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!
Today I will only be highlighting one of the packages I received this week, a book by Meir Yedid. After that, I will be talking about a product email that landed in my inbox that's worthy of a mention.
Up first, Forks Full of Appetizers, a book by Meir Yedid but a collection of magic routines by 73 magicians in total. Each magician is a member of the 4F club, or Fechter's Finger Flicking Frolic. I already had The FFFF Book which has decades worth of routines from 4F, but when I saw this one pop up for sale I just had to grab it.
Before buying, I did check to see if it's just an expansion on the other and from what I could tell by the magician list, there isn't a huge amount of overlap. I haven't had a chance to read much yet, but I did skim through and I expect to find some goodies in here! My first big takeaway though is that for a book that was printed this year, the ink is pretty faded already. Rather than nice rich and black text on the page, it's a dark gray, as if the printer was running low on ink. I doubt it will fade much more before I get a chance to pilfer its secrets, but I find it odd that such a new book has such an old vibe. Maybe that's a good thing?
But yeah, the book contains 98 close-up routines that are mostly card magic and coin magic, but there's other neat tricks with small objects too. The description says that the difficulty level ranges from easy to hard and is good for hobbyist or professional and everything in-between. Being a hobby magician myself, it's sometimes hard for me to tell if a routine would be a good "worker" routine or not but I think I'm getting the hang of identifying the characteristics of them. I would, however, like a good way to measure the difficulty of a routine -- kind of like how Talk About Tricks did.
Up next, an email from Vanishing Inc announcing a new product, Vélo. Vélo, in short, is a beautiful wooden cabinet for deck storage. You're able to customize the number of draws it has, and whether it comes with a glass top display too. Each customization adds on to the price, of course, but you can't tell me that this doesn't look pretty:
Each of these photos are from Vanishing Inc.'s product page for Vélo.
I saw the email maybe 2 minutes after receiving it and figured I would check it out. The product itself launches on September 21st (Wednesday), but the email is an invite to the pre-sale event. Coincidentally, the same link is available on Vanishing's homepage.
I'm not sure if it was an accident, or if I clicked something special that first time around, but the first time I went to it I was able to see the actual product page. The whole product description, photos, even the add-to-cart and customization options. The price for the basic option was $99 and adding drawers upped the cost. I think I remember the highest price being $399 for the whole kit and caboodle but it's been a few days so I don't know 100%. The pics above aren't accessible on the site right now either (I'm sure they will be on the 21st though), but I have my ways =]
I have towers of decks stacked up right now and something like Vélo would be perfect! It looks amazing and I'm sure that the quality is above my own expectations. Unfortunately, last year I had backed TCC Wooden Display Shelves & Display Boxes on Kickstarter and got a lot of storage pieces. Because of these, I don't really have anywhere to put something like Vélo -- even though it looks amazing. If I didn't have them already, I would 100% spring for it.
For reference, the TCC cases I have are:
I also have an 8-deck wooden display shelf, but I'm not using it. The first two in the list are unbelievable quality. Beautiful wood and a soft flannel lining. The display shelf however, the quality leaves a little to be desired. But hey, it displays the decks so that's what's important.
I know I don't own one, but if you're a magician, cardist, or card collector, I would highly recommend checking out Velo for some top quality storage solutions: Vélo on Vanishing Inc.
Whelp, that's it for today folks. A sweet magic book and an email about a storage cabinet. I can't wait to dive into the book, especially after writing about it here. Also, looking at Vélo makes me remember how much better having a nice display case for my decks is. I'm not a collector, but it's pretty great to be able to show off some of the decks I really like.
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.