Another magic and Psychology article but this time... animal psych,

[DanZ]

Magic is (Literaly) for the Birds
From Scientific American an Oct 13th article by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... the-birds/

Daniel Zuckerbrot
Port Hope, ON

[Jack Shalom]

Thanks for bringing up the topic, but am I missing something? That article ended where it should have begun. So what have we learned about specific bird responses to magic, and what are the hypotheses surrounding those responses?

[DanZ]

Sorry Jack.
I just tell em, I don't explain em (I don't mean that to imply that I think the article is a joke).

Daniel Zuckerbrot
Port Hope, ON

[Jonathan Townsend]

Sorry Jack.
I just tell em, I don't explain em

There's a clip on the news today of a guy getting informed he won the Nobel prize in economics. His neighbors went over to wake him up at 1am. The wife says she gave out his cell phone number. Sound familiar? https://www.wfaa.com/video/news/nation- ... 01d2427e0a
Start with intention. From elsewhere

One researcher ventured out in a mask he’d started wearing five years earlier and was attacked by about 50 crows who apparently had borne a grudge despite not having seen the mask for a year

Elias Garcia-Pelegrin learned to perform magic as an undergraduate student studying drama at University College London (UCL). Upon graduating—and realizing that acting wouldn’t pay the bills—he worked as a bar magician. He also took a job as a zookeeper in an aquarium and grew fascinated with the possible role of social transmission in the mating rituals of penguins.

Do you think he might go back to the aquarium in a penguin costume to test out his theories?

[MagicbyAlfred]

Elias Garcia-Pelegrin learned to perform magic as an undergraduate student studying drama at University College London (UCL). Upon graduating—and realizing that acting wouldn’t pay the bills—he worked as a bar magician. He also took a job as a zookeeper in an aquarium and grew fascinated with the possible role of social transmission in the mating rituals of penguins.

Do you think he might go back to the aquarium in a penguin costume to test out his theories?

Yes, on Halloween. Here's a group of them excitedly looking forward to him performing magic at the aquarium bar for the occasion (including Penquin through Dollar, and other classics).

[Jack Shalom]

Just as long as he doesn't do the Galli-Galli cups and balls.

With respect to the guy in the Dick Cheney mask, my theory is that it wasn't that the crows remembered the mask, but that they remembered Cheney and his war crimes.

[Joe Lyons]

With respect to the guy in the Dick Cheney mask, my theory is that it wasn't that the crows remembered the mask, but that they remembered Cheney and his war crimes.

Surely that's transference on your part, Jack.

Cheney, after all, is a known bird hunter.

[Bob Farmer]

Fowl Us: TV show featuring magicians trying to fool Peregrine and Tanager (yeah, those are birds).

That was awful: I apologize.

[MagicbyAlfred]

Just as long as [Elias Garcia-Pelegrin, dressed in penguin costume] doesn't do the Galli-Galli cups and balls.

Jack's post got me wondering what the "Galli-Galli cups and balls" are. According to Magicpedia:

"Luxor Gali-Gali (1902-1984) was noted for his cups and balls finale producing several live baby chicks. The translation of his stage name is "Quickly Quickly" in Turkish and this title has been used by members of his family, for eight generations."
https://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.ph ... _Gali-Gali

Interesting, cuz I always thought the baby chicks ending was a Johnny Ace Palmer innovation.

Also, "Gali-Gali performed many times on the Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town TV show in the late 1940s."
https://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.ph ... _Gali-Gali
That's something I wouldn't have seen since it was before even I was born.

Further, Gali-Gali "carried a card from the Royal S.P.C.A. of England, certifying that no cruelty, only dexterity is used in handling the baby chicks. And while appearing in New York City, the local S.P.C.A. would send an officer each week to pick up the chicks, and retire them to a farm." (Id.) As an animal rights guy, that makes me happy to hear.

It also occurred to me that this thread is (unintentionally) providing some good advertising for Penguin Magic.

[AJM]

Taxi for Farmer!

[AJM]

Further, Gali-Gali "carried a card from the Royal S.P.C.A. of England, certifying that no cruelty, only dexterity is used in handling the baby chicks. And while appearing in New York City, the local S.P.C.A. would send an officer each week to pick up the chicks, and retire them to a farm." (Id.) As an animal rights guy, that makes me happy to hear.

Aww, that is so sweet. I wonder if he sent the chicks to their retirement home with little crutches to support their broken legs.

Andrew

[MagicbyAlfred]

Further, Gali-Gali "carried a card from the Royal S.P.C.A. of England, certifying that no cruelty, only dexterity is used in handling the baby chicks. And while appearing in New York City, the local S.P.C.A. would send an officer each week to pick up the chicks, and retire them to a farm." (Id.) As an animal rights guy, that makes me happy to hear.

Aww, that is so sweet. I wonder if he sent the chicks to their retirement home with little crutches to support their broken legs.

Andrew

Dunno, but my understanding is that they were each given tiny little gold watches.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Actually, which shell has the pea?

[Ted M]

Footage of the act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH1yNVqOUcM

And some further reading...

"Gali Gali appeared at a convention in Houston, Texas, back in the 1950's. He was ejected from the hotel because he stopped up the plumbing with the chicks after the act was over."

https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/vie ... opic=62889

[Bill Mullins]

Just as long as [Elias Garcia-Pelegrin, dressed in penguin costume] doesn't do the Galli-Galli cups and balls.

Jack's post got me wondering what the "Galli-Galli cups and balls" are.

. . . . .

Further, Gali-Gali "carried a card from the Royal S.P.C.A. of England, certifying that no cruelty, only dexterity is used in handling the baby chicks. And while appearing in New York City, the local S.P.C.A. would send an officer each week to pick up the chicks, and retire them to a farm." (Id.) As an animal rights guy, that makes me happy to hear.

What people are dancing around here, but not explicitly saying, is that Galli Galli injured and killed a lot of chicks while doing his act. The footage linked doesn't show it so much, but I have seen other footage where he slams the cups down and they hit the chicks on the legs, breaking them. He raises the cup later and it is obvious that the chick can no longer walk.

[MagicbyAlfred]

Oh I didn't know that. So I couldn't have been "dancing" around it. If that's what happened, that's horrible and obviously totally unacceptable. Maybe that's why I stick to fruit and large balls for my final loads. But the bottom line is that the treatment of chickens (and many other defenseless animals) virtually every day by most humans (magicians and non-magicians alike), is just as cruel and unacceptable, if not more so.

[Edward Pungot]

No one talks about the "rights" of plants and trees. They have their alkaloids in their defense against magic books and playing cards. I guess it pays to be at the top of the food chain.

[Jonathan Townsend]

The authors claim animals will watch tricks for food. First you train them to expect a small treat. Then you teach them to "guess" using a procedure without sleights. Understood that's not quite how the three shell game procedure really works but you get the idea.

[sarcasm]So, where would a nice person say the pea is?[/sarcasm]

[Jonathan Townsend]

http://dailynous.com/2020/10/15/philoso ... tionality/
https://iep.utm.edu/ep-defea/

Fancier language but still about outcomes and causes. <- university language for effective trickery.