Penguin on Metafilter: Is this a problem in having open magic dealers on the web? Metafilter is a fairly high volume blog, and Penguin has just made a FPP (front page post). Now as the comments suggest anyone can download Penguin’s tutorials (of other people’s effects!) for a few dollars… also does this show the public that magic isn’t that special and anyone can learn it from buying a few DVD’s… or did they already know that? I don’t think we can ever go back to being a mysterious art where secrets were guarded and traded with care, as appose to splashed all over the Internet. On the other hand if anyone is going to put their money down, does this make them serious enough to know our secrets?
AIMS: Association of International Magical Spectators. Run by Bob Loomis, play find the rabbit, read about magic magazines exposed, see the magicians bookplates, find out the real secret behind the Fizbin Drop and use the humourous card trick generator!
Card Splitting Tutorial: Ben Harris’s simple tutorial that I never got round to blogging for some reason!
Al Kay’s: Dealoop movie clips, see Al’s reverse Havana Deal. Al also has a great guide to Card Splitting.
Jim Bumgardner the creator of Orville and Internet Lie Detector has just released two more devious computer magic effects, see the Oracle of Batboy and learn how to use him to do a card effect. Also purchase his Metascope Mindreading program which can be used to bring up an image a spectator is simply thinking of, download and try a demo, I think this could be even more devastating if the spectator just wrote his thought down and didn’t even tell you, and we know how to do that don’t we
Invisible Illusions: New forum, includes discussions on Card and Coin Magic, flourishes, street magic and a place to upload bizzare magic and flourish videos.
Card Stacker: Bryan Berg’s website on building card constructions. Look at the gallery and learn about his new book. Also read about him in this Wired article. (links courtesy of ConjureNation).
Looking to improve your YoYo or Juggling skills, buy some equipment:
Learning to Juggle causes changes in brain: apparently if you master this skill it causes an expansion of the brain, and if you stop then it decreases. I’ll have to start juggling again on a regular basis I think According to the article they want to harness this knowledge for disease management!
DIY Templates for Magic and Mentalism: Thomas Henry’s CD that contains templates for producing pay envelopes, business card envelopes, index card envelopes etc. useful if you want to customise the use of your envelopes or make them up in different colours, Black Envelope anyone? Also the CD contains templates for a datebook useful for Chronologue style tricks, I actually have this template after Thomas gave it to EG members, and its good, I plan to use it to make a diary for Mike Close’s diary trick when I get chance. Also included is a template for a Card Case.
Paper CD Case: similar to Tom Hull’s design you can use this website to generate a PDF file that you can fold into an origami CD case complete with track listings, graphics and mailing address.
Strong Magic Index: Uli Weigel has compiled an index for Darwin Ortiz’s book Strong Magic. You can see what names, book titles and tricks are referenced and what pages they appear on. A mammoth task that is very much appreciated.
Ed Marlo Database: Jimmy Molinari’s online searchable database of over 3851 of Marlo’s items that he had in print, you can search on effects, sleights, books and magazines, an awesome resource!
25OffMagic.com: read about this author’s frank comments on what he believes is the current ‘dreck’ and garbage being put out in the magic scene atm, its nice to see another side to the review process!
Balloon Molecules: build chemical molecules out of modelling balloons! The site shows basic balloon knots and techniques, and has a gallery of various molecular structures. Makes a change from a dog I suppose, just hope at my next kids show I don’t get asked for a DNA Helix
Banachek on Unscrewed: [28MB WMV] see Banachek perform metal bending and talk about magic on this TechTV show.
According to the article they want to harness this knowledge for disease management!