Hello everyone!
Today’s topics are: Visiting Juan Tamariz; Unexpected Agenda at the Printer; Magialdia 2024 – The Saga: Coming Soon!
These are The Magic Memories 197, gone online Sunday, October 6, 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.
First and foremost thank you to all who wrote in with good wishes and sent tea, rum and biscuits (someone even sent Sockeye Salmon from Alaska!); as a result I defeated Covid and am back in shape.
Fortunately so, because I have many things to recount.
Visiting Juan Tamariz
This year circumstances limited my visit to Juan Tamariz’s home in the south of Spain to only three days, instead of the usual full week, but they were intense days… or should I say nights 🙂
I’ll answer the most urgent question first: How is Juan’s health?
I’m glad to report that on my visit, seconded by Gary Plants’ and Paul Wilson’s presence, the Maestro enjoyed magic, talks and food as much as always.
On October 18th he will turn eighty-two, so you can then send your birthday wishes via Facebook, which his wife Consuelo manages.
I always tell my friends that Juan has actually lived not eighty-two years but at least one-hundred and eight-two years, having done ten times more than the most efficient among us talented people have done.
This is simply because he’s a genius.
People of talent are like the sun, but a genius is like the sun with a magnifying glass that bundles the energy of the sun and achieves things that the others simply don’t, or at least not at that level.
Look at all the books he has written, the videos he has made, the lectures, workshops and masterclass he has imparted, the dozens of TV and radio shows he has created and in which he has starred over decades, the thousands of shows he has done around the globe for private parties, corporations, cruises, festivals, theaters big and small, and a large etc.
BUT at the same time he has spent thousands of hours with magic friends, freely sharing his enormous knowledge and talent. Well, if I consider all that, then I cannot explain this man’s wonderful age.
Sessionen With Juan
I have often been asked how such a meeting with Juan works, what happens, what we do, when we eat and sleep, etc.
So, I thought I’ll give you the schedule of a typical day.
In the forty-seven years I’ve known Juan and spent time with him – many times at one of his homes, sometimes at magic conventions that booked the two of us, sometimes on other adventures we undertook together – the times have considerably shifted from starting magic at noon to the current time, which is around 7… 7pm, that is 🙂
7pm is when we gather on the patio of his house and start the magic, which goes on until dawn… for me that’s ca. 6am, when I usually call it a day (in the real sense of the word!), while Juan goes on until ca. 9am, sometimes later. Let me recount what happens in-between.
On a “normal” day (read: evening–night) – i.e., one we do not go to Cadiz or other nearby city to do a show, give an interview, etc. – the action from 7pm to 10pm takes place around a table on the house’s patio with view on a little garden and stone wall that separates the Maestro’s house from a public park (a little further down starts the sea with the beaches).
What happens now will depend on the group present.
If we are several attending – sometimes up to seven people of the caliber of Jorge Blass, Bill Kalush, Juan Luis Rubiales, Paul Wilson, Joshua Jay, Gary Plants, Rafael Benatar, etc. are there – someone might start performing a trick, and then we all start discussing it.
One of the features of these gatherings is that we want feedback from the Maestro, but also from the others, who are no beginners either.
This will sometimes generate lengthy discussions not only on the mechanics of the trick, but also on construction, the psychology behind it, the symbolism, wording, presentation, how to eliminate solutions, etc., all to make the trick more robust inside and outside.
Then the Maestro himself will of course perform some of his latest findings, and more often than not leave all present speechless, like he has done with me time after time in all the years I’ve known him.
What follows is usually a most interesting lecture not only on the trick itself, but on some obscure principle, or trick deck, a new theory, or what have you, with which he just fooled us.
One of the things that is so incredible and different about Juan Tamariz is, that in all the years he has been generously sharing so much of his knowledge and insights, and with this has created what is known as the Spanish School of Magic, a school of thought inspired by Robert-Houdin, Hofzinser and Vernon, through Ascanio, but brought to full blooming by Tamariz himself.
Meanwhile he has formed masters who preach the Tamariz Magic Gospel around the world in lectures and books and, of course, performances that have developed a style of their own.
Coming back to the sessions: Occasionally its only Juan and me, and these have always been very special moments.
I cannot hide a certain pride when Juan repeatedly told me that Gaëtan (Bloom that is) and I are the two with whom he can have the most divers and profound conversations.
Indeed, our talks go far beyond magic and its infinite methods (we spend a lot of time on that, too, as methods & technique are not trivial at all…), touching on all those subjects connected to magic: psychology, communication, art, philosophy, sciences, poetry, music, literature and an endless etcetera.
It is a hopeless undertaking to try to put into words what happens during those meetings, but one thing is sure: At around 10pm we start to discuss where we have dinner!
And that’s another subject that bonds Juan and me: in all our joint ventures we have always tried to find the places with the most interesting food, and there continued our conversations until after midnight.
Now, you should understand that what for a mere mortal (you and me) is a “late dinner”, for the Maestro is a rich lunch.
