Posts
Newsletter of IBM Ring #170
The Bev Bergeron Ring
Next general meeting Wednesday, 11/19/2007 at 7:30 PM SHARP
Board meeting at 6:30 pm
Meeting theme: Gift Exchange
Marks Street Center, 99 Mark Street, downtown Orlando
If you visit with us and do not know the room we meet in , please be aware that some of the people in the office at the Senior Center may not be aware we are meeting there! At the last meeting one visitor asked where the "IBM" was meeting and the management apparently thought they were asking for the International Business Machines group! They said that there was no "IBM" on the schedule. So, if you have never been to our ring meeting , please say "magicians" or "FAME" and if that doesn't get the room location , just walk around looking for us. The Senior Center is a public building.
Lunch meetings every Tuesday at noon at Goodings (next to the food court)
Website: http://www.ring170.com/
F. A. M. E. is the Florida Association of Magical Entertainers
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Directory
Craig J. Fennessy – President – CraigFennessy@gmail.com
Chris Dunn- Vice President – Youngdunns@yahoo.com
Art Thomas – Treasurer – Art.Thomas@Disney.com
Dennis Philips- Secretary – Dennis@alliedcostumes.com
James Songster- Director at Large, - JjTjMagic@aol.com
Joe Vecciarelli- Sgt at Arms - talkingmute@tampabay.rr.com
Stefan Bartelski – Editor of “Famulus”- Famulus@illusioneer.com
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GET PUBLISHED!
Got an idea for an article to add to the next FAMULUS? Put it in the body of an email or in a Word document attached to an email. Send it to Famulus@illusioneer.com, and we will get you in print. Please, please, please, use the above e-mail address, your messages are in danger of getting lost if you do not do so.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
2007-12 From the Editor
One of the benefits of my itinerant job is that I am able to visit different magic locales around the country. This month I visited "Barry's Magic" store in the DC area for the first time. Barry has a large shop with an area for performances. On this occasion it was for a lecture given by Alain Chouquette, French Canadian magician from Montreal. Allain is probaly best known for his 'Glow in the Dark' Gypsy Thread routine, hich was shown on one of the "World's Greates Magic" TV programs produced by Gary Ouellet. Aso this month I will be able to attend a performance by the Comedy and Mystery Society (formerly Wednesday Wizardry) at the gaithersburg Arts Barn. So, though I will not be able to join in the Ring's festivities, I will get my fill of magic.
I would like to thank Art and Dan for posting comments in the newsletter blog. I would encourage all members to do so, if they have a (strong) opinion about any of the items. And thanks to Dennis for his usual good job in providing his Deliberations and the Ring report.
I would like to wish everyone all the best for the season and for the New year
I would like to thank Art and Dan for posting comments in the newsletter blog. I would encourage all members to do so, if they have a (strong) opinion about any of the items. And thanks to Dennis for his usual good job in providing his Deliberations and the Ring report.
I would like to wish everyone all the best for the season and for the New year
2007-12 Ring Report Ring #170 The Bev Bergeron Ring
President Craig Fennessy gaveled the ring board meeting to order and presented several tentative dates for upcoming lectures . Times were also presented to the board for our annual flea market in February and Banquet in March . All the current members of the board agreed to serve another year in their offices but nominations for other candidates wanting to run in the December election will be taken if presented. The board meeting adjourned and our regular business meeting began.
We had several guests, Charlie Zeus from Skylar Lake, New York. Charlie runs and promotes , The Hall of Fame for Unfamous Magicians, a place where many unknown but hard-working magicians have a place of honor. Bob Beck and his daughter, Amanda visited and are interested in magic.
Our Hospitality chairperson, Jackie Manna, explained next month's December Gift exchange. We will have a ring holiday party at the regular meeting time and everyone should bring a gift worth at least ten dollars. This annual event is a lot of fun in the way gifts are drawn and exchanged.
Phil Schwartz presented his Magic Moment #2. Phil was just back from the Magic Collector's convention in California and witnessed Johnny Gaughn's very rare presentation of the Dr. Hooker Card Trick. This is an elaborate series of card effects presented in a specially designed small theater room. The specific workings of the effects have never been revealed and well-learned professional magicians remained baffled at how everything is accomplished. Phil also said there was discussion about the mystery of who wrote the classic text about the expert's secrets at the card table.
