Author: Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here we are, at number 30 of The Magic Memories, gone online SUN, 25th July 2021, at…, yesss, 0:07 h!

On Sunday, 18th July 2021 I gave a virtual all-new Zoom lecture for the “Magic Apple Shop”, located in Hollywood, Los Angeles, one of the few remaining brick-and-mortar magic shops (although their online-business is huge, of course). The owner, Brent Geris, is a likable and generous man. Imagine that for a fee of $ 30 the 47 participants each received a parcel containing a deck of the first edition Card College Playing Cards deck, 8 special cards to follow hands-on some of the items taught during the lecture, plus the lecture itself, obviously, that ran 3 hours, plus another hour for a few who stayed for more Q&A and chat. The lecture was recorded, and the plan was to sell it for $ 10 to each participant, same as when you attend a lecture and afterwards buy the lecture notes. To me, this makes sense. But Brent, in his boundless generosity, decided to give it away for free to all participants! Wow – who am I to argue… especially because I keep saying that money is not important (but it is, unfortunately, necessary). So, if you are one of the lucky 47, I hope you have got your copy and revised it, for there are hundreds of small bits in it – besides the main content (!) – that are not just mere “tips”, as some fools call them, but doors to infinite galaxies… I do not exclude that at some point I’ll put it up for all to download for peanuts, or I’ll extract a few items to use in these posts. We’ll see…

The second part of the lecture focused on the unique characteristics of the Card College Playing Cards. If you’re new to The Magic Memories, or have a lousy memory as I have, you can refer back to The Magic Advent Calendar of December 22, 2020, or go to the product description, which says it all, by CLICKING HERE. At this point I would like to remind you that you can access all past posts of The Magic Advent Calendar as well as The Magic Memories for free, and for a nominal fee you can purchase the complete posts of the Magic Advent Calendar as a single PDF, enabling you to access all links, film clips etc. in one place, which is really very convenient (CLICK HERE to get the PDF).

The Guarantee Joker

This brings us to today’s offering. The Card College Playing Cards have, among another dozen features, two specially designed Jokers. Before sending in your criticism about them, know that these Jokers are the only thing in the deck and case I am not completely happy with. I spare you the story of how these came into being after an exhausting email-correspondence with the publisher, who otherwise did a marvelous job, in my opinion. One thing, however, is still very good and useful, namely the text which I concocted and which went onto the “Guarantee Joker”. You can do several trick with it. I’ll mention just three here:

• “Card Call” from Stand-up Card Magic
• “Guaranteed!” from Confidences
• “The Fine Print”, also from Confidences

If you do “a little think”, as Einstein used to say, you’ll find that you can use it in several other tricks you already know, and thereby add a new twist to the presentation. For all note-takers among you I should mention that this is the moment you could open a note in your physical or (better) virtual notebook, titled “Tricks & More With a Guarantee Card”, and then start researching and thinking, and discussing with others… As an aside I’ll mention that if you enter “Guarantee Card” into Behr’s Archives, you get seven hits – well, that’s a start, isn’t it?

Below are the two Jokers of the Card College Playing Cards deck, in all their splendor…

The two Jokers from the Card College Playing Cards deck

The Guarantee Joker

And here is, finally, a trick called “TTT -Turn Over, Transform & Travel” that uses precisely this Guarantee Joker. To read, study and practice it, CLICK HERE.

Enjoy the magic, and have a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the 29th edition of The Magic Memories, gone online on SUN, 18th July 2021, at 0:07 h.

Gerd Maron and Dagmar

In 1991 I had an idea for a TV series: 8 programs of 40 minutes, each having as a subject magic that would happen in a beautiful and fascinating city. The list contained, Paris, Marrakesh, Budapest etc. Together with a friend who ran a successful advertising agency and who had a background in filming, we decided to finance a pilot – actually I did the financing – that we would then try to sell to any TV station that had an interest in it. We choose Venice as our first destination, and together with Barbara and her sister, a camera man, one for the sound and my friend as the director (editor, cutter, promoter etc.) we went to la Serenissima… and spent almost a week recording some great material.

This episode of my life would certainly make for an interesting and entertaining chapter in a biography, but I’ll spare you all this for some other time (perhaps).

