In this current time of youtube magic, there seems to be a demand for ‘Instant Gratification’. People don’t want to learn magic, they want to be able to do it.

This is bad.

People want to skip the foundations, people want to be able to watch a video on youtube and show it to all their friends a few minutes later. This harms our art.

When you go out and preform tricks to the public when you are not ready, you give magicians in general a bad name. I am nearly willing to bet that almost every person here who preforms regularly has met people who dislike magic simply because they have only ever been exposed to bad magic.

So this post is for all the people who want to get started in magic the right way. The way that builds a solid foundation in the art that will allow you to properly develop as a skilled preformer.

Please note, I have tried to provide the ISBN-13 below where I could, but at times I could only find the ISBN-10. Book shops should support both anyway.

Where do I begin?
Every one has to start somewhere, and the best place to start is probably with something that gives you a bit of variety. It can be intimidating to be faced with something like Card College, or Modern Coin Magic when you don’t have the experience behind you to appreciate it. So here are some books that I would recomend picking up. Most of the books here can probably be ordered direct from your local bookshop.

Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic : ISBN 978-0894716232
The Art of Magic & Sleight of Hand, Nick Einhorn : ISBN 978-0754810926

Where do I go from here?
Once you have had your good solid introduction to magic, it is generally time to focus on one area at a time. Magic has a really broad spectrum. There is an awful lot of different skill sets out there. From cards, to coins, to sponge magic, to stage magic, it can be quite intimidating. Most of the books that are seen as ‘classics’ focus on one specific area. Most magicians typicially find a ‘favorite’ type of effect quickly, so hopefully you should not have too much difficulty deciding where to move on to next.

Card Magic
The Royal Road is recognised amongst most magicians as the book that every card magician should start with. I agree to some extent, but in my opinion you would be better off with Card College. It is much more detailed and easier to understand. But it is also much more expensive. The Royal Road will probably set you back ten or fifteen quid, where as a complete set of Card College will probably hit you for the tune of 130-200 USD.

The Royal Road to Card Magic : ISBN 978-1406793918

Card College (5 Volume Set)
Vol 1 : ISBN 978-0945296188
Vol 2 : ISBN 978-0945296157
Vol 3 : ISBN 978-0945296225
Vol 4 : ISBN 0-945296-33-9
Vol 5 : ISBN 978-0945296447

Coins
There is probably only one book that most people will recomend when it comes to coins, and that is Modern Coin Magic. While there is a huge ammount of material out there that focuses on cards or mentalism alone, coin work seems to lack alot of the specialist work. (Then again, I have never really been into coin magic, so I could very well be wrong). That being said, on most ‘Lecture’ style DVDs (Most magic DVDs are in this format) you will find at least a couple of coin effects, so it is important to know the basics.

Modern Coin Magic, J. B. Bobo : ISBN 978-0486242583

Mentalism
Mental magic is quite a different beast to sleight of hand. It generally requires much much stronger preformance skills. Alot of what you do will totally rely on you convincing the spectator. There are very few succesful magicians that have both a strong mentalism act and a strong sleight of hand act. Most seem to choose one or the other. There is really only one book to get you started here though, and it covers pretty much every foundation that you will need. From billet (Small pieces of paper used for predictions) work, to blind folded driving.

13 Steps to Mentalism, Corinda : AISN B000NUJ6AM

Sponge Magic
Sponge magic is a firm favorite both with magicians and spectators. It is very visual, and can be made very entertaining. Steve Dacri has released a great new DVD set called ‘The Sponge Ball Tool Box’ which is a great start. It comes with a DVD, some sponges and some other gimmicks to help improve your routine. I wont provide a link to the product as I don’t want to promote any specific online store. A google search returns plenty of results anyway.

Nick was very clear and a good laugh, and most importantly most of what he thought was entirely useable for a close up magician which is an added bonus, as I’m sure you will agree, a lot of lectures, like a lot of books or DVDs really only contain one or two things you can actually use. As this was one of the last visits on his current tour we also got to see a lot of new stuff that will be in the next tour, but more importantly we also got to see some effects that Nick will be releasing through out the year (And buy them).

