The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

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The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Feras Kharboush » November 18th, 2008, 11:27 pm

Hello,

There are rumors here and there about Kaufman publishing a book on the complete works of Larry Jennings. Assuming that this is true ( which would be amazing ), I had a question in mind and thought its appropriate if I address it here, hopefully Mr.Kaufman can comment on it :)

Will it include material from Jennings Card Wright book? The reason being because I found a copy, which is expensive, but don't want to spend the cash if the material will be published soon in another book.

Cheers,
~ Feras
P.S I know this is completely unrelated, but anyone heard about a book on Fred Robinson in the works?
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » November 18th, 2008, 11:51 pm

The Fred Robinson book has been in the works for even longer than my trilogy on Larry Jennings. Martin Breese has the Fred Robinson book, and it is supposedly near to being printed.

It is not a rumor about my publication of a new Jennings book: I posted the table of contents on here. Use the search function to find it. The next Jennings book to come out will be Mr. Jennings Takes It Easy. It includes rewrites of about four or five items from The Cardwright.

Used copies of The Cardwright are pretty easy to find--you shouldn't pay much for it.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Feras Kharboush » November 19th, 2008, 6:05 am

Thanks for the info Kaufman.

The Cardwright copy I found is for 100$, signed, which is why its expensive, but again, thats the only copy I found on ebay while back, hopefully cheaper options would pop up.

Cheers,

P.S feels weird talking to someone you look up to :P, your CardMagic book was a big influence. :)

Out of interest, any books of your magic coming soon?
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Steve Bryant » November 19th, 2008, 12:43 pm

I see five available at abebooks.com. Alas, they are $125, $125, $300, $375, and $450.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » November 19th, 2008, 2:27 pm

I have no material of my own to publish. All of my energies went into documenting the creativity of others and, as soon as that started in the late 1970s, I stopped thinking of material of my own. What was the point? Dingle, Jennings, Hamman--who needs my own crap?
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby El Mystico » November 19th, 2008, 3:04 pm

Richard - I don't mean this to be critical of your work at all - I just wish more people thought like you!

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » November 19th, 2008, 9:46 pm

I had some good ideas as a kid, but you really have to be careful in my position. I see so much material that it would be very easy to forget and print something as my own when it was something shown to me by another. I think the last original item I published was in Magic Man Examiner--a way of doing the Charlier Cut invisibly. It looked great for one or two people who happened to be standing directly in front of me! I thought one of the most interesting things in the Dai Vernon interview that we printed in our August issue was his description of how Charlier did his "Pass" by turning his back to the spectators.

Two of the better items I invented, for which credit is almost always absent, are the Fusion type effects (such as Anniversary Waltz) and Inversion type effects (to which James Lewis added the outjogged card and greatly improved it).
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Bill Wells » November 20th, 2008, 9:25 am

Richard -

Don't sell yourself short. There is great creativity expressed in the way you capture the thoughts and efforts of others. There is often as much of you in the product as it is of them. You have advanced magic literature as much as anyone in the last century. Give yourself a pat on the back!

Bill
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Mark Tams » November 20th, 2008, 7:15 pm

You know, those 2 points are very interesting Richard. I do remember reading your contributions on these plots (I guess they weren't plots until you printed them and everyone else took a hold of them and ran with them).

I'm curious, were you given proper credits for the fusion and inversion effects? (I certainly hope so!)

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Joe Pecore » November 20th, 2008, 8:52 pm

He is given the credit in MagicPedia ;-)

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » November 20th, 2008, 9:56 pm

I haven't read the Fusion effect published by the fellow who inspired Doc Eason--I believe it was published the year after mine in CardWorks. Have no idea if there's a credit. Wesley James has spent the last few years claiming he created it in the 1960s. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have shown it to anyone.

As far as "Inversion," my plot is to have the entire deck instantaneously and visibly revolve around a selected card--that's the point, not just having a selected card reverse in the deck. I don't get credited on that one much, either. As I noted, the Jim Lewis addition of having a card outjogged does make it a much better trick because there's more to see.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Steve Hook » November 20th, 2008, 10:28 pm

Chris Carter credits his inspiration for "Cold Fusion" (published in his 1990 Linking Ring Parade)as Meir Yedid's "Signa-Fusion" from INCREDIBLE CLOSE-UP MAGIC (written by Gary Oullet; 1982).

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » November 20th, 2008, 10:33 pm

My handling for "Fusion" was worked out with Gene Maze and David Arthur. Gene was also close with Meir and it's possible they discussed it. I've never asked Meir about it.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Jim Maloney » November 20th, 2008, 11:14 pm

Richard Kaufman wrote:I haven't read the Fusion effect published by the fellow who inspired Doc Eason--I believe it was published the year after mine in CardWorks. Have no idea if there's a credit.


Christopher Carter's "Cold Fusion" was published in "The Linking Ring" in September, 1990.

Wesley James has spent the last few years claiming he created it in the 1960s. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have shown it to anyone.


