Andy Martin

Never mind the Quality, feel the width!

Ok, so I’m the first to admit that I am totally not a lover of eBooks. I’m sure they will continue to grow in popularity each year since they have four primary advantages over our beloved hardbound originals: they are cheap, they are easy to search, they take up little room, and they last forever. However for me, I want the real thing. Having all my books in some sort of electronic form would be cool too, but for the most part I just want the books.

In the case of The Sphinx, the eBook advantages are huge. These two DVD’s contain almost 17,000 pages or 50 volumes of some of the most important writings in magic history.To buy a full set of The Sphinx, if you can find one, will cost upwards of $5,000 – and then you run the risk of pages falling apart in your hands. Once you do manage to track down a copy that doesn’t fall apart on you, then you have the task of housing them somewhere – a 3 foot shelf is needed!

So this is one eBook that is really worth owning. Chris Wasshuber and his Lybrary.com takes a lot of heat from the book buying magic community, but he is providing a wonderful service to magicians. Particularly for the large or difficult to find volumes. In many cases he is providing access to books that to all intents and purposes cannot be viewed in any other way. When put in that context you can’t argue with the need for eBooks.

Chris is very helpful and dedicated to his task of preserving magic one book at a time. His books primarily ship in an HTML format and I prefer the Adobe PDF format, and he spent quite a lot of time helping me convert my copy into PDF. This was a long and time consuming process, and I thank Chris for helping me do it. However, I do wish he produced these things in PDF up front. I believe that the PDF format and Acrobat is a much better technology and portable platform for eBooks than HTML. Chris has is reasons for using HTML and I’m sure they are fine. But for me PDF is much better, and will continue to get better over time since ADOBE will continue to invest huge resources in it.

This then is my one criticism of the eBook phenomena – it is still early days and the media, software and hardware to view them is still changing. It is not a high-tech, high-gloss world, and particularly in the case of these facsimile versions, where the text itself is not converted, being able to sit down and read them on your computer is not as easy as it could be. You’ll find yourself resizing pages and trying to find the optimum reading set-up.

The Sphinx eBook does come with an impressive index and table of contents which is searchable. If you want to find articles about John Northern Hilliard type it in and 12 articles come back. Of course if you type in John Hilliard nothing comes back which shows up one of the issues with the technology.

I would like to give this 5 stars for time and effort that Chris has put into this. Unfortunately, I believe that as an eBook it could be better and I urge Chris to reconsider using PDF as a medium for his books, and let ADOBE do the development whilst he focuses on finding and converting the books.

Regardless of the technology limitations, this is still a very impressive effort and as a research aid it is invaluable. Just be prepared for the road to be a bit rockier than you might expect. As they say on the old maps: Here there be Dragons …

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Perfect Audio for the Magician!

I always wanted a portable sound system – even though I rarely need it. This package is beautiful! Wonderful sound in a very small package. You can always take it with you just in case. Play your music too!

Makes you feel like a Vegas performer!

I also added a Mini Disk player that was only available in Japan – it is tiny with a tiny remote control, so that you can now not only have a full PA system you can also play music during your act without once going near the table. A much cheaper alternative to some other units on the market!

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Ah look at these beauties!

The Criterion Demo Table fills a great void in my close-up magic performances and practice sessions. I have tried a number of different tables and table tops, but when it comes to performing they all fall short of my requirements. When it comes to close-up you need a larger top and more accessible space beneath to place your new and shown items.

Not only does the Criterion Table look beautiful, it works really well too. The size is perfect for any close-up performance I do and with a lot of easily accessible space beneath the table, I can store my whole act and get to it very easily too.

The display of effects on this table were all made by the talented George Robinson, and what better way to show them off than with a very classy demo table. This is the one to impress them all!

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Very nice Color Cube!

Sometimes the old and simple effects are the best. This version of the Color Cube by George Robinson is wonderful. In fact, I’ve been trying to think of a routine with two of them so that I can justify buying another!

The size of this is bigger than the kids toy version which lends itself to some very real miracles. The box is Asian mahogany with a hand-rubbed finish and even the cube is hand-crafted with inset acrylic spots, so it can be seen quite easily for close-up and parlor work.

Time to revive this old chestnut, with some imagination! If you spend half of the effort and time that George put into making this, I’m sure you’ll have a very pleasant experience.

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Grab these while you can!

As I look at all the magic I’ve puchased over the last 32 years it becomes very clear to me that there are very few real craftsmen around still making quality magic. Craftsmen like Alan Warner, Mel Babcock, and Richard Gerlitz are all on my list of course. But sometimes I forget to add to that same list: George Robinson of Viking Mfg./Collector’s Workshop. When I look at the quality that he consistently pumps out it is quite amazing, and then you factor in the price – there is noone else in the industry, period, that produces the same quality at the same price.

