Alex Stone – Magician, writer, speaker

I don’t know about you, but growing up I had this hilarious $10 magic set.  It came with some weird squishy ball, a few metal rings, some cards, a cape, and of course…. a wand.  Thinking back, I don’t know how my parents even sat through my poor attempt at a magic show for longer than 5 minutes, but I guess that’s not the point.  When it’s YOUR kid, everything is cute…right?  Anyway, that hobby lasted all of a few weeks and I was on to the next.  This is how it goes for many young boys – but not Alex Stone.  When Alex was 5 years old, his dad bought him a magic set (probably a lot like mine); however, this wasn’t just a passing phase for Alex.  He kept up his craft, well into adulthood where he would one day take a shot at the magic Olympics! Yup, that’s right – there is seriously a magic Olympics.  The fact that Alex literally got kicked off the stage doesn’t much matter.  What matters is that in his magic journey (see what I just did there) Alex learned a lot about the human mind, it’s weaknesses, and how to exploit them.  Because this is what the best  magicians in the world can do.  They can make you believe you see things that you don’t, and they can make you remember things that never happened.  As Alex puts it, “magic at its core is about toying with the limits of perception.” Sounds pretty cool huh? Come join us this week as we make your questions disappear (too much?).

Alex’s newest book, Fooling Houdini was named one of Amazon’s top 10 non-fiction books of 2012.  Stone has written for Harper’s, Discover, Science, and the Wall Street Journal. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in English and has a masters degree in physics from Columbia University. He grew up in Wisconsin, Texas, and Spain. He currently lives in New York City. Check out more about Alex at his blog.