Here at magicireland.com we have been huge fans of the material by James Brown ever since ‘Still Fancy a Pot of Jam’ first came to our attention a few years ago. In case any of you have not come across his stuff before, it’s generally very very workable magic, it relies very heavilly on misdirection rather than on knuckle busting moves (Although you will need to know how to do things like cull, side steal and palm, so it’s not quite for the beginner). If you still don’t have ‘Still Fancy a Pot of Jam’, you should certainly pick it up. You won’t be disapointed.

But that aside, James has recently released his newest set of lecture notes, with the less imaginitive title of ‘Stuff’. Luckilly the bland title belies the content, which is exactly the kind of material we have grown to expect by James. Boatloads of misdirection (You really do need balls to pull alot of this off), a fondness of the side steal (and this time the cull!), and very very workable.

My only complaint at this stage, is the combination of the white handwriting style font with the wood grain style background is quite difficult to read off a computer monitor, but James is certainly not the first magician to do something like this (Seriously folks! Pay a couple of quid to get someone who has a little bit of experience in these kind of things to do it for you! Hell, send us an e-mail and we will give you some tips on useability..

And now for a breakdown:

TOCTP

A psychologically deceptive, double hitting, thought of card to pocket.

Very nice, what is a genuinely thought of card by one spectator is shown to be the card you placed in there a few moments before. The patter covers all the dirty work and it is one of the easier technically effects.

Caught 3 Times

3 spectators cards appear one at a time between two face up cards within the deck. Each time the spectator is holding the cards and letting their imaginations run wild!

An awesome seeming sandwich effect. I haven’t got round to anything more than preliminary fiddling and it is quite knuckle busting. Lot of spread culling. If you are technically able to perform it, then it looks like the kind of effect you will get great reactions from!

Brainless Travelers

A reworking of the classic effect from Still Fancy a Pot of Jam? High impact magic for the confident performer.

Same effect as on his DVD, there may be some subtle changes to it but nothing jumped out at me. Still a lovely gimmick free travelers routine, nothing too technical and the ’sleight’ is a pleasure to do, brass balls optional but advised.

Ahead and Under

Four of a kind instantly vanish from the deck and reappear ANYWHERE!!

A nice magician fooling routine. As a performance for lay people it is unnecessary and far from the cleanest way to achieve a card under something effect. Essentially this is what you pull on magicians and those friends who just burn your hands. Basically this will drop kick them in the nuts as they will not have a clue.

Triple Whack

What Harris would have done if steroids were legal!

I like this a lot. Once again spread culling makes an appearance. I don’t want to say too much as it will hint at the method but there is so much misdirection at one point in this routine strippers could dance in and pick pocket everyone in the audience.

ITHwich

An in the hands sandwich with a hypnotic twist

Billing it as a hypnotic sandwich effect was in my opinion a little silly, it’s an awesome effect and my favourite in the notes. Personally as I do a lot of hypnosis I would lean towards doing the hypnotic presentation but it is very much an option. Do not skip this effect if you can’t hypnotize.

Card on Ceiling

Ever thrown the deck in the air only for the pack to split everywhere? This method not only makes Card on Ceiling flawless but also give a new level of impossibility!

I don’t perform a CTC effect for all the reasons above. This has convinced me it may be worth reconsidering. It improves the effect and makes it tidier.

Anyone who’s read any of my other reviews should know of my distaste for giving complex products a numerical value however this is once again an excellent purchase that I really cannot fault in any way, shape or form.

Stuff is available from James Brown’s website for £7.50 as an ebook.