Because once we get back home, sometimes long after midnight, again sitting at the table on the patio, at now a little cooler temperatures (San Fernando, near Cadiz all year round boasts summer temperatures with lots of sunshine and very little rain), protected by seven veils from the mosquitos, the magic goes on, and on, and on. And it’s magic, magic, nothing but magic (performing, lecturing, demonstrating, discussing). At the highest level imaginable (at least to me).
Until usually the first starts to break-up at 4am, some – like me – through sheer will-power and mental habituation, can resist until 6am, sometimes even 7am (that’s my personal record).
The Maestro then goes on until 9am, sometimes even longer (!), in conversation with the Muses and the Saints of Magic, who will whisper their secrets into his ears. That’s when he thinks, creates, writes. He might then sleep eight hours, wake up and spend another couple of hours in bed thinking up more things before he joins us downstairs on the patio.
The rest of us – if there are several – will usually get up at 1pm or so, after having tried to sleep at least six hours on and off, as many of us are used to late nights but not that late…
We then usually have lunch in a nearby restaurant, discuss what has happened the previous day (pardon: night), show each other our own things, and then try to take a short nap, before the whole thing starts all over again at 7pm!
Two Impossibilities
The Maestro was at his best when he performed, and perform he did! Let me just describe two of the things he did and that fooled the pants off all of us (us being Gary Plants, his wife Debbie, Paul Wilson, Pedro Morillo and myself).
First was his lates version – well, one of the latest – of… Oil and Water, what else?
The distinguish feature here was the running-gag-line, “I do not touch!”, because he indeed never touched the cards during all of the proceedings.
In effect, he had four of us (Gary, Debbie, Pedro and Paul) each take out a pair of cards, each consisting of a red card and a black card (“I do not touch!”), which one of us then assembled in red-black order (“I do not touch!”).
Paul and Gary then had to stretch out their hands, and Pedro dealt four cards on Paul’s hands and four cards on Gary’s hands (“I do not touch!”).
When each one assembled the cards and turned them over, lo and behold, Paul had all the red cards, and Gary all the blacks!
When Juan then let us into the secret and the details of handling, which were manyfold (!), I was once again reminded how the mind of a genius reflects itself in great complexity but also in great simplicity, to paraphrase Fernando Pessoa.
I believe Juan said this item would be in one of his upcoming Letters to Juan. This will be the sequel of Letters from Juan, the difference being that each booklet starts with a letter someone writes to Juan, instead of him writing one to the reader, as in the first series… I have the honor of being the first to write A Letter to Juan.
Back to the tricks: the Maestro had another one in petto, that absolutely floored us, to wit: The deck cut into three packets face down on the table, Gary, Debbie and Pedro each get to pick one up and hold it in their hands.
Then Debbie was asked to think of a card and name it out loud – she named the Queen of Hearts.
Now Juan proceeded to divine that the card was not in Gary’s hand; he checked, and indeed it was not there.
He then did the same with Pedro, who also checked to verify that the QH was not in his hand either.
Of course the Maestro did this in his inimitable way that brought lots of laughs without destroying the magic atmosphere, a very, very difficult thing that only very, very few master.
Most performers would be happy to get one or the other, and most will go for the other, i.e. the reactions and the laughs, especially professional performers.
What always shocks me on such occasions, is that these performers do not care for the magic atmosphere, but sacrifice it for the laughs, and they do not seem to know the difference. I am not even sure I master this art, but each time I witness a performance by Juan Tamariz, it is a lesson in humbleness.
Okay, back to the trick: Having eliminated that the QH is in the other two packets, it has to be in Debbie’s… from which, however, it disappears… upon checking her packet, Debbie finds her thought-of QH is not there!
Now Paul is asked to point his finger at Juan’s body and move it along his body, stopping at any point. Paul stops at Juan’s shirt breast pocket… from which Juan takes one card, and one card only… it is the Queen of Hearts.
Silence – and Pause of Assimilation (Sharing Secrets, p. 82).
Unexpected Agenda at the Printer
As you are reading this, the files of Unexpected Agenda are at the printer’s shop and they are preparing the installations necessary for printing, which should start at the beginning of next week (Monday, 7th October, 2024).
A subscription offer will be available on the webshop in the next few days, and if you subscribed to the “Newsletter” you should receive an email that tells you so.
Open Prediction: If all goes well I should be able to ship the first signed copies to you beginning/mid November 🙂 … and in December/January you can get it from your favorite dealer.
Magialdia 2024 – The Saga: Coming Soon!
I had the firm intention of reporting my adventures at this year’s Magialdia convention, but having to reread the PDF-files for Unexpected Agenda again, and having to check them after each correction, as with each correction something else would be found that needed to be adjusted, well, this took hours and hours…
… and in a few hours my friend John Carney will be arriving at Basel SBB train station, and tomorrow I’ve organized a small magic get-together in my home with Lorenz Schär and Tino Plaz, my favorite rising-card-stars of Switzerland, plus a dinner with Frank Garcia’s “Super Meatloaf” (from Super Subtle Card Miracles, p. 207) so you will understand that I have to stop here 🙂
I promise (again) to report in The Magic Memories 198…
Wish you all a successful and happy week,
Roberto Giobbi
