I don’t attend many magic lectures any more. Although I came to the conclusion long ago that most professional magicians are pompous, overbearing and over-rated gas bags, I used to be willing to attend 20 or 30 lectures a year hoping to find a few gems. I had the opportunity to see David Williamson, Paul Harris, David Roth, Michael Ammar, Duke Stern and a few others that made the hunt worthwhile – at least I used to think so. As I’ve gotten older and gas has gotten more expensive, I’m going to fewer and fewer. You have to open a lot more oysters to find a pearl it seems.

I recently attended John Lovick’s lecture and was sorely disappointed, as were many others that I spoke to. Here was a lecture that had been advertised for months and Lovick acted liked he just heard about it that afternoon. It was disorganized, uninformative and, in general, just not very good. From my perspective, he wasn’t very gracious to the attendees either. I will admit that I enjoyed getting a glimpse of his Handsome Jack persona, but it certainly wasn’t worth the cost or time invested in attending the lecture.

So….. when I was invited to attend a lecture by David Regal, my initial impulse was no way, but I remembered how much I had enjoyed his DVDs and he certainly seemed like a nice guy and the magic was clever and doable. I decided to go and boy am I glad I did! Regal is a nice guy and his lecture was fun and informative. He was well prepared even though it was the first time he had done this particular lecture.

In all fairness, this is probably more of a book tour than a lecture. Regal has produced a huge and expensive book called Approaching Magic. It is pregnant with every type of material imaginable and it was a real pleasure seeing some of the things performed that I had recently read. As expected, some looked better and a couple actual looked worse than I envisioned. He sold a bunch of books!

Two things struck me as I thought about the lecture. David Regal structures his magic to fool his audience. Even though he does some story stuff, he’s a magician and the trick comes first. Thanks for remembering that!

The other thing I’ve been formulating in my mind all day and I’m still not sure I can state it as succinctly as I would like. Entertaining magicians like Regal don’t spend their time talking about entertainment – they truly teach by example. It seems that only the dullards keep beating their audience constantly with the entertainment stick.

See him if you get a chance – it’s worth the effort I assure you.

Take care……

Final Drivel – Regal did a lot of stuff with magnets – well hidden stuff. It may be time to drag out the old pendulum principal and combine that with these modern magnets.  It could be a powerful combination. I kind of wish I hadn’t sold my Upside Down Topit books now.

My friend Scot over at Scot’s Magical Mystery Tour takes a break to recall Ronald Reagan on the 4th anniversary of his death. I invite you to read it. With optimism such a rare emotion these days, I trust Scot won’t mind be posting his quote from President Reagan:

And whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way. My fondest hope for each one of you — and especially for young people — is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here. May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism. And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.” –Ronald Reagan (1992)

Can you imagine these sentiments coming from those maroons running our country now? We are paying an enormous price for politics of fear as they have been practiced for the past seven years. Bush – Cheney – Rove – take your pick. I hope they all rot in Hell. I know that may sound harsh, but the hubris of their malfeasance will be borne by our children for generations.

Tom Frank recently wrote:

…..I’ve never know it to be such a challenge to get people to lighten up and little and have some fun. They stand there, watch, pay or don’t pay, but it’s pulling teeth to get a large part of the audience to show even trace amounts of delight.

Actually, I genuinely think things WILL get better. All of us are like the guys with the shovel after a circus parade. There’s a serious load of elephant shit to pickup, but eventually we will and the stench of recent years will eventually fade.

Take care…..

i/m