David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

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David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 16th, 2002, 1:00 pm

What David wrote about the importance of reading and magic in the new issue of Genii is absolutely right on target! David when you used the termonology that reading is the "road less traveled" you couldn't have foud a better way of expressing what I believe to be the general attitude in Magic today. I'm currently writing a book on readimg being the best way to learn magic. I'm also glad that you shared all of those e-mails giving specific information from the best magicians of today about favorite effects they read from books which have not been performed much. I believe reading encourages the most original thinking possible, when learning how to perform a trick and the written word has more precise information than a video or DVD can ever have. Reading creates more divergent thinking and therefore educates the best of all learing forms. I know people don't like dogmatism today, although a person would be hard-pressed to argue against this

The problem today is people, for the most part don't like to read and so they don't. This is a cop-out and doesn't excuse magicians at all from reading. Shame on you if you don't read! I'm sorry if this offends anyone. Why use an inferior method to learn such as a video or DVD, when unquestionably reading is the most suprior way to learn anything, especially magic. I'm not saying you can't learn magic from these other mediums,but reading is better. I was given this advice by Phil Thomas of Yogi Magic Mart over twenty years ago i.e. reading is the best way to learn magic. One of my favorite effects from a book that I haven't seen performed much is "The Klondike KIcker" from Steve Dusheck's Coin Magic Book. The effect is a gold quarter is seen inside of a plastic coin case and a silver quarter in another coin case. Magically, the one case becomes empty- in a spectator's pocket no less and the other case which had the silver quarter now has a half dollar with a golden eagle. It's a tremendous effect and a great sequal to Steve's "Gold Rush" found in the same book. Thank you Richard and David for this much needed article. By the way, Richard Kaufman, Genii Magazine is the best it's ever been. For example, I also enjoyed the feature on Darren Romeo as well as the photos. Keep up th gret wor, please! Magic needs it and so do we.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 16th, 2002, 1:29 pm

It would be my pleasure to:
"Keep up th gret wor" if I knew what it was!
Just kidding--thanks for the kind words.
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 16th, 2002, 2:24 pm

Even though I help RK with Genii, he keeps me out of the loop regarding many upcoming articles. So...It was a pleasing surprise to read David Regal's stimulating article. In fact, David sent me scurrying to my library to pull out certain books and look up many of the cited tricks. Also, I did not waste anytime showing a few of the local magicians these "buried" gems.

Thank you, David...for the "surge" and "reminder."

Onward...

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 17th, 2002, 4:16 am

Well Richard you deserve those words and Jon I did the same thing you did. I went looking not only for some of the effects David wrote about but for other good effects, which either I have never seen performed or have only seen once. I'll let you know how I do in the next few days. By the way Richard, because of reading and writing, you have a great career! I hope there are future articles in this much -needed area!

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 19th, 2002, 11:56 am

figure there is no reason for me to start a new thread, I loved the article what are some of everybody elses favorite buried in print routines? I think Richard Volmer's Earthly powers is pretty cool

Noah Levine

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 19th, 2002, 8:43 pm

Noah,
Where is "Earthly Powers" in print and why do you like it?
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 19th, 2002, 8:44 pm

Oh, and one of my choices, Cliff Green's "Ace of Spades as a Sorcerer's Apprentice" appears to be in Ricky Jay's new show!
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 20th, 2002, 3:50 am

Sorry about that , it is in the June 1988 Issue of Apocalypse, page 1503 in the third bound book. I like it because if I find their card and they are totally amazed then they will be besides themselves when I show the four aces. This is the only routine that I know is truly buried in print. I probably should have mentioned,eight selections from the magic of Eddie Fechter but I wasn't sure how buried that was, All backs from The Dingle book is also sweet. Oh well

Noah LEvine

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 21st, 2002, 12:33 am

"The Moving Pencil" from Close-Up Card Magic.

A spectator freely selects a card from their deck which they shuffled. They sign the back and don't even look at the face of the card. No one ever sees the face of the card.

The card is shuffled back into the deck, which is spread on the table face up, so the backs can't be seen.

The spectator then takes your finger and moves it to the face of one card. It's the same card they signed.

