Rebuilding A Mystery

This week at The Magic Cabaret

This Wednesday, December 16, 2009, I'll be performing at Chicago's Magic Cabaret. Get yourself a ticket and come see the show! Here's the scoop about this week's show:

Greetings, Magic Fans! On December 16 we're doing a special edition of The Magic Cabaret! PT Murphy will be out of town, so David Parr has invited TWO fab guest performers to join him for this Wednesday's show: Gordon Meyer and Joe Diamond!

Gordon lives a Lamont Cranstonesque dual life. By day, Gordon explains the workings of computer software to the public. By night, he works feats of legerdemain that cannot be explained! Gordon is one of the warmest, friendliest, tallest magicians we've ever met -- AND he bears an uncanny resemblance to the Magic Cabaret mascot, Mr. Cuddles -- so we're sure you'll enjoy meeting him as much as we enjoy having him around!

Joe might not have a secret identity, but he makes a living by defying the boundaries between what we assume can and can't be done. Can thoughts be perceived? Can distant events be sensed? Is your mind an open book? When you see Joe in action, you may feel compelled to reconsider your answers to those questions! ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance -- you'll be too busy having fun to wonder what to call it, so let's just call it MIND MAGIC!

All this, and a bit of holiday magic from David Parr!

The urge to know

Roger Ebert's article of Ricky Jay's Rogue Gallery show in Chicago is disappointing. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the show (as did I), but he focuses on picking apart one of the tricks that Ricky performs. Not only does this spoil it for other audiences, but Ebert's explanation is not just unnecessary, it's wrong. When reviewing Star Wars, did he spend the majority of the column explaining that R2D2 wasn't a real robot? I doubt it.

The urge to dissect how a trick is accomplished, instead of appreciating it for its unique ability to induce the feeling of wonder, is nearly impossible for some to exist. Even full-time renowned movie critics.

Ricky Jay on Chicago Magic

Ricky Jay's new show is currently playing in Chicago, and in a Chicago Reader interview he speaks about the show and Chicago's place in the magician's world. See Ricky Jay on A Rogue's Gallery, Chicago Magicians, and Wonder.

Magic Map: Several Updates

Added a description of P.C. Sorcar at the 1950 joint SAM-IBM convention, based on "Letters From the Past" in Oct 2009 The Linking Ring.

Confirmed Sam Berland's 1941 address based on SAM Membership Directory as published in Genii.

Added the former homes of Martin Gardner, Arthur Pope, Harlan Tarbell, and Eugene Laurant. (per SAM member directory)

Visit the Map of Chicago Magic.

A credit corrected by a third-party

Yay! In the November issue of The Linking Ring, One-Man Parade author Dougie Gibbard does what the editors and Peter Marucci took a pass on doing. He correctly credits, and mentions Marucci's laziness, in the process. The move that Marucci said he "came across in a Paul Harris book about thirty years ago" is Bill Simon's Business Card Prophecy move, published in Card Magic for Amateur and Professionals. (1952)

I suppose if those in charge at The Linking Ring won't make the effort to clean up such obvious oversights, it's up to the rest of us. Bravo, brother Gibbard.

Shore magazine on Chicago Magic

This month's Shore magazine has a fun article, with some fabulous pictures, about the magic scene here in town, including The Magic Cabaret and Magic Chicago, where I have been fortunate enough to perform. If you're in town, it's a show well worth seeing.

Premier Pandering

I have tried many of the iPhone apps that purport to perform, or help a human perform, a magic trick. I haven't been happy with any of them, finding that they're either so poorly done that I find them offensive, or that too much emphasis is placed on the device itself. The latter is a problem because, let's face it, the iPhone itself it quite magical to begin with.

So I found some hope when I learned about the Premier App Shop, it was purportedly developed so that solid conjuring apps could be made available without putting them in Apple's App Store, where just anyone can buy them.

I haven't yet found anything in the Premier App Store that's worth buying. And I suspect I never will. Unfortunately, right on their main page is the promise "Download now, perform in 5 minutes." Anyone who encourages magicians to perform a trick immediately is not catering to the likes of me.

But worse, on page 18 of Dec 2009 issue Macworld magazine, a half-page ad is found that invites anyone, and everyone, to buy magic from the Premier App Store. This is completely contradictory to the similar ads running in Genii or MAGIC where magician buyers are told that the Premier App Store is just for them (us). It turns out, once again, the "perform in 5 minutes" crowd is being invited to rush in and spend their cash in pursuit of "the secrets." What a shame.

Hocus Pocus'd

It should come as no great surprise that the 2nd oldest magic book is pretty much a ripoff of the oldest magic book. Some things never change. See Early Modern Whale: How to Vanish a Glass of Beer: Hocus Pocus, 1634.

Refinement as performance

A very interesting story by John Huntington, Honor Among Thieves, about an experimental theatre piece where a magician performs the same card trick for each audience member in succession.

Review: Omnilope

My review of Jay Sankey's Omnilope is at

My Lovely Assistant. One thing I didn't mention in the review is the distinctive Canadian way that Sankey pronounces the product name. Sort of like "ahmalowp." Go figure.

Theory 11 on Piracy

Personally, I'd find the thread Help Us Stop Piracy a lot more interesting if it didn't seem that their main objection to "exposure" is that it cuts into their sales.

Appearing in Magic Chicago - Postponed

My Nov 4th performance at Magic Chicago has been postponed due to injury. (I sprained my ankle this morning.) I'm sorry and disappointed, stay tuned for rescheduling.

Magic Chicago in the Chicago Tribune

A nice article about Magic Chicago gives some background on the ongoing show and highlights upcoming Hallowe'en performances by Eugene Burger. I am an advisory board member and occasional performer in the show. Voila! Magic Chicago.

Magic Map: Almost updated incorrectly

In a story about a purportedly haunted theatre in my area, The Congress Theatre, I almost discovered a new fact for the the Map of Chicago Magic.. The story says that Houdini performed at The Congress in the 1930s.

Unfortunately, that can't be, because Houdini died in 1926. Nice fact checking, Chicago Sun-Times, you should be embarrassed. But I suspect you're not.

Handwriting on the wall

The Society for Technical Communication, which is a group for technical writers, made a membership change that caught my eye. It also makes me wonder what's next for the S.A.M. and I.B.M.

Now it's a bit of stretch to compare the STC with magic clubs, since the former is a professional development organization, and the IBM and SAM are only social fraternities. But bear with me.

Membership in the STC begins at $215 a year, and can be as much as $395 depending on the benefits you select. A higher cost of membership is consistent with a professional society. Student membership is $75. The STC has about 14,000 members, some portion of which are obviously only paying at the student level, or perhaps the "retired" level, which is $150.

The IBM has 12,000 members. Membership after the first year is $50, or $35 for youth members.

So clearly the STC is larger, and more affluent than the IBM, organizationally.

(The SAM doesn't reveal current membership on their website.)

The change that that STC recently made is that their monthly newsletter and bi-monthly journal are only available in printed form if you pay extra. If you want the printed publications, you pay an extra $95 a year for both, or $30/$75 each. Otherwise, you receive them electronically. (Presumably in PDF.)

Now the IBM has a little-known option to be a member and not get the The Linking Ring. This knocks $20 off your membership fee, but it means that you don't get the magazine at all, as far as I know. That is, you don't have access to the PDF copy unless you also get the paper version.

Given that the STC publications, when considered together, are roughly the equivalent of The Linking Ring, yet are valued at $95 in printed form, how much longer can the IBM continue its $20 a year printed journal?

I'm thinking not much longer at all.