With the formal meeting adjourned, Mark Fitzgerald volunteered to be the Master of Ceremonies for the monthly show. He opened with some fancy coin manipulations using silver dollars that jumped from hand to hand and appeared and disappeared. He introduced Josh Royo who did a trick with a spectator selected card using time travel as a theme. A card chosen a second time magically transformed in the spectators hand to be the card chosen the first time. Charlie Pfrogner did his cut and restored necktie with the loudest tie in town. At first we thought Charlie was explaining the trick and then he fooled us with a sucker ending. Young Sid McWethy had a card effect that featured being able to cause a spectator selected card appear and any randomly called for spot in the deck.
Mark Fitzgerald then took a minute to show a deck of blank playing cards that suddenly were found to all have fronts and then backs and finally ending all blank again. Mystana adapted some clever Thanksgiving patter to a Hot Rod type effect giving metaphorical meanings to the colors as they changed on the rod. Finally, Charlie Zeus gave us an explanation of his "Hall of Fame for Unfamous Magicians" in upstate New York . He then launched into the classic Six-Bill Repeat trick with a clever storyline and when he was finished the money changed denominations.
Join us every third Wednesday for our monthly ring meeting and show. Good things are always happening in Ring 170.
Dennis Phillips
We had several guests, Charlie Zeus from Skylar Lake, New York. Charlie runs and promotes , The Hall of Fame for Unfamous Magicians, a place where many unknown but hard-working magicians have a place of honor. Bob Beck and his daughter, Amanda visited and are interested in magic.
Our Hospitality chairperson, Jackie Manna, explained next month's December Gift exchange. We will have a ring holiday party at the regular meeting time and everyone should bring a gift worth at least ten dollars. This annual event is a lot of fun in the way gifts are drawn and exchanged.
Phil Schwartz presented his Magic Moment #2. Phil was just back from the Magic Collector's convention in California and witnessed Johnny Gaughn's very rare presentation of the Dr. Hooker Card Trick. This is an elaborate series of card effects presented in a specially designed small theater room. The specific workings of the effects have never been revealed and well-learned professional magicians remained baffled at how everything is accomplished. Phil also said there was discussion about the mystery of who wrote the classic text about the expert's secrets at the card table.
With the formal meeting adjourned, Mark Fitzgerald volunteered to be the Master of Ceremonies for the monthly show. He opened with some fancy coin manipulations using silver dollars that jumped from hand to hand and appeared and disappeared. He introduced Josh Royo who did a trick with a spectator selected card using time travel as a theme. A card chosen a second time magically transformed in the spectators hand to be the card chosen the first time. Charlie Pfrogner did his cut and restored necktie with the loudest tie in town. At first we thought Charlie was explaining the trick and then he fooled us with a sucker ending. Young Sid McWethy had a card effect that featured being able to cause a spectator selected card appear and any randomly called for spot in the deck.
Mark Fitzgerald then took a minute to show a deck of blank playing cards that suddenly were found to all have fronts and then backs and finally ending all blank again. Mystana adapted some clever Thanksgiving patter to a Hot Rod type effect giving metaphorical meanings to the colors as they changed on the rod. Finally, Charlie Zeus gave us an explanation of his "Hall of Fame for Unfamous Magicians" in upstate New York . He then launched into the classic Six-Bill Repeat trick with a clever storyline and when he was finished the money changed denominations.
Join us every third Wednesday for our monthly ring meeting and show. Good things are always happening in Ring 170.
Dennis Phillips
2007-12 Comments about comments
Dennis sent me these comments about a comment sent by one of the subjects of his previous
"Deliberations", I hope that dennis and Blair do not mind me publishing this.
"Hey, I was happy that Blair Marshall saw my story and responded. I am also happy that he is working and using some of those great Shazzam props and costumes.
I don't believe that he actually disagreed with me...because he did get my point: The days of the Full Evening , Box office , HEAVY
Touring-Routed illusion show are over.
I am not quite sure how I should ever categorize someone who lives in Quebec. When Cindy and I were in Montreal on a trip ( beautiful and fun city in the Summer) I had to drag my French out of my memory cells to drive. Cindy did much better... ( "Nord" "Sud"....)