Anytime, anywhere, any deck, and the unique element that sells it is that the spectator does not know what card they signed. If they don't know, how could anyone possibly know?

And it has one last advantage -- the routine is virtually impossible to forget.

You know the old saying that there are ten thousand tricks in the world, and you're going to have ten in your repertoire, so you should pick the best one in a thousand? The Moving Pencil is the one.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 21st, 2002, 1:18 am

I am not sure about the English edition but in the 4th volume of the original German edition of Card College there is a variation of "Earthly Powers" named "Programmmagie" in the "Stocking" Chapter.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 21st, 2002, 5:30 am

Another effect I like is "The Jumping Match" from "The Mark Wilson Course". I saw a lay person do this once and it fooled me, badly! Two toothpicks or wooden matches are used. One is balnced on the other while held in the performer's hands. The upper match or toothpick leaps in the air at the magician's command with apparently no movement by the magician at all. It's eerie to see! The effect is totally impromptu and both items are normal and can be borrowed. This effect is also found in one of the two "The Art of Close up Magic" books by Lewis Ganson.I'm not sure if it's Vol. 1 or 2

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 21st, 2002, 6:32 am

I have to agree the "Jumping Match" or as it was also called the "Dancing Matchstick" is eerie to see, when I first saw it performed I thought it was a form of Dushecks Wunderbar and kept watching the performers mouth for the movement, but after learning it, and it is difficult to learn by reading you need someone to show it to you, it is very easy to do and can be done anywhere with any toothpicks or matches with no get ready, my kind of magic.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 21st, 2002, 1:16 pm

I first saw Bob McAllister do what I think you mean when talk about a Jumping Match. He did it with two toothpicks. Quite eerie.
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Bob Gerdes » May 22nd, 2002, 9:03 am

I looked through my copies of "The Art of Close-Up Magic" last night looking for the jumping matches thing. Volume 1 chapter 11 has a trick called "Impromptu Pulse Meter" (I think) from Roger Klause. Is this what you guys are talking about? Couldn't get it to work from the description....not clear to me how the second match is balanced on top of the first one. Is Mark Wilson's description any better?

Bob

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 22nd, 2002, 12:34 pm

Bob,

From what I read in both books, I prefer the Mark Wilson explanation. With the in depth illusrtations and text, I learned it better from The Mark Wilson Course.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Brian Marks » May 22nd, 2002, 2:15 pm

I like David Roth's Copper Silver Routine. It is in Coin Magic and a later variation is in Expert Coin Magic both by RK. I just got comfortable with the palm to palm transfer and will soon begin performing it once I have a presentation down. I havent seen anyone else do this version. In all honesty I havent seen to many people do the effect.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 22nd, 2002, 3:02 pm

Anyone attempting the dancing/jumping toothpicks/matchsticks I would like to say it is impossible to do by reading the instructions, I had someone show me how to do it and it is very easy, hopefully we are all talking about the same thing and by that I mean the gimmick is your fingernail, the balancing part is no problem and for virtually nothing it is a mindblower that can be done anywhere & anytime. I will check my books tonight for the descriptions you are referring to.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 23rd, 2002, 6:43 am

Went home last evening and read both descriptions of the dancing matchstick and the description in The Art of Close up Magic was very poor and the illustration was actually upside down, so impossible to learn, the description in the Mark Wilson book was excellent and you should have no trouble learning it and you should be able to make it dance with no perceptible movement of any of your fingers, it really looks great when it is jumping, go for it...

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Jim Morton » May 23rd, 2002, 11:29 am

Like Matthew Field, I really loved this article. Since I have, or have had, most of the books mentioned, I wasn't surprised by the choices. I was glad to see Daryl choose Bruce Elliott's Classic Secrets of Magic since that was the very first magic book I ever owned. RK's comments on Cliff Green's book made me get it off the shelf and take a closer look. That's a book I bought back before I had any right owning it, so much of it was wasted on me. I'm better equipped, now, to learn from it.

The thing I really liked about the article was not so much the choices--anyone who does bother to re-read the books in their library is going to find lots of fun things--but how different magicians responded to it. Each magician showed us something of his personality in his choices. Some were open and honest, while others were more vague and secretive. Some went for well-known books, while others preferred more obscure tomes. Some actually answered the question as it was put, while others, I suspect, were less than forthcoming. Harry Lorayne, for instance, mentioned a book that he edited. What a perfectly Harry Lorayne thing to do. I would expect no less from him (and if John Scarne were around to answer the question, I'm sure he would have chosen something from Scarne on Card Tricks :) ).

