The Complete Professional Pickpocket
Posted: October 12th, 2015, 8:47 pm
This a book by the late David Alexander which has been revised, edited and published by the not so late Thomas Baxter who has recently moved to the other side of Canada possibly to be as far away from me as possible. Tom is known as "Entity" on this forum and I shall try my best and not be tempted to call him "Nonenity" as is my wont since this is supposed to be an impartial review.
In a previous thread it was mentioned how difficult it must be to be a reviewer of magic books and products because you risk giving offence and making enemies out of former friends. However, that is not a problem for me since I never liked David Alexander from the moment I met him. And Tom and I have never got on terribly well since I have always considered him to be an old misery and he has always considered me a charlatan of the first order. Therefore there is utterly no danger of making enemies out of friends since we have never been friends in the first place.
Anyway I happen to be interested in pickpocketing so naturally when this book came out I decided I had better put aside my biases and take a look at it. I badly wanted to say it was a terrible book but alas I can't quite manage it. I do reluctantly have to admit that it is a good book. Very well produced indeed and I shall resist the temptation to say that Tom Baxter as a mentalist would make a very good book publisher. Solid hard cover, easily read print and it FEELS like a good book. The illustrations by David's wife are pretty good too.
Now what about the book itself? I have quite a few books on pickpocketing. Everything from a terrific pamphlet by Walt Hudson to more substantial works by Jimmy Ravel (also with really good illustrations) Ricky Dunn and the classic How to Pick Pockets by Eddie Joseph. I also have an excellent DVD by Mark Raffles. I have met three of these authors. One was Mark Raffles and the other two were Eddie Joseph in Harry Stanley's Unique Studio in London and David Alexander himself in Albuquerque. Mr Joseph was very humble and nice to me. Mr Alexander was not so humble and not so nice to me.
However, his book compares well to the ones above. It has good standard techniques of pickpocketing, good explanations of such and a great trick of pretended muscle reading in order to remove a watch. This last one I will probably use myself.
The book is pretty standard fare for a pickpocketing book except for one thing. I don't know whether to praise it or condemn it. I will probably do both. I actually felt a little guilty reading it but I have to say I enjoyed it. It was quite a revelation. It was an interview with someone who knew the great Dominique, the famed master pickpocket very well. The whole act was explained from start to finish. It was a wonderful read and a complete expose of the act. There was something in the description I could probably use in a linking finger ring routine.
Alas I do have to condemn it. I am pretty sure he didn't get Dominique's permission to expose the whole act in such detail. I thought it was a terrible thing to do. The book was originally published in 1979 and I am not sure if the great master French Pickpocket was still active at that time but I imagine he was. But even if he wasn't it seemed a very unethical thing to do. I didn't like that aspect of it one bit. I find it ironical that Tom Baxter was the publisher and editor because if this was someone else's book Tom would be the first one huffing and puffing about how unethical it was to expose another man's act without his permission.
And for the first time I realised that I had already read some huffing and puffing about the matter. Ricky Dunn who wrote what I regard as the best pickpocketing book I have ever read said some very rude things about the Alexander book in his own "The Professional Stage Pickpocket" (a very similar title I noticed). He railed against the inaccuracy of the description and said Dominique should have sued the author. He also slated the inaccuracy of the Alexander description of one of Vic Perry's bits.
I do think the description of the Dominique act in the Alexander book was quite accurate. I think Ricky Dunn was furious at the appropriation and exposure of Dominique's material and was trying to protect the great French pickpocket by saying the description was not accurate. I am a complete rogue as anyone who knows me will tell you but even I would not stoop to giving away a man's life work in a book without his permission. I thought it was wrong although it was certainly an exceptional description.
Overall, I think it was a reasonably good book and I very much liked the production quality and the illustrations. Not as good as the superb Ricky Dunn book which I would recommend to anyone even if they never pick a pocket in their life. But the Alexander book is a good one nevertheless and I would never let my disdain for the author and the publisher interfere with my opinion of the book itself.
I really should be nominated for sainthood.
In a previous thread it was mentioned how difficult it must be to be a reviewer of magic books and products because you risk giving offence and making enemies out of former friends. However, that is not a problem for me since I never liked David Alexander from the moment I met him. And Tom and I have never got on terribly well since I have always considered him to be an old misery and he has always considered me a charlatan of the first order. Therefore there is utterly no danger of making enemies out of friends since we have never been friends in the first place.
Anyway I happen to be interested in pickpocketing so naturally when this book came out I decided I had better put aside my biases and take a look at it. I badly wanted to say it was a terrible book but alas I can't quite manage it. I do reluctantly have to admit that it is a good book. Very well produced indeed and I shall resist the temptation to say that Tom Baxter as a mentalist would make a very good book publisher. Solid hard cover, easily read print and it FEELS like a good book. The illustrations by David's wife are pretty good too.
Now what about the book itself? I have quite a few books on pickpocketing. Everything from a terrific pamphlet by Walt Hudson to more substantial works by Jimmy Ravel (also with really good illustrations) Ricky Dunn and the classic How to Pick Pockets by Eddie Joseph. I also have an excellent DVD by Mark Raffles. I have met three of these authors. One was Mark Raffles and the other two were Eddie Joseph in Harry Stanley's Unique Studio in London and David Alexander himself in Albuquerque. Mr Joseph was very humble and nice to me. Mr Alexander was not so humble and not so nice to me.
However, his book compares well to the ones above. It has good standard techniques of pickpocketing, good explanations of such and a great trick of pretended muscle reading in order to remove a watch. This last one I will probably use myself.
The book is pretty standard fare for a pickpocketing book except for one thing. I don't know whether to praise it or condemn it. I will probably do both. I actually felt a little guilty reading it but I have to say I enjoyed it. It was quite a revelation. It was an interview with someone who knew the great Dominique, the famed master pickpocket very well. The whole act was explained from start to finish. It was a wonderful read and a complete expose of the act. There was something in the description I could probably use in a linking finger ring routine.
Alas I do have to condemn it. I am pretty sure he didn't get Dominique's permission to expose the whole act in such detail. I thought it was a terrible thing to do. The book was originally published in 1979 and I am not sure if the great master French Pickpocket was still active at that time but I imagine he was. But even if he wasn't it seemed a very unethical thing to do. I didn't like that aspect of it one bit. I find it ironical that Tom Baxter was the publisher and editor because if this was someone else's book Tom would be the first one huffing and puffing about how unethical it was to expose another man's act without his permission.
And for the first time I realised that I had already read some huffing and puffing about the matter. Ricky Dunn who wrote what I regard as the best pickpocketing book I have ever read said some very rude things about the Alexander book in his own "The Professional Stage Pickpocket" (a very similar title I noticed). He railed against the inaccuracy of the description and said Dominique should have sued the author. He also slated the inaccuracy of the Alexander description of one of Vic Perry's bits.
I do think the description of the Dominique act in the Alexander book was quite accurate. I think Ricky Dunn was furious at the appropriation and exposure of Dominique's material and was trying to protect the great French pickpocket by saying the description was not accurate. I am a complete rogue as anyone who knows me will tell you but even I would not stoop to giving away a man's life work in a book without his permission. I thought it was wrong although it was certainly an exceptional description.
Overall, I think it was a reasonably good book and I very much liked the production quality and the illustrations. Not as good as the superb Ricky Dunn book which I would recommend to anyone even if they never pick a pocket in their life. But the Alexander book is a good one nevertheless and I would never let my disdain for the author and the publisher interfere with my opinion of the book itself.
I really should be nominated for sainthood.