Anyway, part of the concept was to have a guest performer, and since Venice is so famous for their doves, a dove act was a logical choice. Obviously, our budget was limited, but, for some lucky circumstances, I was able to convince Gerd Maron (1923 – 1996) and his wife Dagmar to be part of our project with their act that had taken them to the Lido in Paris, the Stardust in Las Vegas and many of the world’s top Cabarets and Nights Clubs. Frankly, I have no recollection of how I managed to do that, but am certainly glad I did. Although the TV series never came to be – and that’s yet another story – I now have one of the very few recordings of his complete act before he retired.

The TV audience should think that the act was being performed at the Teatro Marco Polo in Venice, while in reality it took place on the “Baseldytschi Bihni”, a small t theatre in my home town Basel, Switzerland – this was done as post-production, like some other scenes, when we came back home. As you’ll be able to (hopefully) appreciate, the style and music is of course that of the Sixties and Seventies, so you have to think “retro” when you watch this. However, as connoisseurs you will be pleasantly surprised at the originality and deceptiveness of some illusions. His dove work was impeccable, and I find the vanish of the doves from the cage more logical than vanishing the complete cage, as most would do it. And the method is excellent. However, his pièce de résistance was his “Dog that comes to life”. Not only was this a very practical illusion that could be performed surrounded even in the most delicate situations, I also challenge anyone to find out the working, even after watching it several times. The psychological and technical construction of this production is absolutely brilliant. In my opinion it is the best small illusion I’ve ever seen. Once you find out (after at least five viewings), please refrain from talking about the solution on the Internet, thank you.

When Gerd was in Basel, I had the chance to spend an evening with him chatting about magic and life, and I remember him as a humble and wise man. He was a deep humanist, and I remember him mentioning how he and his wife Dagmar would bake their own bread and exposed ideas about living a healthy lifestyle when this was not yet a subject as popular as today. I retrospect I wish I had spent more time with him as he was such a wonderful man and artist.

To watch Gerd’s and Dagmar’s delightful show, CLICK HERE.

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

As this The Magic Memories number 28 is going online it is Sunday, 11th July, 2021, exactly 0:07 – welcome 🙂

Today, let’s talk money. I mean, not the money-money, but the magic-money.

The Miser’s Dream

First, I’ll remind newcomers to this blog that I have already talked about coin magic in several other blogs. You might like to see my take on the Coin Assembly plot titled “Coinvergence” in The Magic Memories (8), or the more recent clip “Le roi des dollars” by Segundo de Chaumón in the more recent The Magic Memories (25). BTW: You can find all past The Magic Memories blogs by CLICKING HERE.

The arguably greatest coin trick for laypeople is “The Miser’s Dream”. I remind all of you of Dany Ray’s wonderful routine that he used all his life in his cabaret act when he worked many of the top night clubs of the world. I discussed that in The Magic Memories (6) in more detail – here is just the clip for ease of reference; watch just the opening trick, which is his Miser’s Dream (CLICK HERE).

I’ve never had The Miser’s Dream in my active repertoire, for many reasons, but have read, studied and admired many versions. Only once in my career, as far as I can remember, did I use a routine – a fairly simple one at that – to open a presentation for a Trade Show. I’m glad you’re not asking me about technical details, because I have no recollection of them, although I might be able to find the script of the presentation. As an aside: I’ve never been a great proclaimer of scripts in magic, but whenever I did a trade show I wrote one. First, because there is quite a bit of text in it that I would normally not use and that was scripted for the company and the product. Second, because I would sell it, along with a preceeding treatment, and I would even charge for the hours needed to learn the text and practice the usually slightly changed trick sequences! Trade shows were fortunately only a short part of my career and I did them just for about ten years or so, and only three or four a year, alternating them with regular corporate and private show, lectures etc., in order to get a (for me!) healthy mix.

Anyway, I’ve been out of the Trade Show business for over ten years now, but could tell quite a bit about it, if you asked 🙂

Back to the Miser’s Dream: Although I can’t give you details of the performance, I will always remember one of the funniest anecdotes that happened to me on that occasion. It was the year 1990 and I was working for a renowned German company at an industrial fair called the “Hannover Industriemesse” – if you ask international trade show workers like Mark Phillips or Bill Goldman they can tell you more about this events which they, too, have worked several times.

I was doing a specially conceived performance to present the advantages of a computer controlled robot system for stock-keeping, at that time an innovative concept. To start my act I was using a simplified routine of the Miser’s Dream to attract people with the noise and visual quick effects – what else – and to mention the salient sales points which I would comment more explicitly later in the performance. I did six performances of ca. twenty minutes every day for 10 days. That, for me, was a lot of work!