David Regal did an excellent job, and I hope their will be more articles like this one in the future.

Jim

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 23rd, 2002, 1:06 pm

Hi!
I finally received the June Genii on May 22 (I'm in Manhattan). In the David Regal article, Richard Kaufman mentioned that some of the items in George Kaplan's The Fine Art of Magic were actually created by S. Leo Horowitz and Dai Vernon. Richard, or someone else on this board: Will you please provide some proof to back up the statement. How do you know this?

Thanks.

Jeremy

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 23rd, 2002, 3:12 pm

Proof? Well, I have heard that both Vernon and Horowitz told this to many people when the book came out. It has always been common knowledge.
At this late date, anecdotal evidence is probably all you're going to get unless someone with Horowitz' letters chimes in (and there are people out there with a lot of his letters).
Of course, Kaplan always strongly denied that any of the material belonged to either Vernon or Horowitz.
One can also look toward the fact that George Kaplan, neither before the book nor after the book, published much of interest. Just this one big lump of stuff. That doesn't make sense, does it ...
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » May 23rd, 2002, 8:13 pm

Thanks David, and thanks to publisher Richard for this article. It was exactly what I needed to cleanse the mental palate after the platters of platitudes provided in the effusive article on your June cover subject. The competition might have stopped with the personality piece, but Genii came through with some real food for thought in "Speaking Volumes." Wait, I must've have missed dinner while I was reading -too many gustatory references! :p

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 13th, 2002, 7:13 pm

I, like everyone else, devoured David's article with glee. Richard, how about a follow-up article with favorite effects (especially card!)they do love to perform? Keep up the good work!

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 15th, 2002, 11:03 pm

Here are another two effects that are 'buried' in print:

THE KABBALA ACES (Peter Kane) - published in the book "Kane" (1982) and also in the very first issue of "Richard's Almanac" (September 1982).

LIARS CONVENTION (Karl Fulves & Don Nielsen) - published in "The Tarbell Course in Magic" (1975 edition - Volume 2 / Lesson 33A)

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 16th, 2002, 1:22 am

That certainly was a very interesting article...

Richard, though - that's the second time I've seen you praising Lorayne's Aces Wild...yet Lorayne admits it was an attempt to duplicate an effect he had seen - while the trick had been previously published in Vernon's Inner Secrets as Four of a Kind....do you know something we don't? Whatever the paternity, it is certainly a fine trick!

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » June 16th, 2002, 9:11 am

Is the Vernon method the same? I thought the handling was different ...
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 16th, 2002, 12:20 pm

Oh yes - silly me - Lorayne handles aces, Vernon handles queens

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » June 16th, 2002, 12:47 pm

I wasn't being facetious, and I certainly wouldn't defend Lorayne regarding publishing something that belonged to someone else as his own.
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 17th, 2002, 4:11 pm

A great effect which is "buried" is Roy Waltons "Mission Accomplished" from "The Devils Playthings" page 18.
Can anyone tell me if this effect proceeded the "Smiling Mule"? I ask due to the fact that there is a very similar theme going on in this great sandwich effect. I'm just wondering.
Take care all.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 17th, 2002, 5:20 pm

Hi;
Isn't 'Mission Accomplished' the forerunner of all the Collectors routines?
Jim

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 22nd, 2002, 4:51 am

I had always undestood that if two mates were used to find a single selection then the effect was labeled a "Sandwich". If for example four of a kind were used to locate two or more selections, then the effect was a "Collectors".
I know, I know, this might seem petty to some folks.
Anyway, "Mission Accomplished" is a great effect and since I only have one book of Walton's, (Devil's Playthings), I didn't know if this effect was pre-Smiling Mule. I'm just interested if anyone should happen to know.
Take care all.

