I don't know if you're a follower of Lost Art Magic or not, but they're closing down their shop. I say "they," but as far as I know it's only Xavior Spade. The video (below) goes into more detail about who all is, or was, involved with the creation of the company though, so there are others =]

I've bought a few videos from that site over the years, my biggest complaint has always been that they never allowed downloading of them -- but hey, as an engineer by trade, this took all of 2 minutes to circumvent so it is what it is. Now that they're closing, it's time to revisit their shop to see if anything's worth grabbing last minute too.

Xavior's point, or reasoning, for shutting down the site is that it hasn't been putting out anything new lately, and the world itself has changed and it's time for him to change up some stuff too. If you're interested in his whole speech, check it out here:

He's keeping things up -- and for sale -- through the end of the month. I'm not sure how long the site itself will be up after that, but I'll need to update the few links I've put on this site to reflect.

Hey, did you know Ellusionist just created a blog?! Vanishing Inc has had a blog for quite a while, but E has always had their Discord group so I figured it balanced out, but nah. They were bound to cross that line eventually.

The blog itself isn't hosted on E's main website, it's some other hosting called "substack" (never heard of them until now). They don't link to their blog from their main website either, I've only seen it via their Instagram (@ellusionist). It's new so maybe they're testing the waters a bit.

At the time of this writing, they only have two posts up, The Bell Curve of Learning Magic, and Everything Wrong with the Online Magic Community.

The Bell Curve, I get the point it's conveying, but I do disagree with it. My explanation will take longer than a quick musing though, so I'll save that reply for another day. The other post though, about the toxicity of the online magic community... that's an interesting one.

For the most part, my interaction with the online magic community is on Instagram. And other than the occasional "flash" comment I see on a post here or there, or just about anything posted to Calen Morelli's story, I don't see toxicity. Sure, I have a smaller field of view than a large account like Ellusionist, but I'd like to think that I look at a lot. However, the list of things that E sees, according to the post, relates to product reviews, forum posts, and YouTube rants. Ah... yeah, I'm not in any of those places.

I don't watch random YouTube videos. It's just not my thing. When I hit the tube, I'm typically there for a reason. And I rarely, if ever, read the comments. I gave up on that a decade ago.

Also, ever since I started seeing hilarious, but clearly fake, Amazon reviews years ago I stopped trusting online reviews in general. Sometimes I'll take a look, but if it comes down to a gimmick, I'll actually try to find someone that has it and talk to them first. Why spend $300 on coffee cups & balls beans if I don't know what the quality's really like, amirite?

I do have an account on The Magic Cafe, but it's not really my scene. There's a lot of historical data there, which is awesome. However, it's a dated platform that feels like it's run by a very tight group of over-controlling old dudes that don't want to be more fun, lest they let in the riffraff. But that's just my first impression. I would rant about it, but I don't have a YouTube channel... yet.

I had lunch yesterday with two coworkers who are also magicians. One guy has been doing card magic for over 20 years, and the other girl does sponge balls and coins. I was hanging out with the guy first, for maybe 25 minutes or so. We were talking about forces -- something I'm still learning a lot about, and nervous to perform.

My big worry, as I was explaining to him, is that when the time comes to perform a trick where I need to force a card and it misses, I have to come up with another routine. This isn't a huge problem given I know plenty, but I don't perform often so when I want to do a specific trick -- that is the trick I want to do. Stubborn, I know =P

He passed on information that he learned over the years when it comes to forcing a card, which really applies to that though. He said:

I feel like I should have read this somewhere else before. But for the life of me, it's a new concept. My thoughts have always been "always try to force a card, even if you don't need it -- to build up confidence and practice," and "have an out-routine ready if the force doesn't work." But this new idea flips the 2nd thought there. There's no longer an "out," but instead you're always doing what you intended, and you have an opportunity to mix it up, if desired.

I like that =]

And then later on, I was showing a few routines to the girl and I went to force the seventh card (if you know, you know) ... and it missed. lol

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!

For full transparency, it's actually Sunday right now while I'm writing this. I have a fresh cup of coffee next to me and a pile of decks on my desk. There's normally a pile of decks there, but this pile is the haul that came in this past week! I don't remember the exact order they arrived so I'm going to give them to you in an arbitrary order, based on how they're stacked on my desk.

Up first, the 1ST Holo Gilded deck by 1ST Playing Cards! When Chris Ramsay announced this one was coming out, I thought to myself "oh nice, not for me though thanks." And so when it came out, I jumped on it in the first few minutes and copped one. Ugh.

I'm not a big fan of gilded decks. They look nice and shiny, sure. But where's the practicality of them? I'm not a collector, per say, and I want to use all my decks. Gilded decks just don't handle well, and you should see the faces you get from other magicians when you try to do a faro with one!

