Author: Roberto Giobbi

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Javi Benitez Visiting; The Brittany Experience; The “How to Do a Book” Lecture; A Quick One On Erdnase; The Missing Link (Richard Wiseman)

These are The Magic Memories 179, gone online Sunday, June 2nd, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Javi Benitez Visiting

One of the additional benefits of having written books that are translated into various languages – for Card College it is currently eight – is that I have many “friends”, in the sense of Jean Paul’s utterance that “books are only thick letters to friends”. Friends, of course, visit with each other occasionally. This is why I get pleasant visits from time to time from people I haven not met before.

Now in the case of Javi Benitez, from Sevilla, Spain, I have known him for some thirty years from my visits at the Escorial Card Conference. He has always been an eager attendant, and I have seen him grow from a very young man to the mature artist he is now.

Although we have had many friendly but short interactions on those occasions, we never spent much time together, and I followed his admirable career mainly through the media.

So, imagine my surprise, when I received an email from Javi, saying that he and his wife Lourdes (yes, like the pilgrimage site) were in Switzerland for a private show, and asking if I would be available for visiting.

And so we did finally meet for a long late afternoon and evening at my home in Muttenz, with lots of magic talk.

Like mots first-time guests, of course, Lourdes and Javi were treated to Barbara’s famous interpretation of Frank Garcia’s “Super Meatloaf” from Super Subtle Card Miracles! Plus amuse bouches as starters, a great chocolate mousse as a dessert (recipe by Paul Bocuse, again thoughtfully adapted by Barbara), accompanied by some fine wines, since “life is too short to drink bad wines”, as Goethe used to say, and who am I to argue with such smart people…

A highlight of the evening was Javi performing for us the routine with which he fooled Penn & Teller. It is an homage to his idol and teacher Arturo de Ascanio, who was also one of my most important teachers, even so far, that he considered me one of his “spiritual sons”.

Javi certainly is one of his closest followers, and what he does would certainly make Arturo proud.

If you have a few minutes you can watch what he did in the clip below, and I have nothing more to say than: BRAVO, olé!

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Paris, Paris; Masterclass “Sleight-of-mind – The Psychological Construction of Magic”; After-hour; Slydini on Slydini

These are The Magic Memories 178, gone online Sunday, May 26, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Paris, Paris

If I came to Europe and could visit only one city, it would be Paris.

Certainly, I would miss Madrid, Barcelona, Vienna, Torino, London, but Paris has all I need in life, in abundance, and is a convenient three-hour fast train ride from Basel!

Ouverture

I arrived on Saturday, 4th May that is, late afternoon, was met by my good friend Yves Carbonnier at the train station, from where we drove directly to a bar close to our restaurant for a first “Kir Vin Blanc”, an aperitif I recommend you take at least once when in Paris.

The “apéro”, as they call it in France, gave my soul time to catch up with the spirits, we also went through the “Séminaire” in our minds, the Masterclass that would take place the next day, and it was a lovely wait before Amâlia Restaurant opened at 19:30h.

You can see what we had on Yves’ Facebook page… not such a bad start 🙂

Masterclass “Sleight-of-mind – The Psychological Construction of Magic”

The event took place on the premises of the FFAP (Fédération Française des Artistes Prestidigitateurs), located at 257 rue Saint-Martin, in the center of Paris, from 1 pm to 6 pm, interrupted by two very short breaks. So, almost five hours of full-immersion, non-stop magic.

On Sunday morning, when Yves and I tried to reach the premises by car, we were in for a first big surprise: Every first Sunday of the month they decided to close the center of Paris for all motorized vehicles…

It was only through my sleight-of-tongue and Yves’ e-mail confirmation of the contract he had for the location, that we were able to convince the lady police officer to let us pass and reach our destination, uff!

Twenty-three people attended, a complete sell-out, as we had limited to twenty (“off by three”), and I am glad to say that they were all happy customers.

Once again I insist that the most important thing, before anything else, is to make sure the audience can see and hear what you are saying.

Even with “only” twenty-three people this can be a challenge.

You cannot see this in the photo, but what I did as soon as I arrived, is to change the seating so I had seven people sitting in the first row in a semi-circle around my table, a second row of nine people who could see very well because of the generous spacing between the chairs of the first row, and a third row with seven people sitting on the stage; they could see well over the heads of the first two rows.

Briefly, everyone had practically first-row seating.

Remember: Only if the audience is at ease at all times, can you hope to reach their mind and heart, what Aristotle in his rhetorics called the “Logos” and the “Pathos”, combined with the “Ethos”, the performer’s sincere enthusiasm and competence. This is true for any performance situation, of course, but especially for such a lengthy one as a day-seminar.

As for the content, I choose to discuss six topics from Sharing Secrets, which really was the textbook for this seminar.

The topics were:

• Prologue and Epilogue
• The Space-Information Continuum
• The Look-Ma-no-hands Theory
• Morphology in Magic
• Intelligent Movements
• Memory Editing

I introduced each topic with the performance of a trick I had selected for its strong impact on lay audiences and its practicality to perform it.

After that I went through the timeline of the trick, explaining its technical working, of course, so everyone could take a practical performance piece home. However, the focus was on how the particular concept under discussion would be applied in that particular instance, and how it could be transferred to other performance pieces.