On such a booth the employees change daily, at least there are people being exchanged every day. So it came that a new employee of the company arrived on the booth shortly before I was finishing one of my many performances. He caught maybe the last five minutes of the show, and of course the enthusiastic applause I usually received at the end of each performance – I was giving away things, so this made it easier. After the show I gathered, as usual, the few props I was using and went to my miniature dressing room on the booth where I met this newly arrived gentleman who complimented me on the performance. One of the props I was carrying was the coin pail for the Miser’s Dream. As he talked he suddenly became aware of all the coins in the pail. He instantly became silent, looked at me, then at the coins, then at me again with big eyes and exclaimed: “Whew, and they even give you tips!” If you think that in Europe tipping is far less common than in the United States, the situation was even funnier.

Checking my copious notes on the Miser’s Dream in my Evernote devoted to the subject, it almost made me pick up this wonderful trick again, but I won’t, as there are other projects requiring my attention. However, as this week’s contribution, here are three ideas that might put you on track.

The first is a note I made from Todd Karr’s amazing publication titled The Silence Of Chung Ling Soo – the book is out of print as far as I know, but you can ask at Miracle Factory (their site is currently under maintenance) or check second hand sites, such as bookfinder.com. CLICK HERE to see one of Mr. Robinson’s (his real name) ideas.

The second note is a one-page article by William W. Larsen, father of the Larsen brothers of Magic Castle fame and the founder of Genii magazine, from a 1950-issue of Genii, CLICK HERE to read.

And the third note is an idea of mine to open a Miser’s Dream routine, without any gimmicks and to be used with a normal champagne bucket (but you can of course use a gimmicked one, if you like… and have one). Here is the idea:

Pronunciation

Recently, while researching something completely different, I caught a little discussion on Internet on how to pronounce my name.

OK, very simple: It is Italian, of course, as “Roberto” suggests, and the last name “Giobbi”, which seems to be a Piemontese family name, is pronounced like “job” and “bee”, i.e. “jobee”, with the accent on the first syllable, “jóbee”. For the linguists among you, the “gio” is a voiced post-alveolar affricate as in “jungle” or “judge” or “job”, followed by the “bi”, which is a rounded closed front lingual vocal, and is not pronounced like “buy”, but like “bee”. So, you see, simple things can be quite complicated if you let experts at it… (the is why I wrote Sharing Secrets, to explain the complex in a simple way). Any questions?

And just in case you find these linguistic conondrums amusing, here is an entry from my own Secret Agenda, to remind those who have it, and for the rest, well, you can still get it, physical or as an e-book from the webshop (Hidden Agenda, unfortunately, is now out of print).

August 14 – The Ghoti is a Fish

This is not only fun and little known, it also shows the terrible logic that lies at the foundation of any language (especially English!).

Write the word “ghoti” in big letters on a piece of paper and declare that it is pronounced “fish”. Your audience will look at you, not knowing whether to be polite or tell you you’re nuts. You then proceed to prove your case.

gh is pronounced f, as in cough.

o is pronounced i, as in women.

ti is pronounced sh, as in nation.

Therefore, ghoti must be pronounced fish. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Interviews, Reviews, Blogs

I’ve given at least a dozen interviews, audio and video, in this year and the last one, the “Pandemic Years”, like many of my colleagues have. It is, of course, flattering to be asked for an interview, but also a bit time-consuming, especially with me, who speaks six languages, half the planet comes at me, since I always speak their language, which of course is a lot easier than having to use sub-titles or override-audio. The disadvantage is that the contents get repetitive and inflationary. I have therefore stopped this, at least for a while. So, if you like how I think and what I have to say, and you probably do if you are reading this right now, you can get a last (for the time-being…) ear- and eyeful of Giobbiwisdom. Here is a podcast interview I gave to Michael Close, and since he’s himself a very experienced and creative professional, there were a few question that have not been asked before, and you might find these interesting. To hear the interview you need to sign up to Mike’s free newsletter by CLICKING HERE. In the newsletter you’ll also find a very nice review of Sharing Secrets. For all of you who want to practice their French or who are native French speakers, Stéphane Bergounioux recorded a almost one-hour interview on his “Magic at Home”, and to see that FAITES CLICK ICI.

