I finally finished the book Professional Secrets by Geoffrey Durham. I don’t know much about Geoffrey, other than this book has been out of print for a while.
The thing that I liked about this book is that it isn’t just tricks, it’s got some of how he got to the tricks and they why he does them the way that he does them.
It’s laid out in a way that I think is similar to the Tommy Wonder books where it goes essay, trick, essay, trick. I really like that format as it helps you get inside the author’s head a little bit more. It also highlights why some seemingly small changes to a standard trick can make HUGE differences.
This book is selling for a couple hundred bucks on the secondary market, however if you can find a deal on it, you should check it out!
The current book that I’m reading is Professional Secrets by Geoffrey Durham. This book has been mentioned a lot in online magic forums, and I’m glad to have finally gotten a copy of it at a reasonable price!
I’m about 50 pages into the book and one of the things that I like about it is that it’s more than just the tricks. It’s his thinking on performing. One of the tricks he explains is his opener that is really just a handflash device. However he goes on for several pages about his thoughts on opening tricks and opening your show before he gets into the handflash device.
I like that!
Here’s one of my favorite quotes in the book so far:
I 100% agree with this! Those three adjectives; interesting, attractive and unique are very important. I always tell people that it takes work to be interesting onstage. It also takes work to be unique in a relatable way!
So far I’m liking this book and if you can track down this book you’ll probably like it as well!
I finally finished reading Ginosko. This is a fantastic magic book, what I like about it is that it’s not just tricks. The whole back half is advice from other magicians and people in David’s life.
For me the routine from the book that’s worth the price of the book is “Asking the 8 Ball”. It’s a transposition of a selected card with the 8 of the same suit. One of the things that makes this great is how the end of the trick where the actual transposition happens, the audience kinda figures it out on their own. What I mean by that is when we get to the point where I reveal the selected card isn’t where it should be, the audience member automatically reaches down and reveals the transposition with any guidance from me.
It’s really a great moment.
There’s tons of other great material and advice in it. There’s a fun vanishing bottle routine in it, I won’t do the routine, but got me thinking about an idea for the vanishing bottle. The book helping me make a connection to something else is always valuable to me!
Another trick that hits really hard is “Post-it Crane”. This is a cool trick, but I don’t think it’ll really ever end up in my main close up magic set because I don’t have the pocket space for a post it pad and the “gimmick”. When I have done it, it’s been for small groups of about 4 people and it absolutely amazes!
This book is cheap at like $25 and totally worth picking up! I got mine at Misdirections Magic Shop.
Way back in early June when I was performing in San Francisco I visited Misdirections Magic Shop. Joe mentioned the book Ginóskó to me and said it was really good. I picked it up and finally started going through the book.
I’m only on the third trick in the book and so far I like all three!
The first trick is called Check Yo’ Self and is a production of a deck of card, which I think is fun, but I don’t really have the pocket space for it.
Blackjack For Brother John is the second trick is a packet trick that I’m having fun learning, but it’s not the style. I love learning packet tricks, but I don’t do them. The trick uses four cards, has a fun little blackjack theme and is pretty easy to do. If you’re into packet tricks, you’ll like this one.
The third trick is High Five and a Handshake is one that I really like and while it probably won’t make it into my main close up set, it’s something that I’ve been doing since I read it and it fits my style and gets great reactions! The effect is really simple, the two jokers are put in the middle of the deck and they jump to the top and bottom. It’s got a clear cut effect and David’s routine for it is fun!
Based on the first three tricks in the book, I would highly recommend this book! And at $25, if the rest of the book is junk, it’s still worth it!
I’m finally wrapping up reading Charlie Frye‘s magic book Sleightly Absurd. I picked this up at Hocus Pocus in Fresno way back in October when I was visiting their shop.
This book is a fun read and it has a lot of “non traditional” magic book feeling routines in it. The routines have endings to them, which is something that lacks in many magic books by magicians who aren’t out there working. The other thing is that Charlie isn’t a “I do easy stuff so I can concentrate on performing” type of person. He’s doing things with whatever level of difficulty that the trick requires to make the trick the best. Sometimes that’s means hard sleight of hand and sometimes it’s a math principle. I totally respect that approach!