All in all there were over a dozen tricks I had chosen for being A-pieces, plus lots of techniques, subtleties, ruses, and above all presentational ideas that could be applied to other tricks as well.

I was particularly pleased that I could devote over an hour to a topic that has only rarely, if ever, been discussed in a seminar, let alone in the literature, namely the role the spectators’ memory plays when constructing the false reality in their minds that eventually leads them into Wonderland.

As far as I know only Juan Tamariz in his epic The Magic Rainbow has touched on the subject in great detail.

Although you can refer to the subject on p. 74 of Sharing Secrets, “Memory Editing”, it is a completely different thing to be able to bring the concepts to process level by experiencing their effectiveness first hand and live. Also, the fact of being able to ask questions around the various subjects is something that makes such events a unique learning experience.

Everyone seemed to agree on this in a subsequent discussion, but it remains a mystery to me why the magic clubs do not organize such seminars more often, rather than having lectures, many of which simply try to sell you something (fortunately this is no true for all lectures). As a matter of fact, this Masterclass was not organized by the club, but privately with the help of my friend Yves Carbonnier.

As always, I closed the seminar with a Q&A session, where the participants could ask me all the questions that had accumulated during the afternoon.

After-hour

The time after any official meeting is almost as good as the meeting itself.

I remember when I was a student staying in London for my Cambridge Proficiency Certificate, every Monday evening I would attend the meeting of the Magic Circle, where the action happened at the pub afterwards (“The Marlborough Arms” there sessioning with Fred Robinson, Eric Mason, Walt Lees, Jerry Sadowitz, JJ, Ian Keable, Chris Power…).

Back to Paris: After the seminar almost all of us gathered at a simple Bistro round the corner, where they served tartare de boeuf and bière artisanale, all I needed after an exhausting but very satisfactory teach-in.

The nice thing about these “after-sessions” is not only the food, drink, and magic, but that I get to know the participants a bit closer.

I was pleasantly surprised to see and learn what high-caliber participants I had, people who are at the top of their profession (most were amateurs), but also some top-pros drove up to five hours to be part of this event. Thank you to all of them!

I only wish that a few younger people had attended, as there were none, also not a single woman…

I am nonplussed at the fact that the magic clubs do not sponsor some of their talented youngsters to participate at such events, which I immodestly think are important for their magical development. The fee of € 80 (eighty!) I had set for the day, including refreshments, was really very modest, I think, and should have allowed young people to participate, too.

I will never understand that magic clubs are paying lip-service to the “advancement of magic”, but seem to do very little in terms of practical action.

A big subject…

Slydini on Slydini

The day after the Masterclass, Monday May 6th, Yves, José Ángel Suarez of Magialdia fame, and I had rendezvous-vous with Georges Proust, the owner of the “Musée de la Magie”, a must-see for anyone interested in magic when in Paris, and founder of the “Académie de Magie”, one of France’s most important and influential magic shops and publishing houses (Georges published my Stand-up Card Magic and The Art of Switching Decks in French).

We had lunch at “Parcelles” (take note!), and after a delicious three-course meal with wines worthy of our attention, Georges pulled out the big surprise from a huge bag he had schlepped with him to the restaurant: The prototype of a lavish box containing all the accessories for his Slydini on Slydini project.

 

You can read the details of how to take advantage from the pre-release offer in the attached PDF HERE and get an idea from the trailer HERE.

Let me just say that this is a project of worldwide magnitude, a product of the decade, possibly century, as it documents the work of one of the really BIG stars of magic.

Never before, and nowhere before, has Slydini been performing AND explaining some of his signature pieces; he does so here in Slydini on Slydini.

The box comes with a first-class set of handkerchiefs, two sets of very well made safety pins, two specially striken coins, a book that documents the most interesting and historic filming project undertaken by Christian Fechner, a world-famous film producer and FISM winner (1979 “Illusions” – I was there and saw his act!), and… ta-ta-ta-taaaa… a USB stick that will have your name engraved with five hours plus of Slydini performing and teaching, plus some extras…

There will be only 600 units available…

BTW: Do not worry about the French: Slydini speaks English (Slydini-English, that is…) in all his performances and explanations.

The sub-titles in French have been made out of National Pride and for the three or four people in France who do not understand English 🙂

If you read French, or have a little patience to let Deepl or Google Translate one the text, CLICK HERE for a three-page interview with Georges Proust and Jean-Luc Muller talking about the project and explaining its genesis.

Well, this is getting longer than I planned… and we are only at the second day in Paris!

Suffice it to say that I have of course visited with Bernard Bilis, who tells me that his book is progressing, walked around Paris, which is expecting even more visitors soon for the upcoming Olympic Games, and had an all-around great time… what else, it’s Paris.

Thanks to my friend Lorenz Schär’s recommendation, José Ángel and I visited the “Pinault Collection” at Les Halles, just opposite “Le Pied de Cochon”, a classic Parisian restaurant again worth going to (it had its ups and downs), located inside the newly renovated Bourse de Commerce, a phantastic  building by Tadeo Ando, with a spectacular mirror installation – SEE HERE.