Since the official language is French and the nation is Canada I call them all French Canadians. Toronto , to me, would be English Canadians...
ALL of them of "Lucky Canadians" with their socialized medicine..."
"Deliberations", I hope that dennis and Blair do not mind me publishing this.
"Hey, I was happy that Blair Marshall saw my story and responded. I am also happy that he is working and using some of those great Shazzam props and costumes.
I don't believe that he actually disagreed with me...because he did get my point: The days of the Full Evening , Box office , HEAVY
Touring-Routed illusion show are over.
I am not quite sure how I should ever categorize someone who lives in Quebec. When Cindy and I were in Montreal on a trip ( beautiful and fun city in the Summer) I had to drag my French out of my memory cells to drive. Cindy did much better... ( "Nord" "Sud"....)
Since the official language is French and the nation is Canada I call them all French Canadians. Toronto , to me, would be English Canadians...
ALL of them of "Lucky Canadians" with their socialized medicine..."
2007-12 Dennis' Deliberations
"Magicians are the new rock stars."--Pamela Anderson (Live with Regis & Kelly. July 5, 2007)
For me...... going into my 60th year, I don't think so! At my age, I am one key-ring short of a full set and I am always pouring out of the wrong side of my Foo Can.
Larry Thornton is one year older than me and my Calgary Canadian magician friend. He was a big help in putting together this month's column. I guess we old crabby guys enjoy sharing our mature and jaded views of the magic world?
The magic world is schizophrenic. And I'm about to prove it.
All our lives we're told: Be original. Don't copy another person's act. If you do -- so the mantra goes -- you will always end up an inferior knock-off of the original dude. Never, never, never will you be as good! A copy is a copy is a copy, and you'll be little more than a "rip-off artist", doing the magical arts an extreme injustice. --And some finger-waggers even go so far as to suggest the public will notice you're a rip-off! -- Or if they don't (what do THEY know??) the magicians sure as heck will!
Then the "gentler: side of the argument is always this: If you must copy an other magician's act and style, try to add nuances of your own; or as the late Chris Carey used to say in his lecture and booklet, "Do the stuff that's YOU!" (You should have this book in your library regardless of his jaded history)
THAT HAVING BEEN PREACHED - - over and over in the magic magazines, at conventions, at magic clubs (clubs!? I've got to be kidding!) and in magic books and all --- we then have to wonder:
Why are there so many commercial DVDs available from thousands of magic dealers that show professional entertainer's acts, right down to every subtle gesture and word? ... A case in point is the ad on page 6 of the July issue of Magic Magazine, where Harry Anderson has been enticed into selling his EXACT ACT of his hilarious "Cufflinks Supreme". He provides the DVD of his own performance. We are told Anderson has performed it everywhere, including television's Saturday Night Live, HBO, and other network appearances. BUT NOW --- for the very first time, any two-thumbed clumsy wanna -be ... or should I say more charitably, "Tom, Dick or Harry" (especially Harry!) can legally and ethically do the routine, and -- with Anderson's blessing -- DUPLICATE it word-for-word, with even the smallest bits intact. Why, you can probably even DRESS like Harry! Where's that old hat of Dads; and his tacky old pin-striped suit...
The Hocus Pocus magic company, who put Harry up to this (needed the cash after your businesses collapsed in New Orleans, Harry?) -- will likely make a small 'killing' with this routine. And they know that magic fanatics, being what they are, for every magician who turns Harry's classic comedy handcuff act into an actual PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE (i.e. makes money with it), there will be at least ten or twenty pipe-dreamers buying the DVD and included props, and doing essentially nothing with it. But that's not the point!
The point here, in this rant, is that the magic community is fond of telling every newcomer that they must try to develop themselves into original performers instead of clones. But at the same time, they should "look the other way" when it comes to dealerships hawking every successful act they can get their hands on. What is the unsuspecting public supposed to think of all this? Okay, so they have the memory of a gnat and will never remember how it was Anderson who made the routine great...
Go on "You Tube' and you will find no less than 7 identical and exact copies of the David Copperfield version of the Head Twister illusion. "Let's twist again, like we did last summer..." every wiggle, every move, every eye glance... Even the identical Joannie Spina 50s dress! The funniest "You Tube" knock-off had an illusionist that weighed at least 300 pounds. His dancing version of The Twist was not a pretty sight.