Well, there was Peter Samelson who stated the following in "Theatrical Close-up", about his "New York Transpo":

When I first developed this in 1974, I never had any idea that it would become the strongest single piece of magic I could do in any close-up performance other than a formal show. It owes its inspiration to an unpublished effect by Wes James called "Forgery" (developed about 1970), the classic transposition effect of John Scarne's, and an effect of Frank Everhart's called "Chicago Opener".


So yes, he did show it to at least one person, who places it at the very latest in 1974, and attests to Wesley having developed it even earlier.

In Enchantments, Wesley includes touches from Max Maven and Danny Tong that are dated in 1974, and from Derek Dingle and Frank Garcia in 1972.

So, Richard, your claim that "he doesn't seem to have shown it to anyone" is simply not true, and there are at least three people you can ask directly about it.

Meir Yedid falls in there somewhere, as well (Signa-Fusion, circa 1982), but I haven't done enough investigating into his routine to say for certain where he credits the inspiration for his routine, and when he first came across the idea.

I don't dispute, however, that you were the first to publish such a routine, in "CardWorks".

-Jim
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Feras Kharboush » December 6th, 2008, 9:35 am

Richard Kaufman wrote:What was the point? Dingle, Jennings, Hamman--who needs my own crap?

I actually enjoyed a darn lot of your creations. World's Fastest Reverse, Fantasy Star ( I think thats the name, its in CardMagic ), 4-5-6 Aces, your poker and black jack demos as Open Travellers in CardWorks ( particularly the one using Krenzel's hold out ). The standup effects in CardMagic are stunners too. Your work also is what got me into tabled palms work ( the card-in-bill switch using angle palm is really good, in CardMagic ).

Reading your first book, I get the impression that you used to do good tabled palm work. Was this a Gene Maze influence? Was angle palm something common in that era. The use of these palms ( to my observation of material ) went absent, till Leenart Green published his work with it, not to forget Spain's Dani DaOrtiz.

Cheers,
~ Feras
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Denis Behr » May 13th, 2010, 10:27 am

Richard Kaufman wrote:As far as "Inversion," my plot is to have the entire deck instantaneously and visibly revolve around a selected card--that's the point, not just having a selected card reverse in the deck. I don't get credited on that one much, either.

"The World's Fastest Reverse" was published in CardMagic in 1979. However, the same plot (the deck sits on the table and reverses visibly via tabled palm-off with the exception of a selection) was published ten years earlier by Bruce Cervon as "Kellie Displacement" in Epilogue, Issue 6, July 1969. (It's republished in The Cervon File, 1988.)

(See THIS LINK for some more versions.)

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby absoulute » May 13th, 2010, 1:00 pm

You have to understand the impact and influence your writing and illustrations have made on the magic community Richard. You are just as responsible for the quality of each trick you wrote and illustrated as the effect's creator. Needless to say, thank you for all the work you have put in, because really they are partly all your own effects in their own unique way.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » May 13th, 2010, 10:59 pm

absoulute wrote:You have to understand the impact and influence your writing and illustrations have made on the magic community Richard. You are just as responsible for the quality of each trick you wrote and illustrated as the effect's creator.


That's like saying Walpole was responsible for Johnson's witty comments. Richard is only responsible for the quality or clarity of the explanation - not the quality of the trick.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 14th, 2010, 11:01 am

Had no clue about the Cervon thing!
Oh well, another one bites the dust.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby absoulute » May 16th, 2010, 1:10 pm

If Richard does not explain and illustrate clearly then is the quality of the trick as you see it in the pages not degraded? Unless your omnipotence allows you to see every trick first hand, I don't see the arguement.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » May 16th, 2010, 2:14 pm

You said he is "as responsible for the quality of each trick" as the originator.

That is false.

Richard is only responsible for the clarity/quality of the explanation. If Richard wrote up a brilliant Jennings effect poorly, it would still be a brilliant Jennings effect.

Fortunately, Richard's descriptions are excellent. So he gets full credit for that. But let's not allow your enthusiasm to blur the distinction between an amanuensis and an author.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby absoulute » May 16th, 2010, 7:22 pm

But unless you saw Larry perform the trick first hand how would you truly know it was brilliant?

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 16th, 2010, 8:27 pm

The Optical Add-On is a brilliant sleight. It's written so poorly in Classic Magic that it doesn't seem even mildly deceptive. When you read something like that, the discrepancy between what you know about Larry Jennings and the description on the page raises an alarm inside your head: the author made a mistake is the answer that most frequently comes to mind.

If the description is correct, it still may read poorly until you practice and then try it on someone.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby absoulute » May 17th, 2010, 12:17 am

Very true Richard. The defense rests.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » May 17th, 2010, 12:53 am

absoulute wrote:But unless you saw Larry perform the trick first hand how would you truly know it was brilliant?


