Hello everyone!

These are The Magic Memories 55, gone online Sunday, January 16th, 2022, at 0:07h sharp.

Curious Things From “Curious” Times

In the hope you are doing well, here are bits and pieces from my end that will be interesting to those of you who take an interest in this type of things…(to freely paraphrase Miss Jean Brodie).

The online dictionary dictionary.com defines the term “curious” as: “Arousing or exciting speculation, interest, or attention through being inexplicable or highly unusual; odd; strange.” And its archaic use is given as: “Made or prepared skillfully. Done with painstaking accuracy or attention to detail. Careful; fastidious. Marked by intricacy or subtlety.” Now, how is that for a subject for this week’s The Magic Memories?

Exactly what you and I are interested in, isn’t it? So, to stay magical, here are seven curiosities, from seven different areas of life, in no particular order, but all relating to magic, of course – sometimes you just have “to do a little think” to find the connection…

Curiosity 1: Curious Cards

I don’t consider myself a collector of playing cards, but like many of you, cards are my instrument, and their history, nature and characteristics have fascinated me since I started making them my means of expression. If you are a newcomer to card magic, I enthusiastically recommend getting some information about the arguably most versatile instrument in the whole realm of artistic magic. There are of course books on the subject, which are usually beautifully illustrated, and if a few among you write in to tell me that you are interested, I shall be happy to recommend a few of my favorite titles.

Meanwhile you can hardly do better than checking out the blog “Frequently Asked Questions: An Essential Guide for New Playing Card Collectors” by my dear friend EndersGame from Australia, who is one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject. CLICK HERE to get (almost) all your questions answered.

Knowing something about the history of cards is more than just trivia, it is a way to better understand and connect to what is the extension of our hand and mind. A more profound understanding of playing cards will strengthen the emotional relationship you have with what you do, and therefore imbibe any performance with your Ethos. The audience will feel this, and the result will be a more artistic performance. It’s a complex and beautiful thing worth thinking about…

Curiosity 2: Linguistic Curiosity

The longest English word to be found in a normal dictionary of English is:

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)

Its German translation is Quarzstaublunge (15 letters).

The English word is 300% longer than the German, but the English version of Card College, compared to the original German version, is about 10% shorter. Wonder what that means…

Curiosity 3: Curious Competition

Last year during the Lockdown the Getty Museum launched what they dubbed “The Getty Challenge” and encouraged followers to reinterpret famous paintings. See the photo below for a particularly felicitous “magical” sample: On the left you can see  Swiss painter Albert Anker’s (1831-1910) “Boy with Slate”, and on the right Swiss magician Pat Perry holding the first German edition, spiral-bound (!), of Card College Volume 3 (Grosse Kartenschule). If that’s not curious, they’ll have to redefine the term 🙂

I should add that Pat Perry, whose artistic growth I had the pleasure of following from his beginnings as a young magic enthusiast to today’s successful professional status, deserves a lengthy entry in this series of blogs, and I just made a note to do so in one of the next editions.

I cannot fail to note a similarity between the titles of most works of art and those of magic tricks: both are purely descriptive, with no pretense of originality, such as Vernon’s “Slow Motion Aces” and Picasso’s “Girl Before a Mirror”, or “Ambitious Card” and again Picasso’s “Bather with Beach Ball”. Albeit unimaginative, they are intuitive terms that immediately tell you what the work is about. Besides, a genius worries about the content, not the title. Makes sense to me.

To see more excellent examples of the “Getty Challenge”, CLICK HERE. Disregard the text, if you don’t read German, just click through the images, and you’ll spend an uplifting minute (doesn’t take longer).

Curiosity 4: Curious Shipping for Signed Card

I see that some have tried to order a signed card via my webshop, but then aborted the ordering process. I assume that they got scared by the high shipping costs calculated automatically by the system. Let me tell you, its’ easier to learn Dr. Jacob Daley’s “Double Peek and Bilateral Side Steal” (from Expert Card Technique, p. 470), than to change the shipping calculation system of a webshop. So, here is my offer: if you want a signed card, DO NOT go over the webshop but send me an email. I’ll send you a PayPal payment request over EURO 10, which you’ll have to pay, and will then snailmail you a priority letter with the signed card, framed on a nice postcard, and signed with my Montblanc Heritage 1910 with Irish Green ink to your first name (please specify!).

The word “curious” appears three times in the suggested patter for the following trick, so it fits the criteria for this week’s themed The Magic Memories: It comes straight out of Hugard’s and Braue’s Royal Road to Card Magic, titled “Righting a Wrong” (p. 172):

This is one of those feats—so dear to the hearts of all audiences, and all magicians—in which the mystifier apparently himself becomes the mystified. He fails but in the end turns the tables in striking fashion. Nothing pleases an audience more than to catch the infallible wizard in an apparent failure. They enjoy his discomfiture for the moment, then are amazed and intrigued when he emerges triumphant.