That all aside, the 1ST Holo deck's gilding is silver and really matches the vibe of the deck. It handles unbelievably well too -- right out of the box! Given the light color of the edging, it's kind of hard to tell it's gilded unless the deck's square too. For $30 a deck, I'm not lying when I say that I have buyer's remorse. But hey, it comes with the territory, right?

Speaking of the feelings you get as a purveyor of playing cards, I received April's mystery deck from Ellusionist. What did I get when I opened the box? Republic No. 3, Lost Angelus Edition playing cards! The deck is the brain-child between Ellusionist and Jeremy Griffith (aka, @lost_angelus) and it features a green patterned borderless back.

I'm not a huge fan of borderless decks, their busy designs often hurt my eyes. This deck, however, I wanted. I looked for it last year in a few places, but I only found aftermarket sellers trying to get $50+ for it. I didn't want it that bad. When it showed up as the mystery deck that I paid only $10 for though, I was quite happy. Ellusionist just made a mystery-deck subscriber out of me for sure!

Next up, two subscription decks from Kings Wild Project. We have this month's Table Players, and would you look at that, The Iliad has made its appearance!

The two arrived together and are starkly different in every detail. This month's Table Players is in a bright, bright yellow tuck. Not quite neon, but brighter than a banana. The Iliad is in an intricately designed tuck. I actually get Latin American vibes from the tuck design itself but the name throws me to Greek origins, so we'll see what it holds inside.

Last up, and this deck actually came in yesterday, is the latest from Organic Playing Cards -- the Far-Os deck! It's chock-full-o' whole grain and gluten-free playing cards. I don't know why, but I really love the tuck designs that mimic food packaging. It's a bad habit, but I'm pretty sure I'd buy any of them that I see. I'm really glad that OPC went with a "plain" cereal design and not one of the crazier and more colorful ones too. Using a Cheerio style cereal let them really not over-power the design itself.

The only problem with decks from OPC is that being on Instagram all the time, I am blasted with their decks appearing left and right. Especially when a new one's coming out. When I first saw this one announced, I had a great photo idea of putting them in a real bowl of cereal -- I'm sure I wasn't the only one. And then, sure enough, photos started coming out with the cards in bowls! And this was before people even received theirs.

OPC, sponsor me! =P

Oh wait, there was one more item that landed in my inbox this week. Today, no less! The Hermit's May 2022 issue! I've downloaded it and scrolled through, but I haven't really looked at much. I like the cover design and layout of it (as I've said before), and with names like Giacomo Bertini, Mystic Slybaba, and Jay Sankey (to name only a few) I'm certain there's good stuff in this issue.

Unfortunately, I don't have time today to read it but I will throughout the week. After I've given it a good run-through, I'll be sure to highlight my thoughts so if you're curious, keep an eye out.

Well, I have to go organize a bunch of decks now. Seriously though, 5 new decks in one week. Who has time for all of this?!

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 won the latest Kings Wild Project giveaway! They are running a pretty huge Kickstarter campaign right now, The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring, that was not only fully-funded on day #1 but is currently sitting just $1000-shy of $300k... the campaign's goal, for perspective, is $20k.

The deck is very artsy, which is true to KWP's style. Some of their decks it's a bit much, if we're being honest. In those times though, normally the tuck case knocks it out of the park and it's a "I need this deck" kind of situation. The Lord of the Rings playing cards though, wow!

I don't want to spend all your time summarizing the campaign, but I want to highlight the three different decks. They have the standard deck. The gilded deck. And the Legacy deck. Each of the three have the same design, front-and-back. Gilded is, well, gilded. But Legacy is where it gets fun.

The Legacy deck comes in an amazing looking black tuck. That black tuck comes in a wooden slip case with a silver coin mounted on it! Holy smokes, I want this thing a lot! Except... it's $200. I'm sorry LOTR and KWP, I can't swing that no matter how much I really love the look of it.

But wait! Let's circle back to the "I won the giveaway" note that I started with... what is actually being given away?

Yeah, you read that right! The winners of the giveaway (there were two) each get a Gandalf Tier from the Kickstarter campaign. That's a full brick of the standard decks. 2 gilded decks. And not one, but 2 of the Legacy ones!!! I'm still super excited about this, you have no idea.

The campaign itself still has 22 days left until it ends, so production likely won't start for a month or two (or longer) after that. I'll likely see the giveaway prize in the Fall, my guess is October or November. We'll see though.

Oh, and in the time it took me to write all of the above, the campaign is now just over $305k! Hot damn.

On another note, completely related to the above, I also won a giveaway in the beginning of March from Organic Playing Cards. That giveaway was for one of their new Exotic v2 decks!

Normally, to get one of their Exotic decks, you have to complete their "Passport" book. Each new deck release that they do, if you buy it directly from them, you'll receive a little holo sticker. That sticker goes into your little passport book and when you collect 6 unique stickers, you mail it to them and they send you an Exotic deck. Alternatively, there's always eBay.

