Louis Falanga wrote the following in 1988 in his Publisher’s Preface to M.I.N.T. Volume 1:

Volumes 2 and 3 ill be released within the next year or two.

Well, volume 2 was issued in 1995 and Volume 3 has never been published…… The best laid plans……

I don’t even know why I’m mentioning this, but I find it interesting that magicians think they will always deliver more and sooner than they actually do. I’ll bet 75% of the magic web sites I see haven’t been touched in a year. I can’t recall a prepublication offer that delivered on time.

Doesn’t anybody in magic have a calendar?

Sometime last week the Magic Cafe celebrated its fourth birthday. Somewhere I saw Brooks wrote some self congratulatory bull shit, recounting for the 100th time the beginnings of the board and his mission to help the downtrodden …blah….blah….blah.

To be fair to this round mound of pomposity he did start something which has become quite a phenomenon in our strange little corner of this cyber-world:

• Unequivocally, the Cafe is the most important destination for magicians on the Internet. For some reason the sheer momentum of the Cafe has managed to crush all competition.
• No other destination attracts the large number of quality posts that he has at the Cafe.
• Technically, it works. Downtime is at a minimum. Speed is generally very good. His technical people know what they are doing.

Why then do so many of us absolutely loathe the Cafe and its perpetrator? Actually, I’ve thought a lot about this. Is it jealousy? I certainly don’t think so. Personally, I wouldn’t want the headaches and I sure as hell don’t want to look like him.

I think it comes down to fairness. When a destination like the Cafe becomes so largethat there are no alternatives, those operating it are, rightfully, held to a different standard. This is a lot like eBay. There are hundreds of auction sites on the net – name two! At the end of the day, there’s a little moral compass in MOST of us that demands fairness of our institutions. I know, I know – life isn’t fair, but that doesn’t stop most of us from feeling everything that can be, should be.

Go to the Magic Cafe and look at the I want to see the manager section. Look around. How many open posts do you see? How many honest answers? Very few. Can a month go by and nobody have suggestions or comments? Notice how all dialog has been effectively squashed. I commend to you the following post:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=123884&forum=40&1

Can you feel the sincere frustration of the poster when he titles his post For Pete’s sake, let me answer!. Brooks’ response says more than I could say in 12 pages. His total dismissal of this nice man’s post is morally criminal. I’m sure Brooks accomplished his goal as the poster has left and never returned.

The infamous Sweet and Sour fiasco is just another example of the cruel way Brooks treats his visitors. Frankly, closing it probably made sense. His advertisers were getting unmercifully trashed and I’m sure it was a headache. If Brooks would have closed it and made a simple explanation, many people would have missed it, but would have accepted the reality of the situation. Instead, he chose to close it for technical reasons and promised to reopen it. Of course this didn’t happen and, personally, I believe it was a blatant lie from day one. His posts regarding it are an insult to anyone with a third grade education – of course, this leaves out the Cafe staff.

Again, in fairness to Brooks – his mantra since day one has been – if you don’t like it, Fuck you and Whit’s Horse. C’mon Steve, give fairness a spin. If it doesn’t work out you can always fall back on doing super market openings as Jabba the Hut. At least you won’t have to wear one of those hot costumes!

Everybody into the parlor for cake!

……. Oops, sorry someone seems to have eaten it. I Wonder where it went?

I’ve been thinking a little more about the convention I just attended and it occurs to me that there was not a single WOW moment in three days. I saw some nice variations and some clever adaptations, but nothing that made me really sit up and take notice.

Is it me, or is everything becoming a tired rehash? I think I saw 5 Silk Fountains – a nice interlude, but FIVE?!

Who’s doing the thinking in magic now? Anyone?

Drivel & Drool

Mine’s Bigger Than Yours………

I’m not going to recount the whole Whit Haydn / Whackster thing, except to say I’m really sorry to see this kind of thing happen. Aren’t bloggers just insignificant piss ants, unworthy of anyone’s attention? Yet Whit, or whoever is posing as him, makes the following statement:

I am a performer, manufacturer and retailer of magic whose reputation for honesty and fairness is being impugned by this blog. It does incredible long term monetary damage to me.

Aw, c’mon. Is this type of legal hyperbole really necessary? Incredible monetary damage? No way. I seriously doubt that what Judge Whackster has to say about Whit would ever cost him a dime. Personally, I would never buy his stuff unless there was NO alternative, as I find him a pompous, overbearing bore ass. Judge Whackster’s comments, good or bad, would make no difference to me. I would assume I’m not alone here.

