The Magic Memories (52)

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