The Weekly Magic Failure wrote an interesting article recently entitled 10 Rules To Market Magic. Roland was right on point in virtually every instance. It somewhat reminded me of an article I wrote several years ago entitled Fuck Me, I’m A Magician. That article was written towards the end of the Cogitations disaster when I continued to insist that the perpetrator (and we all know who that was) failed to deliver what was promised and so many fools on the Magic Café kept insisting "I got my money’s worth". That was never the point. Anyway, that article seems to have gotten lost in a recent transfer. We’ll live.

I think Roland left out two items which have become somewhat indispensable if a trick is to succeed in the current market:

11. Sell lots of your product on a pre-issue basis and then push the delivery date back month after month, all while promising more and better effects. Even as it becomes apparent to anyone with half a brain that something is seriously wrong, there will be many fools at the Café saying that they are willing to wait for this life changing trick. Obviously, when it finally comes out and is nothing but a stale rehash of an existing trick or a totally unworkable abomination, the same morons will tell the world how pleased they are that they waited.

12. Troll the forums as the inventor/publisher and immediately pounce on any negative or lukewarm review explaining that the reviewer is an ignoramus incapable of appreciating the sheer genius he holds in his unworthy hands. The reviewer will immediately be accosted for having the intelligence of an amoeba by the same group of fools (see 11) that want to just smell a real magicians jock. If Brooks had a scintilla of integrity or desire to keep his forums fair, he would preclude authors/developers from commenting on their own material. Of course, that will never happen!!

So now you have everything you need to go out and make a fortune as a magic inventor.

You are welcome.

For those that may not be aware, Bing is Microsoft’s pitiful excuse for a search engine. Bing also supplies the search data for Yahoo. Put these two together and you have a crap pie for sure. Fortunately, very few people that I know use either Bing or Yahoo. For about three weeks this site and several others have shown a “malware warning” in both the Bing and Yahoo search results. In all fairness to Bing, there was a rogue JavaScript that we removed and not only have we checked it daily, but out host has done likewise. It is gone, but they continue to have the warning! Here’s the clean bill of health:

I have tried to get them to remove the warning, but the only method is an online form which I am supposed to fill out and if they have not done anything in 30 days I can fill it out again. (Incidentally, Google’s time frame is 2 gays or less – is there any wonder they are kicking their ass?) They won’t even tell you what they see. Their forums are never monitored and are full of spam and other crap. I apologize for the warning, but it’s liable to be there for a long time as this group is that incompetent as any I have ever dealt with and that is a huge statement.

This has nothing to do with what I just wrote above, but in looking for an appropriate graphic I ran across this. I knew he was a dumb ass, but he’s a serious, industrial grade dumb ass.

In the i/m world there are certain truths that we can depend on more than 99% of the time. For instance:

You can bet that the drivers of certain types of cars, i.e. Escalades, BMWs and Jaguars are Road Dicks.

Likewise the drivers of Jeeps and Hummers are Super Road Dicks.

There are enough minor exceptions to keep these from becoming laws. For example, I happen to know a single BMW driver and a Jeep driver that are not in their respective categories. Escalade’s, BMWs and Hummers have a purity Adolf Hitler would admire. If you drive one, believe me, you’re a Richard.

I was thinking about this when I went on the Cafe and the other day. It seemed like every time I said to myself that guy is a moron, he would have thousands of posts. In the brief time I was there I began to look for frequent users of the Cafe to find one that wasn’t an idiot. I struck out. And I missing something? Are all Cafe heavy posters dumb as a box of rocks? Is this a law or is this a truth?

I see Glenn Bishop is back blogging.

UH, Uh, Uh……..never mind! That fruit hangs way too low.

I don’t know this trick, or the guy who produced it, but would anyone ever buy this based on the trailer? I have NO IDEA what it looks like. None!

If you have read this blog for very long, you know that I’m not a huge fan of DVDs published by Big Blind Media . Frankly, they are generally a little to artsy fartsy for me. I just don’t get performing card tricks on a curling bench in a gym somewhere, like on one of the Bannon videos, I believe. The last time I reviewed one of their DVDs some douche bag commented that I was way too old, uncool and out of touch for him to read my reviews. I don’t miss him .

The current release that I am reviewing is called Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks. They can be forgiven for overstating what’s inside of the box. Who doesn’t! Certainly, the ultimate self working trick would be to throw a pack of cards on the table, step back and watch it perform a miracle. That’s not on the DVD.

I’ll take this directly from their ad copy. Here’s what’s included :

Contact Colors (Aldo Colombini)
Impossible (Mike Austin)
Shuffling Lesson (Chad Long)
Henry Sugar (Liam Montier)
Pre-Prefiguration (Larry Jennings / Mark Elsdon)
Your Aces Are Marked (Terry Lagerould)
Shufflebored (Simon Aronson)
The 7/16 Club (Alex Elmsley)
Impossible (Larry Jennings)
4,5,6 (Al Thatcher)
Unbelievable (By Shields, F. Michael And Bascom Jones, Jr)

Interviews with Paul Zenon, Scott Thomson (XCMer), Iain Moran & Liam Montier
Tutorials on Charlier Shuffle, Jay Ose Cut, Breather Crimp, Bobby Bernard False Cut & Riffle Shuffle (for those who want to take the tricks to the next level of deceptiveness).

I don’t think anyone can really argue with the choices – pretty standard stuff and, at least, they didn’t throw in Koran’s Lazy Man’s Card Trick, which seems to be a requirement since HL published it in 1962.

There’s a couple of excuse me I’ve got to run to the bathroom and set up the whole deck procedural monstrosities, but there are, also, several items which could be added to anyone’s arsenal for those times you are handed a deck and asked to do a trick or two. Both of the Impossible routines and Pre-Prefiguration fall into this category.

Mercifully the explanations are devoid of lame jokes and the performances are tolerable. Working in a studio with a single female spectator is TOUGH. I still recall feeling embarrassed for Larry Jennings while watching one of his DVDs in a similar situation. You would have to be a total moron to not understand the very well done explanations.

Obviously, when we read that there are explanations for false cuts, crimps and shuffles, the concept of “self working” has left the building, but these are very easy, while needing some presentational skills to sell them.

I’m glad I bought it.