I'm writing this today to note that I'm branching beyond my normal focus of only card magic into the wild west of coins! I know, I know... I've written a couple of times before (even recently) that I'm branching out beyond cards to other things as well, and I have! But I've always been kind of anti-coin-magic.
It's fun to watch, but really, once you've seen a coin matrix a dozen times, they're all the same. Miser's Dream, coin boxes, vanishes... they're neat, but repetitive. I can't lie though, when I saw Shoot Ogawa a couple years ago at Magifest, and Luis Olmedo on Fool Us (not to mention Ryan Hayashi from several years back), I did get a bit inspired.
But no, those aren't what did it for me for real... it was Paul Harris.
I recently binge-watched the Stars of Magic 3-volume set by Mr. Harris, and in Volume 3 (also referred to as Adventures in Close-Up), he does a monster coin routine featuring:
Silver Slide
Giant Killer Coin
Free Flight
Michael's Proposition
PDQ Coins Across
It's several tricks back-to-back, all put together in... well, a monster coin routine! Just about everything else in all of the other volumes is only card magic -- which is fantastic -- but you can tell that he's pretty "meh" about most of it. But when he gets to this coin routine, it's like watching a different person altogether. Even while he explains the sleights, they're invisible. I know they're happening, but "wait, what?!" was my main reaction.
I have a bunch of half dollars, never purposed for coin magic but I figured why not, so I brought out four of them and gave Silver Slide a try. It requires basic things like a classic palm and a finger palm. I've always practiced classic palms with just about anything I've ever held in my hands, so that one's easy... the finger palm on the other hand, no idea how to actually do that one well. I'm assuming it's a "if you're a magician, you know this" kind of thing because Paul legit just says "hold it in finger palm" and moves on with the explanation.
Anyways, I just brought down Modern Coin Magic from my shelf. I bought it in 2014, and this is the first time I've opened it. Why did I originally buy it? Because I thought it was a necessary thing to include on my "magic shelf"... but that's a stupid thought, if I'm being honest. It was only $7, but back then that could've scored me two drinks at Starbucks. Regardless, at least I don't have to order it now and wait =P
I'm starting from square one here with coin magic, so we'll see how it goes! If you have any beginner references that might be good to know of, let me know!
At the beginning of October, Felix from VULPINE Creations (www.vulpinecreations.com) sent an email out to their mailing list. It was a long one, but here's the line that was most important:
After careful consideration, we've made the difficult decision to close VULPINE Creations by the end of this year.
We're in mid-November now, so that's about a month and a half left. No exact date was given, but "by the end of this year" is specific enough to give a cut-off.
They gave a coupon code of #THANKYOU2024 that provides 70% off your entire cart! I don't know if the code is still active, but I jumped on that one in a heartbeat and finally grabbed Amazing Coffee Cups and Beans, a trick that I've drooled over since I saw it released (but $250 was way too much for my wallet). I also tossed in Conjuring Cards and Gaff Lighter Project, the latter of which is already sold out.
My package arrived, I think it was maybe a week ago now? I still haven't taken the coffee cups out of the packaging yet, but I've been all over the Gaff Lighter Project. If you're not familiar with it, it's basically a "color changing knives" routine, but with lighters. I don't do any knife work, but I've always understood the basic principal -- which I've called the "paddle principal" (I'm sure it has a more technical or magician name, but that's what I go with =P).
I also don't do work with lighters... however, I have a few tricks where I used matches, and two voodoo-themed tricks where I do actually need to use a lighter to light something on fire, so I think that this is a good extension to those.
Anyways, I just wanted to help spread the word that VULPINE Creations is shutting down. I'm not sure why, I didn't ask; but grab it while it's hot folks! Or... while it's available, at least.
The other day, I finally sat down to read Pure Effect, by Derren Brown. I'm not terribly far into the book yet, maybe 40 or 50 pages, so I don't have a full review or anything -- I can only say that, so far, I love the book. Is it worth the prices I'm seeing on eBay, as a hobbyist? No. No book should cost that much. Is it a great book that I think should be reprinted for more people to have access to? Yes!