1. Have the pack shuffled, take it back, and have any card removed and noted.

2. Have the card replaced and pass it to the top.

3. Shuffle overhand, running seven cards above the chosen card, which becomes the eighth card from the top.

4. Invite the spectator to name his card, which let us say is the ace of hearts, and instantly say, “Eight cards down!”

5. Deal seven cards and prepare for a double lift, as you say, “Will you name your card again?” Turn over the two cards and show an indifferent card, which let us call the nine of clubs.

6. Appear disconcerted by your failure, and turn the two cards face downwards as one. Remove the top card—the spectator’s ace of hearts—and toss it face downwards on the table to one side. “Let’s get rid of that nine of clubs,” you say grimly. “Don’t worry. I’ll find your card, if it takes all night.”

7. Shuffle overhand, running seven cards above the top card as in step No. 3. The nine of clubs, which is supposed by the audience to be on the table, is now eighth from the top.

8. Weigh the cards in your hand, as if making a calculation, and say in a puzzled tone, “That’s very curious. I still get a vibration of eight. Perhaps your card is at eight this time.”

9. Deal seven cards and say, “This card could be any cardexcept, of course, the nine of clubs, which is on the table—but my vibrations tell me that it is your card.”

10. Turn the eighth card and show that it is the nine of clubs. “Curiouser and curiouser!” you say. “This can’t be the nine of clubs. I put it on the table. Unless . . .!” Turn over the table card and show that it is the spectator’s ace of hearts.

End of trick description. As I’ve said before, Royal Road to Card Magic was a groundbreaking book at its time, like the Ford Model T was, but if you wanted to buy a car today you wouldn’t want a Ford Model T, would you? The trick is full of flaws (that’s the “curiosity”), but with the knowledge of modern card magic you will be able to take this inherently interesting plot and turn it into a really elegant card miracle. If you are curious to know how I did it, I shall be pleased to write about it in one of the upcoming posts.

Curiosity 7: News for the Curious

Yes, for those who are curious what I’m doing in these times and have asked how things are going, here is a bit of news that might please some of you: Friday noon of this week I finished taping the complete technical part of Card College 3 – Personal Instruction, where I demonstrate and discuss all the techniques from Card College Volume 3, in a similar format I did with Card College 1&2  – Personal Instruction. If all goes according to plan, we’ll tape the trick sections and explanations at the end of January, then do the same for Card College Volume 4 in February. You can peek into the studio we set up in the basement of my home below. More infos to follow at regular intervals.

All the very best for the coming week – check back Sunday, 23rd January, as always at 0:07!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

These are The Magic Memories (54), gone online Sunday, January 9, 2022, at 0:07h sharp.

Cours de Cartomagie Moderne

My year started with a wonderful surprise when I received the new edition of Card College in French, titled Cours de Cartomagie Moderne. These are the first two volumes, which really belong together as I’ve explained several times. Volumes 3 and 4 are scheduled for June 2022, and the fifth and last volume should be out by the end of this year, so the series will then be completed. My ancient publisher in France had let the books go out of print for several years, so that only pirated PDFs and prints circulated. I hope that those pirates who received or bought for little money an illegal copy will now show a spark of decency and buy the newly released books.

Ludo Mignon and his Marchand de Trucs located in Lorient, Bretagne (F), have done an excellent job producing a beautiful hardbound volume that is still very handy and practical to use as a learning manual. So, this is your chance to learn or improve French. I’m not joking. Years ago, Pit Hartling, yes, THE Pit Hartling, one of the few geniuses in the world of magic, told me he had learned Spanish by buying my Card College book series in Spanish, there called Gran Escuela Cartomagica: Because he knew the German version (Grosse Kartenschule) by heart, yes, that’s what he said… if I remember well 🙂 he would use the Spanish text to learn the language.

For the younger among my readers – young by age, I mean, as we are all young by heart thanks to magic – I’m saying: Learn at least one foreign language. And there are two ways of doing so. One, get a hobby like magic and read most of it in the language you want to learn. Two, find a girlfriend or boyfriend who only speaks that language. My recommendation: Do both! (That’s how I learned English…)

Seriously: If you want to buy a copy of volumes 1 and 2 of Cours de Cartomagie Moderne (buy them together, for Vernon’s sake!) you can get them directly from the Marchand de Trucs webshop HERE.

What I liked is that Sal Piacente comes across as a person who knows what he’s talking about, and here there is something to be learned that is hard to put into words, and something to contemplate this week.

All the very best!

Roberto Giobbi

Hello everyone,

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #52, gone online SUN, 26th December, at 0:07h.