The lecture started off with an item that is maybe more suited to stage or parlor than to close up, but it is of course adaptable. The routine involved borrowing 3 finger rings from the audience and went into a multi-phase routine that included vanishing one of the rings, linking the three rings together and then unlinking them. He also discussed a bit of byplay that can be used here including a great little moment where you take a ladies finger ring and make it much bigger. There were also plenty of warnings here about doing magic with peoples belongings.

Some other highlights included:

Nick’s new Coin in Bottle routine:

This was very clever and very entertaining. The routine begins with a production of a small mixer bottle (The bottles they give you mixers in at the bar) and it ends up with a 50p coin inside in the glass bottle (This can easily be done with any coin with just a little work). The routine then ends with the coin being removed and the bottle is vanished. This is a very clever routine, due to the handling and it’s nature, the props are examinable both before and after the effect. To the spectator it is quick, entertaining and astonishing which is what all good effects should be. This routine is not released yet, the DVD is not made yet / Instructions are not written up but I believe he mentioned that it was looking like September. If this goes for anything near the price he was selling the props for on Monday night then pick it up, it’s peanuts!

Nick’s version of Wayne Dobsons ‘Lethal Tender’:

I believe that is the name of the effect anyway, I have not seen the original effect. This is a clever little transposing coins routine involving a Chinese coin, a US half Dollar and a little black coin purse. There is a lot more that can be done with it too. This is also currently un-released so I have not seen the full routine in print, but I can verify that the props are of top notch quality and also useable for a few more effects. This also takes up minimal pocket space so there is no reason that it should not be on your person when table hopping. This was significantly more expensive than the CIB effect, but when you see the props you will know why. This is also brand new; Nick mentioned that he only received the props from the manufacturer at the end of last week.

Nick’s own book test ‘The Daughter of all Book tests’:

I’m not really in the mentalist camp myself, but I understand the workings of a number of book tests that are currently on the market. This one is foolproof. It can be done on any book, ideally pre-prepared but worse case scenario it really only takes you a couple of min to set up a book. It’s cheap as chips as well and very natural throughout. The book is handed to the Spectator while he looks for his word and he is actually given complete free choice of page. There is no reason why (Given the price) that you could not set up multiple books for this and even give a spec free choice of book! The nature of the device allows it to be used for other mind reading routines too.

Other items covered were a card at any number effect, a card production routine, a wonderful way to use a deck of cards for a lead in to a matrix routine (A deck is ribbon spread, turned over and swept up. 4 half dollars are left in it’s place.) a gimmicked (Martini) deck that Nick came up with and more.

In summery, the lecture was interesting, well thought, extremely accessible (Nothing knuckle busting) and completely useable. If you get a chance to check him out please do. You will not be disappointed.

I left with his lecture notes (What was covered in the lecture less the three highlights above which will be marketed separately, and an awful lot more.) and the props for the coin transpo routine. Anyone who picked up the coin transpo effect or the CIB effect were left with the promise that whenever the teaching materials are ready they will be sent on to us. Neither effect is complicated so it’s unlikely that we will completely forget how it works between then and now, and it’s nice to play with exclusive magic =P

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KEITH BARRY
“Extraordinary”

Brand New Show and Live Tour

December ‘07
Available Now

‘Keith Barry Extraordinary’ will be completely different from his last two tours. This show involves more audience participation than ever with the whole audience being involved in some effects. Keith will take the audience on a tour of the imagination which will display the ‘extraordinary’ power of the mind.

Imagine Keith predicting the future with astonishing accuracy, Imagine someone on stage hearing voices inside their head and feeling someone pinch them whilst no-one is near them, Imagine you choosing whether or not to cut off Keith’s hand with a reinforced bear trap, Imagine learning some amazing and fun tricks to try on friends and family, Imagine falling off your seat with laughter and amazement, Imagine seeing some of Keith’s acclaimed tv work live, Imagine an ending so spectacular and so extraordinary you’ll remember it for the rest of your life, Imagine no more - see it for yourself this December at a venue near you!