But yeah, in March I was sitting on a passport with 5 stickers -- I was excited because their latest deck was arriving any day and I'd complete my passport and finally get an Exotic deck. And then I won the giveaway!!! This was awesome news because it meant I would be able to get both v1 and v2 decks!

The good news is, I did complete my passport and I mailed it in. The bad news is, I still haven't received my giveaway prize.

It's been a little over a month and a half and still nada. I reached out to them just in case they sent it and it was lost in the mail or something, but their response was that it'll come soon, they ship them all out at once a little later after the release. So, we'll see.

Honestly, it's a free deck that I won because I shared their post to my IG story. I'm not that worried about not getting it. Will I show them some extra love if I do get it? Of course! Will I call them out if they never send it to me? Probably not. They've been really good about giveaways in the past, so to me this would be a one-off thing.

Which brings me to a point. People get so worked up over giveaways and "not getting their free sh*t" and it just seems silly to me. You literally did nothing to earn or deserve "the thing" and you're flipping out because someone else isn't giving it to you. Chill out and shuffle some cards.

I started watching a Masterclass / Lecture with David Regal during my lunch breaks this week. I'm 3 hours in so far, which is I think halfway, and though he hasn't shown many tricks or routines, he has given a lot of great info.

Not sure why I started leading the conversation that way though, I actually wanted to talk about one of the tricks he showed. It's not a card trick, and in fact it's with a simple brown paper bag. Like one of those ones you'd carry lunch in, if you didn't have a lunch box and you're too proud to just reuse a plastic grocery bag.

He had one of those little wooden puzzle toys, all split into pieces on the table in front of him. He dropped them all into the paper bag and gave it a shake, then dumped out the contents and bam - the puzzle was completely put together!

Was the ending expected? Of course! I've seen enough magic to know that when you put pieces of something into a bag, they are all back together when they come out of the bag. That, or a Rubik's cube solves itself. However, did I know how it was possible for this to happen? Not at all!

You see, the convincer here was how the paper bag started. It was completely folded. It was flat. There was nothing in it.

He didn't start with a completely open bag and just showed the inside at an angle. No, the bag was flat, and he unfolded it in front of us. He dropped in the pieces and shake, shake, shake -- out comes a solid block. The hell?!

I immediately jumped to a routine I want to do with this concept. What I'm thinking is, I unfold the paper bag and drop in 52 loose playing cards. Then drop in an empty tuck case. Then the torn-up cellophane wrapper. Shake, shake, shake -- out comes a completely wrapped and sealed deck, in new-deck order! Or, better yet, in a perfect stack order so it appears shuffled already. Now I just need to go the store to get some bags. And rubber cement.

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!

If you saw my post from last week, you'll know I had gripes with getting the April edition of Genii a few weeks late. Well, subscribers just received an email that May's issue will be late too due to staffing and a dead computer. Staffing shortages I can understand... but a single dead computer? I would love to hear more about this story!

For things that did arrive on time though, wow do they tip the scales.

First up, The Books of Wonder Volume 1 and Volume 2! This set is yet another example of however deeply immersed I seem to become in the world of magic, the deeper the field seems to go. I've never heard of Tommy Wonder, and yet when these books came across my list and I did a little research, the guy's absolutely everywhere and everyone seems to love his work.

I've only opened the wrapping of Volume 1 so far and thumbed through it, it looks amazing so far. Dense, and full of at least a few very tedious-to-prepare routines, but amazing. I'm still in the process of reading a few other books at this exact time, and I have one or two more in my queue to read so these will have to join in the line, but I'm excited to see what wonder they bring.

Next up is a book that fell into my lap. Rather, I came across it by pure happenstance -- if it fell into my lap, I'm certain it would hurt. Harry Lorayne's Apocalypse Vol. 4!

A coworker was sitting on two of these and asked our magic group if anyone was interested. At first, I wasn't because I have a decent number of individual issues of Apocalypse. And then I brought out the binder that's full of them and noticed that I don't have any from Volume 4! And so, for only the cost of shipping, I now own this incredibly heavy tome. I'm not going to lie but I may have skipped a little of my reading queue to flip through this for an afternoon. Hot damn, it has some treasure let me tell you!

This isn't going to be the kind of book I read cover-to-cover though. I'm going to skim it and flag card sleights and effects for quick reference, but overall, I think that's what it will become -- a reference book. And honestly, that's just fine!

Then again, there's so much content here from so many different magicians that it might be worthwhile to do a review and/or performance of each. Or at least, individual pieces that are interesting looking. I'll have to think about that...

Books! 3 new books, can you believe it?! They weigh a ton, but the info inside of them is even heavier! In a good way, of course.

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.