Speaking of mirrors, I just have to tell you this one more this: Due to the Olympic Games, Paris has put up lots of quite original artwork on the streets, bridges and squares, one of which you can admire below. It is in front of the Louvre and the Louvre des Antiquaires (worth visiting!), being a mirror cube the size of a building, that reflects the surroundings in such a way, that when you look at it from a distance it does not seem to exist…

(For more comments on Paris see The Magic Memories 116.)

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Sunday Magic at Zauberring Basel; Jack McMillen Book; Shimpei And NHK On Magialdia Festival; More On Muttenz-Chicago Opener; Interview of Richard Vollmer by Yoan Tanuji of Magic Dream Paris; Méliès And Magialdia; Lest I Forget…; Final Wisdom

These are The Magic Memories 177, gone online Sunday, May 19, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Sunday Magic at Zauberring Basel

Every last Sunday of the month my magic club, the Zauberring Basel (ZRB), under the direction of club member Kevin Stieger, stages a two-hour event in the small theatre  that is our meeting location.

The idea is that of an “opens stage”, where members of the club, plus one or two invited guests from other Swiss clubs, or magicians who happen to be on their way through Basel, perform one or two short sets, most of it being “work in progress”.

We usually have an eager audience of thirty people, who get in for free, but are given the option of leaving an obolus in a top hat (where else…). The event is held from 4 to 6 pm, which has proven to be great timing.

On this particular occasion Kevin had asked me to take care of the entire second part of the “show”, so I did a forty-minute spot, which seemed to please the crowd, as nobody left, and no-one neither threw tomatoes nor eggs 🙂

I am mentioning this for two reasons:

First, if you are member of a magic club, you may do as we do, and you will not only have happier club members, but also create a nice showcase for magic.

Second, on this particular afternoon, I suggested to have an all-close-up show. The performers at Sunday Magic usually work on a small stage, which for this occasion we sort of inverted: We placed one row of chairs on the stage, and a second row of bar stools, higher than the chairs, right behind this row, resulting in two rows on the stage itself.

In front of the stage we put another two rows of chairs.

So now we had four rows, the first two in a communicative semi-circle around the close-up table you can see on the photograph above. This provided excellent viewing conditions to all thirty spectators. (See the sub-chapter “The Parlor” in Stand-up Card Magic, p. 4,  for thoughts on how to seat an audience. BTW: The book is also available in German, French and Italian.)

Jack McMillen Book

I have mentioned Michael Landes’ book on the magic of Jack McMillen several times in this blog and other writings (e.g., see “On McMillen’s Card Control” in Confidences, p. 90).

Up to now it was only available as an e-book, but now Chris Wasshuber tells me that you can order a hardbound edition from him – CLICK HERE.

Chris also tells me that if you have already bought the e-book (and you should have!), you will get the book discounted by $20 (!) – this will automatically be applied upon check-out, which is quite a feat in itself… at least to me.

Shimpei And NHK On Magialdia Festival

On the occasion of the recent Magialdia Magic Festival (see The Magic Memories 146) the best convention-organizer of them all, my friend José Ángel Suarez, had re-booked Shimpei Katsuragawa from Japan.

Shimpei’s act “La Campanella” is to my taste one of the most beautiful in the world of formal close-up card magic.

Not only did he bring his lovely family to the convention in Vitoria, in the Basque country, but also a team of NHK TV, and the result was a an hour-long documentary – you can watch a clip below which comes courtesy of José Ángel Suarez (you can see him in the little window on the upper left in the screen capture below).

More On Muttenz-Chicago Opener

In The Magic Memories 173 I proposed a personal version of Al Leech’s card trick that later became know under the name of “Chicago Opener” (also “Chicago Style Opener”) in Frank Garcia’s books. I named my version “Muttenz-Chicago Opener”, and received several positive feedbacks.

Marty Jacobs in particular discussed the trick in his blog, and you will get some interesting information HERE.

He has made quite a study on the plot of the Chicago Opener, and you can read all about it HERE.

Interview of Richard Vollmer by Yoan Tanuji of Magic Dream Paris

If you understand French, or want to practice it, or both, here is a great chance to do so on the occasion of a very rare appearance of Richard Vollmer on video.

In France he has reached legendary status as a translator of important works of magic, especially a long series of books titled The Very Bet of... that features the magic of Vernon, Marlo, Aronson, Trost, Bannon, to mention just a few. He was also the first to translate my Card College books from the original German to French, and lately he adapted my Sharing Secrets to Voltaire’s tongue.

To the English speaking magic world he should be well-known from his numerous contributions to Harry Lorayne’s Apocalypse. To watch and listen CLICK HERE.

Méliès And Magialdia

The above items are all related to my recent visit to Paris, where I was rejoined by my friend José Ángel Suarez of Magialdia fame.

Besides treating us to the NHK-clip above, he also graciously let me share with you a very special event which was televised in Spain, where some of George Méliès’ most “,magical” short films where presented to a live audience and accompanied live by the Municipal Orchestra of Vitoria-Gasteiz.

This is truly an extraordinary piece and should appeal to all of you who have an interest beyond magic, although it clearly does relate to magic, of course.

