performed, and to Moustache and Stiibu for putting on this fantastic night!

And of course, many many thanks to all the guests who came and made this happening a reality!

All my best,

SP