The Last One – Or Maybe Not…

This is the last post… of this year 🙂

Yes, OK, maybe, I mean it is the last one for 2021, definitely, BUT…

I am writing this in the night of December 25th, Christmas day, after a lovely relaxing day. I’m just back from a short walk in the rainy night of our neighborhood, and I realize I’ve never written one these posts so late, just 80 minutes before it is supposed to go online. At first, I thought I’d deserve to take off for a week, and you too, from reading it. But then, you know me by now, how could I?

During my peripatetic walk it occurred to me that today’s contribution could simply be to encourage you the reread some of your favorite posts of this year: There are fifty-two, including this one, as many as there are cards in a deck of cards. This, of course, is just one of the ways cards connect to our calendar, but you should know that…

Here is how you could do it: Take a deck, shuffle it, cut it – real or false doesn’t matter – and then turn over the top card. What is it? Maybe the Five of Hearts? OK, that’s number eight in the Tamariz stack, or another number in another stack you are using. Therefore, look up The Magic Memories (08) (if you CKICK HERE you get the complete list of all The Magic Memories posts, and you can choose the one you like). If you don’t have a stacked deck, just go to the number cut to, i.e., if you cut to a Ten, go to The Magic Memories (10). Do this for a total of five cards, and you’ll be spoilt for choice.

My Favorite Book List

The above reflection automatically lead me to think that even if I had only 50 magic books in my library, that would suffice for the rest of my life (maybe I’m saying this because I’ve read so many more and have now almost 4’000 books?). This links to a question I’ve often been asked, namely what books I would recommend. As I’ve said in the Penguin Magic Podcast (Desert Island Book), ably conducted by Erik Tait, the list of books will depend for whom and for what purpose it is: The recommendation for a “Beginner’s Library” will be a lot different from an “Essential Library” or a “Favorite Library”.  The interview, should you be interested in listening to it again, is lost somewhere in these year’s posts, but to save you the search, CLICK HERE; it runs ca. 7 minutes, and I think it came out quite well, if I may say so. If I decide to continue these Magic Memories in 2022 (there you are!), I will give you my list of the 50 books I would want to keep in my library, for reasons I will explain with each title. I’ve never come across a list with this criterion, so maybe you’ll find it interesting – I know I do, because Ive never done it before either!

PDF of The Magic Memories 2021

Trying to remember all I have contributed this year was a complete failure – I had to look up my own list. And this lead to the obvious thought that you, too, might like to have a Table of Content with the date, number, and a brief description of the content, in one single searchable PDF. I meant to give it to you here, but after three hours of working on the list, I was still stuck in February! The reason: I started reading into the content of each, and was fascinated myself by what I had written (talk about a bad memory!). Therefore, I’ll have to write another Magic Memory (53), which makes sense, since a deck of cards has at least one Joker, hasn’t it? That means that there will be another The Magic Memories (53) next Sunday, and if all goes as I planned it, I’ll then give you the PDF with the content, with my compliments.

Happy Holidays!

In conclusion, below please find the Season’s Greetings Card Barbara has created for me and all those who share our passion for magic, and I’ll pass it on to you at the close of this year. wishing  you all a few gemütliche days, and please check back on SUN, 2nd January, 2022, from 0:07 hours (CET) onward! I’ll have a few hopefully good news for you 🙂

Very best wishes!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #51, gone online SUN, 19th December, at 0:07h.

How about a little card trick for today’s post?

Wish you all a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #50, gone online SUN, 12th December, at 0:07h – only two more to go…

The Prophecy, Wallets & More

“The Prophecy”, produced and distributed by my publisher Penguin Magic with my consent and to my specifications, came in on Thursday 9th and was shipped on Friday 10th to all who ordered from me, so should be with most in the course of next week. Although this post will take “The Prophecy” as the main subject, I promise that there are plenty of thoughts and ideas that you can use, or that will make you think, even thought you don’t have this particular “trick”. This has been my closing effect or encore for over 20 years.

First the effect to remind all what this is about: A spectator thinks of and names any card, which is found to have been predicted by the performer in a small envelope, which is inside a wallet, which a spectator was holding in his own pocket all the time: the spectator himself opens the wallet, and takes out the envelope. At the end the envelope and the card are given away as a souvenir.

Now, this is the effect we hope will stick in the audience’s “communicative memory”. Actually, it is more than a mere hope, as I have designed this trick’s technical, dramatic and psychological construction to this effect, and I have refined it over the time-span of about two decades of professional use. So, in difference to most “tricks” you find on the magic market, this has not been created to sell just another trick. We really don’t need a lot of new tricks, but we need better magic. “The Prophecy” and the tutorial that goes with it – an almost one-hour long mini-lecture – are intended as a contribution to this idea.