Here are José Angel’s introductory words:

Today, with new technologies, anything incredible can be normal, we know it’s due to special effects, but none of this would have been possible without the discoveries and work of Méliès. Perhaps, these films that we are going to see below seem poor, crude and even childish, but we must understand that before Méliès no one had seen anything like it. He was the pioneer.

So, let’s sit in our seats at the end of the nineteenth century, watch these films as if we had never seen cinema before, and delight in the performances of the Municipal Band that will be an important part of this time immersion.

Let’s enjoy the magic of Méliès, because MAGIC CREATED CINEMA.

Lest I Forget…

I was going to tell you about my time in Paris and Lorient, Brittany, but realize that if you only watched one of today’s clips, and read up to here, your tolerance time for The Magic Memories must have been exhausted by far… so, I shall postpone the interesting news I have for you from my French Voyage to next week: Look out for the announcement of the incredible videos Christian Fechner made in the late Seventies of Toni Slydini – I can assure you that this is one of the epic publications of this century – more in The Magic Memories 178…

Final Wisdom

“A trick that doesn’t consider the psychological construction of a trick, and only its technical and dramatic construction, may be surprising, even entertaining, but will never be magical in the sense of evoking the emotion of wonder.” (Roberto Giobbi)

The only book that deals exclusively with this subject is Sharing Secrets – if you are reading these The Magic Memories and do not have that book, please order it HERE.

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Solution to Kenny’s “Four Aces – What Again!” plus my additional comments

These are The Magic Memories 176, gone online Sunday, May 12, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

https://www.chaplinsworld.com/enAs you are reading this I am on my train back home from Lorient, Brittany, via Paris.

I shall tell you more about my adventures in The Magic Memories 177; until then, here is the original solution to the problem poses last week in The Magic Memories 175, plus a few additional ideas of mine, notebook-style.

Solution to Kenny’s “Four Aces – What Again!”

I hope those of you who took up the challenge to find a solutions to last week’s problem have come up with one or more solutions that made you happy. As Dai Vernon used to remark, there is hardly something more satisfactory than acquiring a skill or coming up with an idea of one’s own – I cannot but fully agree.

So without further ado, to read the complete article CLICK HERE.

Did you find the source? The written-out page numbering plus the type used are of course the major leads…

Source is: Dalal, Sam, Mantra, vol. 3 no. 28, India 1977 (reprinted in a bound edition, Swami and Mantra by Kaufman and Company, USA 1997). There is a lot of good stuff in these two magazines, and if you like magazines like Jinx or Phoenix, this should please you.

My Additional Comments

Presentation

Presentational idea to justify the envelope: “The Aces need to be taught a lesson. I am sending them to the moon.” Take envelope from Himber Wallet (use later for “Repeat Card to Wallet”), put Aces in it, and then ask spectators what the address of the moon is (after switch…). Put stamp on it. Give envelope to spectator, saying he is the postman and now needs to go to the moon…

Alternative

As an alternative switch take Kaps-Balducci Wallet, from it normal envelope containing the business cards, then use Vernon’s “Switching a Card in an Envelope” from Dai Vernon’s Further Inner Secrets (leaves Aces on top of deck).

After Aces have reappeared face up in the face down spread, take the Aces and flip them face down on top of the deck, in the action executing Marlo’s Turnover Palm. As you place wallet back in inside coat pocket, or trouser’s pocket, leave palmed Aces behind.

A moment later deal the Aces face up on the table, this being an “Action of Implicit Conviction” (Sharing Secrets, p. 16). Hand deck out to verify that there are no other Aces. Follow up with some kind of Ace Assembly (e.g., “Collins Aces McMillen Version”).

Wish you all a successful and happy week,

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Thank you!; A Trick Problem For You (Kenny Four Aces)

These are The Magic Memories 175, gone online Sunday, May 5, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Travel Note

As you are reading this – assuming you do so on the release date of these The Magic Memories – I am in Paris, discussing  things magical for a group of twenty people, a whole afternoon and evening long 🙂

Therefore, today’s post will be shorter than usual, but still have something that might interest you…

Thank you!!!

First and foremost, thank you to all of you who sent in Happy Birthday wishes, via land-mail, email, facebook, text, WhatsApp, Messenger and other means, which my good friend and webmaster Andrea Pancotti set up for me several years ago, when I started my webshop.

So, all your wishes are much appreciated, and please forgive me, if you did not get an answer, for you might have noticed that I do not handle any of these means of communication except land-mail and emails.

(Generally speaking: If you want an answer from me, really the only two ways of reaching me is to write to my postal address, or send me an email via the webshop’s “contact” menu item. Although I do occasionally read the other messages, I do not answer them.)

A Trick Problem For You

As I am on the road, I though you might enjoy finding the solution to an interesting trick problem. As a matter of fact, it is a proper routine.

At the end of the piece the four Aces are on the table, therefore, a follow-up using them makes all the sense in the world. Why not McMillen’s version of the Collins Aces, a version of which you will also find in Cy Endfield’s book The Entertaining Card Magic of Cy Endfield, under the title of “Aces for Connoisseurs”.

But I am putting the cart before the horse, so, here is the card problem you might ponder until we meet again next week.

CLICK HERE for the one-page PDF with the accurate description of the effect and presentation. You, obviously, will have to provide the method 🙂

And while you are at it, can you tell the source? A little hint: It is both a book and a magazine (what?).

