Monday Mail Call #15

It's Monday and you know what that means... Monday Mail Call!

Each Monday (give or take), I use this feature to highlight a few of the things that have made their way in over the past week or so. Packages, purchases, and emails -- oh my!

The past few days, I received enough reading material to keep me busy for quite a while. Magazine and newsletter subscriptions arrived in my inbox, and a book set that weighs enough to use in a bodybuilding routine. Speaking of magazines, I haven't received July's Genii issue yet so that's another one to look forward too -- likely this week, but we'll see. The notification of the digital version came out, looks like it'll feature Juan Pablo! I don't know who that is, if I'm being honest so it'll be a learning experience either way.

Up first for things that I did receive this week, the July issue of The Hermit landed smack dab in my Spam folder, so I didn't see it until the 2nd after I started criticizing them for missing the due date =P.

The Hermit, Vol. 1 No. 7, July 2022

Before even getting into the e-zine itself, Scott Baird switched things up a bit and made the content summary in the email smaller and more compact. Oddly enough, I like it a lot more! I'm a big fan of being verbose, but that's what the e-zine is for -- the sneak peek / index should be just a title or two. Change, approved =]

In this issue, which I've only flipped through briefly, we have effects by Scott Baird, Luka Krastashvili, Kyle Leon, Fritz Alkemade, Patrik Kuffs, and Rudy Tinoco!

Cryptic, by Kyle Leon, looks right up my alley too. It's a card trick but has way more to it than that. Like, there are cutouts. And hidden messages. Is it a card trick, or espionage?! Yes. Yes, it is.

The monthly challenge, #hermitmagicchallenge, is being continued from last month. A picture of an impossible thing. Interesting... I've been meaning to participate, maybe this will be the month. Though, I'm not immediately thinking of anything "impossible" that wouldn't be mistaken as a simple camera trick. I guess I need to expand my mind a bit.

There are several card tricks, and a trick with a paper bag in this issue. Sankey also makes an appearance again in this month's Sankey Says. It looks like a pretty good issue.

Up next is Love Letters #2, the 2021 monthly magazine from Andy Lastname (i.e., thejerx.com). I must have gotten to the email a minute or two too late because in it, Andy announced a sale of two books (only one copy of each), one of which was Here Be Bunnies -- a book I've had my eye on, but nobody sells -- and they were both sold out. That made me sad =[

Love Letters No. 2

I've skimmed through the 20-page issue, unfortunately there's no index or table of contents to give a heads up as to what's covered so to get the goods, you have to give the time. But yeah, there looks like there's a gaff card trick included, a response or two to community questions, and a review of some sort. I'm sure I got at least half of that wrong and summarized even worse, but if there's anything neat in it I'll make sure to drop a note on the site after going through it.

And finally, let's Talk About Tricks. Seriously though, let's talk about two books. These gigantic volumes, One and Two, make up the entire Talk About Tricks book. Or, set? The Table of Contents is included in Volume One and takes up 30 pages alone; it also includes the pages for items included in Volume Two. They are also sold together, not as separate volumes, so my thought is that it was just impossible to make a single book to hold all the information. And wow is there a lot of info. Joshua Jay really outdid himself with this one!

Over 1000 pages between the two books, including all the tricks from the MAGIC magazine columns over the years. I have a digital copy of all of MAGIC too, but I really dislike reading books and magazines on a screen (lol at the first 2 things in today's Mail Call =P), so I've only used them when something else references them. These two books though, it just feels likes something that much more amazing.

Talk About Tricks: The Complete File, volumes one and two.
Volumes One and Two of Talk About Tricks: The Complete File by Joshua Jay. This pic is from Vanishing Inc.'s site because it looks better than the one I took, and I'm lazy right now =P

I've flipped through and stopped on a page or two, I'm damn excited to sit down with these and give them a proper read. It's definitely too much to do my normal word-for-word, cover-to-cover read, but we'll see. I'm ignoring my current queue and starting on it right away because, again, I'm just excited for it! I will be posting a more in-depth feature for this one real soon too, so if you're interested in more than keep an eye out.


There's so much reading this week, I'm pretty sure it's going to take me quite a while to get through it all. I wonder how many decks I'll wear out while reading Talk About Tricks?

Stay tuned for the next iteration of Monday Mail Call, there's a lot more to come!

Oh also, if you'd like to offer suggestions for books, tricks, decks or if you have questions about magic (performing, routines, sleights, etc.), just reach out here.

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