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 though, only one feature. Coming in, not hot off the presses but close enough is The Definitive Mental Mysteries of Hector Chadwick, by Hector Chadwick.

Around now is when I would typically say "I'm not really into Mentalism," but let's face it, I've bought enough books and tricks on the topic that it's safe to say that it's worth studying. Yeah, I don't do much with it, that's true. That doesn't change the theory and psychology aspects of it though. There are really good presentations, equivoque styles, and ways to force things that you just can't get from a standard card-sleight book.

Ah, but yeah, back to Hector Chadwick. This book is the new and improved version of The Mental Mysteries of Hector Chadwick that was released back in 2008. I saw an ad for it and didn't realize it was a reprint at first, I had only skimmed the online description of it and hit that "order" button. That wouldn't have changed my mind though, or maybe it would've made me want it more. Not sure...

Never having read the original, I can't say for certain whether this reprint is that much better or not. The online description says that it has 50 additional pages and a couple of new routines, so perhaps that's worth it. I have half-a-dozen other books in my queue right now (more than that, if I'm counting accurately), and hardly time to even skim through it so it'll be a hot minute before I can say for sure. That might be a good sign to slow down on book purchases... though, I'll never know for sure =P

Stay tuned for the next iteration of Monday Mail Call, there's a lot more to come! A lot more decks coming up -- you won't want to miss them =]

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.

In my area, which is a decently large town, a suburb of Richmond, VA, we don't have any magic shops. In fact, the closest one I can find used to be hours away in Washington, D.C., but it recently closed. I'm sure there are others, but my Google-fu is apparently lacking because I'm coming up with none.

When I used to live in New York City, it was easy to find another magician to chat and jam with in person -- I'd just go up to Tannen's and I'd be able to hang out all day and meet so many folks. Of course, that was towards the end of when I lived there so I only did it a couple of times. I was that strange new guy that's just hanging out in the shop all day, looking for acceptance in the generally closed-off club. I don't think I really gained it at the time.

Down here though, there isn't a magic shop to hang out at. I think we have like, one local magician that does parties and events because I've seen him at several venues. I went to talk to him at the last one but by the time I got over to him he had a crowd and the next time I tried he had already left. Jeez it's hard to meet magician friends =P

On the contrary though, I've been able to meet, and frequently talk with, other magicians on Instagram and the half-dozen magic Discord servers I'm in though. It's pretty cool, in its own way, because I have the ability to talk with these folks from across the globe and we can just chat, or even hop on a virtual call and jam. But even with all of that, it's not the same as sitting at a table with someone in real life.

I plan to go to a conference or two soon, like Blackpool. I almost bought tickets for The Session which is coming up in just a week or two, unfortunately it coincided with work scheduling so I had to pass. I attend conferences for work (engineering) and they're a pretty great way to meet folks and build out that connection list, so I'd like to think that it's the same with magicians. Only time will tell though!

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 want to talk about three books I recently(ish) received. Two of them were sent to me by Denis Behr, another I ordered from Matt Baker.

The two books from Denis are Card Man Stuff and Super Card Man Stuff, both by Al Leech. A little while back, Denis was selling off some of his extensive library from Conjuring Archive and I couldn't help but grab a few -- these two booklets were small enough to fit in with a larger book so I figured why not.

I also had the motive of not having any works by Al Leech in my personal library and wanting to correct that. They're really small booklets, like most of the older ones are, but wow are they packed with good material. Some of the routines I've been practicing for a year or two now, turns out they have foundation right here in these books themselves! I love getting books from decades ago to learn that things people are putting out today were already created.

The third book that's sitting on my desk and bookmarked about half-way through already is The Buena Vista Shuffle Club. This book is my introduction to Matt Baker's work and so far, I am not disappointed. The intro alone was great, it vibes succinctly with my personality. And then, he split his personality into several fictional characters. I was really curious how that would play out in the book, but it's really clever how he did it. As a little spoiler alert, after Matt finishes describing how to perform a routine, the members of the Shuffle Club get together and jam together and talk about it. Each one offers different ideas about how to modify the routine, either by using a marked deck, shuffled deck in use, or just different handlings. Now I just need to bump up my memdeck work and I'll be able to use the book! =P

Three books, ya gotta love it! What's nice in this case is two of them are smaller so it's easier to skim through and pick out the things that are of interest and come back to them. And then, the larger book, it's well written and a plain good read. All in all, they make for a really good week!

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.

I've got a short one for you today, just a quick introduction of Tutorial Tuesday -- a new thing I'm going to try to do over on my Instagram account (@gbabbits).

The idea is simple. On Tuesday, I will post a video tutorial to Instagram. Yup, that's about it.

"But wait, Geoff. Why Instagram? Why not YouTube? Or, here on this website?"

I'm glad you asked. The tutorials I plan to post there will be short-form and quick, typically using IG's Reels format. As of right now, the maximum time a Reel can be is 90 seconds, but I plan to have my tutorials under a minute -- hopefully 30 seconds or less, if possible.

I guess now's a good time as any to write out my goals for each tutorial too:

• Short!
  • As mentioned above, aiming for 30 seconds or less (but not a hard rule)
    
    
• No voice needed.
  • Not because I don't want to talk, but because I want it to be visual.
    
    
• Non-magic.
  • "What?!" -- yeah, I'm thinking of just flourishes. Deck flips. One-handed cuts. LePaul Spreads. That kind of stuff.