Most magic is "Magic of the dealers, by the dealers and for the dealers"- to parody the words of Abraham Lincoln. Go to our flea market and look at the used magic on the tables. Much of this stuff was sold because it was marketed and not because it was worth anything. "People bought it because they could" - to parody the words of Bill Clinton. The typical flea market is filled with magicians and dealers "that know the price of everything and the value of nothing" - that is a direct quote from Oscar Wilde, no parody needed.
If you missed a few of those delightfully absurd superlatives in advertising flyers from the magic dealers, all of the following came out of just one recent magic supplier's newsletter :
1) "With Supercoin you can pluck coins from midair, make coins vanish into thin air and have everyone gasping for air!"
Oh joy. What about that octogenarian in the back on her tank of oxygen?! [ Wait!! I'm just warming up! ]
2) "Carry this revolutionary new coin gimmick and you'll have a concealed weapon in your pocket!"
Wouldn't that be against the law? I can see the headline: "Cris Angel exonerated, but arrested anyway for carrying a concealed weapon in his pocket. When he protested that it was just a new coin trick, he was immediately arrested and incarcerated for psychiatric therapy.
3) "With Alpha Card, the possibilities are endless!"
Unsolicited testimonial: I'm going on 60 years old, I've been doing Alpha Card since I was a kid, and I flatly REFUSE to die until I exhaust all of its endless possibilities...
4) "Fire Starter: Everyone has been asking for it. Now, Rick Haslett has created it! Fire Starter is the ultimate in utility devices. Truly, a magician’s dream!"
That's right, folks: As a bonafide magician, I can tell you I got truly SICK of everyone asking for it. But it truly IS the ultimate utility device: brushes my teeth, wipes my backside, and even shuts off my eardrums when 'George W' asks for still more cash for invading Iran and The Canary Islands. And YES-- it's a magician's dream! One performance in your sleep of "Fire Starter", and you, too, will become the Super Pyromaniac of the Night. Professor's Nightmare move over!!!)
5) "Big Bang [Exploding Light Bulb]: The ultimate demonstration of psychokinesis."
That's ULTIMATE psychokinesis, folks! If you ever should have the bizarre luck to witness Criss Angel levitating his entire staff (his disciples Banachek and Johnny Thompson are already pretty high as it is, you will love this. The exploding "bulby thingy" in the paper bag blows these and anything ELSE away as the ULTIMATE demonstration of mind over matter!
And: "You now are free to hand out the bag of broken shards ." [I kid you not, it's in the flyer!]
Wow children will love this!!! The sight of blood puts them all in stitches...
6) "Neat & Tidy: A jumbled mass of rubber bands instantly snap together to build a neat and tidy rubber band ball that can be dropped on the table or handed out to your spectators. Neat & Tidy is perfect for any rubber band routine. It creates a stunning effect out of the 'down time' moment when you introduce your rubber bands to the audience. As well as providing magic along the way [what-- on the way out the door?] , Neat & Tidy can act as both an opener or closer for your routine!
Oh great. If that's the GRAND CLIMAX CLOSER to a magician's entire show, I'd hate to have been the sorry witness to the rest of his act.
AND-- here's living proof that magic dealers dwell on a foreign planet:
"Rubber bands are familiar objects to an audience, and many of us remember making rubber band balls as kids [we do??] , so the magic has meaning to your audience."
If not meaning to their lives! Kinda brings a tear to your eye, no?? "Oh, my Lordie, Myrtle, it brought me back to my childhood where I whiled away thousands of hours of solitude playing with little rubber bands...."
AND-- "Is this suitable for a professional magician? Yes! The angles are perfect, it's an instant reset, the rubber ball is examinable, no pre-show set-up (work) is required, and it’s been tried and tested 'in the trenches'. The ball also makes a perfect chop cup load!"
1) The Golden Rule: Any trick with perfect angles is by simple fiat -- suitable for professional magicians. NOT!!
2) She: "Where are you going, dear?"
"He called me over to help him with his trick. With any luck he'll let me examine his rubber bands and his rubber balls."
3) "No pre-show work is required." That's funny--- most magicians have to spend their entire lives in "pre-show work". It's called a DAY JOB.