One of the interesting things for me is towards the back of the book there’s Charlie’s approach to Any Card at Any Number. It’s a fairly standard approach where you use a memorized deck and a variety of techniques to get the card at the desired number. He does a great job of breaking down his thought process how determines the best way to go about it and describes many scenarios.
For me the best part is how he calculates the stack number backwards (from the face of the deck).
I had to read that part about half a dozen times for it to make sense for me and once I did, it made total sense! I also figured out a way to get rid of having to remember the pairs, they all all up to 3 or 13, so there’s no memorization of the five pairs, just remembering one rule. This is a game changer for me, it makes the doing the math from the face of the deck insanely easy! This one little thing is worth the price of the book if you use a memorized deck!
This is a great book and totally worth the $75 it sells for!
The new addition to my library is Wayne Dobson’s Legacy. I’ve been a fan of Wayne’s ever since I saw him at the Desert Magic Seminar (It may have changed the name to the World Magic Summit at that point) in Las Vegas.
A while ago I got the book Wayne Dobson – The Definitive Collection. This was most of the stuff that Wayne had put out, plus a few interviews and unpublished things. It’s a great book, but then Wayne Dobson’s Legacy came out, so I figured I should get it.
I suspected when I ordered the new book was that the tricks included were going to be what was in the Definitive Collection book and based on a quick flip through the book, it appears that’s correct. There may be an additional bit here or there or a trick could be completely rewritten, but at a glance the material looks the same. I didn’t buy the book for the descriptions of the tricks, I got it for the biography which is book one of the set.
I’m only about 40 pages into the book so far and enjoying it, and if you’re a fan of Wayne’s I think you will too! If you’re just looking for the tricks, it looks like you can get Wayne Dobson – The Definitive Collection for about $25 as an ebook and I’d suggest you go that route. Either way, Wayne’s material is solid!
If you know me, you know I don’t believe the theory that you should do classic magic tricks because, “classics are classics for a reason“. You should do classic tricks like linking rings or whatever because they have a purpose in your show.
I do believe that as a beginner, learning and doing those trick has a purpose. However as you grow, you should grow out of them, or create a reason why they’re in your show.
Audiences are smart, and contrary to a lot of “advice” many have seen a lot of magic on TV and social media. With shows like Fool Us and America’s Got Talent, your typical audience has seen stuff and you just banging out the linking rings because “it gets a reaction” doesn’t cut it anymore.
If you’re doing a classic, figure out how to give it purpose in your show to move the story of you further and not because it fills time.
My recent airplane reading was that I started the book The Psychology of Magic. I originally heard of this book from my buddy Chris Beason, and I picked up this copy back in June at Misdirection Magic Shop in San Francisco.
I’m not too far into the book, but so far it’s really interesting. In this book they’re using lab style testing for magic. The beginning of the book they’re using lab study type groups to learn more about card forces. It’s really interesting what results they came up with.
The other eye opening thing was a prediction that’s 1-4 or 1-100 has basically the same impact!
I’m trying to do a lot more reading in my free time. I have a huge stack of things to go through and I just started reading From Witchcraft to Card Tricks by Stephen Minch.
This is a short paper backed book follows the history of card and close up magic and it’s very interesting! Lots of things that became popular 200 years after they were first invented. It’s a real eye opener, ever you wonder who invented the double lift or at least the first place it appeared in print? This book answers that!
I totally recommend it if you’re a magic nerd like me!
On a recent flight I read The Fog Machine of War by Matt Disero. This a great book full of short essays / stories by Matt about his career and experience as a full time comedy magician.
There’s a ton of great stories in the book, but the value of the book is the advice. It goes from everything from working with agents, to using production elements, to trying out new material onstage.
There’s tons to learn from Matt’s failures, which he openly shares. Failures are things that magicians don’t talk about enough, especially in print. With magicians and their egos, most put out the facade that they always crush every show and have never bombed. Matt opens up about bad shows and that’s were the learning happens.