This little bottle is a wonderful piece that you will be proud to own. It is easy to do and comes with some great ideas. I suggest you snap these up because I don’t know how George is able to offer these at such low prices. For the amount of work involved they are a huge deal!

In fact I would say the same thing about a lot of Viking pieces – George has kept his prices very low for a long time. You can get some of the same effects for less from the rip-off guys, but if you want the real deal pay a fraction more and you will be much happier. Viking quality really shines when you take the time to appreciate it.

I suggest you point your browser to the Viking site and load up on many of the cool effects that George has to offer – I have owned nearly all of the pieces from the current Viking catalog, and only now am really starting to appreciate how much better they are than so much of the other dross out there.

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Finally a Book Test that is Entertaining!

I have owned five different book tests and only performed one of them. The reason is that, with the exception of Lee Woodside’s Dream Revelation, I’ve never really felt that there was much point to them – the methods are often clever (hence their appeal to magicians), but they really lack in entertainment value.

Brad Henderson has come up with a very funny and amazing book test that draws value and entertainment from the books themselves as well as the final revelation. The Satanic Book Test is clearly a performance piece – you can’t just roll it out the afternoon you receive it, and it does require some careful practice and talent to do it justice. The mechanics are easy to grasp, with plenty of tips and subtleties to handle various situations, but you will need to be confident in your acting abilities to pull it off.

This is a "good thing" – if more magicians spent time actually rehearsing their shows we would see better performances. I think in the right hands this could easily become the greatest eight minutes of your act. I plan on spending a long time before I roll this out in my act, but I am confident that I will in fact roll it out, which will make it a very good book test indeed!

As it arrives you get a very well produced 25 page booklet with numerous photos, tips, patter, and subtleties. You will need to purchase the actual books required for the test, but these are readily available.

Highly recommended if you really want to entertain your audiences, rather than just show a few tricks to your friends.

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Ready for a Heart Attack?

Mephisto of Belguim have a fine line of quality magic – this fall apart table and the matching Fall Apart Chair are no exception. This table is so solid you could stand on it if you desired. There is no sign of gimmicks or anything and its radio controlled. So you can use it quite normally throughout your show, moving it around without fear. But when you press that button, watch out! It comes crashing down to the ground with a thunderous sound! This is how fall apart props should be made. Wonderful to play with and a real surprise for the audience.

This table is so solid I had my 21", 75 lb computer monitor on for a three month period when I was moving last year. I can even stand on it (I’m 215 lbs!).

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Wow! These are beautiful!

Ok so Howie and Bob spent some time with less worthy craftsman – that glue and pencil guy, that tricky shamrock guy, … now finally they are working with a real pro. If you saw the old Jack and Jill that Howie sold these are so much better its like a whole new trick.

They are very thin and beautifully finished. The cards are expertly made and the effect is just so clean now. You place the jack in one holder and the queen in the other and instantly they swap places. Even though they can see the cards at all times.

If you are a medium to high high-end collector that appreciates the fine Magic of craftsmen like Alan Warner and Mel Babcock, you will surely appreciate the workmanship in this new release.

You can only buy them from Howie and Bob over at the Trickery – do so now before the run is over. They are exquisite!

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Strong, Direct Mentalism with no funny business!

This is more than just predicting 1 out of 3 choices – which is not that magical on a good day – you provide a prediction, of which there is just one, that predicts 3 out of 3 choices.

You predict what goes in the bag, what goes in the spectators hand and what goes in your hand. Every time. The other cool thing about this effect is that it is always ready to work. No set-up at all. Just put the prediction and the wooden disks back in the bag and you are ready to roll. Everything can be examined too!

In fact, it almost sounds too perfect to be true. But it is true. You will like this effect for its clever method and the impact it has on your audience. And I’m sure you will use it often because of its simple requirements and set-up. Highly recommended!

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Clean and Convincing, but practice required.

This is a very clean prediction effect. Performed well, it is hard to beat for cleanness in fact.

It has shades of Ultissimo in its method – but without the stand or extra deck, which is a big difference! To do it effectively a sleight is required (the Cull). This is a fairly standard sleight, but if you buy packet tricks and gaffed decks because you don’t like doing any sleights then this might not be for you. It does come with an alternate method that requires less sleight of hand, but it is not as strong.

I can think of at least one way that all sleights could be removed, and to the lay person I’m not convinced they would notice any difference in the effect.

Having said all this the Cull is a very useful one if you don’t already know it, and if you can just break your rules once you will not only have a hugely clean prediction, you will also have a great sleight that you will be able to use for all sorts of things.

As much as the purists like to keep all gaffed cards out of their lives, and the gaffers like to keep all sleights out their lives, sometimes a beautiful mystery comes from the combination of both worlds.

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