4) "It's been tried and tested 'in the trenches'. "
"Private, this is an order!!! Get your head DOWN, NOW ! You wanna get killed?? --And stop monkeying around with those stupid rubber bands!"
5) "The ball makes a perfect chop cup load!"
(Onlooker: "What the HECK is that??? Can't you just be like other magicians and produce those lemons and baby chicks??")
7) "Complete Course in Watch Stealing: Vol. 2 Rolex Style Watch":
Magician: "I was about to steal his watch when the guy caught me red-handed. I was drummed off the stage to gales of laughter."
Cohort: "Why??"
Magician: "Well you see, I studied vol. 2 of the complete course in watch stealing, only to discovered it was anything but complete: the dude was wearing a rotten Taiwanese counterfeit Rolex!!" What venues have men mostly wearing Rolex watches? Wall Street exclusive clubs? This is not a big market to perform in, huh?
"This DVD embodies everything about removing Rolex style wrist watches."
Including where to find a sympathetic lawyer when you're caught practicing it on the street...
8) "Miracle Shoelaces: Make your shoelaces change color!"
Walk up to someone on the street and show her your shoelaces. ... Devastating reactions every time! .... [Not again: ] Endless possibilities."
That's just what every magician should be doing these days: Walking up to complete strangers and asking them to look at their frigging shoelaces. Hank's right, many reactions to such a display of idiocy WILL be "devastating"! As for "endless possibilities", I can hardly imagine. --But Jay Sankey can!
9) "We set Matthew J. Dowden on a challenge. Learn seven world-class easy-to-do card tricks within 24 hours and then go out onto the streets of London and amaze your audiences!"
Well, if "Mathew J. Dowden" is a magician and doesn't already KNOW "seven world-class easy-to-do card tricks", then he must have spent his life in a cave. The blurb continues: " You’ll see Matthew perform seven of his fourteen fantastic card tricks that require no skill and absolutely no sleight of hand." (a) If they are HIS seven card tricks, then where does the "learn them in 24 hours" come into it? And if they indeed require NO SKILL ("and absolutely no sleight of hand" -- is redundant), why would it require 24 hours and how could they be world class?
The Newsletter summation:
"And that’s this week’s magical wonders. See, I told you it was amazing stuff this week."
Gee, thanks, Pal. And thanks also for the inadvertent entertainment.
Hey, I like the supplier mentioned above, I buy from him regularly and recommend his store. This guy and everyone else is just trying to make a buck and making a buck in magic has become increasingly harder and harder. So, keep your bucks closer to your wallet and don't believe all the advertising hype you read. No human communication is ever "fair and balanced'.
Dennis Phillips
For me...... going into my 60th year, I don't think so! At my age, I am one key-ring short of a full set and I am always pouring out of the wrong side of my Foo Can.
Larry Thornton is one year older than me and my Calgary Canadian magician friend. He was a big help in putting together this month's column. I guess we old crabby guys enjoy sharing our mature and jaded views of the magic world?
The magic world is schizophrenic. And I'm about to prove it.
All our lives we're told: Be original. Don't copy another person's act. If you do -- so the mantra goes -- you will always end up an inferior knock-off of the original dude. Never, never, never will you be as good! A copy is a copy is a copy, and you'll be little more than a "rip-off artist", doing the magical arts an extreme injustice. --And some finger-waggers even go so far as to suggest the public will notice you're a rip-off! -- Or if they don't (what do THEY know??) the magicians sure as heck will!
Then the "gentler: side of the argument is always this: If you must copy an other magician's act and style, try to add nuances of your own; or as the late Chris Carey used to say in his lecture and booklet, "Do the stuff that's YOU!" (You should have this book in your library regardless of his jaded history)
THAT HAVING BEEN PREACHED - - over and over in the magic magazines, at conventions, at magic clubs (clubs!? I've got to be kidding!) and in magic books and all --- we then have to wonder:
Why are there so many commercial DVDs available from thousands of magic dealers that show professional entertainer's acts, right down to every subtle gesture and word? ... A case in point is the ad on page 6 of the July issue of Magic Magazine, where Harry Anderson has been enticed into selling his EXACT ACT of his hilarious "Cufflinks Supreme". He provides the DVD of his own performance. We are told Anderson has performed it everywhere, including television's Saturday Night Live, HBO, and other network appearances. BUT NOW --- for the very first time, any two-thumbed clumsy wanna -be ... or should I say more charitably, "Tom, Dick or Harry" (especially Harry!) can legally and ethically do the routine, and -- with Anderson's blessing -- DUPLICATE it word-for-word, with even the smallest bits intact. Why, you can probably even DRESS like Harry! Where's that old hat of Dads; and his tacky old pin-striped suit...