Ref. “communicative memory”: I’ve never seen this term applied to magic, and I used it for the first time in my book Sharing Secrets, in the chapter “Memory Editing” (p. 74). I’ve taken the expression from a scientific paper on the subject, and it comes from the idea that an event is not what happened, but what we tell others that happened. As magicians we know that this is not the same thing: A spectator can say, “He made a coin vanish”, and this is his subjective reality that caused him to experience the emotion of astonishment, but the objective reality is that the coin went to the sleeve, or topit, or was kicked under a napkin resting innocently on the table. Every piece of magic we do should be constructed with the fact in mind that our spectators will tell what they remember, and that this is the only reality that counts. Therefore, studying how the memory operates is as important as studying how to manage and handle a sleight. In the last post I mentioned that in Torino I had given a full-day Masterclass on the subject, and I hope to be able to repeat this many more times, as there is only little material around on this subject. In my books and video lectures I keep coming back on the subject with practical examples, but nobody has made such a detailed study of it as Juan Tamariz in his book The Magic Rainbow, where he devotes a complete chapter to the theme (pp. 113).

Back to “The Prophecy”, which among a mix of deceptive strategies also uses the “off by one” idea popularized by Kenton Knepper in his “Kolossal Killer”. Although Knepper might have been the first to apply the idea to playing cards, the concept of making a “corrective prediction” is older than that and has been preceded by Spain’s Mago Antón (in the tutorial I give a more detailed account of this). The concept has been discussed a lot, and I’ve heard and read competent people criticizing it, but wonder how many of them have really performed this before real people. Because it is one of those counter-intuitive things, where the theory might say that it is not so good, but the practice proves that it works, and it works very well (or to say it in the words of Benjamin Brewster, whom I quote in the introduction to Sharing Secrets, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is”). I can tell you from 20 years plus of experience in hundreds of performances on four continents and before the most diverse types of audiences, that the “off by one” prediction is actually better than hitting the card directly, whereas when performing for “magicians” the direct hit is better and the “off by one” weaker. I leave this to you to ponder.

“The Prophecy” also employs a Himber Wallet as one of several technical principles. I have not yet received any feedback on it, but would like to offer a few thoughts on the subject of wallets in general. Whenever a wallet is discussed I hear or read comments like, “it looks like a magic prop”, “it doesn’t look like my ordinary wallet” etc.

I should tell you that I have quite a bit of a love affair with wallets, and I know I’m not the only one 🙂 Therefore, years ago, I made an in-depth study of the subject by acquiring dozens of those “magic wallets” (Himber, Kaps, Bombshell etc.). I found they all looked “phony”, in a certain sense… So I started to make my own wallets. The initial idea was to find a “universal” design, i.e., a format and design using exactly the same type of leather that looked practically the same from outside, and as close as possible inside, too. The idea was to have a Himber Wallet and a Card-to- Wallet and other wallets that looked similar to each other so I could put one away and take another one out and they would appear to be the same wallet. Good in theory, not so good in practice, although some lateral findings came out of this study, but we’ll have to leave this to some other time.

At the time George Proust from the “Academie de la magie” in Paris, the one who has the “Musé de la curiosité et de la magie” and who published the Fechner books about Robert-Houdin, well, he had come up and sold a “Universal Wallet” that had virtually all functions in it. Again, great in theory, but in practice it looked more like a safe than a wallet. But what a great idea, like the idea of a “Universal Theory of Everything” that not even Einstein found.

Anyway, back to those who say that a wallet looks “strange”: I had my epiphany many years ago in Madrid, after one of those legendary card conventions in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, when I went to the “Corte Ingles”, arguably Spain’s largest general store. As so often in my travels around the world I went to the “Leather Wares” section, but this one was gigantic!

There were virtually hundreds of different bags and wallets, in all sizes, colors, materials and forms. These were wallets sold to the public, not to magicians, to normal people (I’m not talking about you and me, of course)… But never before had I seen so many so “strange”-looking wallets. Then and there it dawned on me that there are no “strange” or “unnatural looking” wallets! Because this is what those who have been too long in magic think, or those who have not been performing long enough. If you don’t believe me, next time you are with a large group of people, ask everyone to show his or her wallet, and you might be surprised to see that there will be no two wallets alike.

So, which one is an “unnatural” wallet? You’ll have the same experience as the card experts in New York City who went out to the street to ask innocent passers-by to turn the top card of the deck face up, because they wanted to find out what the most “natural” way of turning over a card is. Guess what: everyone seemed to turn the card over in a different way, so they agreed that there is no “natural” way of doing a Double Lift, but there is a right way and wrong way of handling it, and that’s another conversation…

Rather than looking at the wallet, look at the effect we do with it. And then you will realize that in most cases, yes, I’ll dare saying it, “The wallet is not important!” There are only few exceptions, e.g., if you take a piece of paper, put it inside the wallet, close it, and then reopen it to show that the piece of paper has changed into a one hundred Dollar bill, well, then the wallet will be suspected. You have to make a clever routine out of this effect, and repeat it several times, in order to ally suspicion from the wallet.

