Hello everyone!
Today’s topics are: How to Read Unexpected Agenda; Last Minute Order; The Magic Memories Versus Newsletter; Update on “The Giobbi Collection”; The Magic of Flick Books; Gastronomy & Magic; After-dinner PS: Dribble Lateral Insertion Control
These are The Magic Memories 205, gone online Sunday, December 1, 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.
How to Read Unexpected Agenda
First and foremost: Thank you for all who wrote in to let me know that Unexpected Agenda had already reached them, and how much they like it.
You cannot imagine how much it pleases me to know that even some of the top stars in our business ordered Unexpected Agenda, and now start reading it.
Below is a selfie my dear and much admired friend Pit Hartling sent in. I asked permission to show the photo in these The Magic Memories 205, which he kindly consented,
Your comments are much appreciated, as they also tell me two things: First, the post office seems to work (most of the time…), second, most seem to ignore my advice of reading one entry per day and have already started to read through the book 🙂
It reminds me of a young chap at a German magic convention, after the first agenda had come out, Secret Agenda (Seattle, 2010), who approached me and apologetically exclaimed, “Mr. Giobbi, Mr. Giobbi, please forgive me!”
This in turn reminded me that some dealer in his exuberant advertisement had called me the “Card Pope” when Card College 1&2 came out in 1992, so I jokingly answered, “What are your sins, my son.”
The young man was serious, as he admitted, “I have to confess that I did not follow your advice of reading one entry a day when I received your Secret Agenda, but started to read through it.” However, he added, “To still profit from the potential of your work, after each reading I focus on the very day.”
This, frankly, seems to me to be the best solution for all those who cannot help reading the agenda as if they were reading another magic book: Keep reading until you get tired, but before you put the book aside, go back to the date of the day you do the reading, reread that entry, and then try to occasionally think of it during that day.
Doing it this way will satisfy your natural curiosity of wanting to know the content of the book, but at the same time fulfills its primary purpose, namely that of serving as a trigger for your own thoughts.
As you read through the book, day by day, and/or in stages, remember to place a post-it flag on each day you like, or any type of bookmark. Below are my own bookmarks of Secret Agenda, after re-reading it to prepare for a lecture of “Best of Secret Agenda”(I had forgotten many of the entries!):
At the end of the year, and only then, use a scanning app (I use ScannerPro by Readdle) to scan (actually photograph) each page, one after the other.
You will end up with one single PDF that contains all the scans.
This method is vastly superior to taking a jpg of each day of your choice.
The obvious advantage is not only that the PDF-file is much lighter than the sum of the jpgs, you also have all pages in one single file.
Now, thanks to the features of a PDF app you can underline, highlight, annotate, etc., your PDF (I use PDF Expert, again from Readdle, not the version you have to subscribe to, but the one you pay only once).
If you have any comments, suggestions, ideas, etc. on Unexpected Agenda, I am interested to know them, and if I think that they are of interest to others too, I shall be happy to reproduce them in one of the future The Magic Memories, your consent provided, of course.
Last Minute Order
If you are reading this on Sunday, December 1st (2024), and if you want Unexpected Agenda, you are still in time to take advantage of the pre-publication offer (20% off the regular price).
Although the offer ends at midnight on November 30th, I am honoring the place on earth that is farthest behind in the time zone, which is Baker Island Time (BIT; UTC-12), the time on Baker and Howland Islands.
I checked Wiki that tells me those islands are officially uninhabited, however, if just one person had stranded there from a maritime accident, à la Robinson Crusoe, you will agree that it is only fair to give this person a chance to get Unexpected Agenda, as it seems to me to be the perfect companion for the proverbial desert island – yes, I know, nobody else would have thought of that, but this is why people buy my books 🙂
The Magic Memories Versus Newsletter
On my own account: There seems to be a bit of confusion in regard to “receiving” these The Magic Memories, and a bit of confusion between The Newsletter and The Magic Memories.
Please do not doubt your own intelligence quotient, as this is entirely my fault, and I promise to redesign the site for more clarity (hopefully during the Holidays).
But until then I remind you that you cannot receive these The Magic Memories automatically (I do this in order not to spam you), but you have to pro-actively go to my webshop www.robertogiobbi.com, where you will land on the “home screen”, and where you will have two options of accessing The Magic Memories:
First, click “News”, second click “The Magic Memories” on the left of the screen.
In-between is another field “Subscribe to the Newsletter”, where you can enter your email to receive an occasional “Newsletter” (which is NOT The Magic Memories, but for instance the announcement of a new book, such as Unexpected Agenda). That’s the only thing which will happen automatically.
Since a picture says more than a thousand words, see below for a pictorial explanation:
Update on “The Giobbi Collection”
Talking about feedbacks, a few days ago Ian Kent, from Portland, Oregon, wrote in and sent a photo of his updated “Giobbi Collection”. He gave me a detailed account of how he had obtained some of the more obscure objects – of course his collection is still missing the Italian, French, German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French versions of some of my works 🙂
Still: I’m impressed, and had to check if I had really produced all that… and indeed, I did.
And yet I have never ever had the intention of “producing” things magical “to sell”, as I might be many things, but certainly not a “magic dealer”.