Anyways, that's not what I'm writing about, I'm actually writing about his approach to the Out of this World trick. Or, rather, how reading his approach to it inspired me to start doing the trick again. The timing was very coincidental as I had just attended a magic show that's finale contained a really great "call a random person on the phone" version of Out of this World. I won't tell you which magic show this was, just in case you're planning on attending yourself. Although, I have read some reviews of magic shows from other blogs, newsletters, and magazines that give a rundown of the tricks that were performed, so maybe in a future post (no promises though).
So yeah, Out of this World. I wrote a few random thoughts about the trick a couple years ago and did end up buying the book Best of all Worlds, which happens to be a great anthology of the trick. I still haven't performed the trick all that much though since the few times I have, the reactions have never been anything special. However, given my two recent reintroductions to it, I'm pretty sure the reactions have been because of my presentation.
Truth be told, I'm not sure what version of the trick I performed. I think it's the original by Paul Curry, though I honestly don't remember where I learned the trick from originally, or if I'm even performing it the way I learned it... which could be an indication as to why I'm getting lackluster reactions 😂. Derren Brown, at least in Pure Effect, says that he performs Paul Harris's version -- I'm assuming it's Galaxy, originally printed in the Magic Arts Journal, but later reprinted in The Art of Astonishment - Book 3.
In my case, I tell the spectator upfront that we're going to sort the deck by color. In Galaxy, you do too. To me, this introduction needs way more build-up. Saying "we're going to sort the cards", and then you have the spectator pick right or left and bam, the cards are sorted, leaves something to be desired. The spectator never touched the cards. You told them what the ending will be, and it was. To me, it's missing that little "oomf" factor.
The version I saw in performance, the magician didn't say that's what was happening. He only said the cards are being separated right and left. After the two piles were dealt, only then did he mention the concept of sorting by color. And damn was the audience impressed!
I don't know how Derren performs the routine. In Pure Effect, he only describes the psychological influence he uses during his performance so I'm not sure if he tells them upfront that they're sorting by color either. I'm sure that with some performers, or presentations, it wouldn't matter...
That said, I'm staring at a pile of books I took off my shelves and they all have variations of Out of this World. I'm going to skim through a bunch and pick one or two that speak to me, including the impromptu version from the David Blaine Teaches Magic course, which is what got me interested a few years ago too.
It's Monday and you know what that means... Monday Mail Call!
Typically, I would start this type of post off with a call out that I'm featuring packages, purchases, and emails I've received over the past week or so... however, I've been away for several months and a lot of things have sprung up during that time. Today's post is a combination of a Mail Call and Random Musings. You've likely heard of one or two of these (or all), but hopefully something's new!
HACKER Gets an Update
When it was released, I quickly shelled out the cash to grab HACKER because, I mean come on, the effect looks awesome:
A spectator selects a card, a completely free choice -- they can even name their favorite card or anything. You then hold out your phone and before their eyes, your phone starts glitching and all of the wifi networks are replaced with the name of their card. But wait, there's more! They pull out their phone and sure enough, all of the wifi networks available to them are also their card!
Unfortunately, it was a dud on arrival thanks to an update on iOS...
But wait, there's more! =P
HACKER received an update that patched whatever needed to be patched and now the thing works as advertised! Since it's an effect that literally fits into my day job, I'm more than happy with it (^_^).
Pandrea sent an email out on October 4th to subscribers, most likely he posted on Instagram too, but it kicked off with:
BIG NEWS INCOMING...I'm retiring from the playing card industry and I'm starting a new business.
His personal goals and life interests have shifted and his new business is entirely unrelated to playing cards and magic, it's going to be named "Lazy Money Club" and focus on investing topics.
Personally, I saw this one coming since he's been a bit more removed from the scene over the last few years. I know that he had semi-recently renewed "House of Playing Cards", his online store, but yeah. I'll be the first to admit, having kids has a huge ability to change your current life-focus, and I hope that for him, his path forward is awesome!
Magifest is Shaking Things Up
There are two big changes that I've seen the folks over at Vanishing Inc do this year for Magifest, and they're deviating from tradition in the process!
The first is that they're announcing the guest speakers early! Normally they announce them really close to the event itself. Last year, for example, I didn't know the full lineup until a week or two before the conference -- which is a bit crazy since I purchased my tickets several months before it. Or, maybe I was crazy to purchase that far in advance without knowing who was going to be there?
Either way, I think that this move is perfect! First, those of us who are going even if we didn't know who was there will really appreciate knowing that we're getting our money's worth. Second, from a business standpoint, more tickets would be sold -- or not -- if folks knew ahead of time who's there!