However, if you take an envelope from the (gimmicked) wallet, place the wallet aside, then open the envelope to show the signed card in it (see below), or a prediction, like in “The Prophecy”, then the wallet is not important. The wallet simply becomes a “safe-keeping-device”, and the only thing that matters is that there is nothing that calls explicit attention to it. Consequently, as long as the wallet is unassuming and is handled without fumbling and free of fear by the performer (important!), nobody except an inexperienced member of a magic club (just joking!), will say that the wallet looks “strange”.

On “Card to Wallet”

Talking about wallets, about which I have a complete lecture, but won’t give it here 🙂 I’ve used several routines during my professional life. The choice of routine obviously depends from the context, i.e., where I perform, under what conditions and for what kind of audience. This subject alone warrants a lengthy easy, of course. In formal situations my favorite “Card to Wallet” is the routine you can see me perform at Mark Leveridge’s 7th British Close-up Magic Symposium. It was the very first video done of my magic, titled “Taped Live!”, and I ventured into it with zero experience in this genre.

For this, I must say, it came out quite well 🙂 The piece is described and discussed in my Card College Volume 5 under the title “Waller Bound” (p. 1375), and the complete lecture, which lasts 115 minutes, is still available as a download and only from me from my webshop. As a gift from Xmas I’ve discounted it from 30 to 19.95, and if you don’t have it already (I know many do) then you can GET IT HERE.

BUT, since the purpose of The Magic Memories is not to sell you something, rather to share the many things in magic I find interesting, here is the performance-only of “Card to Wallet – Wallet Bound”.

Even if you have the DVD/Download, I’m willing to bet that it has been a long time you’ve watched it. Note the Prologue and the Epilogue, how the card is selected and controlled, the misdirection for the palm, and above all the management of the wallet and the envelopes. I remember how this routine came about: On a visit to Vienna my friend Kurt Freitag told me about a way Trevor Lewis had to deal cards hiding one beneath the spread, and this was the trigger, curious memory 🙂 To watch CLICK HERE.

Wish you all a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #49, gone online SUN, 5th December, at 0:07h.

The Italian Tour

Several among you have complained that I did not tell you more about my little “Italian Adventure” as stated in an earlier post, so here are some impressions, with hopefully some additional information you’ll be able to use.

Villa Porro Pirelli – Private Show

To travel by car from Basel, which borders to France and Germany in the north of Switzerland, to Como, which is the border on the south, takes about 3 hours car drive, the same as driving through Los Angeles with heavy traffic – in Switzerland we cross that whole country in the same time, small is not only beautiful, it is also practical 🙂

I was lucky to get booked for a private show on THU, 12th NOV, at “Villa Porro Pirelli”, a superb country chateau outside of the city of Varese (have a look for yourselves, and make a note for your upcoming visit – the gorgeous room rate was ca. $ 90!, including breakfast, a real one…). You should know that Italy had a King and a monarchy until the end of WW2 that was then abolished in 1945. This left numerous luxury residences, a plethora of chateaus, some of which stayed empty for decades, but most of which have now been taken over either by companies or subsidized by the Ministry of Culture of the European Union (Billions went into such projects!). I tell you all this, because if you come to Northern Italy, especially Piedmont, these chateaus have been converted into hotels and restaurants, and some are so large that they could host a (magic!) convention of over one hundred people. The restaurants are often Michelin-quality, and all at reasonable prices. They are perfect places to stay and explore the surroundings.

As for the show, which was possibly the last in this year as most events have been cancelled due to the new Corona situation that seems to get worse every day, there were 32 guests, seated at four round tables, all in an elegant “salon” of the castle. In such a situation I usually do a 20 to 40 minutes stand-up show, normally after the main course, and then join the guests at each table after dessert and as they are having coffee and chat. At the tables I then adapt to the situation and do up to 15 minutes each, doing the table where the host sits usually last, with my best pieces, among them the “Sponge and Bowl Routine” and “Ring to Envelope and Wallet” (both are on my DVD-Download “The Act”). This “formula” makes the host feel as if I had been present for the duration of almost the complete event, and it is much easier to ask for a handsome fee. I’ve never “sold” myself for the duration of one or two hours, as I know some of my colleagues do: I’ve always explained to my customers that artists are not paid by the hour, as a craftsman is, such as a plumber or electrician, but by his market value. How else do you explain that Picasso’s dove, a painting he must have done in less than one minute, sells for hundreds of millions? You don’t pay a painting by the time it took the artist to paint it, but by the value the artist and his art have in the market. You might agree or not, but this is something to be thought about. And, yes, it is a big subject, and we’ll leave at this for the moment 🙂 Anyway, on this occasion I could draw on my linguistic talents, and use all of the six languages I speak, as the audience was a mix from the four corners of the world. This, to many, is more impressive than a large show with lots of tam-tam.

