Hi everyone!
Here we are, at the 33rd edition of The Magic Memories, gone online SUN, 15th AUG 2021, at exactly 0:07.
I had some nice feedback on last week’s post about the Card College Playing Cards and what you can do with them, so, thank you to all who sent comments! Please understand that I don’t answer, but rest assured that all incoming mail is read, and your friendly comments are greatly appreciated. For those among you who have lengthy questions, or would like to discuss more complex issues, I remind you that you can take 75-minute long Coaching Sessions with me over Skype; in case you are interested, get in touch with me over the “Contact” function of the webshop, or simply CLICK HERE.
Penguin Podcast
Before we proceed to today’s topic, let me mention that Penguin’s Erik Tait did an interesting two-part interview with me for the Penguin Magic Podcast, and you get there by CLICKING HERE. In the first and this second “Years of the Pandemic” (I guess we need a name for these unique times), I have given quite a few interviews, video and audio, and you might already have seen or listened to one or two. Obviously, some topics keep coming up and are thus repeated, but some others are fresh and bring new information. So, it’s up to you to decide if you want to spend some time on it and deep-sea-fish 🙂
Introduction to Card Magic
For the benefit of the occasional beginner in magic, who joins us on these posts, but also for all of you who do a little (or big!) teaching of magic in magic clubs, schools etc., I remind you of a publication of mine that teaches the basics of card magic, sort of Pre-Card-College, called Introduction to Card Magic. The good thing is that it is a multi-media course, with text, photos and video clips, that is best studied on a tablet or a laptop (but I’m sure eagle-eyed youngsters can do so on their mobile, too). Some have expressed the wish of preferring a printed edition. You can easily make this yourself for little money: send the PDF you receive to a printer and have it spiral bound, the best binding for such a “work book”; this will cost you less than $ 20, and it will be cheaper than if I printed and shipped it to you, considering nowadays prohibitive shipping costs (and it will get worse…). The price of € 8.95 is of course a joke, as it is worth ten times as much, but I keep it at this low price because I wan’t everyone to be able to afford it, and it is less than a donation one should send if he or she got it for free! You find an excellent review of it by the enigmatic EndersGame if you CLICK HERE.
More Card College Playing Cards
On to today’s topic: Since so many seemed to like the excerpt from my Magic Apple Lecture, well, here is the next sequel. In The Magic Memories (30), July 25th 2021, I gave you a PDF with the description of a trick using the Guarantee Joker of the Card College Playing Cards deck I named “TTT -Turn Over, Transform & Travel”. You might want to quickly refer back for context, or go to the PDF by CLICKING HERE (you may download it, but don’t send it around, send your friends to www.robertogiobbi.com).
And need I really mention that you can of course use any other deck and its Guarantee Joker, or if your deck hasn’t got one, take the Guarantee Card that comes with almost any deck, and if all this fails, simply take the normal Joker and adapt the presentation to that. As Garrick Spencer once told Dai Vernon, “Use your head.” This was what Vernon then kept repeating in his lectures and books, along with two other wisdoms by Dr. Elliott, i.e., “Be Natural” and “Be Yourself”. BTW: New York corporation attorney Garrick Spencer, a student and patron of Vernon’s, and a fanatical lover of magic, sponsored his famous Harlequin Act, among other things, and he also organized a small group consisting of some of the finest magicians of the day. He called them The Academy of the Art of Magic. Its 12 members were:
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Dai Vernon
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Nate Leipzig
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Cardini
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Al Baker
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Max Malini
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Charlie Miller
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Arthur Finley
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Paul Fox
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Sam Leo Horowitz
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G. W. Hunter
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J. Warren Keane
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Garrick Spencer
Back to the trick: Several asked about details of handling, so I decided that this week I would give you that part of the recording where I perform and discuss the trick. Actually, due to the situation, this being done via Zoom and without an audience or interaction, it is more of a demonstration than a performance, but it should do for teaching purposes – I hope you agree 🙂
For the benefit of those who haven’t got the Card College Playing Cards (why not?), the photo below shows it and the text: That’s the idea.
As always, to watch the video, CLICK HERE.
Enjoy – and have a successful week!
Roberto Giobbi
