The Genii Forum

One of his greatest tricks, Steve, is making you believe that there is no end to his genius!

This is great news --

Any info on who will publish?

Kaufman and Company will publish!

So this one will come out before the Jennings book?

In the early/mid 90's, a bunch of finger-flinging jugglers were showing off in the hotel for the IBM convention in Eastbourne, UK. No tricks, no magic - just sleight after sleight...horrible!

David Berglas approached and casually performed his, as RK might say, "Any Who at Any What".

Result: Silence...dropped jaws...silence...then wild applause! Beautiful............

Paul Gordon

Yes, before the Jennings book.

Richard,

Will this be a signed limited edition?

Do you have a guess as to how much I have to save up for?

Can we pre-order it?

Thank you for the pleasant surprise.

There will be two editions as I used to do: one signed and numbered deluxe edition, and one regular edition.

I have no idea what the price will be yet, and am not taking pre-orders.

I speak for many when I thank you for the effort, expenditure and heart you put into publishing. It is, as mentioned in another thread regarding "magazines", a complex and often thankless task. Looking forward to the Berglas book (and the DeLand one as well!). Thanks so much...

James

My chat with "International Man of Mystery" David Berglas is now online! We talk about everything from working on several Bond films to entertaining Winston Churchill & the Royal Family of England. Enjoy!

Five Most Recent Interviews:
David Ben
Marvin Miller
Banacheck
Bob Cassidy
Barrie Richardson

enjoyed the chat with David Berglas very much.. i'd urge everyone to listen to anything David ever says.. his words, however informal or conversational are always full of gems and enlightened thinking.. and theres some really great comments in the podcast!!

Richard do you have a rough idea on the number of pages

Not yet. But it's not going to be a booklet. Should be at least 200 pages.

It has been one of the great pleasures in my life to get to know David Berglas since moving from New Yawk to England. He is a gentleman and knows more about magic than almost anyone else on earth.

I know how hard Richard has worked on this book, and I am really looking forward to it. I know a thing or two about cards and David has fooled me badly on more than one occasion with his card effects.

Matt Field

Can't wait for next Summer. The World Cup and the Berglas book!

Joe

Lecture tour?

David will not be doing a lecture tour.

Just listened to Berglas's interview on The Magic Newswire. Excellent thoughts, memories and comments, and at the end he discusses for just a short bit the book. The interview really got me looking forward to this.

Steve Cohen wrote:You're right, Richard. Berglas handles cards in a way I've not seen before. His think-a-card routines are terribly baffling. He and I spent several memorable late-night sessions, and I've concluded that there is no end to this man's genius.

Indeed. I have also concluded the same after several late night sessions.

David Berglas once spent an evening teaching me magic when I was about 16 or 17 years old. I am not quite sure he has recovered from the shame of it.

Sincerely look forward to this Mr Kaufman.

Looking foward to it; but I do hope that the approach is a little more rigourous than what was in the Britland tome.

David Britland had the extremely difficult task of encompassing Berglas's entire career in one book. An almost impossible task, yet he succeeded admirably.

Britland's card section is not that long, but the language is very dense and rich.

I have the luxury of an entire book to devote to the card magic and David Berglas's manner of working is antithetical to the type of nuts and bolts descriptions I normally write. However, I have discovered a way that suits us. It makes you aware of the dynamism and free flow of the card work, but also gives you the nuts and bolts to go down that road. Once you're on the road, you have to just start doing the material and learning it yourself.

I'll be giving you all the tools and teaching you how to use them, but you'll have to build your own boat. You'll understand when you read the book.

David himself wrote a great little book years ago. I forget what the hell it was called. It seems to have vanished into oblivion which is a shame. Very slick paper and well printed.

All I remember about the old Berglas book was very good illustrations and he also explained how you tie a knot in a tie with one hand. The other thing that was quite amusing was a stunt he recommended when a group in an audience were not paying attention to you. You flip a ball of flaming flash paper over their head and when they look back at you look terribly innocent and the audience laughs.

'The David Berglas File No. 1: Professional Magic for Magicians' (1976) has those items and several more.

