agenda-en

Every time I see this little clip, I just have to laugh out loud. A well done clip and a remind­er that in magic we have quite a few of these kind of per­formers as well …

Soon there will be a very inter­est­ing DVD by Germany’s Flo­rian Zim­mer, deal­ing with manip­u­la­tive moves with cards for the stage magicians.

I already saw some of the moves, and they are strik­ing, to say at least. Watch out for this, when Flo­rian releases it.

From time to time I try to find out what the real good­ies in magic are. And I ask my friends. Here is what John Carey sug­ges­ted con­cern­ing com­mer­cial card effects:

1. Chica­go opener/​Red hot Mama. A beau­ti­ful 2 phase routine asso­ci­ated with the bar magi­cians of Chica­go. Actu­ally the inven­tion of Al Leech and was pub­lished as the Hot Card Trick.

2. NFW. A beau­ti­ful twist­ing type routine by Gary Freed, put out by Elm­wood Magic. The four jokers turn face down one at a time and then change to the aces for the cli­max. So prac­tic­al and powerful.

3. Card Warp. The inven­tion of the great Roy Walton, inspired by a Jeff Busby effect called Into the Fourth Dimen­sion. This beau­ti­ful topo­lo­gic­al piece with two cards is a stun­ning piece of visu­al card magic.

4. The Koorn­winder Car. Dick Koorn­winder­’s bril­liant inven­tion where a little toy card loc­ates a selec­tion. The great Tam­ar­iz cre­ates a sen­sa­tion with this. Such a strong and charm­ing effect.

5. The Hom­ing Card. Ori­gin­ally pub­lished in the stars of magic, this repeat card to pock­et by Fran­cis Carlysle is a staple in the rep­er­toires of magi­cians all over the world. A les­son in misdirection.

6. Cards Across. So many meth­ods and hand­lings in the lit­er­at­ure. A real crowd pleaser.

7. The Ambi­tious card. The bread and but­ter routine of pro­fes­sion­als. Tommy Won­ders routine, inspired by Dai Ver­non’s hand­ling in the stars of magic is, to me the benchmark.

8. Tri­umph. A clas­sic! Ver­non’s effect in the Stars of Magic has spawned infin­ite vari­ations. So visu­al, so strong.

9. The Fin­ger­print trick. Pub­lished in the Ver­non Chron­icles Volume 1, this gem of Ver­non has a strong emo­tion­al hook and psy­cho­lo­gic­ally is maybe the best use for the double lift.

10. The signed fol­ded card to box. First brought to the atten­tion of magi­cians by the late great Fred Kaps, this piece, the inven­tion of Bruno Hen­nig is such a power­ful piece and a main­stay in the rep­er­toires of work­ers around the world.

Thanks, John, for the contribution!

What a nice, humble and (above all) sol­id way John Carey got star­ted in magic (taken from his run­ning week at the Magic Café For­um). Worth a read and consideration:

It all began for me as a kid of 9 stuck in a hos­pit­al bed. Mum and Dad bought me a book by the late Dav­id Nix­on which totally fas­cin­ated me. I learnt every trick and puzzle in that book and it really gave me a sense of achieve­ment to show friends and fam­ily those little tricks.

A couple of years later I got a Paul Daniels box of tricks and a bit after that his book. I was com­pletely hooked! I then star­ted get­ting books out of the lib­rary to study and in one of them was a list of nail order sup­pli­ers of magic. I sent away for cata­logs and lists and every few weeks a new par­cel full of magic­al treats would arrive.

I con­tin­ued pick­ing up these little tricks for a few years and then at the East­bourne IBM Con­ven­tion in 1986, everything changed. On the late night close up show I saw fit the first time a gen­tle­man called Kev­in Reay per­form. I was aston­ished as coins assembled under cards, fruit appeared under met­al cups and play­ing cards seemed to do things that just seemed incredible.

After the show I approached Kev­in and he was so warm and kind. I told him I had been buy­ing tricks but wanted to be able to learn what he did. We met the next morn­ing at the deal­ers and he told me to buy the Roy­al Road to Card Magic. This changed everything. He advised me to just study one chapter at a time slowly and patiently. We began to meet reg­u­larly and Kev­in would observe my work from that won­der­ful book and help me iron out any areas.

To see him bring the pages of that book to life and show me how with focus, enthu­si­asm and dis­cip­line I could learn and improve was pro­found. I will nev­er for­get him and all he did for me.

John Carey

Here is an inter­est­ing concept that struck me after read­ing this. It is ori­gin­ally not meant for magi­cians, but for cloth­ing. The idea is to keep 33 pieces of cloth­ing for 3 months (you can read the whole thing here: sys­tem 333).

The ideas is to remove the clut­ter in the closet. Remove the dis­trac­tions and the nev­er-end­ing “what should I wear today?”

If we would apply that to our magic stuff, then this could mean: 3 months with only 33 props (and books, DVDs, downloads).

Time to cut down and focus …