Magic Lecture in Varese

I had the good chance that my close friend Toni Cachadiña from Barcelona, a FISM-winner in Paris 1973 and Vienna 1976, joined me, and we spent three days in this beautiful location. Next day we met up with Gianfranco Preverino, a friend of many years, who lives in Varese, and who is not only an excellent close-up worker, but also an expert of gambling and cheating, and one of Italy’s foremost historians, with several books to his credit: see his act at the Magic Castle by CLICKING HERE. Gianfranco had organized a lecture for the magic clubs of Varese and Lugano, so Toni and I did a combined lecture that lasted over 3 hours to an enthusiastic crowd of about 25 people. I can only recommend this type of split-lecture, where two performers take turns doing a lecture, as the result for the attendees will be a varied and entertaining learning experience. Granted, there is not much money for the artists in this, as you have to split the meager income, but it is very rewarding in many senses. This reminds me of Schopenhauer, who said, “My philosophy has never made me any money, but it has saved me a lot.” And since the lecture was on a Saturday afternoon, in the evening a nice group gathered in the best local Pizzeria for a great meal in excellent company with lots of interesting talk, and that’s what it is all about.

Tre Re in Castellamonte

On Sunday Toni, Gianfranco and me met up at the “Tre Re”, a restaurant in Castellamonte near Torino, with our friends Marco Aimone, the president of Italy’s largest magic club, the Circolo Amici Della Magia of Torino, Andrea Pancotti, who manages Italy’s most important magic forum Prestigiazione.it and who is also my webmaster, and Fabio Cucé, a magic enthusiast and fan of my books, who is related to the chef of the “Tre Re” (“The Three Kings”), Roberto Marchello. This is our sixth or seventh gathering at this legendary place (we left out 2020 for Corona), once a year always in late autumn, to enjoy a white truffle lunch that lasts at least four hours! Normally, such a meal is unaffordable, but most of us had done a show for Roberto and his guests in the preceding years, and through Fabio he’s a fan of magic, so we get the full treat for less of what a steak and a bottle of wine would cost in New York City! Besides the truffle dishes, one of the deserts is a highlight, the Zabaglione (see photos below), prepared by the chef Roberto personally at our table.

The remarkable thing about this Zabaglione is that it is made only of three ingredients: egg yolks, sugar and Marsala wine, so simple, but divine (and not so easy to do). I remember when some forty years ago I had sherbets at Frédy Girardet’s restaurant, rated with 3 Michelin stars, the highest you can get, and it was all so incredibly simple and unassuming, but the very best I ever had. At age 23, not even a professional then, then and there I vowed that my magic should be like that: No frills, no smoke, no laser, no assistants, no boxes, but just the artist, his instrument and his words, absolute minimalistic in form, but extraordinary in content. I have certainly reached that goal, as my magic has no frills, no smoke etc. 🙂

Museo della Magia & Magic Library in Cherasco

The plan was for Toni and me to drive to Cherasco, about a one-hour drive south of Torino, but unfortunately Toni had to fly back home for an emergency in the family, so I ventured there on my own. I stayed for three days at Don Silvio Mantelli’s (Mago Sales), a Salesian priest and international magician for children. This man warrants a book, and if you read Italian you can read his biography Il rischio di essere felici (The Risk of Being Happy), an astounding account of his life performing all over the world for thousands of children to collect money for his foundation helping poor children in the world.

Well, this man has also created the “Museo della Magia”, a museum of magic which is worth to travel to, as the Guide Michelin would say of his best restaurants. Not only will you be amazed to see this special place, financed with private and cultural funds, but as a magician you will also be able to visit his magic library, the largest in Italy, and one of the largest in the world, with over 22’000 magic books plus tons of magic magazines. Below you can see me studying in the library – a year would not suffice, but the few days I had were better than nothing. BTW: In the background you can see an original stage costume of Fu Manchu (David Bamberg), Okito’s son.

Don Silvio also has a beautiful small theatre with about 70 seats, and as every year we put up an event. This year, due to Corona, a public show was hard to do, so Marco Aimone and I did a two-hour plus lecture for about 40 local magicians who were very appreciative. As always, we donated our fee to Don Silvio’s foundation, so as to bring a bit of brightness to the children of the world. Below you can see, from left to right, Marco Aimone, Don Silvio, and an unknown 🙂 Lots more to tell, but we’ll leave that for another time, maybe.

Circolo Amici Della Magia Torino

On Friday, 19th NOV, I then drove to Torino, where in the evening I gave a talk on “How to Study Magic”. It was the second in a cycle of three, but due to Corona my first talk dealing with how to study and practice a magic trick was back in 2019 (see photo below)! Anyway, I had a nice crowd attending, and listening to “How to Make Notes and Manage Them in Evernote”. Don’t ask me if there is a recording of it, because even if there was, it would be in Italian. Although the talk needs polishing, like everything well done, I really think that it would be very interesting to several at a magic convention. I really find it hard to understand why magic conventions do not do more of this type of talks. The reason might be that especially the large magic conventions care more to “entertain” their customers than to “educate” them, but who says you can’t have both?

