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's post is a little later than usual, and it's the first Mail Call I've done in a little while. The Penn & Teller: Fool Us reviews that I normally do, I have them scheduled to publish on Monday. Because I spend the weekend writing those, I haven't been writing these. Could I do both? Probably... but, family duties call too =]
As for mail, holy smokes have I gotten a lot of stuff in over the last few weeks. Or, months rather! The last Mail Call I did was in the beginning of October! Yikes!
I haven't counted, but I'm pretty confident I've received at least 50 decks between then and now. I recently opened a full brick of mystery decks from Organic Playing Cards (OPC) -- I'll be posting an unboxing video to YouTube later this week too. My monthly deliveries from Kings Wild Project have been coming in steadily, as have plenty of Kickstarter campaign rewards and other miscellaneous orders. I think I may have enough decks to last quite a while =P
Speaking of "mystery decks", I ordered a bunch from Art of Play when they were released on December 5th; today's the 12th and my order still hasn't shipped. I've seen a decent number of other people opening theirs on Instagram already so I'm a touch curious as to why there's a delay with mine. I ordered pretty quickly too, so I know it's not because I waited or anything. Anyways, they'll come eventually and I'll do an unboxing of those too.
Uncommonly, I also ordered a trick. Inferno, by Joshua Jay, really caught my eye as something that would be awesome to perform. I have LIT, which has received amazing reactions, so I figured this would be a great extension of that, or perhaps an alternative that I could show if ever asked to repeat it. I have mixed opinions about the trick though, specifically because of the product description. It says, and this part is true, that "no cards are palmed in"; but then it says, and this part is false, that "there is no sleight of hand to speak of." Well, technically, card(s) are palmed out -- which is sleight of hand. However, the application of magician's choice in this routine is a really great method. I haven't performed the routine for anyone yet -- I'm still trying to figure out justification for having a box of matches, but we'll see.
Also, since the last issue of Mail Call, I've received a few monthly magazine subscription issues! Four issues total, two from The Hermit and Love Letters each. Sadly, I haven't had a chance to read any of them. It's been a really busy couple of months. Luckily, starting right about now, the holidays tend to slow everything down and I have time to play catch-up. My plan is to read through all of them this week, hopefully with some decent coffee. Personal note: I just made my very first homemade "coffee creamer" (an attempt at "French vanilla"), and it turned out not bad... I'd give it a 6 out of 10. Regarding the magazines though, after I go through them if there's anything that sticks out, I'll let you know =]
So much to do, so many packages, so little time! Thankfully, like I mentioned above, things are starting to slow down now so I'll finally be able to enjoy everything I've gotten in. And though I'll continue to enter in decks and books here on the site, also check out my YouTube channel for reviews! I'm still really new at that whole format -- which turns out is way, way different than a short Instagram clip -- so do expect the quality to improve over time.
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.