The next big shakeup is for the Gala show, which is always the "8pm Saturday" show that has a few performers back-to-back. Last year, we were entertained by Andi Gladwin as the host-turned-comic, and I have to admit, I still remember his unexpectedly good comedy! Well, this year, there won't be a list of performers. There will be only 1!
This one-night-only event is unlike anything else in the nearly 100-year history of Magifest. Instead of a typical gala show format featuring different magicians performing short segments, you'll get to see his incredible full 90-minute show from start to finish.
Vanishing Inc, announcing "Magifest for Humans"
I guess it's a bad time to mention that I'm skipping the conference this year... 😢
Genii Magazine's New Staff & Website
Genii Magazine has been a monthly delivery in my mailbox for years now and, other than a short stint with Dustin Stinett temporarily filling in as editor, that role has been exclusively served by Richard Kaufman. Well, no longer! Kaufman is passing the torch over to Jim Steinmeyer. Oh, and they also have a new Executive Director, Julie Eng!
Back in September, they also announced that their website was getting a nice refresh.
Behind the scenes, we're planning more upgrades. We're working to add new areas like magic news, handy magic listings to let you know who's performing where, convention dates ... the list goes on!
The website is geniimagazine.com, and though I haven't been a big user of their website since it's always just been a stopping-place to renew my subscription for the magazine, I've checked in on it every week or two to see these "updates" and haven't really noticed anything yet. Maybe they're not released all the way, or I'm just not looking in the right place 🤔
Alrighty folks, that's about it for today. This is a lot of news, mostly from my email and I haven't even really talked about the books and tricks I've bought recently!
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.
If you've noticed, I took a small hiatus from just about everything online. First, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who reached out on the blog here, and other forums (IG DMs, YouTube, etc). I was able to get back to some of you, but others were months old and it just feels a bit awkward at this point 😅
I've been here, just... busy. The pro and con of magic being a hobby is that it can get sidelined from time-to-time, and that's what happened here. But hot damn, I'm back (^_^)
This post is more of a personal check-in and update, after this we'll be back on the topic of magic!
2024's Goals Check-In
It's June October, so I thought I'd do a check-in to see how my goals for the year are coming along. Truth-be-told, I set a reminder for myself to do this when I wrote the post that mentioned a few of the things I wanted to focus on... and forgot all about the check-in until the reminder popped up =P
My biggest focus was to be YouTube and video creation. While I did make a couple of videos, it was nowhere near what I had planned. Literally, and figuratively (or... also literally?), I have planned out dozens of videos already. Ideas, scripts, everything! The only thing stopping me is having the time to film them.
Similarly, the plan was to do more with this blog. I love writing, and programming (there's a ton of features of this site that I've built that aren't available for public-use yet), but given this is all a hobby, work and home-life will always take precedence and it just hasn't kept up at the levels that I've wanted it to be.
Not that I need excuses for things, but to help justify being behind in my goals in my own head, towards the end of January I was sick for a few weeks and until the beginning of summer, I was playing "catch-up" in my life. Being out for almost a month from being sick really hurt a lot of things, and I was slow getting back to normal levels, and caught up with other things. However, thankfully, I think I'm finally back on track with everything and all of the pieces are fitting together nicely.
On top of being back on track, "time" just opened up for the next month. It's the perfect little window for me to turn on my camera and get some stuff filmed! If I'm able to capitalize on it and get into a proper rhythm, I should be able to keep the momentum going forward too.
New Home Office!
We've been remodeling our house for the last several months, which also added to delays mentioned above, but the one thing that constantly changes is my home office. I was in one room, then moved to another temporary one. After two months in there, I moved to yet another temporary room that I can only describe as "The Room of Requirement." Believe me, I had the tiniest of paths between boxes and random junk that leads from the door to my desk.
Last weekend, I built a new desk and put it in the next room that will become my office. Luckily, it is going to be the final move and the new one is my new permanent home office. It's much smaller than all of the others that I've had, and I'll be (hopefully temporarily) sharing the space with a treadmill, but it has built-in bookshelves that I can't wait to load up with my magic books!
I'm really excited to get it all setup, not just because I want to be finished moving things around, but because I think that once I have a nice space that makes all of my magic more easily accessible, it's going to go a long way towards inspiration.