Sharing Secrets

Just a brief note to let you know that I ran out of my personal stock of Sharing Secrets, meaning that if you want the book for yourself or a friend, please go to your favorite dealer. If he doesn’t carry it, ask him why not (!), or go directly to the distributor penguinmagic.com. If you can’t find it, go back in a week or so and it should be there.

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

For the 27th time I welcome you to The Magic Memories, gone online SUN, 4th July 2021, at 0:07.

For a small part of the world, but a large part of my readership, the USA and its magic enthusiasts, it is a holiday, their Independence Day, and I send to all among you who are concerned my sincerest best wishes for a peaceful day and a successful future. I’ve been into magic for now over 48 years (wow!), and there are many amazing things I could tell, but possibly the best thing of all is that people of all nations, ages, social status, economic levels, religious, political and sexual orientation can meet and enjoy each others company and discuss and perform magic, without even mentioning their differences and simply enjoy that great passion they have in common, whether as beginners or as consummate professionals. I know, this has been said before, but it warrants being repeated time and again, because there is a big, important and far-reaching message here…

To Take Or Not To Take a Leave

As I’m writing this it is SAT, 3rd July, a few hours before this blog gets online. In Switzerland it is the first day of the summer vacation for most cantons, and they call it “Bündelidaag” in Swiss German dialect, “the day of the little bundle”, implying that today you’re supposed to pack a few things into a bundle and walk off for a well-deserved vacation. I immediately thought that I should do this, too, and take a leave from my weekly The Magic Memories post. Imagine my surprise, when this was confirmed by my horoscope (it is just opposite the crossword puzzles I like to solve in a weekly magazine I receive…), which read verbatim:

“That’s it, you’re worn out! Look at it as a welcome opportunity to slow down. Even you need a moment of relaxation from time to time.”

Now how is that? How did this astrologer know that I had spent a year writing, editing, correcting, layouting, marketing, unpacking, signing, repacking, schlepping etc. my book Sharing Secrets? Isn’t that incredible, especially because I, as a typical Taurus, do not believe in horoscopes. OK, I stole that line, sort of, as the original by Sir Arthur C. Clarke is: “I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius, and we’re skeptical.”

So, as I was about to write that I won’t write anything this month, I found myself in the midst of writing. I guess that makes sense, and proves that even nonsense has a meaning. If you have been into magic for such a long time as I have (see above…), and if you’ve decided to dedicate your life to the wonderfully complex  world of magic, it is not possible to think or say whatever it is, without finding a connection to magic. And this is precisely what happened here. As I was going to put you off until next week, I was reminded that astrology is, of course, a most interesting subject to use for presentations. It’s actually so easy, too easy… and experience has shown that you need to be very careful about what you say and to whom you say it. As magic proves to anyone who performs frequently, day after day, there are too many people out there who are incredibly naiv and gullible. I said it in several of my writings, and will gladly repeat it here: In my opinion magic should be used to edify and educate people, not to add to their ignorance. This means that if you use astrology with a serious presentation, several in your audience will be confirmed in their belief about it, and after the show you’ll have people come up to you and involve you in discussions you might not want. In this context I’m always reminded of Einstein’s quote: “Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. But I’m not so sure about the universe.”

Back to the magic: two things, at least 🙂 One, returning to Sir Clarke, as I searched on Internet for the originator of the quote and found him, I have to admit to my ignorance that I did not know him, or maybe just had forgotten about him, yes, that’s it, I forgot 🙂 I clicked on his name, and up came dozens of clever quotes you might want to explore for yourselves. This one caught my attention: “This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.”

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Congratulation to you (and me): We made it to the 26th installment of The Magic Memories, gone online SUN, 27th June 2021, at 0:07h, this being mid-point of the second Pandemic Year.

Therefore, today’s leitmotiv is the number 26, naturalmente. I’ll do a bit of “free association” hoping that you’ll find one or two things that catch your fancy.

