I have other friends, but these are the ones with cool web sites.

A remarkable musician, singer, composer, and performer, Deanna Bogart is a longtime friend whom I first met when she was still with Cowboy Jazz. I was one of the first to book her in her own band, when I was still at the Inn of Magic in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., circa 1986. She's a killer performer and I recommend you seek her out if she's coming your way. And check out her CDs from her website. The most recent is "Timing is Everything," and it's her best to date.

“Hey, you’re that guy.” Thanks to the infinite life span of film on cable, you probably know my pal Dean as the star of Ski School and Summer School. But he has dozens of film and television credits to his name, and he’s the genius who invented Security Edition, the answer to America’s insane willingness to sacrifice constitutionally guaranteed personal liberties in exchange for a delusion of security. See www.securityedition.com.

Statistician, designer, skeptic, gourmet chef – Chip Denman is a cherished friend and partner in countless ventures over the years. Along with his wife, Grace Denman, we created the National Capital Area Skeptics, still going strong since 1987. Although Chip’s full-time gig is running the computer statistics lab at the University of Maryland, he is also a superb designer; he designed www.jamyianswiss.com and www.card-clinic.com.

A great artist, if you haven’t discovered Tony Fitzpatrick yet, go take a look and be absorbed, amazed, challenged, thrilled – there aren’t enough adjectives to describe my feelings about Tony Fitzpatrick’s work. Tony’s etchings not only grace the walls of my home, but he also generously permitted me to use one as the poster for my one-man show, The Honest Liar.

There is no other artist like Renee French. Magicians might want to know that she collaborated on a comic book with Penn Jillette, entitled Rheumy Peepers & Chunky Highlights. But besides her remarkable comic books, you can now also find her exquisite work in volumes like Marbles in my Underpants and the magical The Soap Lady. Go buy them now.

A true renaissance man, Tim Jervis owns Spark Associates, a software engineering and development firm. Check out the video demo of “Dasher,” a new way of communicating with a computer, without a keyboard.

No, not that Kramer – the Kramer. Legendary alternative (before the word was co-opted) musician, Kramer, is a dear friend and one of the most original artists I know. Creator of the “Shimmy Disc” label, Kramer started, produced, composed for, engineered, and/or collaborated with literally hundreds of bands, including the Butthole Surfers, Half Japanese, and The Captain Howdy (with Penn Jillette). He recently composed the music for the Broadway play, Fortune’s Fool, directed by our mutual friend, Arthur Penn. Kramer’s solo album, The Secret of Comedy, is one of my favorite CDs of all time. Buy it from his web site.

Scotty Meltzer is a great juggler, a superb entertainer, and is a remarkable full-service business promotion and entertainment resource. That makes us competitors, I guess, and of course anyone in his right mind would choose magic over juggling -- but he's still a great guy, and his impressive client list includes the American College of Gynecologists. I thought you'd want to know.

I wish I could say I’m the world’s biggest Lou Reed fan, but a have a few friends who would flatten me in pursuit of that title. Nonetheless, I’m a longtime worshiper and also, I am pleased to be able to say, a friend. Lou is a constant artistic inspiration. I’ve seen and heard him live under all sorts of conditions, from the comfort and expanse of Radio City Music Hall to standing in the front row at the Knitting Factory to sitting among only a dozen people in Penn Jillette’s band room or on the taping stage of Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular, and every experience is as indelibly memorable as the next. Among his solo albums, New York, New York and Magic and Loss continue to find their way to my CD player on a regular basis, along with whatever his latest disc might be – i.e., Perfect Night.

On his web site, a photo of Todd is accompanied by statement, “This may be the most amazing man in America. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s true. We met on the same bill at Mostly Magic in 1992, and when I saw Todd break a cinder block over his head, I knew my life would never be the same. We’ve worked together on countless projects, including Monday Night Magic and for Penn & Teller, and I was best man at his wedding in 2001. His one-man show about the sideshow, Carnival Knowledge, one an award as best one-man show in the 2000 NYC International Fringe Festival, but he’s also an accomplished musician who plays with Woody Allen’s band from time to time, and he was the star of the Big Apple Circus a few years ago in their Medicine Show tour (he was Doc Pitchum, the “medicine man”). Todd is one of the most creative and talented people I’ve ever known, and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the history and lore of magic, sideshows, circuses, early 20th-century jazz, and show business in general.

Peter Samelson may be the most influential unknown magician of my generation. I saw him perform 10 minutes of close-up magic in 1976 and it changed my life. We’ve been colleagues on many ventures ever since. I wrote the introduction to his now out-of-print cult classic, Theatrical Close-Up, in 1984. Today we are partners in Monday Night Magic. Magic is a part-time pursuit for Peter today, since he is a part-owner of the multimedia firm, Invision. Check out their web site and the blockbuster client list.

Another multimedia guy, my friend Rich Shupe has one of the hippest resumes you’re likely to come across. In his teens he started the music-and-alternative-culture magazine, Reflex, and he was also manager of the legendary art band, The Residents. Today he owns the cool multimedia firm, FMA.

Musician, composer, arranger, producer, and all around cool guy and old friend Gary Stockdale is a superbly talented one-man musical enterprise. Among other things, he is the longtime composer for Penn & Teller. If you hear music in their show, he wrote it. He was also the bandleader on Sin City Spectacular.

What’s a Tight Circle? Go to this website and find out now. Right now! You’ll never use an unwieldy CC list again while communicating with friends, workers, or family on a group subject. Go! Check it out! Start a Tight Circle and see how this cool technology will change how you function in cyberspace. And have a look at the essay section – I’ve published several there.

Chip Denman first introduced me to information-design guru Edward Tufte, author of the landmark book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Eventually this led to my co-authoring “Explaining Magic” in Visual Explanations the only collaborative chapter in his three major book on information design. You can also purchase (http://www.jamyianswiss.com/shop.html) the books from my web site.