The Hocus Pocus magic company, who put Harry up to this (needed the cash after your businesses collapsed in New Orleans, Harry?) -- will likely make a small 'killing' with this routine. And they know that magic fanatics, being what they are, for every magician who turns Harry's classic comedy handcuff act into an actual PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE (i.e. makes money with it), there will be at least ten or twenty pipe-dreamers buying the DVD and included props, and doing essentially nothing with it. But that's not the point!
The point here, in this rant, is that the magic community is fond of telling every newcomer that they must try to develop themselves into original performers instead of clones. But at the same time, they should "look the other way" when it comes to dealerships hawking every successful act they can get their hands on. What is the unsuspecting public supposed to think of all this? Okay, so they have the memory of a gnat and will never remember how it was Anderson who made the routine great...
Go on "You Tube' and you will find no less than 7 identical and exact copies of the David Copperfield version of the Head Twister illusion. "Let's twist again, like we did last summer..." every wiggle, every move, every eye glance... Even the identical Joannie Spina 50s dress! The funniest "You Tube" knock-off had an illusionist that weighed at least 300 pounds. His dancing version of The Twist was not a pretty sight.
Most magic is "Magic of the dealers, by the dealers and for the dealers"- to parody the words of Abraham Lincoln. Go to our flea market and look at the used magic on the tables. Much of this stuff was sold because it was marketed and not because it was worth anything. "People bought it because they could" - to parody the words of Bill Clinton. The typical flea market is filled with magicians and dealers "that know the price of everything and the value of nothing" - that is a direct quote from Oscar Wilde, no parody needed.
If you missed a few of those delightfully absurd superlatives in advertising flyers from the magic dealers, all of the following came out of just one recent magic supplier's newsletter :
1) "With Supercoin you can pluck coins from midair, make coins vanish into thin air and have everyone gasping for air!"
Oh joy. What about that octogenarian in the back on her tank of oxygen?! [ Wait!! I'm just warming up! ]
2) "Carry this revolutionary new coin gimmick and you'll have a concealed weapon in your pocket!"
Wouldn't that be against the law? I can see the headline: "Cris Angel exonerated, but arrested anyway for carrying a concealed weapon in his pocket. When he protested that it was just a new coin trick, he was immediately arrested and incarcerated for psychiatric therapy.
3) "With Alpha Card, the possibilities are endless!"
Unsolicited testimonial: I'm going on 60 years old, I've been doing Alpha Card since I was a kid, and I flatly REFUSE to die until I exhaust all of its endless possibilities...
4) "Fire Starter: Everyone has been asking for it. Now, Rick Haslett has created it! Fire Starter is the ultimate in utility devices. Truly, a magician’s dream!"
That's right, folks: As a bonafide magician, I can tell you I got truly SICK of everyone asking for it. But it truly IS the ultimate utility device: brushes my teeth, wipes my backside, and even shuts off my eardrums when 'George W' asks for still more cash for invading Iran and The Canary Islands. And YES-- it's a magician's dream! One performance in your sleep of "Fire Starter", and you, too, will become the Super Pyromaniac of the Night. Professor's Nightmare move over!!!)
5) "Big Bang [Exploding Light Bulb]: The ultimate demonstration of psychokinesis."
That's ULTIMATE psychokinesis, folks! If you ever should have the bizarre luck to witness Criss Angel levitating his entire staff (his disciples Banachek and Johnny Thompson are already pretty high as it is, you will love this. The exploding "bulby thingy" in the paper bag blows these and anything ELSE away as the ULTIMATE demonstration of mind over matter!
And: "You now are free to hand out the bag of broken shards ." [I kid you not, it's in the flyer!]
Wow children will love this!!! The sight of blood puts them all in stitches...
