Randi announced last March he was coming out of the closet.
When asked why he didn’t come out earlier, Randi said he struggled with the lock.
Huh, I had no idea he was gay. Or Canadian.
Cite?
I read that already and did not see any misrepresentations.
Its ok to be Canadian. I’m Canadian. There I said it. Its out, and it feels good. Consequences be damned.
People might think I am a amoral and perverted, but I just like bland cuisine and hockey nights.
I get confused between the two possibilities here.
#1) Geller claims to have psychic powers which have never been fully explained (although some can be duplicated by magicians) which leads some magicians to feel that he may truly have psychic powers (as in Czarcasm’s links).
#2) Geller is a very talented magicina whose entire life and persona is an elaborate act of performance art and he is admired by magicians for his talent.
I also have problems with the definition of “slightly naughty”
If Geller is widely admired by magicians for his performance then where do you draw the line between performance art and fraud. Would John Edwards would also be admired for being a good performer? What he does can be considered a form of magic trick which he is fairly good at. What about Peter Popoff? Sylvia Browne? Why are these people considered frauds rather than mentalists or performance artists?
You can either go with the links to his words, his misdeeds, and the opinions of professionals, or you can go with the excuses. It would be no trouble to come back with ten times as much factual information about Uri Geller and his various misdeeds, but I believe that if what has been shown isn’t enough, nothing more will do the trick.
I was told he is gay over 20 years ago by a friend who is a magician, so I suppose it hasn’t been a secret in those circles.
Those aren’t “the” two possibilities. For example here’s another:
#3) Geller is a somewhat talented magician who is famous only because he lied and convinced people that his tricks were done with psychic powers instead of conjuring. The public is gullible, so he was able to cash in on their gullibility by telling them that he was NOT a magician.
And where does lying to people about lost loved ones and selling “magic” crystal/dowsing kits to gullible innocents fit into your secenario?
And, since you’re focusing on magicians, let me add to that #3: Geller is also notoriously lawsuit-happy, so, many magicians will not comment on him at all, and others attempting to avoid grounds for lawsuits and possibly being overscrupulous in demonstrating the scientific method, many magicians are careful to not explicitly deny that Geller has ‘psychic’ powers (while pointing out that everything he does could be accomplished through simple trickery). Other magicians may feel he’s still a part of the brotherhood of magicians and so will not comment on how he does his tricks, or what kind of explanations he offers for them.
Would y’all like to see how Geller talks to those magicians that are praising him for he manipulates his audience? He just can’t turn the bullshit machine off, it seems.
I would just like to say that this thread has inspired me to purchase Randi’s book, Flim-Flam. So, thanks!
Cool. You won’t regret it. If you order it through his foundation, he might still autograph it for you. Even better when I ordered mine, they put me on hold. Next thing I know is: “Hello, this is James Randi." Never seen that coming, he is a hoot to talk to on the phone.
I’ve been following his career for many decades, and there is a bit more I learned about Randi just a few weeks ago, and I bet if one hasn’t seen this yet, they will pick up a few more things. Watch this! 6 minute clip, where Randi tells his story, lots of vintage video I never seen before of him in his younger day, and quite a bit I had seen. He tells the story about his dad only spoke to him two times his entire life. He was born out of wedlock. It was after watching Blackstone at an early age, he knew that is what he wanted to do with his life.
I’m not sure how much longer he is going to be around. Randi’s been through a lot, suffered a cancer scare a few years back, that I believe is gone now. He doesn’t seem to walk around quite that well anymore judging from that video. I bet he can still bend a spoon and key though.