No MTV like effects?  No reactions from the homeless?  I was rather thrown off.

One to look out for.

The Satanic Tarot Card.
Notice the Third Day Time symbol resting above the head of The Magician, signifying Satan’s powers resting on “The Magician”.

means that x grows without bound, and means the value of x is decreasing without bound. If f(t) ? 0 for every t, then

• means that f(t) does not bound a finite area from a to b
• means that the area under f(t) is infinite.
• means that the total area under f(t) is finite, and equals n

My brain became a cluttered mess of effects long ago.  Most every book I’ve ever purchased has been read and pondered from cover to cover.   Is it really a shame that only 2 percent, at best, actually leaves with my footsteps out the door?  Personally I would have it no other way.  If people didn’t get confused they were riding the same horse around the same looping track, video downloads and whatnot wouldn’t be in business.  It seems every month someone has a “new” Card Warp for instance.  Though I read and enjoy learning different Card Warps from my books I’ve settled on only one that suits myself, and takes care of as many “errors” as possible.  Practice to me is horribly enjoyable, and even if an effect in a book is a total turd the time was well spent for the joy of finding the ones that pertain to my style.

Keeping notes couldn’t be more important.  One of the most valid methods of getting better is keeping certain types of effects at bay.  For instance I performed Jack Carpenter’s Mysterious with great satisfaction to laymen for about a decade.  As of now I traded this routine in for JK Hartman’s Trapparition.  Though I can of course perform both, a type of clutter of effects can happen in (at least mine) the brain.  There is little value to actually remember Mysterious now being I loathe magicians that do the same plots in one sitting.  Getting things straight really isn’t much of a challenge being I know what workers I have in the brain ready to go.  My time in hunting and expanding is far from futile, but I’d assume many of us get a cluster fuck of effects in the head, many the same plots, without “letting go” and upgrading.

I humbly recommend making notes as per the type of effects you are going to be PERFORMING.  Categorizing is important.   For instance mine would read something like this:

Twisting: Think, Touch, Turn.  Use selection from previous effect to avoid monotony and the weakness of having a card selected as per that routine.

Triumph:  In the hands version with Goodwin/Jennings display…transpo instead of single face down card

Signed Card/Mystery Card: JK Hartman Trapparition

Further Than That: Mike Skinner’s version with Eddie Fields use of 10-20.  3 spectators needed.

Hofzinser  Problem: Another Rumor, variant on Billis change.

On and on.  Not exactly mind numbing, but a list of sorts is in my wallet, even if I never use the thing, I got small notes and back up.  I just like to have a reminder of what I’m doing well and have made/or creating a worker with.  The best magicians I’ve ever seen can adapt to the environment properly.  If there are 10 people in a circle and the magician only hands the deck out to be shuffled or for a card selected, he’s missing out on getting (perhaps all 10) others into the fray.  While the noob may perform 2 card Monte and then a transpo using a dupe (slap), the adept will be prepared to make the person “getting the most attention” the magician.  Sometimes I’ll even analyze the cleanliness and texture of a surface for Mexican turn overs.  Then I’d perform something like “Bare Naked  Ladies” or a prediction ala. memorized stack (Tamariz Three Crown Jewels No.1) .

Finding routines and understanding the proper time and place may be the difference between a great effect looking flat, and  a flat effect looking brilliant.  Point is not to know 20 oil and water routines and 8 ways to do open prediction.  2 at most of each plot is more than enough.  But dividing what each plot does, and how some would appear the same to laymen, the environment etc. can make all the difference in the world.  Getting it all straight and adjusting is a great reward.

On the other hand we all hear of the guy that does six effects, does them well, and dies doing the same six effects.  Though I think the overall theory of the ideal is sound, the guy never expanded to anything better.  Variety is the spice of life.  Having too much variety without mastery is death.  I would rather do 6 effects very well this year, then have 6 more sometime in the future.  It’s not that things have changed that much.  We may just decide that Paul Curry’s Out Of This World (handling) did us justice, but U.F. Grant’s from a shuffled deck got the upgrade….who knows from there.  Research and access to more books is a heaven sent but fine tuning is bliss…just don’t blow a fuse.  Those that perform and “forget”, I think are the ones at home flipping through books too much and never going any farther.

“The golden days of magic are over! The Gotterdammerung (twilight of the gods) has come! The world will be as full of magicians as the Jersey coast is of mosquitoes! The palmy days of Herrmann, Houdin and Heller are ended!” – Mr. Charles M. Caughey, Prestidigitator (1876)

Selfish ME, ME, it’s all about ME small thinkers… I WANT, I WANT, I WANT IT NOW they scream.

It’s people like this that will be the reason why the caft will die.

Magic exposed – and pirated – means NO MAGIC for the future!

WAKE UP!! -Sue Ann (2008)

Original-Boring, Too Long, Fuck Windows, Fuck Apple, Timex Sinclair Forever.

Better

Also, is it just me, or is this page possibly the stupidest idea in history? There’s stuff on there that I certainly didn’t know had been pirated – The Mind And Magic Of David Berglas, for instance – and gentlemen with fewer scruples than I could effectively use that list as a makeshift tick list for their pirate activity.

As per another forum on MagicPiracy.Org.  Good work James L. Clark!  I can more than guarantee your shitty idea is backfiring and getting reverse results all over the board.  Can people really not understand why that site is about as epic a fail as possible?  At least give us all a full list of “supporters” so we can refuse to buy their product.  He can put up a huge list of books and DVD’s,  but his “supporters” are too many to post (yeah sure).  He really, truly, does not seem to understand the issue isn’t about anti-piracy, but giving large lists of “what is out there”, invasions of privacy, and invading that privacy when public domain records are being traded legally as per the same list.  Then again in the end I think it was mostly a hype machine scare tactic, that wasn’t properly thought out, isn’t being updated, and lost interest as fast as it was concocted.

Go buy books.

Your doing God’s work son.  God Speed.