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!
This week I received 15, that's fifteen, decks in the mail. Most of these were from Ellusionist's clearance sale that had a bucket load of decks for as cheap as $3. Well, I scored some decks for $3. Nothing crazy to write home about, mostly Madison Rounders, but a few Bicycle decks thrown in there too. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I think I have just as many decks coming in again from various sources too. My mountain of decks needs some serious pruning.
The coolest thing I got in though was The FFFF book. If you were to see it, you'd think it were an ordinary book. If you were to lift it, you would be pleasantly surprised by how heavy it is. That's how much awesome is contained within.
Fechter's Finger Flicking Frolic, or the FFFF Club, is a group that holds an annual convention that's invite only. I recently learned of it through a casual mention in The Buena Vista Shuffle Club and did my research. It's easy to see that it started with Eddie Fechter, but what I didn't know was just how big of a magician this guy was.
A year or two ago, a magician I've spoken with on Twitter, had mentioned him to me and I went down the very short rabbit hole of watching some of his performances on YouTube -- decades old recordings of him performing at the Forks Hotel. His magic was straight to the point, and very upfront. Or, ballsy, as some would say. You just get sucked up into his personality and bam, magic. It took me quite a while to finally find a copy of Magician Nitely that has some of his work, but I did. It was great stuff, but that was about it.
And then, the Shuffle Club opened my eyes that there was way more going on here. This ballsy magician, this guy that's just the life of the party, really had a gathering. He wasn't just a bar magician, he was a guy who loved magic. Well, The FFFF Book doesn't have any routines by Fechter in it, but it does have a lot of routines by a lot of different people -- all members of the FFFF Club.
Here I was thinking that I might consider joining AMA or IBM or one of the other magic clubs, but I'm starting to think that the coolest ones are invite only...
Unfortunately for me, I have several other books that are open in front of me and I can't get to The FFFF Book at this exact moment. I am really excited to flip through it though, there are a lot of great names inside!
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.