I would think much more of him if he just threatened to use those Roy Rogers boots and kick his ass. Instead we’re going to play My Lawyer Is Bigger Than Your Lawyer….. Too bad!

George Daily (Magicana for Collectors) has been selling magic books since…. well, since there were books. How do I know – I was there.

I collect very little anymore, but I’ve had a hole in my small collection for some time that I just couldn’t seem to fill and I saw it on his most recent list. George’s operation isn’t particularly high tech – just email request and confirmation.

What a pleasure – properly described book, accurately graded, well packed and timely shipped.

…..and this may not matter to many people, but he’s a nice guy. I like to business with nice people, but it’s getting harder and harder to find.

Just wanted to make sure everyone saw this.

Tim Ellis, in his excellent blog Magic Unlimited With Ellis and Webster points out a very interesting approach for those that are serious about their music – and you should be:

The New iCue

[This post originally appeared before the crash. I thought it should be preserved. It says a LOT about the cafe]

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, two new Cogitations posts were started on the Cafe’ and I wondered how long it would last. Surprisingly, one is still there, but it is benign and primarily blows more sunshine up Stephen F. Youell’s butt. The other was a well written and thoughtful post from a long time user. It, however, questioned some practices at Berlin West and, of course, didn’t last until noon. For posterity, here it is:

I’m not really sure what the problem is here, but every time a post goes up regarding Cogitations, its either quickly removed or blocked so no one else can have a say. Why is this? If someone offers a product, and promises to go with it, and it doesn’t perform, then is it not only fair to put it up for discussion? (Okay, this is Steve’s ‘front room’ and maybe he doesn’t like the flavour of the discussion involving someone close to him – that’s fair enough.) If someone leaves themselves ‘wide-open’ for criticism with rude and vicious emails and posts, then is it not only fair that they accept what is coming their way? If someone offers an amazing deal (only $20 lets not forget) then surely they are due a good deal of praise. It works both ways doesn’t it?

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In my opinion it’s all about “choices”. He had a nice product, the product was widely praised, and then he apparently chose to make a quick exit from the art altogether. With regards to the removal and locking of relevant topics, I guess that “VIP’s” are not allowed to be questioned/criticized. It’s quite puzzling to me too, but in the end the magic community will survive.

Pitiful, just pitiful. This needs no comment as it speaks volumes about all involved.

[Please note that I have been asked by the National Dufus Foundation to longer refer the Founder & Owner of the Magic Cafe’ as a dufus. By definition a dufus is: an incompetent and stupid, though well-meaning, person; also called doofus. I can understand their position, as there is nothing well meaning about that clown.]

Drivel & Drool

I consider the bully the lowest form of life. The guy at the gas station close to me succumbed to heat exhaustion this morning from running up and down the ladder raising the price of gasoline. I’m not blaming him, he’s just a pawn like the rest of us, being pushed around by the corporations and power brokers. As far as I’m concerned there is no pit in hell deep enough or hot enough for the profiteers taking advantage of the disaster in the Southeast to pad their profits. Just watch, they’ll sing the same tired song of it’s not us, it’s the market – oh, by the way, we had record profits AGAIN.

Never fear though, our President, George F. Bush, put down his bow long enough to go on TV and say how optimistic he was and what a tragedy we have here blah, blah, blah and he’s having the Attorney General look into things. Homeland Security had a new name for this and, I assume, a new color. What a joke! Now back to the war.

Me, however, I’m satisfied, I got just what I wanted and expected and at least he tried. Sheesh!!

Postscript: Unfortunately, I lost a comment from a reader when this was originally posted. He was singing the supply disruption song that emanates from the halls of the American Petroleum Institute. I know it’s difficult to accept that our institutions have failed and fallen into the hands of thieves of the first order. I recall one of the partners at Arthur Andersen saying people are just commodities that you buy and sell as needed….and he was considered a humanitarian.

For a perspective of the power and greed of big oil, I commend to you an article by Derrick Z Jackson in todays Boston Globe. Is concluding paragraph is the bottom line:

scary, but true.

From everything I know and read, Doug Conn is one of the nice guys in magic.

He was one of several well known magicians displaced by Katrina. Here is the message from his web site:

While I’m usually not a big fan of ebooks, I’ve owned this for a while and found it to be a bargain. Here’s the Link to Doug site, if you’re so inclined. I know he would appreciate it.

im