Keith Barry Live This December @ venue near you. Check http://www.aikenpromotions.com/ or local box offices for details. Tickets are €27.00 on sale now through Ticketmaster and other usual outlets nationwide. Booking Line: 0818 719 390.
Website: http://www.keithbarry.com/

Sat, Dec 1st 2007 8:00 pm INEC
Sun, Dec 2nd 2007 8:00 pm Traveller’s Friend Royal Theatre
Mon, Dec 3rd 2007 8:30 pm Vicar Street
Thu, Dec 6th 2007 8:00 pm University Concert Hall
Sat, Dec 8th 2007 8:00 pm Dean Crowe Theatre & Arts Centre
Mon, Dec 10th 2007 8:30 pm Vicar Street
Thu, Dec 13th 2007 8:00 pm Glór
Sat, Dec 15th 2007 8:00 pm Black Box / Galway Town Hall Theatre

OK, firstly…

I’m Chris Jones, aka seige, and I run a magic shop called NothingUpMySleeve.

It’s not my ‘real’ job… by day, I am a web/graphic designer, and a bit of an entrepreneur. I live in the UK, and am married with no kids or venerial diseases. My wife, Deb, is my long-suffering magic guinea pig, and aside from regular grief about my chaotic opinion of ‘tidiness’, we get along like sparks and gas—I am sure married blokes know exactly what I mean.

I am mid-thirties as of 2007, and aside from being a computer nerd and magic geek, I am actually just a normal bloke—I wake up late, I fart, I shave if I need to, I work, I drink, I fart, I sleep. Nothing unusual. And yes, I have a life outside the internet… you’re not listening here to a spotty sun-deprived keyboard jockey… I am a real human being.

Anyway… as a kind of introduction, I would like to share a tale, and that is, how NOT to approach magic in an informal public house situation. Recently, this happened to me, and what started as a quiet few pints in our local town centre with a few choice tricks rapidly turned out to be a narrowly averted bloodbath. Read on…

Why do we bother… or, ‘I was pretty close to needing an ambulance’
So, it’s a typical Friday. Meet up with a mate, and get a cab into town, leaving our loyal womankind worrying about us—as usual. Armed with nothing more than a wallet full of receipts, a cashpoint card and a deck of cards and a PK ring, I was ready for the usual mind-battering overindulgence that a chap deserves after a hard week of work.

So, several quenching bevvies into the night—around 8.30pm/9pm—we finally break away from the ‘eye candy’ pubs that us thirtysomething blokes love… you know the ones guys… the ones full of young lasses, pissed-up lads and thumping beats. Crap weak lager on tap forces you to buy overpriced bottles, and try as you might to suffer this longer, you need to seek the solice of a quieter gaff with a pool table and a decent pint. And the bloody PK ring is a nightmare, every time you dive in the pocket for change, out comes a lump of coppers stuck to it…

So, into a more refined old-folks establishment… the stench of stale beer which has been stamped into the carpets, the ancient niff of nicotine in the now smoke-free walls, and a blessed selection of real ales on tap… no more ‘kids’ booze, we’re talking of unheard-of 5%-plus brews which you KNOW are going to hurt, but hey… it’s Friday…

Quickly settling into the warm climate of a real fire, sensibly volumed jukebox and proper pork scratchings, we finally sit down and reflect on the night’s events so far. Smalltalk isn’t an option—we’re way past that bollocks… this is manly talk about women in tight jeans, and how the youngsters of today don’t know how lucky they are. And that bloody PK ring is STILL picking up coppers every time I put the hand in my pocket. It’s now a topic of conversation.