On the next day, Saturday 20th November, I then did a full-day Masterclass, really the main reason for doing this “Italian Tour”, the rest being “decoration”. I usually have 20 people, but still due to Corona (always Corona!), only seven were able to attend. Nonetheless, I did the “full program”: This year’s topic – I’ve been doing this now for at least ten years every year – was “The Psychological Construction of a Trick”, with particular attention to how to manage the spectator’s memory. Essentially I chose a dozen chapters from my latest book Sharing Secrets that are directly related on how the audience perceives information, stores it in their memory, and then using various strategies of thinking makes up the false subjective reality that ultimately leads them to Wonderland. A complex topic, of course, which I tried to dissect, explain in simple words, and then illustrate, step by step, with individual techniques and performance pieces. I was really happy with the result, as it proved my claim, that any theoretical concept is as practical as a sleight or other tangible principle of magic. Below you can see a small but happy group.

Ah, this has been a long one, for me and you, but I could relive this remarkable experience, even more special because in the past one-and-a-half  years I was like most confined at home. I hope you found something of interest.

Wish you all a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi

PS: I did this last minute, so apologize for more typos than usual, but hope you appreciate the effort.

PPS: For all who have ordered “The Prophecy”, please have a little more patience, as Penguin Magic, my publisher and the distributor of the trick, announced a delay in supplies (damn Corona again…), but I should be able to ship mid-December (let’s hope).

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #48, gone online SUN, 28th November, at 0:07h.

Last Minute…

The publication of this post was seriously in danger due to the arrival of a new family member: The Cat!

As you can see in the photo below, he not only obstructed the writing but took it over completely (now I have an excuse for all typos…).

“The Cat”, ca. 2 years old, has been brought in by Barbara from an animal house and after a few days took over the new house, ours. Finding a name was a lengthy process, but after all magician’s names (Vernon, Marlo, Malini, Professor etc.) as well as card sleights (Curry Turnover, Double Lift etc.) were categorically refused by the family, “Jimmy” was adopted. Below you can see Jimmy at work 🙂

Follow the Leader

I’m back from my trip to Italy and wanted to give you a report, but when I asked my good friend Claudio Viotto what I should post today, he felt it should be a video, as the last posts were a bit text-heavy. He’s absolutely right, of course. Therefore I’ve opted to extract a video clip from my own DVD Simply Amazing, produced and published by Penguin Magic.

This is a performance-only clip of one of my “self-working” versions of the famous “Follow the Leader” plot. Yes, I have several, and the theme has inspired some of the hottest names in the world of magic. The ball started rolling when Dai Vernon’s version saw light in 1938 in Greater Magic, although the plot is older and comes from Europe. There is written evidence that a German amateur magician and author of various interesting publications, Dr. Reinhard Rohnstein, mentioned the plot in a letter to Vienna’s Ottokar Fischer (a book by Magic Christian can be expected soon). Faucett Ross saw this and told Dai Vernon, who then released his very first method in Five Close-up Problems in 1933. But it was only after it was published in Greater Magic that it really caught on. The title itself, of course, originates in an old children’s game.

Forgive this little excursion into the genesis of this classic, and there is a lot more to it, which you might want to research on your own if you wish. I simply keep coming back on these historical contexts because it shows the wonderful complexity of what we’re doing. I truly believe that knowing about such things, even though often only superficially, helps us perform our magic with more dignity: The resulting competence is felt by any intelligent audience – I’m firmly convinced of this.

Back to today’s offering: I originally concocted this sequence when in 1995 I wrote Roberto Super-Light (Card College Lightest), immediately following the release of Grosse Kartenschule 3&4 (Card College) from 1994. Anecdotically, let me tell you that writing the Card College books 3 and 4 was such a Herculean task that took me almost 2 years of intensive work. When the files went off to the printer’s I felt like after a Marathon: It is impossible to stop right away, you have to run a bit more before coming to a halt. So, in the wake of Card College 3&4 I wrote this third book in the Light-series.

If you’re interested, the detailed explanation of the piece you’re about to watch can be found on my DVD Simply Amazing, produced by Penguin Magic, obtainable from my webshop (www.robertogiobbi.com), from Penguin Magic, or from your favorite dealer (192 minutes with six professional-caliber routines performed and taught in detail). You can also get it as a download, but only from the Penguin Magic webshop.

But even if you don’t have the DVD-Download, or don’t want to invest the little money to get it, there is quite a bit to be learned simply from watching the 4-minute performance. Notice how contact is made with the audience after Dan Harlan’s announcement, how the eye contact is constantly renewed, how the deck “appears” in the hands without fumbling, how the theme is introduced. Here I should explain that the lengthy prologue is meant to frame all six tricks that are performed in a ca. 35-minute show one after the other. So, I tried to link them thematically – you’ll understand this better if you watch the whole performance.