This past weekend as I was reading the latest issue of Genii, I learned of a new routine that, if it works, could be mind-blowing! Interestingly enough, I've already learned of the routine. A few times, in fact.

The routine, to kill the suspense, is Dai Vernon's Five Card Mental Force.

In Genii, the story was given as to how Jason England met a person who he had shown a trick to many years before. The person was still impressed to-this-day that just by thinking of a card, Jason was able to know what the card was, so confirming that he still knew what the card was Jason had him focus on it ... and bam! He guessed it right, after all these years!

Now that is an effect worth owning.

Luckily for me, because reading the description and hearing that it was the "four of hearts" didn't register, the article tipped that it was The Five Card Mental Force. Knowing this, I did a quick search to see what book it would appear in. One of the top results, and nearby on a shelf, was Expert Card Technique.

Flipping to page 271 I was presented with the short and apt description of Dai Vernon's Mental Force. Shortening the title is definitely one way to make it more difficult to find =P

Sounds easy enough. And then, equivoque. Bam! You know what card they are thinking of. The trick itself is purely psychological, but you do have to help force it along. Not by pointing to the card to select, but by buying time.

"Buying time?! Why, whatever do you mean?"

I'm glad you asked. In this trick, you want the spectator to have time to think about the different cards. They know that you're going to guess what card they're thinking of, so they need a moment to think about the cards in front of them. Is the Ace too common? There's only a single black card... oh, and only a single face card. Hmm... what to pick, what to pick.

I was interested in a little more information about this routine, so I hopped into other books that I know have forces and psychology. And that brings me to Encyclopedia of Impromptu Card Forces. Tucked away on page 137, in the chapter of Probability Forces, without a section title, is an even smaller description of the routine. It starts with:

Okay, cool, so I notice a theme. There's a court card, an Ace, a single black card. Then, a high-value spot card and a lower-value spot card. The book then goes on to confirm this with:

However, and this is what I was really after, was the different explanations regarding why a person would be more likely to pick the 4 than the 9. In Expert Card Technique, it's said that people tend to avoid selecting the 9 because it's associated with bad luck. I... didn't know that. I've looked it up though and sure enough, The Curse of Scotland is real!

Bollocks, I say. I've never even been to Scotland. Even if I do perform for a Scot, should I expect them to be superstitious too? I don't know, that's a lot of chance to split a choice 50/50 on. But, Encyclopedia of Impromptu Card Forces gives a more modern explanation in that the 4 is humble, low-scoring, and less prominent than the 9. It's almost like we're forcing the spectator to select it.

Positional Force Addendum

In Encyclopedia of Impromptu Card Forces, still in the Probability Forces section and a routine or two after the original Five Card Mental Force description is another trick. It's almost the same trick, but with a little extra umph added to it. Or, rather, a little extra force-goodness. But it's still the same trick.

By leveraging a positional force along with the psychological force, we can double-load to help increase the chances of success. In other words, by completely ignoring the "they can be scattered about in no particular order" directive we received originally and laying them down in a very specific order, we can make it even-more certain they'll select our card.

The suggested order is QD, 4H, AD, 7S, 9H

Woody Aragón, you got me

On the cover of A Book in English, Woody is holding a fan of 5 cards. You already know where this is going if you read anything above. When I got A Book in English though, I didn't. It was my original introduction to this routine.

5 cards, in a fan.

I thought of a card and flipped to page 3. Page 3 makes sure I've thought of one, before I continue to the next page.

Now we see Aragón shuffling them and trying to pick one out. Clever man.

Woody holds up one card, with the back facing us, and shows the other 4 cards and says he removed our card! Whoa, my card's not there... wait just a minute -- those 4 cards aren't the original ones! Ah, you sly guy, you almost had me. I know that routine!

Smiling smugly, I turn the page once more and as if he's holding up a "lol, got ya!" sign, there's Woody holding up the 4H -- the card I thought of -- saying "no seriously, I removed your card".

You got me in layers, and I applaud you!

For real though, when I first saw this cover and page-after-page routine I jumped through the book to find it. As far as I could tell, through all my skimming, he never describes the effect or even mentions the reference. It was a harsh blow to get presented with this amazing effect -- in a magic book -- and not receive any information about it. From another angle though, perhaps I'm the one that's been "under a rock" and everyone else knows this routine already?

What I do want to point out is that the order of the cards in his fan are also different from the others. His is setup as: 7S, 9D, AH, 4H, KD

Takeaways

I really, really want this trick in my repertoire. I've tried performing it twice already using the Expert Card Technique explanation and, unfortunately, each time the 9D was selected and not the 4H. Bollocks.

I'm going to keep it though and give it a few more trials before giving up on it. Fortunately, it's a quick routine and it has to do with "mind reading" so if you miss, it's easy enough to say "and that's why I've never won the lottery" and move on.