Half Forcing Deck

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the number 26 is the “Half Forcing Deck” (HFD), i.e., one that consists of 26 cards all the same, and 26 indifferent cards. What sounds like a trivial thing is in reality quite complex. The basic application uses just the duplicates and the indifferent cards, usually separated in two banks, but also in groups or alternating. The next degree of sophistication is to shorten either one, in order to obtain one of two types of Svengali Deck. Although this is the deck par excellence to pitch to laymen on the street, in markets and magic shops, to the expert it is a powerful tool with which you can even fool people in the know. Just think “Partial Deck Switch” and “Faro Shuffle”… If you want to get an overview of what can be done with a Svengali Deck on a more sophisticated level, check out “Chapter 13 – Magic With a Svengali Pack of Cards” in Hugard’s (ed.) Encyclopedia of Card Tricks, and you’ll be spoilt for choice. This book, btw, is the book for the proverbial island: Descriptions reduced to the essential that require a lot of creative interpretation on the part of the student, i.e., the perfect starting point to practice “second degree originality”.

Yet another apparently simplistic application of the HFD is to treat the face of the duplicates and the back of the x-cards with roughing fluid to form 26 “Forcing Pairs”. You’ll find a most wonderful application of this rigged deck in Sharing Secrets, “The Trick That Can Be Explained”, p. 109, with which I’ve amazed some of the smartest minds in the business for years, including super-experts like Juan Tamariz and Bernard Bilis. If you have my book The Art of Switching Decks – A Guide for the Beginner and the Expert, watch the DVD (included at the back of the book!) again, just the first three tricks of the initial performance segment, and you’ll see me do that trick there. If you missed it, I promise that this will make your week 🙂

Years ago, I gave a lengthy lecture for my club here in Basel, the Zauberring Basel. For the record: The latter was originally founded under the name of “Hofzinser-Ring” in the year 1947, was later renamed “ZRB – Zauberring Basel” and joined as a local club the national organization Magischer Ring der Schweiz. In that lecture, however, I did not focus on what you can do with that Forcing Deck, but rather what you can do with the 26 indifferent cards! I can’t remember if people enjoyed it or threw eggs and tomatoes, but I still think that the subject is interesting, for various reasons you may now try to find for yourselves… I recommend you do this as a creative exercise: Make a list of ten tricks that can be done with this deck using the indifferent cards rather than the force cards. This is, of course, also very useful if you’re using a Half-Mnemonica (half of any memorized deck), to delay the use of the memorized part.

Sunken Key Card

If you are a card person, the number 26 should inevitably conjure up what might arguably be the most clever and deceptive use of the key card principle, the “Sunken Key Card”, sometimes called the “Distant Key Card Principle”, of which the “26th Card Location” is arguably the best-known example (but there are a lot more…). I first read about it in one of my favorite card books, Hugard’s & Braue’s Expert Card Technique, which I first read at age 16, and studied assiduously instead of chasing girls, which I should have done… but then maybe my Card College books would not be what they are. The lesson is: There is always a price to pay, and, as they say, nothing is for free, even death costs your life.

Anyway, the principle underlying the “26th Card Location” is put to effective use in “Routine 4” in Card College Light, pp. 63: I strongly advise you to re-study the complete three-part-routine, as not only is each trick a good one, but the synergistic idea connecting the three is a concept to note and retain. As I discuss in Sharing Secrets, recognizing and naming a concept is one of the most difficult, but also most useful things to do when you read or watch magic instruction. However, it is not enough to just do this, you must then also find one or two tricks in your repertoire to which you can apply the concept, in order to instill the concept and to make it part of your toolbox of skills, because that’s the point of real progress and the way to artistic maturity. And yes, it is a lot of work you can’t buy from magic store, BUT the results will be all you can hope for and contribute to your personal happiness – no esoteric beliefs and rituals here, just solid work. Isn’t it wonderful that you can reach happiness just by dealing with a key card concept 🙂

Incomplete Faro Control

The first to put the “Incomplete Faro” to good use was LePaul in his fantastic “Gymnastic Aces” from The Card Magic of Paul LePaul (p. 207), even after more than 70 years one of the best Ace-Openers. Marlo later concocted his control, where a card peeked at in the extended part of the telescoped deck, eventually ends up exactly in the center of an odd-numbered deck (26 – 1- 26). I discuss the principle in Card College Volume 3, in Richard Vollmer’s “The Two Detectives” (p. 697). Over the years Richard has come up with a few simplifications, which I have included in the revised edition of Grosse Kartenschule, so those who have the latest German edition of it can find it on p. 831. For the others who have the English edition, here is a very brief description: Instead of doing a Straddle Faro with the complete deck as described, hold the deck face down in elevated dealing position, cut off a little less than the top half of the deck, and then faro it into the larger lower part. Immediately extract the inserted part, discarding the few cards left on top and bottom of the deck. You end up holding a telescoped (incomplete) deck in perfect condition to execute the Incomplete Faro Control as explained in the trick. The advantage is that you don’t have to worry about your first Faro as much as before, and get into the trick smoothly.

