Hello, I am known as K-8 (aka "conscious_object"). Here I keep a fetish blog with a (skewed) sense of humor. Contained herein you will find my various random thoughts on my unique fetishes, and interesting finds culled from all over the intarweb, including art by my friends, and sometimes my own art.

Note: You do not need to have a Livejournal account in order to reply to an entry, as I have "anonymous posting" enabled. Just make sure to sign your name at the bottom, or I'll have no idea which comments are yours.

If you used to watch magic show TV specials back in the day, you might remember David Copperfield's "Laser Illusion," where he appears to separate himself at the waist. A variation of the trick was performed more recently by a couple on the Brazilian version of "America's Got Talent," this time with the woman being the one to pull herself apart. Their segment starts at 6:00 into this video, but the good stuff starts at 7:34.

The lead-up is kind of clunky, and feels like it goes on a little too long. But I like that they stuck with her just lowering her body onto a chair and back, where I always thought Copperfield's "walking" with his upper body appearing to "float" looked kinda cartoonish. Also, points for using an obscure Black Sabbath song at the climax (cake to anyone who can correctly name the title).

Remember that "Instant Babe" illusion by Jonathan David Bass I posted awhile back? Here's a slightly newer performance, that now has a third section to the sequence.

This video has disabled embedding, so you'll have to click this link instead.

I like the apple at the end.

"It comes with accessories!"

If you can look past the cheesy sentimental tone, this is a pretty fun illusion (except for the boring last minute, which I think was him just filling time to make it to the end of the song).


If only there were more magicians out there influenced by early Copperfield rather than later Copperfield, back when his illusions had a sense of humor. I mean, "hmm, we're going to need to get you some legs" would've lended itself so well to a humorous approach. (Though I did get a few laughs from the way the canned applause cuts off so abruptly.)

From a friend:



Do you have any suggestions for "magic trick" manips you'd enjoy seeing?

Guess what I finally got ahold of? That clip from Mr. Wizard's World I'd been wanting to track down.


So funny to see this again now as an adult. Am I the only one that almost started laughing when she says "this feels neat"? I wonder if she ended up developing similar interest when she grew up...? ;-)


And speaking of television moments that involved headlessness and scarred me for life, I just recently discovered a music video that -- like Talking Heads' "Love For Sale" -- I saw at such a young age, and sounded so bizarre when I'd try to put it into words, that I'd questioned if it was all my imagination. But no, the video for "Doing It All For My Baby" by Huey Lewis, it turns out, was all too real.

The video starts with Huey Lewis and the crew on their way to or from another, when one of their tires goes flat. For some reason, getting the spare off involves getting under the van while it's propped up, and Huey does the honors. Only jack falls out, and the van falls on top of him, crushing him to death! The rest of the band are shocked, and try to get him out...but confirm that he's dead. They killed Huey Lewis! And I'm only, like, four when I'm watching this. ;-P

The rest of the band is shocked for a moment, then are like "eh, screw 'em" and go to find any nearby place they can find. What they end up finding is some sort of creepy mansion, and...well, to make a long story short, Huey's is revived by a mad scientist who turns him into a Frankenstein-ian creation, after the rest of the band have already ended up as heads in jars...

Here it is, in case you don't believe me:


But rather than "scarring me for life" in a fun way like the Mr. Wizard clip, this one just left me forever paranoid that the jack might fall out and injure someone anytime I see someone changing a tire... ;-P

(And that concludes today's therapy season, thanks for coming. ;-P)


See the rest of the magic show.

A few more images from anonymous friend. The first one is based on an idea of mine, and the second is one I figure might be of particular interest to trav28. ;-)

A couple select new creations from the same anonymous friend responsible for the aquarium-girl manip, inspired by some ideas I was discussing with him:

I remember being fascinated somewhat as a kid by variations on the stage illusion where an assistant is separated into three pieces, and either the middle section is pushed to the side, or the boxes are rearranged in a different order, etc.

Of course, the annoying part about most of these is that they'd often keep the front of the boxes closed the whole time, so you couldn't see much other than one hand, one foot, and their face. It would've been far more impressive if we could see all of the magician while she's separated.

Allow me introduce you to the "shadow vision" illusion:

An impressive illusion, which by shear coincidence I assure you, starts off with the magician likening dividing up an assistant to pulling apart Barbie dolls as a kid, heh.