It all came as a consequence of documenting the decades of studies I had done, and am still doing (more than ever!), of various subjects in magic: I simply did not want all this work to be lost, and also I wanted others with a similar interest and taste as I have, to be able to access, use and enjoy the result of my academic work (which I hope you will find practical, too). There is a difference that is more than subtle…
The Magic of Flick Books
My friend Thomas Stauss, who lives here in Basel, Switzerland, is putting the finishing touches on a magnificent work about flick books. The title is Magic Metamorphosis – The Secrets of a Rare Italian Picture Album Revealed.
The book is scheduled to appear in spring 2025.
The PDF announcing the book is in German, as it will be printed and sold by a specialized publisher in Switzerland, but the book itselft will be in English, so thought that this might interest some of you. To “read” the German text in the brochure simply use Google Translate or one of the AI-tools.
To read the PDF and take advance of the pre-publication offer CLICK HERE.
Gastronomy & Magic
In my writings I have often alluded to the similarities between gastronomy and magic (I even promised an essay on the matter… some day). Here is another one that might as well have gone in the Unexpected Agenda, but did not, as it could generate some interesting magic-related ideas.
The following text is an AI-translation of a restaurant review that appeared in a German gourmet journal:
The magnifying glass that accompanies the sea urchin with smoked butter is also designed to enhance the experience, allowing the guest to observe the tiny bubbles the chef has created through the frothing process.Next, something from the sea is served in a box filled with smoke. The guest cannot see it; they are meant to feel it. It is… a simple shrimp.The seafood is the best I have ever tasted in my life.Equally brilliant is the concept behind the cheese course: Normally, when dining, a guest’s attention is focused on the person across from them—whether in love, bored, or nervously anticipating the bill. Here, that dynamic is reversed: The four exquisite cheese morsels are served with a mirror, allowing the guest to gaze at themselves. The evening is a celebration of ideas—and a guarantee of happiness, as the guest leaves the restaurant after five hours, filled with contentment.
Now, if that is not interesting, I don’t know what is.
To use a magnifying glass and a mirror in a context this would never be expected is a double concept that should make us think.
An idea that immediately came to mind, is a prediction written in micrographic, first as an apparent joke, then revealed as a correct prediction with the help of a magnifying glass. Once the magnifying glass has been brought into play, the “Fingerprint Trick” seems a natural piece to do. I have an unpublished version Ascanio showed me many years ago, and if someone reminds me of it, I shall try to share it in one of the future The Magic Memories.
Back to the text above: In spite of the eccentric, original “presentational idea”, though, I found this sentence by the critic to be the most important:
“The seafood is the best I have ever tasted in my life.”
This is very much like magic, and it reminds me of Tamariz, who in his book The Magic Rainbow writes: “Presentation in magic is the least very important thing.” (p. 381) To me, and in several of his lecture he has actually provocatively said, “Presentation in magic is not important.”
It doesn’t matter how good the presentation is, how much the audience gets “entertained”, the most important thing is the magical quality, the “effect”, the “wonder factor” – if the effect (the magic part!) is no good, the essence of the art of magic has not been brought to life. Big subject to discuss at your next meeting with colleagues…
All of this recalls another great idea, which can be immediately applied to magic:
Speaking of gastronomy, I am reminded of a visit to “Steirereck”, one of Vienna’s top restaurants, where I had the pleasure of being invited by Bill Kalush on the occasion of a history conference several years back.
We had the gourmet menu that consisted of several courses (what else?).
The “magical” idea was that a few minutes before a course was served, the waiter (or was it a waitress?), placed a card the size of a business card on an easel that was resting on the table. The card had the title of the course on it, listed its ingredients, and then finished with a succulent short description of the dish.
What a magnificent idea for those among us who do private shows from table to table (if you call this “table hopping” you lessen its worth to you – thank you HL), isn’t it?
That’s all for today, folks, as Barbara just called to say dinner is ready… what a better way to end this week’s chatter 🙂
After-dinner PS: Dribble Lateral Insertion Control
I found this among my notes: A little technical idea – a control – you might want to try and see if you can use it.
The spectator shuffles the deck.
Take deck back, dribble cards onto the table until spectator calls stop.
Transfer undribbled cards to your left hand, as your right hand takes top card of tabled packet and shows to all.
Lateral insert this card into packet held in your left hand, and then shuffle to bottom. Place this packet on top of tabled packet. As the packet leaves the left hand to be slapped on the table packet, the left fingers push the bottom cards to the right – this is completely protected by the right hand holding the packet in a Closed End Grip.
As soon as the packets coalesce, the right hand – without changing its position – picks up the completed deck, and then sets it in left-hand Dealing Position, where the left little finger can obtain a break under the jogged cards. Shuffle the card to the bottom, optionally using the Weave Shuffle Ruse with a final cut to the table (see Unexpected Agenda, “February 7 – The Weave Shuffle Ruse” and the “May 30 – The Burned Card Ruse”).
You can do this in a still more direct way, and without asking the spectator to take the card (ideal for standup situations where you do not want to leave the platform): Dribble the cards to the table (a small tripod-type table suffices) until ‘stop’ is called. Show the bottom card of the packet still held in your right hand. Now shuffle the packet, apparently losing the selection, in reality keeping the bottom card on the bottom, or bringing it back to the bottom in a second shuffle, if you prefer. Again, you can add the Weave Shuffle Ruse here. Then proceed as described above.
Yet another alternative: Set up the card for the Transfer Move. The right hand picks up the top half of the table packet, thereby transferring the selection on top as the left hand drops its packet on top of the tabled packet, and then the right hand drops packet on top of all. The selection is now on top.
Wish you all a successful and happy week,
Roberto Giobbi