Additional Suggestion

Try entering any of the above-mentioned terms into Denis Behr’s Conjuring Archive (such as “Sunken Key Card”, “26th Card Location” etc.), and you’ll be able to spend the rest of the week (at least!) exploring unknown galaxies of the Card Universe.

Final Comment

The Card College Playing Cards regular edition have been out of stock with many dealers, but Murphy’s just restocked, so you should be able to get them again. I predict that the first edition of 2019 (so marked on both sides of the card case) will soon be completely unavailable and become a sought-after deck. If you want to say “Thank you” and support yours truly (me!), order them directly from my webshop HERE (especially the brick with 12 decks is at a really good price). And if you do so, you’ll always get a personally signed greeting card and some “extras”.

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here we are with the 25th installment of The Magic Memories, gone online SUN 20th June 2021, as usual at exactly 0:07; so, we’re nearing mid-point, but more on that in the next post.

Segundo de Chomón and Georges Méliès

In my  Magic Advent Calendar, entry of December 10th, I wrote about French magician and father of artistic filmmaking Georges Méliès. You’ll find that it in the archive section of this website, or you can get all 24 contributions with all relevant links in one single PDF for a ludicrous price HERE. Alternatively, to get directly to the Méliès clip, CLICK HERE.

When Méliès success declined, Spain’s Segundo de Chomón (1871 – 1929) star started to rise. Rather than me telling you his story, those who are interested in the subject will find good information in several languages on Wikipedia by CLICKING HERE.

For years I started my presentations, especially my seminars and masterclasses, with the clip by Méliès (see above) or the following short video to break the ice and get into the subject in an unusual way. So, today’s offering is a charming short clip that shows just one of the many works of Segundo de Chomón, considered by film experts as the most significant Spanish silent film director. Although de Chomón was not a magician like Méliès, this clip shows not only his affinity for magic, but also quite an excellent understanding of it, or at least he had worked with someone who had an insight into magic. To watch the clip CLICK HERE.

Card College Playing Cards

I’ve finally managed to put my own Card College Playing Cards Regular Edition on the webshop, so you can order them, if you wish: Simply CLICK HERE. If you live in Europe, this is probably your best deal, if you live in the rest of the world, you might want to try your favorite dealer first, but they are out of stock everywhere I checked, and it might take some time before Murphy’s gets the next supply to distribute: Although the cards were printed by USPCC on their premium stock, the publisher is TCC, who also produces my books in China. It took a while until these cards were accepted, but now the dwindling stock shows an increased interest inside this crazy and unpredictable market, which is that of playing cards. But the thing with the Card College Playing Cards is really simple: they are very good cards, work out-of-the-box and the deck and its case have features I’ve never seen in other decks (the description of these features is HERE).

Besides, they faro top-down, as a counter-movement to those now called “traditional cut”, which faro from bottom up, and are only useful to those who want to practice their Table Faros in their free time, I guess as a sort of Zen Ersatz… However, nobody who is in his right mind would use a tabled Faro in a payed performance (you can count those who could on the fingers of one hand), as it is much safer to do an In-the-hands Faro, from top down, of course, because most faro applications are Partial Faros, and they are used to obtain a stack or to permute a card, and 90% of these applications go from the top. Now, since the mistakes in a Faro almost always occur at the end and not at the beginning of the Faro, the Top-down Faro is superior for anyone who wants to perform before real people. Needless to say, that exactly that method, the best I know, is taught in Card College Volume 3, pp. 681. You can learn the Partial Faro, which is sufficient for many applications, in five (!) minutes… provided you have the correct cards 🙂

Sharing Secrets

It seems that almost everyone who has pre-ordered and pre-paid the book from me directly has received his or her copy. If you haven’t yet, let me know and I’ll send you the tracking. I have now less than a dozen left in my private stock, so if you want a signed copy, please order it now. The book has sold much better than I had assumed, fortunately, as I need to sell 300 just to pay for the printing. From now on I’m on a profit, to pay for my and Barbara’s work over one year. How much would you pay yourself for a year’s work? Well, I can assure you, it’s going to be below that (unless a sponsor, donator or a patron of the arts decides to send some cash instead of the usual diploma). As for the books, you can still find copies at several European dealers right now, and from ca. end July order from penguinmagic.com, or your favorite dealer.