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Richard Kaufman » June 22nd, 2002, 5:21 pm

Rock can fill us in on the original Walton routine and how Marlo transformed it into what we consider "The Collectors."
Jon, don't forget to mention that illustration in Close-Up Card Magic that Harry always refers to as "starting the craze." :)
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 22nd, 2002, 7:29 pm

Give me a day or two. The tracking on this effect is a bear.

Onward,

JR

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 23rd, 2002, 9:00 am

Concerning Aces Wild, Lorayne says in Close-up Card Magic that it was a Ron Johnson's original idea? Fact is that it had been published before Close-up Card Magic in Inner Secrets of Card Magic under Vernon's name. The Lorayne's method is identical to Vernon's EXCEPT for the misdirection that is better in Vernon's trick.
Concerning Earthly Powers, the origin of the trick goes back to the trick "Oracle" by Fulves in Pallbearers Review Nov.1970 where the mathematical principle is first used to make a prediction. Note that Michael Skinner performs the same trick on his video tapes serie but with a selection rather than a prediction under the name Gold Medal. Searles will add the aces Kicker in Moracle also in Pallbearers Review Jul. 1971.
I think the contribution of Vollmer with his Earthly Powers was to use a straddle faro rather than an overhand stack as explained in Moracle.
As to the "buriness" of the trick in the literature, Lorayne says in his advertisement for the third volume of Apocalypse that this trick contained in the volume is simply "one of the best card tricks ever". Lorayne also performs the trick and a variation on his second L&L video.

Philippe Nol

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 23rd, 2002, 10:11 am

Concerning "collectors", Roy Walton of course created the plot in his effect "Collectors" published in Abracadabra Feb. 1969 but I think the effect Finders Keepers out of Devils Playthings by Walton his a precursor of the trick. Of course it is rather a double sandwich effect than a collector.
Isn't it in Hierophant that Marlo established our actual collector effect using three selections and four face up Aces?

Philippe Nol

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Ryan Matney » June 23rd, 2002, 12:50 pm

Philippe is on the case. Watch your back Jon Racherbaumer.

:p
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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 25th, 2002, 2:11 am

Congratulations to Genii and David Regal for the excellent article "Speaking Volumes". I have learnt all of my Magic from books and to read such a wonderful article confirmed my long held belief that the best way to learn the art is through the pages of a book.

I can remember one of the best Christmas present I received was some books from my uncle. He went to a magic shop and purchased The Card Classics of Ken Krenzel, Loraynes's Aftethtoughts, The Stars of Magic and Cy Endfields Entertaining Card Magic; was I heaven?, you bet. These books I still read to this very day, the material is timeless and the plots for the effects sums up the very essence of great memorable magic.

To all the younger memebers of the fraternity, do your self a favour and check out these wonderful books and cultivate your desire and passion for reading, you will benefit on so many levels.

To those that are interested, I mentioned in David's article that my choice effect was Look an Illusion by Larry Jennings, I would like to offer another for your attention. Edward Marlo's Develish Miracle and The Conus Aces from The Royal Road to Card Magic. The Conus Aces has provedn to big hit in my stand-up act exactly as written by Hugard.

Keep up the good work ;)

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 25th, 2002, 2:56 am

Michael,

Welcome to 'The Genii Forum'.

Mentioned in David Regal's article was the fact that you're in the process of assembling a book of your own magic. How long will it be before your book hits the printing press?

Regards,

John

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 25th, 2002, 5:37 pm

Thanks for your interest John. My book will be ready by this time next year. I have finished writing all but one of the effects, next comes the photographs and then my reflections on Magic and some essays.

The contents will feature some great card Magic with my handlings on some classic sleights. A chpater featuring my thoughts and handlings for the Memorised Deck and the Breather crimp. I am sorry to be so vague at this time, I don't want to reveal to much about the contents just yet. I will keep everyone posted.

Thanks again :cool:

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Re: David Regal:"Speaking Volumes."

Postby Guest » June 26th, 2002, 3:21 am

Michael,

I'm looking forward to reading your book.

Here's a quick question for you.

In the March 1983 issue of "Apocalypse", Harry Lorayne wrote about a young performer from London who had performed close-up at Tannen's Magic Jubilee. The young performer's name was 'Michael Louis' and he'd travelled to the USA with Alan Alan. Harry Lorayne described the young performer's magic as 'exquisite'.

Was that you?


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