Wish you all a successful and happy week,

Roberto Giobb

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Program Structure; Paris and Lorient; Good-bye Manolo Tena (1943 – 2024)

These are The Magic Memories 174, gone online Sunday, April 28, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Program Structure

A recurring question I am being asked, is how one should structure one’s program. Indeed, this is a BIG topic, and I will not discuss it here, at least not in detail.

The reason is that in several of my writings I have done that already.

So, I will do the next best thing and make a list of the essays, articles etc. directly – and some indirectly – related to the topic:

• Card College Volume 2: In “Chapter 27: Theory”, you will find a whole sub-chapter titled “Construction”, where I discuss how to construct a trick, a routine, and a program. Plus you get a good list of books that deal with the topic (although the list is still from 1992 (!), not much has changed in this respect).
• Stand-up Card Magic: In “Chapter 1: The Standup Card Conjuror”, you will find plenty of thoughts on the subject.
• Sharing Secrets: Several chapters deal with various aspects of presentation and construction. I let you find them…
• Ask Roberto: Question 28, asked by Fred King, deals with the issue on a dozen pages!
• The 13 Golden Rules of Magic: Several of the “rules” concern the structure of a program. You can get the essay as a free PDF HERE.
• Contact and Program Form: This is indirectly related to the topic, but will help in structuring the program for specific events. Get it for free HERE.

There is more scattered throughout the The Magic Memories of the past three years and the Secrets Newsletters.

Paris and Lorient

The next two week-ends I shall be absent and traveling.

My first stop will be Paris, about which I have already written several times in The Magic Memories: On Sunday, May 5th, I will  be holding a half-day seminar titled “Sleight-of-mind – The Psychological Construction of Magic”. The event, being limited to twenty participants, has now sold out, and I look very much forward to discussing this favorite topic of mine, which will be illustrated with some of my best tricks and techniques. However, the focus will be on the “invisible” concepts, rather than on the technical and presentational.

After a few days in Paris, meeting magic friends (of course!) and enjoying la vie en rose (what else?), together with my friends Yves Carbonnier and José Ángel Suarez, who comes in from Spain to share the experience, I will proceede to Brittany, more precisely to Lorient, where Ludo Mignon of Marchand de Trucs fame will host a lecture for me. Ludo tells me the affair is already sold out, but if you are curious, SEE HERE.

To my own surprise I just read that the lecture will be filmed, and the video later available to all participants. The lecture will be in my “impeccable” French, naturellement, but those among you proficient at AI will be able to have it “translated”…

Since videos “have feet”, as my late friend Jesus Etcheverry used to say, you should be able to get a copy of it… or I might as well put it up on my YouTube channel, so you can get it without having to resort to any illegal actions 🙂

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Report Magicon Convention in Lüdenscheid; On Taking Notes; Muttenz-Chicago Opener

These are The Magic Memories 173, gone online Sunday, April 21, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Report From Magicon Convention in Lüdenscheid

I am now back from the Magicon Magic Convention in Lüdenscheid, in the north of Germany, an almost eight-hour-door-to-door trip by train and car, each way.

It took even longer on the way there, because of “unauthorized people on the railway”, as the Deutsche Bahn (DB) euphemistically puts it, meaning the most unfortunate fact, that someone decided to put an end to his (or her?) life by throwing himself in front of a full-speed train, one of the safest methods, I am told. Upon asking the personell how often this happens, they answered, “Oh, not so often, about 20 to 30 per month…” The consequence is that the particular rail route is blocked for about two hours until the Attorney General gives clearance again. As sad as this is, I thought I mention it, as it is also part of an Artist’s Life.

I also mention this to encourage more of you, who have to take long travels to get to a booked event, to choose the train over a car or airplane. Such a train ride is usually very comfortable, allows me to read, write, think, have a snack, and even take a short nap. In my studio I have an extra category in my file cabinet “To Read”, which receives all types of thin printed material, and which I then take on my travels and read there. Also my laptop, a MacBook Air, is just the correct size so it can be used on the trains tilting tables, something which in airplanes does not work (unless you fly at least Business Class, something that does not fit any magic conventions travel expenses budget…).

The convention took place in one of the nicest cultural centers I have ever seen, perfectly located in the center of the city of Lüdenscheid (125’000 inhabitants), equipped with everything a conference venue needs: two bars, several rooms for lectures, dealer room etc., a spacious foyer on each floor where people could sit and talk as well as consume drinks and snacks, plus a beautiful theatre (see below). An all-in-one experience.

About thirty people attended the first day, ca. fifty the second day. Personally, I prefer such intimate gatherings over the huge conventions, but both types have their merits, of course.

The Interview

Although the organizers wanted to book me just for a lecture and the evening gala show, I told them that I would also be available for a one-hour interview.

This turned out to be very well received, and I really wonder why they are not doing such things more often at conventions.

I remember that for years Manfred Thumm, the organizer of the legendary “Magic Hands Conventions” in Böblingen-Sindelfingen, had Eberhard Riese, now the president of the “Magischer Zirkel von Deutschland”, conduct what they called a “Podiumsdiskussion”, a panel discussion, on Sunday morning. He used to do this with three invited guests; I always attended and found this item on the agenda one of the most interesting. Conventions should really do more of that.