6) "Neat & Tidy: A jumbled mass of rubber bands instantly snap together to build a neat and tidy rubber band ball that can be dropped on the table or handed out to your spectators. Neat & Tidy is perfect for any rubber band routine. It creates a stunning effect out of the 'down time' moment when you introduce your rubber bands to the audience. As well as providing magic along the way [what-- on the way out the door?] , Neat & Tidy can act as both an opener or closer for your routine!
Oh great. If that's the GRAND CLIMAX CLOSER to a magician's entire show, I'd hate to have been the sorry witness to the rest of his act.
AND-- here's living proof that magic dealers dwell on a foreign planet:
"Rubber bands are familiar objects to an audience, and many of us remember making rubber band balls as kids [we do??] , so the magic has meaning to your audience."
If not meaning to their lives! Kinda brings a tear to your eye, no?? "Oh, my Lordie, Myrtle, it brought me back to my childhood where I whiled away thousands of hours of solitude playing with little rubber bands...."
AND-- "Is this suitable for a professional magician? Yes! The angles are perfect, it's an instant reset, the rubber ball is examinable, no pre-show set-up (work) is required, and it’s been tried and tested 'in the trenches'. The ball also makes a perfect chop cup load!"
1) The Golden Rule: Any trick with perfect angles is by simple fiat -- suitable for professional magicians. NOT!!
2) She: "Where are you going, dear?"
"He called me over to help him with his trick. With any luck he'll let me examine his rubber bands and his rubber balls."
3) "No pre-show work is required." That's funny--- most magicians have to spend their entire lives in "pre-show work". It's called a DAY JOB.
4) "It's been tried and tested 'in the trenches'. "
"Private, this is an order!!! Get your head DOWN, NOW ! You wanna get killed?? --And stop monkeying around with those stupid rubber bands!"
5) "The ball makes a perfect chop cup load!"
(Onlooker: "What the HECK is that??? Can't you just be like other magicians and produce those lemons and baby chicks??")
7) "Complete Course in Watch Stealing: Vol. 2 Rolex Style Watch":
Magician: "I was about to steal his watch when the guy caught me red-handed. I was drummed off the stage to gales of laughter."
Cohort: "Why??"
Magician: "Well you see, I studied vol. 2 of the complete course in watch stealing, only to discovered it was anything but complete: the dude was wearing a rotten Taiwanese counterfeit Rolex!!" What venues have men mostly wearing Rolex watches? Wall Street exclusive clubs? This is not a big market to perform in, huh?
"This DVD embodies everything about removing Rolex style wrist watches."
Including where to find a sympathetic lawyer when you're caught practicing it on the street...
8) "Miracle Shoelaces: Make your shoelaces change color!"
Walk up to someone on the street and show her your shoelaces. ... Devastating reactions every time! .... [Not again: ] Endless possibilities."
That's just what every magician should be doing these days: Walking up to complete strangers and asking them to look at their frigging shoelaces. Hank's right, many reactions to such a display of idiocy WILL be "devastating"! As for "endless possibilities", I can hardly imagine. --But Jay Sankey can!
9) "We set Matthew J. Dowden on a challenge. Learn seven world-class easy-to-do card tricks within 24 hours and then go out onto the streets of London and amaze your audiences!"
Well, if "Mathew J. Dowden" is a magician and doesn't already KNOW "seven world-class easy-to-do card tricks", then he must have spent his life in a cave. The blurb continues: " You’ll see Matthew perform seven of his fourteen fantastic card tricks that require no skill and absolutely no sleight of hand." (a) If they are HIS seven card tricks, then where does the "learn them in 24 hours" come into it? And if they indeed require NO SKILL ("and absolutely no sleight of hand" -- is redundant), why would it require 24 hours and how could they be world class?
The Newsletter summation:
"And that’s this week’s magical wonders. See, I told you it was amazing stuff this week."
Gee, thanks, Pal. And thanks also for the inadvertent entertainment.
Hey, I like the supplier mentioned above, I buy from him regularly and recommend his store. This guy and everyone else is just trying to make a buck and making a buck in magic has become increasingly harder and harder. So, keep your bucks closer to your wallet and don't believe all the advertising hype you read. No human communication is ever "fair and balanced'.
Dennis Phillips
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