My favorite part is after he opens up each segment after she's taken apart, the way she interacts with him as just a smiley head with some displaced hands..."hey, let go!," hehe.

One of the most ASFR-tastic magic tricks I've seen (though not devoid of cheesiness, but what else is new?):

When I posted that Headless Illusion previously, I was thinking, "y'know how I'd really like to see the trick done? Have the head disappear, and then reappear elsewhere on stage, before being put back in its proper place. But of course, that'd be pretty much impossible to do as an illusion."

Maybe not so impossible after all?









Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video of the whole illusion, only a very quick snippet in the magician's promo video, from which I took these stills. If you watch the video, this one is at the very very end (though some of the other things shown are cool as well).

The familiar Rudy Coby trick, but done by a German Candid Camera-type show as a store mannequin instead of robot. It's in German, but I think you get the general idea what's probably being said:



I particularly like the part where they let the cart wander and get reactions. And the post sticking out of the top is a nice touch.

I remember seeing some magic illusion or other when I was a kid that involved a box being placed over the assistant's head, then the doors in the front being opened up to reveal their head had "disappeared." This was probably the same illusion that also involved blades being struck through the box (the big reveal when the doors in the front are open being that you can see the blades there, but the head has vanished), but I was never very interested in the whole "human pincushion" thing.

But it did get me thinking, how crazy would it be to reveal that their head had vanished, but then take the box off too so that they might walk around a little (or be led around, rather) with their head temporarily "away"? And (assuming magic were real) how would that feel? Would you still feel like your head was there, or would it feel like it temporarily didn't exist? Unable to see or speak, sort of a magical sensory deprivation. Would they even be able to hear anything? And what would that be like, reaching up to feel your neck with your hands, and just a flat surface where your head would be?

Anyways. I doubt we'll ever be seeing a variation of the illusion quite like that. But here's one that comes pretty close, only that the assistant remains seated. I'm sure this would've blown my mind as a kid, back when I still wondered if magic might be real (though nowadays I think I have a pretty good idea how this trick was done).

Please excuse the bad music ("let's do a Vegas-ified cover of a classic Stones song!"):

A few people have been wondering, like myself, whatever happened to Rudy Coby? After doing some digging, I did find out what he's been up to since his show stopped touring, and you'd never guess the answer: in 2003 he began a collaboration with Marilyn Manson, coming up with illusions and props for use during Manson's side-show freak themed Grotesk Burlesk Tour promoting the album The Golden Age Of Grotesque. When that collaboration was a success, he continued working with Manson on the following two tours.

During the 2003 tour, a familiar prop showed up wheeling out a cart whenever they performed the song "Tourniquet":



And showed up again in the next two tours, this time during "Heart-Shaped Glasses," looking a little less robot and a little more mannequin:



The funny thing is that a lot of Manson fans seemed to think the legs were some sort of remote-controlled animatronic contraption, with the occasional fan in-the-know jumping in to try and correct them that, no, there's a real person in there. Amusing.

Word is that Rudy Coby is planning on touring a new magic show of his own in 2008, once the current Manson tour ends. And if things work out, perhaps a TV special to go with it? We can only hope. ^_^

This is just mean... ;-P

When the hour-long special Rudy Coby: The Coolest Magician On Earth aired in 1995 I became an instant Rudy Coby fan, finding it to be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) magic specials I'd ever seen. This was primarily for two reasons. Reason one, he came up with creative new takes on old familiar tricks, combined with a wonderful sense of humor that came as a breath of fresh air in contrast to the David Copperfield specials, in which he had been increasingly taking himself far too seriously.

And reason two, Nikki Terminator:



(Apologies for how washed out the source video was. I have the capabilities to fix the levels in iMovie I discovered, but apparently it wants at least 10GB of free space or something in order to apply it. Guess it's time to start looking into an external HD...)

A few more interesting images from the same person who did that corset display:


Wooden by ~gnrfk on deviantART


headless III by ~gnrfk on deviantART


mannequin III by ~gnrfk on deviantART


all closed by ~gnrfk on deviantART

Wow, this is way more impressive than that window-mannequin half-person thing. This version of the trick could make for a wild half-mannequin display (perhaps an artsy pedestal instead of a skeleton?):