Deciding to stay for one more decent beer in our cosy tavern before braving once more the sweat-soaked ferocity of the Friday night battlefields, I shed my jacket and pull out the cards. An old chum joins us for a while, perhaps on a similar journey as ours—making various stops at overcrowded bars on our mission to visit all the ‘old favourites’ and find somewhere to settle for a few after’s before making our separate ways home to our women.

Our chum is on fire with enthusiasm and the latest jokes, which frankly may be new to him—but not to us. He offers a round of drinks, as his glass is out of synch with ours, and with half a pint remaining—we gladly accept. It’s getting cosier and more like home by the minute in here, perhaps we’ll stay a bit longer.

The deck of cards I took from my pocket—for reasons of logistics rather than the offer of a trick or two—are looking dangerously close to being drenched in drips as our chum returns from the bar with three pints of beer. So I grab the deck to rescue it from it’s impending doom. As he deals out the beers—nudging our half-empties aside in the act—he asks the question I’d hoped he wouldn’t… “Oh yeh, do a couple of tricks, my mate don’t believe you’re a proper magician…”

It’s without even a chance to answer that he calls over his buddy… someone we knew of, but didn’t share a mutual amicability with. Matey comes over, reluctantly leaving his conversation at the bar. All of a sudden the warm cosiness of the open fire turns into a rising hot-flush, as I feel the pressure of performing to a non-believer coming on. “A proper magician…” is a bold title for me, as I’m hardly Paul bloody Daniels. In fact, competence wise I’m more a cross between Tommy Cooper and Jeremy Beadle.

So, clutching at straws for a foolproof fooler, I decided on the biddle trick. Matey chose his card, lost it in the deck, and grinned. Now, for those of you in the know, there’s ONE GOLDEN rule to the biddle trick which makes it work. And handing the deck to the spectator to shuffle is practical suicide.

But, if you’re resourceful—as I’ve learned to be—you’ll make sure you have at least one shortened card in your regular deck. Mines simply a card from a Sven deck, and it works just fine. And letting Matey choose his card by means of a riffle meant that forcing him the short card was a doddle. In fact, it was almost embarrasing that he thought he’d made a fair choice as I said ‘put your finger in the cards at any point’. Shameful, on my behalf.

Anyhow… after carefully scrutinising the one card in the whole deck which was physically different, and exclaiming that it was perfectly normal (!!!) he remembered the value. My intuition paid dividends—because predictably, after asking him to place the card in the deck after I’d dribbled about a half, he actually grabbed the lower portion and did exactly that… placing his selection in the centre of the lower portion and squaring it up, before placing it back on my hand.

And then, he said it… four little words which were a red rag to a bull. Four mono-syllables which straight away turn me from Mr Niceguy into Mr Flamer…

“I know this one”.

Yep… he broke the cardinal rule: Do NOT try to outsmart a smartypants. This was really going to be fun.

Without averting my gaze from his now smarmy grin, I asked “So what comes next?”.

And then he waved a second red rag… with brass knobs on…

“What comes next? Well, you were GOING to try and find my card!” came his reply with the smuggest of smug grins. For some reason, I usually find it very difficult to hate someone, but in steps of almost exponental multiplication he’d already dug himself deep into my shit list. And also, he had one of those faces you’d just love to punch.

Now… before we continue, I’d like you to bear in mind the following: Anyone who knows me knows that I’m actually quite pacifistic, and almost every fight I’ve ever been in has been solved with reasoning—something that your average meathead cannot handle. However… anyone who knows me will ALSO know that if push comes to shove, I am relatively psychotic, and obviously owing to hereditary genetics I can muster up a fairly devastating melee of blows which tends to take even the most hardened of knuckle-heads by surprise.

Ergo: I knew in this situation I could handle myself readily should the drunken knob-head take offence at the belittling he was now about to receive. Otherwise, I would have quite happily sunken back into the woodwork, and admitted defeat. I’m no fool.

On one hand, I wanted to drag my knuckles across his face and remove his tobacco stained grin. But on the other hand, the word is mightier than the sword—at least I had hoped so.