I think that's about it really. A lot of comments I receive on regular magic videos are often about the flourishes themselves, and only other magicians comment about the actual sleights. They know the sleights though, so I guess my real audience is the community that wants to be entertained. I'll keep posting magic performances, and photography -- but Tuesdays I'll put up a nice little how-to video.

I was thinking that if it works out, i.e. people enjoy it, I'll carry the idea over here and will do a similar tutorial feature on the site -- except here, I'll teach magic and not flourishes. If you're interested in the idea, or have tutorial requests, I'm all ears =]

This past Tuesday was my first "tutorial", you can check it out here:

Also, I just added the ability to embed Instagram posts on the site! Yay, technology =P

I'm hijacking today's normal Monday Mail Call post for a random thought or two that are top of mind lately. These are pretty unformulated and rough, but I think that writing them out will help me reach a little clarity on my side. Or, at least, will stop them from being the "song that's stuck in my head" so I can move on to better thoughts like what excuse can I come up with to not go outside today.

I'd also like to prefix this with, if you have any feedback or suggestions on these topics (or anything else even), please feel free to reach out on the Contact page =]

I've been thinking a lot about the magic I study and practice, what I perform, and what I record to post to Instagram and how they differ. 

While everything that I study is card-magic focused, I do read a decent amount of theory too. And, I've started picking up a few mentalism pieces here and there. I don't plan to do much in terms of mentalism... or maybe I will, I don't know. I like the concepts though, there's a good deal of theory and psychology behind it that can apply to non-mentalism based magic too. Like card forces. Or how to do a card (or multi-card) reveal through performance. Or predictions. So many good applications.

Ah yes, but then let's talk about what I actually perform. If a given book has 20 routines and I like 5 of them (I haven't counted, but this sounds like the right average), I'll practice those 5. I'll re-read them, and practice them. I'll try to think of different outs and alternate handlings. Maybe even different presentation patter. And then I move on to the next book (or video).

Yeah... I don't really perform anything. And that's not cool.

I'm not the person who's going to go out to the mall and try to stop folks walking by. I'm also not going to sit at a café and hope that people see my deck of cards and ask if they can pick one. I do, however, show my family every once in a while; or friends when they ask. Albeit, these are few and far between performances. So few, in fact, the average number of routines I perform from a given book is 0. However, I know why.

And that brings me to Instagram -- or, simply "social media magic".

I've joined the IG community around card magic and am pretty active. I watch others' videos and comment and provide feedback via direct messages, and I post videos pretty consistently too. A lot of routines I either make up, or they're the ones from the books and videos I've recently learned from -- sometimes, modified to be better suited for an IG video that features only me and no spectator.

Therein lies the problem. I've spent so much time and effort trying to making routines better for social media, for other magicians to consume, that I've skipped over the entire reason I study and practice magic... to perform for other people and see their reactions.

To this end, I've been thinking of changing how and what I post on Instagram to be more entertainment related -- to highlight the cards themselves -- and less "check out this routine I've been working on." After all, I normally do a routine with hard sleights and try to make it look sleight-less. The problem is, since the sleight is invisible nobody really knows that I did it. So what's the point of filming a single routine take-after-take for an hour, only to be able to produce the exact same video in 2 minutes using a duplicate card?

Dunno, we'll see.

I back a lot of Kickstarter campaigns that feature playing cards (and other things too, but mostly playing cards), and I also have a few deck subscriptions and succumb to the occasional "I really want this new release" craving.

There are a lot of them. I've spent way too much money in the past two years on cards... we're talking thousands of dollars. I stand by my statement that I open every deck too, but the problem is is that I have too many to open. I'm not going to open them "just to open them". I want to use them and play with them. I would also love to be able to take pictures with them (if not record with them). But time is an issue...

Also, the quality of card designs haven't been the greatest lately. I really, really love the KWP company and want to support them so they keep making awesome products, but last year's Standards subscription and this year's Table Players has really fallen short of my expectations. The stock they use is fine, but the designs have not been worth the cost. I also, again, open the decks so there is no resale value for them -- especially since KWP offers them to the public a month or two after they're released for members.

And Kickstarter campaigns, jeez. It's like there are two or three new ones every week. Some of the designs look amazing, others not so much. The price variations are really big too. Sometimes you'll see a single deck reward set at $12, other times it's $15 or $16... same card stock and finish, just a different design. I've seen the quote prices from USPCC and EPCC... a deck shouldn't cost $16. But hey, maybe they're hoping to make a profit from the Kickstarter and have plenty of merchandise leftover for future sales too.

I've had "Superbacker" status for a long time now, but I'm going to be scaling back how many card campaigns I support so I might be losing it this year. We'll see though, there are other things I support too =]

The moral of all of this is, I spend too much money on playing cards and have saturated my interest. Unless a new NOC deck comes out, I might not be buying many for a while.

And to wrap things up, something completely unrelated but I saw the new Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness movie in the theater this past weekend. I've always been a big fan of the MCU's Dr. Strange. I haven't ever read the comics so I don't know a lot (or any) of what his story is supposed to be but I really don't like how this one turned out.

I did know a lot about Scarlet Witch (I've always been an X-Men fan), so I was actually pleased to see Wanda take on those qualities. It did suck though because we've grown to like her as Wanda, and now, well, yeah. I won't give away any spoilers here, other than this movie has a lot of jump-scare scenes in it, which is very unusual for a Marvel movie.

The magic, or sorcery, throughout it is on-par for what was expected, but there were a lot of wtf moment. Like the bull-man creature guy... they never explained that. Did I miss something?!