I’m glad to say that so far everyone seems to be pleased with the book, and some have even praised it to the skies – I’m embarrassed to say that, but of course very happy 🙂 Here is Michael Close’s review from his monthly Newsletter June 2021: To read CLICK HERE.

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Welcome to  number 24 in the series of The Magic Memories, gone online SUN 13th June, 2021.

Thanks to all those of you who wrote in to say nice things, and ask a few questions, which I have taken note of and filed, so will answer them at some point as part of this series: More about Kaps (I have a lot!), how I take notes from watching videos, the philosophy of the Spanish School of Magic, what cards I prefer, and a large etcetera.

Interviews, quite a few…

In the past pandemic year, which seems to extend far too long into this year, I’ve been asked to give quite a few interviews, talks, lectures and private coachings. So, if you search Internet, you’ll find me answering all types of questions and do some magic in Spanish, Italian, German, French, and of course English. Just finished giving a lengthy audio interview to Michael Close, which should appear soon as part of his newsletter, and just the day before yesterday I chatted well over an hour for Stéphane Bergounioux from Paris and his channel.

Today, I would like to link you to my friend Fabian Weiss from Berlin, Germany, who has recently opened a YouTube Channel of his own, that bears the promising name “Wunderakademie”, and managed to collect quite a few interesting pieces you might want to explore – to do so CLICK HERE. Below you should be able to click on the “play” symbol of the photo and get my answers to some interesting questions he asked me.

The interview comes in two parts. Here is the first part:

And here is the second part:

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here we are on the 23rd installment of The Magic Memories, born into the virtual world on SUN, 6th June 2021, at 0:07.

Thank you to all who sent their feedback on last week’s topic discussing Fred Kaps’ “Chinese Sticks”. I could spend the rest of the year writing about him and his achievements, as he was such an allrounder, and tops in everything he touched.

“Gipsy Thread” done by Fred Kaps

My work and studies have several links to Fred Kaps, one of them is his “Thought Card In Cigarette”, which I discuss in my book Stand-up Card Magic, also available in German, Italian and French, and in my first Penguin Live Lecture (BTW: Those who say that cigarette tricks are outdated should use their head by putting the idea in a new context…). Another one is “Gipsy Thread” that has been one of the top five “battle horses” in my professional close-up work. There are so many great things about this essentially “simple” trick: it has a clear symbolism, the effect is straightforward and easy to understand, because of this it is easy to tell to others (the hallmark of all classics!), it can be performed for one person or for several hundred in a fairly large theatre, provided the light and sound are good, and of course it is an excellent trick for TV. Before I make a few more comments, see Fred performing the trick on The Parkinson Magic Show from 1976. (You can find the complete show featuring Richiardi Jr., a young Ricky Jay, and of course Fred Kaps with his stage act, plus various close-up pieces, plus his legendary “Eleven Dollar Bill Trick” as a stand-up item on YouTube. ) To watch Kaps do “The Gipsy Thread”, CLICK HERE.

It is only after watching it several times that you discover the many beautiful things contained. The handling with the spool is prodigious. I’ve never found an exact explanation of the handling he uses, and all the methods I’ve tried just did not work 100%. This is why I finally settled on the method I teach on my DVD/Download The Close-up Act. Another very interesting thing is how he handles the switch. Again, I’ve never seen this done by anyone, let alone published anywhere. Most handlings of this moment I’ve seen lack the absolute clarity Kaps’ handling has and which is worth its weight in gold. I seem to be the only one who has recognized and used it for decades now. Last but not least he has a lovely way of getting into and out of it, his management, technical and presentational.

I could give a complete talk about this trick alone, and I have (you bet I did – it’s one of my 58 talks). As far as I can remember I only gave that once at a a three-day workshop for young people (age 12 to 21) organized by the Magischer Zirkel of Deutschland. The poor chaps must have expected a firework of sleights and tricks, but all they got was the performance of one little trick, plus a 45-minute talk on all the tiny details making it up. It was a cruel thing of me to do this 🙂

If you are curious to see my handling and presentation of “Gipsy Thread”, CLICK HERE. You will appreciate that I’ve solved several problems of this trick, e.g. using a flat “spool”, a fool-proof unwinding (you can see that Kaps briefly has a problem when the ball unwinds), the Prologue and Epilogue, and a lot more.