So… the Biddle trick is in mid-flow. The cards are back in my hand. I hand them to the pillock for him to give it a good shuffle. And he did. Enthusiastically good.

So, it came as no surprise that when I performed the rest of the Biddle trick within 5 seconds of receiving the well shuffled deck, and correctly showed his card in the end display, he was a little miffed. Of course, I got accused of using fake cards.

Unfortunately, a few ales had got the better of me at this point, and I decided to put him in his place.

“Well…” I said… “Trouble is, there is no easy way to say this, but that particular trick doesn’t need ‘fake’ cards—if there was such a thing. It works because certain people are so dumb that they spend more time looking for ways to discredit the magician than they do watching the magic. Therefore, what you get—typically—is the spectator missing the moment that I remove their card, hide it in my palm, and put it back in the middle of the deck upside down. Did you notice it? Nope… didn’t think so…”

And with that, I turned back to my mate and carried on talking.

Needless to say, Mr Neanderthal was left speechless. And the fact that people were now laughing AT him rather than with him seemed obviously alien. I knew trouble was afoot, but escaping at this juncture seemed too obvious, as there was still one-and-a-quarter pints of beer in front of me.

So, I sat, I talked to my buddy, and we drank. Quite comfortably. So much so that I forgot about the caveman incident, and started to enjoy myself.

However… it was when I stood up to go for the pre inter-establisment amble pee that Mr Domehead stepped over and whispered through his teeth “I’ll show you some f****ng magic pal… think I’m a soft c****t don’t you” or words to that effect. Frankly, I don’t recall the exact text as I was still walking as he spoke, attempting to ignore.

It wasn’t until he followed me into the toilets—followed closely by out mutual chum—that I started to realise he did actually intend to lamp me one. Which was really unnerving, so much so that the pounding sensation in my bladder of desperately needing to take a leak vanished quickly.

It was when he flat-kicked the back of my calf that I whisked around, to see our uno-brow village idiot being held back by our chum. “Come on, don’t be daft…” he said to the defeated heckler.

Standing there, trying to ‘fake’ a piddle, I waited until the coast seems clear. I walked out of the gents and straight to my coat—playing it cool—and we left the pub. But Mister Muscle hadn’t quite finished. And this time, he had backup.

It was about a three point four second decision to turn to the wind and walk briskly. We did so at a blistering pace, with shouts and taunts from behind which I won’t detail, but basically we took a full range of abuse—from accusations of incest, right through to questioning our sexuality. But we carried on walking.

It was a strange decision—but we decided to go into another pub. And of course, we were followed. Things were getting hectic. I would have—at this point—been quite happy to take one on the chin. But now, Captain Caveman had enrolled some more thugs—none of which looked more than 19-20 years of age, all ready for a ruck.

Hang on: this was because I was too cocky. Was it? Should I have kept my mouth shut?

I guess it was too late by now. Things were going to get ugly fast. Not in here… this is a nice pub… but outside, later, who knows. We tried to look calm as we ordered drinks. Now… whether or not it was pure luck, or whether the Gods were smiling, but my brother-in-law and his Sunday footie league chums were on the tiles. Fab. Consider that these guys are mainly mid thirties, and totally rock hard. And—what is possibly even more advantageous—their reputation goes before them. In other words, if anything was going to happen, I was now on the winning team for sure.

And the moral of this tale is…
Sometimes it is far better to keep your mouth shut. If you’re getting some grief, don’t be a smart-arse. I kid you not, and I am not making light of this, but those plonkers could have quite easily put me in hospital. But for what?

For me wanting to have the last laugh.

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A pack of bikes will set you back 2.95 and if you buy 5, you get one free. So a brick (12 packs) will cost you 29.50, and with the postage, that comes to 33.45. Which in my experience, works out significantly cheaper than anywhere I have delt with in the past. The cards are also sent by Fastway Courier service, so delivery is normally within 2 days.

In my dealings with them they have been pleasant and helpful, and they were happy to supply me with all red backs. They even through in a couple of packs of seconds for me free of charge.

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