The questions Nino Arra, one of the organizers, asked, were all intelligent and interesting, and somehow I managed to give good answers.

There were also some questions, to which others might have simply answered “yes” or “no”, and which I answered with a mini-lecture… however, nobody fell asleep, and nobody left, on the contrary, as the interview went on, the dealers all came in, as nobody was at the dealers room.

To keep this short, let me comment just on one question: “What do you think is the most important thing when performing?”

I answered, “To make sure that the performing conditions are the best possible.”

And then I indeed gave a mini-lecture on the topic, which you can more or less read as Chapter 1 in my book (and Penguin 1 lecture) Stand-up Card Magic, “The Standup Card Conjuror”.

When you do close-up it is usually a simple thing to rearrange the situation to get optimal performing conditions, when you perform on a small or large stage, the setting is given by the theater or whatever has the stage, as the place was made for it.

However, in most “stand-up” situations you are booked in a restaurant, a private home, a hotel lobby, an art gallery, a shop etc., i.e., places that have not been conceived for visual performances.

In all these cases it is vital for the success of the show that you can rearrange the chairs, tables etc. so that an optimal experience can be created.

As an example I rearranged the room they gave me for my lecture (see below “The Sunday Lecture”). Being a rectangular room they had connected the chairs to each other and placed them in straight lines.

I had them disconnect every chair, place them in a semi-circle and closer to my performing table. Finally, knowing that a maximum of fifty people were expected, I had them take away the chairs in the back rows, forcing the attendants to sit in the three rows I had arranged closer to me, thus avoiding big gaps of empty seats.

The result was a communicative configuration of the seating, a much better audience dynamics, and ultimately a very successful lecture-performance. This is especially important when such an event takes place on Sunday morning, after one or two days at the convention, where everyone is tired.

There is a lot more to say, but I will leave it at that.

The Gala Show

The gala show took place in the evening, starting at 8 pm and going on for over two hours, plus a 25-minute intermission.

The 600-seat theatre was a truly beautiful one, with a stage where Copperfield could have made his Lear Jet appear (or disappear?). Since Copperfield (should it not be “Goldmine”…) was not available, they had booked the artists, all of them talking acts, including myself. Fortunately there was one juggler who gave the audience a break from a lot of talk and asking people to come on stage.

Briefly: The audience, mostly the conventioneers with families and friends, plus a few locals, were very appreciative, and the whole event was a success. If you read German, you find a report HERE.

The only downer was that there were merely some eighty spectator in the 600-seat theatre, and due to a bug on the Internet booking platform of the theatre, the first one hundred seats in front of the stage were left empty. This certainly did not make it easier on us talking to the audience…

The Sunday Lecture

The organizers told me that after announcing my name the attendance had doubled. However, I am afraid my name is not big enough, as the attendance at my lecture was around fifty people (last year apparently they only had twenty to twenty-five).

Anyway, initially I was given sixty minutes, and after making them an offer they could not refuse, they extended it to 90 minutes. This is the minimum time I need for a lecture, since I do not do quickies, nor do I try to do as many tricks as possible in order to sell them products at the end, which seems to be the formula most lecturers go by.

I remember in 1996, as Hank Moorehouse booked me to lecture at the SAM convention held at “The Bally’s” (today “Horseshoe”) in Las Vegas, a very well-known performer, who also did a lecture, asked me how well I sold at the lecture. When I said that I had no idea, he gave me a puzzled look, saying, “That’s what it is all about.” I respectfully disagree…

As for the content of my lecture at Magicon I chose to talk about five concepts from my book Sharing Secrets, illustrating each with a strong trick and some techniques, which were also discussed.

All in all, the organizers Nino and Hans, along with Frank and a small crew, deserve our thanks and respect for having put in all the work necessary to make this a lovely small convention. It is my sincere hope, that if they decide to repeat it next year, they get a larger crowd. Those who attended this year, as I can say from several feedbacks, left as happy customers.

On Taking Notes

I keep being asked about how to study magic, in particular how to take notes and where and how to store all that information so that you can recall and understand it at a later date.

This is of course a big subject, and as you might have guessed it I have a lecture about the topic, as a mater of fact it is a trilogy of lectures (no, sorry, they have never been recorded on video…).

However, for those who are interested, I remind you of two techniques to take notes when watching  magic video:

1. The most important key on your remote control, if you are watching the vid on a TV-set, is the “Pause” key: Hit it whenever there is an interesting technique, trick, presentation, anecdote, subtlety, literary reference, quote, or theoretical concept, and then make a note in a paper or electronic notebook with the relative time code – it’s as easy and simple as that, it only requires time and dedication…
2. As an added help for those who do not already know: If you watch a video on your computer, instead of hitting the “Pause” key you can hit the space bar to freeze the image. Now use the left or right “Arrow or Cursor Key” to watch in slow-motion backward or forward. This is a fantastic function and the reason we have not put any slow-motion inserts into the Card College 3&4 – Personal Instruction videos: It is not necessary, as you can convert any sequence instantly into a slow-motion sequence with the space bar and the arrow keys!