There is something I do differently today than when I recorded the video: See “The Space-Information Continuum” in Sharing Secrets (p. 102). In the video I do what everyone is doing: I pick up the face down card from the packet and move forward to the leader card as I turn it over. In the new handling I will pause with the newly face-up card, holding it still in the space above its face-down packet for a few seconds. You’ll notice the difference: Now the color of the face-up card will rub off on the face-down packet, and in their imagination the audience will “see” that the cards in the face-down packet have the same color as the card displayed. Only now do I drop the card on the face-up leader packet. (This is an idea Barcelona’s Gabi Pareras told me in a session, and I’ve been using it ever since, and so should you. I consider Gabi one of the few geniuses of magic who has left us far too early. My prediction is that he will get the award for “Theory and Philosophy” posthum at the upcoming FISM convention.)

You might like the beginning phase, or you might not, but you will be forced to think about it. Remember that this video was shot with the intent of presenting self-working methods to classic tricks. If, however, you have the knowledge and skill, you should by all means use them to change modules of the trick.

The most difficult part of the trick is to obtain absolute clarity of the Initial Situation (see Sharing Secrets, p. 50), without being neither too slow nor too fast, but just right. Another challenge is how to manage the repetitive nature of the effects: This is done by changes in procedure as well as by pauses and changes in pacing.

This piece really looks externally simple, but harbors great complexity, as Miguel de Unamuno would have said.

To watch me perform “Follow the Leader” as described in Card College Lightest (p. 26), CLICK HERE.

Wish you all a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #47, gone online SUN, 21st November, at 0:07h.

As this post goes online I’m on my way back from Torino to Muttenz, my home base in Switzerland. This is a trip of about 450 km (almost 300 miles) that takes at least five hours, but will take me eight because I’ll make a small detour to visit the natal city of my parents, Tortona, were my father was born, and the village of Viguzzolo, where my mother originated from. My parents immigrated from Italy to Switzerland in the 1950s, and I was then born in 1959, May 1st, in Basel, Switzerland. But that’s the beginning of another story I might relate on another occasion. However, now you know when to send your birthday greetings and gifts 🙂

In the last The Magic Memories (46) I titled:

Ideas for presentations are EVERYWHERE? Yes, here are a few recent examples.

Someone complained saying there was only one example. Correct. So, here are three more, which in the statistical average makes two each.

Presentational idea #2

As I mentioned before, you only need to look around to find ideas. The other day I received the card deck pouch by TCC, my publisher in China, they call it “ACCORDION-STYLE MULTIFUNCTION BAG“, but you can use any similar device that holds flat objects the size of a playing/credit card, you find these in the wallet section of any general store. The first thought that occurred to me was to put a deck into it, and in the back section with the 12 compartments all types of trick cards that go with that particular deck. This is certainly very practical, and I bought half a dozen for various decks. A little later I was working on another idea I call “The Wishbook”, where the spectators can wish for any trick. Almost automatically, by simply looking at the pouch, I “saw” that every compartment could contain “props/instruments” with which at least one trick could be performed, on its own, or in conjunction with the deck. So, I started to place rubber bands, stamps, business cards… oops… I realize I’m taking the pleasure from you to make this up yourself 🙂 I think it’s a great idea… (oh, and you could even put one of those small Japanese purses with a few coins into it).

Wish you all a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi

Hi everyone!

Here are The Magic Memories #46, gone online SUN, 14th November, at 0:07h.

As you are reading this I’m on a small tour through the northern part of Italy: Varese – Castellamonte – Cherasco – Torino, and back to Switzerland. After my lengthy car ride through France, to Spain’s Magialdia convention I reported on in The Magic Memories #41 of OCT 10th, this is my second “travel” during this “Pandemic Biennial”. I plan to give you a report of the “adventures” during that trip on my return in The Magic Memories (48), as this one and the next are pre-written, both about a subject that is close to my heart, and about which I have written in the past from different angles. Actually, it is a topic with an infinite amount of angles, and an important one it is…

Short description of “Peekaboo Revelation” (Simon/Garcia)

Set-up: The four Aces are reversed below the top card. Have a card peeked at, retaining a break above it. The right thumb obtains a second break somewhere among the face-up Aces and holds it, as the left hand undercuts all the cards below the lower break to the top. Immediately follow with a second cut, which is a Slip Cut, to wit: The left thumb is lightly pressed on the top card and keeps it in place as the right hand cuts all the cards above the break to the right and drops it back on top. The slipped card being the selection is thus maneuvered to between the face-up Aces. Care must be taken not to flash any of the reversed cards. The rest is presentation (see above).

Wish you all a successful week!

Roberto Giobbi