That's the one. It was very good and well produced. I don't think it made it to File number two.Shame.

What are the chances of David publishing his cigarette routine? I was surprised to see it not make the Britland book...

David gave me his cigarette routine for the Genii issue, but we ran long and I couldn't include it. It won't fit in this book, because it's entirely devoted to card magic. I may publish it in Genii at some point.

I can actually do David's cigarette trick. In my opinion it is his greatest trick. Far better than that silly card and number thing that magicians rave about for some unknown reason. It is just another card trick after all.

I saw David do it in a very large theatre in London. It was the Victoria Palace. Yep. A small tricks with cigarettes could be seen in the largest theatre. Skilled lighting was used and it worked well. I even remember bits of the patter and it was nearly 50 years ago. He said "If I rub my hand once a cigarette appears. (and it did) If I rub my hand twice two cigarettes appear" (and they did) It was an absolute masterpiece and Ken Brooke told me that it was the trick that made David famous on British television. He did it with his sleeves rolled up.

Many years later he did it again on British TV but it was a pale shadow of its former self. I got the impression that he hadn't done it for years. I know he is known as a mentalist but I always preferred his magic and pickpocketing. He did have some wonderful blindfold work and a some of his mentalism was fine but there were occasions he got a bit too complicated with it and that can lead to boredom.

I once was booked at a regular gig in Ireland to do children's shows. The same kids were there week after week so I eventually ran out of material. So in desperation I decided to do the cigarette trick even though cigarette tricks are a no-no to perform for children. To my amazement the reaction was fantastic. The kids kept laughing and gasping when all the cigarettes appeared one at a time.

I am now inclined to do the trick with miniture magic wands instead when I do the item for children.

It really is a wonderful trick.

Appreciate the info., Richard and Mark.

I am insanely excited about this book. Only a third volume of 'The Complete Walton' would excite me more! So - I was wondering, Richard, if you are pretty confident that the book will be ready by the Summer? Alot of books in magic get mentioned and then kicked into the long grass for years on end. I really hope that doesn't happen this time!

I just dunno' what to make of this book. Is there any chance of any peek details? It all seems very mysterious at the moment...

All the best,

Joe

And mysterious it shall remain.

Oh lordy lordy

I spoke to David on the phone for an hour today, talking over details for various parts of the book.

He is mentioned in my book too. That should put him in a bad mood. I don't suppose he wants to be associated with the devil. In my meanderings I mention how I found out that he worked in a strip club a week before I did. I remember being quite surprised that a person of his stature would consent to working there. It seems that he was a pal of the owner.

No. Neither of us were doing a strip act I hasten to add.

Is in this book also a description of his ACAAN Version?

Thanks

Markus

David performs different versions of Any Card At Any Number--some of which are "The Berglas Effect" and some not. The methods vary depending upon whether he's onstage, closeup, working for one person or multiple people, the exact circumstance, and every other variable you can think of.

His methods are not some simple "secret" or "answer" that you can buy and go off and do the way you would a paddle trick or even a Center Tear.

There will be several methods in the book, but if you think that you can just read any of the methods and then run out and do them within a day, or even a few weeks, you're mistaken.

There is no gimmicked deck, no one secret, and everyone who reads the book starts with the disadvantage that they are not David Berglas.

He showed me that card at any number trick. He seemed disappointed that I just shrugged my shoulders and didn't get excited. It seems like a good card trick but there are many good card tricks. I am still not sure why I am supposed to froth at the mouth over it. His banging on the wall to make the light come on is far better.

Thanks for mentioning that, Mark. I've often thought ACAAN is an underwhelming concept, of interest probably only to very analytical individuals (e.g. magicians). Without some thought about how "impossible" it is/was, it's just a location. Don't get me wrong: I am one of those analytical people, and I'd love to see someone do it justice in person. But I'd suspect the average paying customer would be more impressed by a good Invisible Deck presentation, to pick just one example.

Mark speaks from experience, even though I disagree with him.
DrDanny speaks from inexperience (apparently).