You can get more thoughts on the topic of how to study magic and take notes, especially when watching  a magic video, from the first chapter of my Card College 3&4 – Personal Instruction video courses, which really is “Card College Volumes 3 & 4 – The Movie”. You can watch it for free (and take notes!) in the video below, or watch it on my YouTube channel, and when done see if there are a few other vids that catch your interest.

Muttenz-Chicago Opener

Here is a variation of one of the greatest close-up card classic, which has become known by the name of “Chicago Opener”, originally by Al Leech, who called it “A Red Hot Trick” (1950). The trick has an interesting history, as all classics have (!), but we will not delve into it; those who are interested will find information to get their own study started as so often in Behr’s “Conjuring Credits”, the pendant to “Conjuring Archives”.

To judge and hopefully appreciate the difference of my handling proposed below, which is by no means meant as an improvement over the original, but just as a variation, take a deck in hands, and then follow along.

Any time you are ready to perform the trick, add a stranger card that has a different colored back than the deck in use to the bottom of the deck; let us assume the you add a red-backed 7H to a blue-backed deck. Since there no other preparation required, this can be easily done with a borrowed deck.

Force the stranger card, and then lose it in the deck, no control required 🙂 Any Force that does not reveal the back of the force card is eligible, such as the Criss Cross Force, the Hindu Shuffle Force, etc.

Snap your fingers, announcing that the back of the selection will change color. To prove your statement, ribbon-spread the cards face down on the table; a red-backed card will be seen in the spread of blue-backed cards.

Pick up the cards and respread them between your hands until you reach the odd-backed card. Place all the cards above this card on the table, as the remainder cards slide back into Dealing Position. Double Turnover to show it is, e.g., the QC; this is obviously not their selected card… (That is the conflict that requires a magical solution.)

Turn the double face down again and drop the top card – the red-backed 7H – in front of the spectator who initially chose the card. If you feel comfortable with spectator management, you can also ask her to hold the card face down between her hands.

Announce that you will not accept this defeat, and that you are determined more than ever to locate her card. Run through deck and upjog the 7H from the deck. Ask for the selection, and then reveal the 7H. You have succeeded, finally, in a second attempt. Not bad, however, not good enough… but wait.

As they react, pull out the 7H from the spread, let the deck slide face down into Dealing Position, and then top change the 7H for the QC, the latter having been waiting for its entry on top of the deck.

Say that you want to fulfill your initial claim of changing the back of her selection.

Snap the card you are holding and reveal it to have changed into the QC, the card the spectator is supposed to hold.

“But because of the law of compensation, which I have invented, something else happened.” When she turns over her card, it is the previously selected card.

Since this is a stranger card, possibly even from an old deck, you can sign it and give it away.

If you want to repeat the trick, e.g., when doing table to table magic, simply have a little stack of stranger cards in your pocket, and each time you want to do the trick, surreptitiously add one to the main deck.

(RG, 11th FEB 2024, 11:55)

Additional idea

Have a wallet with Jokers from different decks (in reality each is a double card, i.e., a Joker plus any indifferent card). The spectator can choose one. Holding the deck face up in Dealing Position, open the wallet, take the double out and place it momentarily on the face of the deck, unloading the 7H hidden behind the Joker, in an In-transit Action, as the right hand puts the wallet on the table. Turn the deck face down, slide the Joker off the bottom, and leave it on the table.

Proceed as explained above.

Use the selected Joker similar to a magic wand to affect the change of the card back, by tapping the cards.

Wish you all a successful and happy week,

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Rusduck Card Location; Magicon in Lüdenscheid

These are The Magic Memories 172, gone online Sunday, April 14th, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Rusduck Card Location

For the past half year I have been working on my upcoming book, Unexpected Agenda… well, not so unexpected, as I am telling you now 🙂

Albeit very time-consuming, I have a great time revising my notes from the past decades to filter out the best possible information that in my opinion is still very useful nowadays to anyone involved in magic.

I am now at the third revision, and keep throwing out items and bring others in… Maybe you are interested to know of an item I just decided to eliminate, although most of you will probably not know it, or if you do, not use it.

So, for today, here is a principle that is quite curious; it belongs to the big family of “clocking principles”, therefore of mathematical nature, but I am convinced that with an appropriate presentation it can be made into an entertaining and baffling piece of magic. I have tried it out several times on small audiences, in informal settings, and by combining it with other tricks, it went over quite well.

The trick is by Rusduck (1909 – 1959), of mirror-deck-fame, and publisher-editor of The Cardiste, a not-so-well-known magazine that ran for eleven issues in 1957/58; it appeared in Phoenix, an important magic magazine in its time, edited by Bruce Elliott, more precisely in issue #77 (USA, 1945).

To read the trick and its explanation CLICK HERE – have fun 🙂

Magicon in Lüdenscheid

As announced in the previous The Magic Memories, when you are reading this I am at an intimate magic convention in the North of Germany, which is why this edition of The Magic Memories is a short one.

I will catch up next week, where I hope to tell you a bit about my adventures at Magicon.

Wish you all a successful and happy week,

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Cervon on Vernon’s C&B Loading Sequence; Séminaire Paris SUN May 5th; Magicon II Convention in Lüdenscheid (Announcement); Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland

These are The Magic Memories 171, gone online Sunday, April 7th, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Cervon on Vernon’s C&B Loading Sequence

A few Memories back I promised to bring something about Dai Vernon’s famous Cups & Balls Routine.

