The Work Vols. 4 & 5 (eBooks) – Kendall

[Dustin Stinett]

The Work Volume 4: The Pass
The Work Volume 5: The Top Change
Ian Kendall 10/$17 each (download PDF file)

Ian Kendallwho many should recognized as a contributor to our little community here on the Genii Forumhas, in agreement with him, taken over where Michael Close left off on the eBook series titled The Work.

These eBooks focus on essential techniques of sleight of hand with playing cards. The first three volumes, penned by Close, covered various methods of palming and related moves (like the Side Steal).

In Volume 4 Mr. Kendall covers several types of the Pass and Volume 5 takes up the Top Change as well as several Color Changes.

What sets this series apartbesides the overall quality of the materialis the fact that they include embedded video clips of key actions. When the detail of the printed word is coupled with the visual of video, the result is the closest form of leaning one can get to live teaching.

The Work Volume 4: The Pass is 37 pages long, contains 16 video clips as well as 47 color photos.

After his introductory remarks, where he attempts to relieve the inherent fears some have when just reading or hearing The Pass, he gets right into it. This work is excellent for the beginner as well as the intermediate student who has shied away from exploring this key move. Mr. Kendall is a fine exponent of the Pass and, by breaking it down into its individual elements (in the Toolkit section), he makes learning itand perhaps more importantly, understanding itquite easy.

After these basics, the Classic Pass is taught in its entirety. He then shows his wonderful Simple Pass, which I would have preferred he not do, its that goodeven for those who do the pass (it was hiddenerrI mean published in M-U-M magazine last year).

The Riffle, Turnover, Half, and One-Hand Passes are each covered with the same level of clarity and detail (and dont forget those video clips!).

Finally, though he also touches on the subject during some of the explanations, he goes into covering the pass.

Volume 5: The Top Change

The Top Change became one of my favorite moves once I actually started using it (I was far more afraid of doing it than I was the Pass). If you jazz at all with card magic, and you dont do a Top Change, you are like a pianist trying to play on a piano with no black keys. Like the Pass, learning the Top Change is challenging only because of the mindset many magicians have of it: They think its hard and just not possible to get away with. This eBook goes a long way toward fixing the first part of that mindset if you are one of those afflicted with it. As for the second part, well, thats up to the student: You just have to do it, and Mr. Kendall correctly points this out.

Three methods are shared: The Standard, Le Paul, and Snap Top Change. There are two grips shown for the Standard Top Change, the Slide and the Pinch (Erdnase). While my personal preference is with the former, both are taught equally well and Mr. Kendall recommends having both in your skill set.

The Le Paul, or Overhand (Biddle Grip) Top Change follows and it has its place, though I think Mr. Kendall errs by not touching on that for the sake of the student who might ask Why? (One answer is that you do not want to suddenly change grips midstream during a packet effect and/or sleight dependant on the Biddle Grip wherein you might want to switch a cardsay a selectionin/out during or after. As we learn from Erdnase, Uniformity of Action is paramount in good sleight of hand.)

The Snap Top Change is a more visible change in that attention is called to the card at the moment of the action. The wisdom of this is debatable, but this work would be incomplete without its inclusion, so here it is; and again, it is capably taught. Mr. Kendall also shows bold a face-up version that is used as a color change.

Like Volume 4, embedded videos help clarify the teaching of these techniques. He closes the section on the Top Change by going over the blocking of the move. Blocking is a theatrical term and he uses it since he clearly believes that magiceven close-up magicis a theatrical art; and he will not get an argument from me. But, for those who dont believe or understand it, hes talking about the movement and body language needed to make this move invisible, even though (except for the Snap Top Change) it is anything but. He takes up the blocking for both large and small groups.

After these covert (or secret) changes, Mr. Kendall shows three overt changescolor changes if you will.

He starts with the Book Change. This is a classic sleight I, as a kid, reinvented probably a century or so after it was first invented. The only thing I would add to Mr. Kendalls descriptionand you are getting it free from me courtesy of my callow youthis to push the changed card off the deck back into the other hand immediately after the change. In my opinion, it makes this effective but overlooked sleight a tad more magical in appearance.

The Erdnase Change (actually Method One of the Two-Handed Transformations) is covered next and, without some of the finesses offered by Dai Vernon (see Inner Secrets for one) I do not like the change as done here. Mr. Kendall does teach the moves basics well and is fairly true to the text in Expert at the Card Table (the deck is face up during the magical moment, but Mr. Kendall uses different colored backs for the explanation here, so the deck is face down by necessity). But the Professor made it better with his touches, so be sure to look into them.

Titled Marlos Snap Change here, Mr. Kendall now goes in depth into Horace Goldins change. He does a marvelous job of detailing the technique, its pitfalls, and how to overcome them. Sans the common error in crediting, this is one of the best resources I have seen for this re-popularized visual change.

This volume is 31 pages in length, has 56 color photos and features 13 embedded videos.

Mr. Kendalls writing style is conversational and relaxed and the same goes with his video appearances (they include sound). There are several typos that could be fixed, and thats one of the upsides of this form of media; he need not reprint it in order to fix them.

Both of these volumes are excellent and I recommend them. They are for the serious student of any skill level interested in personal growth in his or her craft. If you are one of those, and you want to add these key sleights to your set of ready tools, you cannot go wrong with them.

Both are available at:

http://www.virtualmagicshow.com/shop/

(Note that both of these are very large files, almost 150MBs each, and require Adobe Reader 9 (or higher), so make sure your computer is up to the task.)

[Dave Beutler]

The trailer for the Top Change isn't playing for me (the other trailers play). I tried four browsers, and even used Notepad as a browser, but no luck.

[Ian Kendall]

Oops, my bad. There isn't a trailer for the Changes book...

I'll try to get something up this weekend.

Ian

[Ian Kendall]

There are several typos that could be fixed, and thats one of the upsides of this form of media; he need not reprint it in order to fix them.

Many thanks to Dustin for sending me the embarrassingly long list of typos, which have now all been fixed.

Ian

[Ian Kendall]

Just a final note to say that I've put up a quick trailer for Volume 5.

Thanks, Ian