Similar to The Linking Rings, this is one of the tricks that really play big and that can be used for all types of audiences, in virtually all types of situations – there are not many tricks that do this. I will be very candid with you and tell you that The Close-up Act is one of the items I produced in my lifetime that sold very badly, compared to my other products, similar to Confidences, the slowest selling book of mine. I was not surprise, but still very disappointed. In over 3 hours I teach only 4 tricks, but with many additional thoughts, unlike any other magic video I know. However, the tricks themselves are not novel, nor is the presentation eccentric, simply because I’m not an eccentric. But I can honestly say that I’ve been using these tricks (and some others, of course) in the past 30 years of my professional career, that has taken me to four continents, to some of the most beautiful places, performing for some very exclusive companies and private people. So, it is the Real Work, as they say, much more real than the novel stuff that dazzles the eye and is then put aside.

As a last comment, if you have Sharing Secrets, on p. 33 I give my script for the performance of “Gipsy Thread” in the theatre, inspired by Al Koran’s presentation of “The Torn & Restored Cigarette Paper”.

Did I say I like this trick?

Sharing Secrets News

Almost everyone in Europe seems to have received the book, and reactions have been very kind: judging from the feedback I got up to now, it seems that the book is not so bad 🙂 If you are in Europe and have not yet received the book, let me know, and I’ll check/send you the tracking – not all, but most books are trackable (I won’t let you into the intricacies of why some are and others are not, as this is one of the deep mysteries of the post office…). Once again: If you live outside of Europe you need to be patient. However, I’ve received notice that some in USA have already got their copy, so I’m confident this might be faster than the threats from the post office made me think…

Have a great week!

Yours sincerely,

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here we are with the 22nd installation of The Magic Memories, gone online on SUN, 30th May 2021, at 0:07 o’clock.

Today, let’s talk about Fred Kaps, just briefly, I’m afraid, as the man and his magic warrant a huge project. If you search Internet, you’ll find quite a bit of information, photos and videos. In particular I would like to focus on Kaps’ personal version of an old chestnut, the Chinese Sticks. In the PDF, which is today’s gift to you, I’ll give you a bit of info on the context. Before you read the text in the PDF, may I suggest that you watch Kaps himself do the routine. To see a young Fred Kaps, at the age of 37, perform his interpretation of the Chinese Sticks on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963, CLICK HERE. (If, for whatever reason, the link shouldn’t work, simply search “Kaps Chinese Sticks” on YouTube.)

Kaps kept performing this trick long into his professional career. So, several years later, in The Fred Kaps Show, you could see a mature Fred Kaps doing the same routine, with the same text, but it has aged beautifully, like a great port. I couldn’t find the clip on Internet, and am reluctant to upload it from my private file for reasons of TV-copyright, which can be quite a hassle. To read and/or download the PDF with my script of Kaps’ Chinese Sticks, CLICK HERE.

Below is a photo of Fred Kaps performing in an informal close-up situation – he was a master at this. The photo was kindly given to me by Flip Hallema – if you know the photo credit, please advise.

Of course, we could go on a tour exploring the cultural history of the Chinese Sticks, and what an interesting and enlightening exploration it would be, I’m convinced it would even make the subject of a fascinating book, but since I just finished writing one, and know of its implications (!), we won’t do it here 🙂 BUT, if you give yourself 3 minutes, have a look at the British magician Sutherland Felce, who performed the Chinese Sticks in quite a different way, CLICK HERE to watch.

(Maybe…) Final News About Sharing Secrets 

Finally, it’s done! By the time you are reading this, the books have all arrived here at our home in Muttenz, Switzerland, near Basel, have been carried, stocked, unpacked, signed, repacked, taken to the post office, and are now in the hands of the shippers. Those who live in Switzerland and Germany can expect it Monday or Tuesday, or have it already received. Those living in Europe should get it the coming week, so keep an eye on the postman. For all others outside of Europe I’ll have to beg for a little patience. Due to Corona the post office announced that the planes are overbooked and do not exclude the possibility of sending via ship, which will take several weeks. We’re still living in an exceptional time, and need to put up with exceptional measures.

I wish you a pleasant and successful week!

Roberto Giobbi