The description of the routine was originally published by England’s Harry Stanley in Lewis Ganson’s The Dai Vernon Book of Magic, one of the best books in magic.

For those among my readers who have not yet seen the recording, you can watch Dai Vernon do the routine in person, on Mark Wilson’s TV show The Magic Circus. There Vernon, aged seventy-eight, opens with a line that has become legendary, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am no youngster. I am seventy-eight years of age, and I have been studying magic for over seventy-two years… I wasted the first six years of my life.” To watch CLICK HERE.

However, the main reason why I mention this, is to share with you a rare video clip of Bruce Cervon doing the final phase of Dai Vernon’s C&B, i.e., the all-important loading sequence. This is the one phase that spectators will most remember, place in their “communicative memory” (see Sharing Secrets, p. 74), and tell to others.

This one-minute clip was extracted from “A Touch of Magic”, a program within the Fifth Estate TV Show, an acclaimed Canadian production that aired for the first time in 1975 and went on for forty-seven seasons.

The program dealt with magic and was aptly titled “A Touch of Magic”, possibly an allusion to Dai Vernon’s Genii-column “The Vernon Touch”. The episode, with a running time of twenty-one minutes, particularly showcases Dai Vernon, being Canadian, of course, but also has clips of several of his acolytes speaking and performing.

To watch Bruce Cervon perform the last phase of the Vernon C&B Routine CLICK HERE.

I though about transcribing and commenting this short piece, but that would be a lot for me to write and for you to read. It is my belief that whoever has an affinity for the topic, by viewing the video, maybe a few times, will recognize the difference to the original and agree that the changes are interesting and above all practical.

Besides using coffee cups, instead of the standard “magician’s cups”, Cervon got rid of the “false explanation” part that exposes the French Drop, something many have never liked (you have to understand the time and context this was created), but he also streamlined the technical construction. Not many are able to take a Master’s work like the one of Vernon’s and make changes without butchering the original. But Cervon, a Master in his own right, understood Vernon and his work, as well as the essence of the C&B, and I think that the changes he made would have found Vernon’s approval.

We can identify a similar talent of Cervon’s to streamline the technical structure of Classics when we for instance look at “All Backs” from Ultra Cervon (p. 33), where he took Elmsley’s take on Vernon’s original from Expert Card Technique, adding the final production of the Aces. It clearly shows that Cervon was a professional who performed for real people, while Elmsley did this a lot less.

Anyway, I will leave this to your appreciation without further comment.

I will remind those of you who seem to have most of my publications, that the two-DVD-set with the recording of my Masterclass on Dai Vernon, Dai Vernon Seminar: Life and Work, includes an eighty-page PDF (!) where I discuss Vernon’s C&B Routine at great length.

For those who do not have this, I shall give you the study I made on the C&B as a gift; you can download the PDF for free by CLICKING HERE.

And since I am at distributing gifts, in the Genii issue of May 2009 I discussed an unpublished alternative loading sequence that Dai Vernon himself did on a TV show: I transcribed and commented the complete sequence and offer it here for your edification and archives. To get the PDF CLICK HERE.

I meant to write a lot more, but looking at all the above, I believe that those who have an interest in this kind of thing, have enough material to read and watch 🙂

Séminaire Paris SUN May 5th

I briefly mentioned the one-day Masterclass I will be giving in Paris on Sunday, May 5th, 2024.

So, for all of you who read French, live in or near Paris, or now finally have an excuse to come to one of the most fascinating cities in the world, CLICK HERE for the PDF with all relevant information, in French, naturellement, since the classes will be conducted in French, too 🙂

Magicon II Convention in Lüdenscheid (Announcement)

Next week-end I will be lecturing and performing at the Magicon Convention in Lüdenscheid (Germany), so The Magic Memories 172 might be short. I shall report about it in The Magic Memories 173, as usual.

Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland

I was amused to read in the news that recently the US State Department mixed up Switzerland and Sweden while announcing Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron 🙂

This reminds me of when a magic dealer, from whom I had ordered several books, sent the wares to Swaziland… Amazingly enough, to me, the parcel finally found its way to me.

The mistake can happen, not so much because of geographical ignorance, but because on the online-forms that need to be filled in on the homepage of the carriers, Swaziland, Sweden, and Switzerland are right one after the other, and it is easy to click on the wrong item, especially because the names appear in a minuscule type.

This reminds me of my favorite quote by Confucius: “If you see a worthy man, imitate him; if you see an unworthy man, examine yourself.”

So, let us examine ourselves and our magic: What is the lesson to be learned for magic?

Which brings us to one of my next-favorite quotes, I keep repeating in my writings, by André Gide, who was asked by a journalist what was the most important thing in language. He answered, “La clarté, la clarté, la clarté – clarity, clarity, clarity.”

Therefore, when presenting our magic, let’s make sure that our spectators never mix up Swaziland, Sweden, and Switzerland!

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Easter Holiday.

These are The Magic Memories 170, gone online Sunday, March 31st, 2024, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, and 2023, including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Easter Holiday

Closed for Easter Holidays.

See you next week 🙂

Wish you all a successful and happy week,