Uh, because Richard wrote an excellent description explaining LARRY'S IDEA. He still doesn't get credit for the idea, unless he had a hand in creating it. Then he would get a credit. Otherwise, he gets credit for a great description - and I am the first to give him credit for that. His descriptive writing is some of the best in magic. The Draun book is a terrific example, as is the Mullica book.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » May 17th, 2010, 12:54 am

absoulute wrote:Very true Richard. The defense rests.


The defence is in contempt.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Jonathan Townsend » May 17th, 2010, 8:01 am

What brings an understanding of an idea to the reader is a sort of presentation. The idea or work itself being presented is a distinct matter. A sense of how well the idea/strategy is trasmitted can be explored by way of how well a person with their own manerisms and pacing can adopt the item. For an example of a FAIL attempt at such - consider the Farelli writing on Ramsay's work. The minutia of hand positions is a minuscule aspect of what's required to infer much less adopt the strategies used in those tricks. For an example of a success in such look to the jumbo coin climax load description for Roth's hole routine and it's accompanying illustraion. There in one picture you can see where eyes, hands, props and directed attention are moving - and from that infer what permits the load action to be essentially invisible. IMHO it's all about answering the question: "How is this supposed to work in performance?"

contempt is often used a defense mechanism.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » May 17th, 2010, 8:20 am

Jonathan Townsend wrote:What brings an understanding of an idea to the reader is a sort of presentation. The idea or work itself being presented is a distinct matter. A sense of how well the idea/strategy is trasmitted can be explored by way of how well a person with their own manerisms and pacing can adopt the item. For an example of a FAIL attempt at such - consider the Farelli writing on Ramsay's work. The minutia of hand positions is a minuscule aspect of what's required to infer much less adopt the strategies used in those tricks. For an example of a success in such look to the jumbo coin climax load description for Roth's hole routine and it's accompanying illustraion. There in one picture you can see where eyes, hands, props and directed attention is moving - and how that permits the load. IMHO it's all about answering the question: "How is this supposed to work in performance?"


So are you saying the author shares credit for the creator's idea? Because that is what has been asserted, and what I am challenging. So, if I write up your 3Fly with a dash of stylistic flair, perhaps communicating the methodology but using Ebonics, it then becomes the "Townsend/Cotton" 3 Fly?

Don't answer that, it was rhetorical. But since I know your answer already, it demonstrates that you have not really understood the minor point I am disagreeing with. Once again you leap into a discussion for the sake of discussion. Next time, have a point.

Jonathan Townsend wrote:
contempt is often used a defense mechanism.


Considering your contribution, what you imagine to be a jaunty extension of a feeble metaphor is actually sadly risible.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Jonathan Townsend » May 17th, 2010, 8:24 am

James you ignorant slut.

Had you half the the wit to which you perspire you'd have noticed our agreement to distinguish the item and its presentation.

But for refering to my coins across as 3fly you are going to be less than respected for a very long time.

Come back with more humanlike characteristics next time

-J
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Jonathan Townsend » May 17th, 2010, 8:28 am

James Cotton wrote:You said he is "as responsible for the quality of each trick" as the originator.

That is false.
...


Sorry James, the quoted text is what he wrote therefore it is true.
You are free to disagree with his opinion though, and I happen to share that disagreement, which is true :).

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » May 17th, 2010, 9:40 am

This is the quote I disagree with:

"You are just as responsible for the quality of each trick you wrote and illustrated as the effect's creator."

Not breaking sweat, here.

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Jonathan Townsend » May 17th, 2010, 10:28 am

Agreed - IMHO the merits of a work are distinct from the merits of its depiction. The terrain is not the map.

IMHO Absolute's post was not likely proposing a conflation of these ideas. What I read was an assertion that the reader's experience and understanding is greatly effected by the writer's ability to first understand and then succesfully communicate what makes the item work in performance.

Okay back to lighter fare:

For xxAlex
After taking one we prepare to push
Pushing all but one we grip
Stealing back one we say two
Having two we count off one
Then counting the last we say four
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » June 8th, 2010, 1:04 pm

The person who creates a sleight or trick does not always understand exactly what's going on--many create by instinct and have trouble explaining what they're doing. I've seen this many times, both with sleights and tricks, where I point out to the artist something they're doing at a particular moment that they didn't realize.

If you think people simply demonstrate sleights and tricks to me and I robotically explain them, then you lack the understanding of what's involved in teachinng magic through writing and illustration and/or photography.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » June 8th, 2010, 1:13 pm

No, I understand and respect the difficulty. I'm a huge fan of your books.

But you don't get a credit for the trick because you wrote it up, just an acknowledgment as the author of the description - no matter how much effort it takes. It's the creator who gets the credit for the effect ideas, not you. You know this, so why are we even arguing?

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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby Richard Kaufman » June 8th, 2010, 2:29 pm

I'm not arguing.
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Re: The Jennings book rumor vs Jennings Card Wright

Postby James Cotton » June 8th, 2010, 3:37 pm

I reread the thread. I can see that you're not arguing. My bad - it's late here...


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