magic books – MagicShow.Tips

Charlie Frye’s Sleightly Absurd – Review

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!

– Louie

Portland SAM Meeting

Last week I was in town for the Portland Society of American Magicians magic club meeting. It was a light turn out with only about 8 people there, but it was fun.

For me, I always love seeing the different styles of magic that people bring to a magic club. It’s not always their polished routines, but things that they are working on or things that they have and want to share. Personally, I’m more interested in things that you don’t do in your show, but interest you more than your A material. That’s the fun of magic clubs!

-Louie

Shell Shocked by Giovanni Livera

A bit ago someone mentioned Giovanni Livera’s three shell game routine. I wasn’t aware of this routine, so I tracked down a his book Confessions of an Italian Magician where his Shell Shocked routine is written up.

His routine has an ending that’s unusual, it ends with three production items. The first two are dice and the third is a plastic P. I have all of the props except the plastic P, but that’s where my 3d printer came in handy.

Within about 15 minutes I had made a plastic letter P and had it printed and can now learn the routine!

I’ll get started working on it later today!
-Louie

Old Magician’s Notebooks

Someone was selling a stack of old magician’s hand written notebooks. These are things I’m fascinated by, I’m very curious what’s going through magicians heads. When the notebooks showed up, they weren’t what I was expecting, they weren’t really notebooks of ideas, but notes of the Abbott’s Magic Magic Get Togethers from the late 1960’s to the early 1980’s!

They have set list that are pretty cryptic, like what Don Alan performed in 1980:

Don Alan at the Abbott's Magic Get Together

Then there’s more detailed acts like this that’s simply labeled “best act” from 1977:

Another interesting find was a description of Al Schneider’s Matrix trick. This notebook was from 1982, and Al didn’t publish Matrix until 1983. Schneider wasn’t listed as a performer at any Abbott’s Magic Get Together, so I’m guessing he was just attending that year, or it could have been something that was moving around the “underground” and someone else showed it that year.

These notebooks are a really interesting look into what was performed 40+ years ago and I’m glad I got to read them!

-Louie

Wayne Dobson’s Legacy

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!

-Louie

Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women

I’m trying to be better about reading books and doing less scrolling though things on my phone. On my recent trip to Japan, I read Ricky Jay‘s book Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women.

It’s a great historical read about some colorful acts and personalities! If you’re into the history of variety acts, it’s worth a read. You can get copies of this book pretty cheap online.

-Louie

The Linking Ring Parade!

I finally got to see the physical copy of my fourth parade in the Linking Ring Magazine!

It’s got about a 10 magic tricks in it. I think I need to write at least one more parade for the Linking Ring so that I have an even five!

If you’re a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians check it out in the March 2024 issue!

-Louie

Will Goldston Magic Books

I’m going though stuff that I have and on my shelf I have a really cool set of Will Goldston Magic Books. These are the Locked Book Series where the first three originally came with a leather binding with a lock on it. Unfortunately most of the copies that have their original bindings are in rough condition and usually the lock is unattached.

The set I have are numbered first editions and have been rebound and it’s previous owner was John Pomeroy who owned GEM Magic.

I mentioned the previous owner to David Charvet and he said he thinks that Pomeroy put the new covers on them himself!

This is a cool set of books and they’re available as reprints that you can find on Amazon. They’re worth looking into!

– Louie

The Unconquered Card!

When I was a teenager I had bought The Unconquered Card by Mike Rogers. This is a three card monte routine that’s similar to Michael Skinner‘s three card monte routine, and there’s some debate as to who was doing it first. The cards for the routine are long gone, but recently I came across the book with the set of cards that was pretty beat up.

The cards were unusable, however I have a few decks of FAKO Cards and other packs that are full of different gaffs. I was able to find the needed cards for the trick!

I’m having fun relearning the trick and I think that I’m going to record a couple of phases and use it in my preshow video.

-Louie

On The High Wire by Philippe Petitt

My airplane reading last week was On The High Wire by Philippe Petitt. While not magic, it’s about variety/circus arts which is relatable. I thought this going more of a biography, but it’s not it’s a technical manual for high wire walking!

By technical manual, there’s not a lot of specific and it teaches it in very general terms. It’s a very fun read. The way he talks about high wire walking, he’s clearly in love with it and that passion carries the book.

It got me wondering why there aren’t really magic biographies for the general public written as technical manuals that teach techniques in broad strokes. They wouldn’t have to really give away any specific secrets that would spoil any tricks. It’d be an interesting read if someone was able to write one. I’m nowhere near a good enough writer to do that.

-Louie