Back from Christmas vacation:

Plenty of cool stuff coming. Don’t miss out.

i/m

Good reasons for Political Correctness:

Can’t think of any!

It looks like I’ll have to buy my own Christmas present this year if I’m going to get one. My mother, rest her soul, loved Christmas and even in her last years she always made sure her boy had a present. I don’t know if I ever let her know how much that really meant to me. I think she knew. I hope she did. (There’s a lesson there) My wife and I bought a “house” gift and my mother-in-law is in the hospital. …..so I guess it’s up to i/m to do it for himself – old age blows!!

Anyway, the longer you’ve been in magic, the less you are interested in “tricks”. I went to a magic estate auction recently and saw a lifetime accumulation sold for peanuts. There were no collector’s items, just the basic stuff – good quality, but nothing special. If it’s not on the front page of Ellusionist, Hocus Pocus, Penguin Magic etc. it’s old and basically worthless. Just watch people try to sell last week’s miracle on the Cafe or eBay e.g. Black Widow – a rude awakening for sure.

Anyway, when shopping for me, you might consider the following:

• A high end set of cups from Riser, RNT2, Sherwood or Owen. Stainless steel is my medal of choice, but I’m not picky.
• A set of Todd Lassen’s unexpanded shell sets in soft Morgans. For a stocking stuffer you might consider a Walking Liberty gravity flipper.
• A set of Owen Linking Rings – 10” preferably.
• Books – I love books. The new Cardini and Benson books would be great. I’ve never bought Steve Beam’s Semi-Automatic Card Trick series and they always sounded interesting.
• DVDs – Off hand I can’t think of any DVDs in 2007 that really made my must-have list. The closest was the Bill Malone set and I have them. I’ve never seen the Revelations series – believe or not, but never felt like forking over 200 bucks for the pleasure. I guess a complete set of L&L’s World’s Greatest… would be nice.

Next week – what i/m is getting for some of the well known people in magic. Don’t miss it.

Take care………

Quote: When W.’s history is written, he will be seen as the rebellious teenager crashing the family station wagon into his father’s three most cherished spots — diplomacy, intelligence and the Gulf.

There’s some good reading on some of the magic blogs right now. Of course there’s a load of crap too, but the balance isn’t quite as bad recently. Obviously, this reflects my likes and prejudices. Please take it as such.

B. D. Erland continues to write one of the most thoughtful and well constructed blogs in our strange little world. I particularly liked his article How to spend your 1st $100 in magic. This is kind of like the five foot shelf exercises, but with a very different slant. I really can’t argue with his choices, although I think I would have taken a different approach, but that’s what these articles are all about.

Andster, over at I, Magician can be a fun read. Posting has been more erratic lately, but he’s at that great age when the glands are still pumping wildly and has probably found girls a LOT more fun – at least I hope so. Like Tom Frank, he frequently puts more of himself in public than many of us are comfortable doing.

The Smiling Mule writes The Phantom Notebooks. It has become one of my favorite reads. Maybe, it’s because he’s as cranky as me. A recent article Deconstructing the Cafe was wonderful. He classifies the Cafe posters into 6 categories:

• The Morons
• The Pseudo Authority
• The Misled Nice Guy
• The Truthteller In The Shadows
• The Disenchanted Student
• The Advertiser

He actually gave names of posters in each category. It was great. Personally, I think there are missing categories such as the fawners – especially when a name shows up – I honestly thought Randy Wakeman was going to give Paul Kozak a virtual blow job when he was the monthly guest. There is the group that write vicious, nasty messages and then use a Bible cite in the signature – I give you his holiness, Stephen Youell – among others. And….. of course the industrial grade prick – Thomas Wayne come to mind. There’s much more scholarly stuff on his site – he takes his cards seriously – damn seriously. When the Mule speaks – I listen.

Jim Coles at Unexpected Wonders writes incredibly insightful and thorough essays. His recent post Performing Magic With Ease was excellent. Jim and I seem to share a lot of the same views on magic. He just expresses them better and with more class than I do! Jim has been going through a change of blogging software recently – less than fun I assure you.

The name guys seem to be MIA – Joshua Jay, Aaron Fisher, RIchard Osterlind….. Osterlind pops up once in a while hawking some of his stuff, but he hasn’t had a real post since George Bush had a thought. Joshua Jay is no more punctual with this blog than he is posting his tricks on the Magic Magazine site – last I saw he was approaching a year since updating.

Tom Frank continues to post regularly. He’s been a blog stalwart for a long time. In many respects, it’s like an autobiography being delivered page by page. As I alluded to earlier, he gives more of himself than many, including me, are willing to do. Always a fun read.

Take care………

I’m just not too excited about the impending release of the Cervon notebooks – the infamous Castle Notebooks. The price is just plain stupid for scanned pages – especially given the rather large run (500).

Even though Richard Kaufman seems to be on the rag permanently these days, I think he is justified in condemning the Cervon estate and L&L for the release. I find the question of ownership of the material to be quite interesting– and unresolvable.

Also, when I think notebooks, I think of that ass hole Jeff Busby and begin to gag!

Take care………

(It’s been a while since we awarded the i/m DD. Very honestly, the last award was a mistake. The award went to Paul Chosse and while I still maintain that his actions were over the top in the dispute which gave him the award, he appears to be a fine man and, possibly, his actions in that case were, in fact, justified.)

A friend pointed me to a discussion on the Cafe regarding Heiny 500, a version of Pat Page’s routine where he changes plain paper to real money – popularized by Greg Wilson on Hundy 500. At that point I hadn’t seen it, so I ordered it to see what the fuss was about. It seems that some purchasers felt the description of the gimmick was rather primitive and I have to agree it wasn’t very complete. That, however, is a mere sidelight. During the discussion, some doo rag with the screen name of Gabriel Knight chime in with –

When Richard Sanders lectured, the only people who asked to see the gimmick reconstructed were older people. Cause even with super Detailed instructions, any form explained they Never could get it. All the top guys have said, MUST HAVE. Never even giving a second thought to the gimmick.

Now I know this is not his real name. A little research on the Internet tells me this clown is drives a BMW that he’s always trying to fix. A car they won’t even sell you unless you are a card carrying DICK. After someone calls him to task, we get this bit of clever prose –

I have nothing against OLDer people. Ring 211 has “June Horawits” as a member, 93 years old. She is one amazing, smart gal. Still doing performances in our club.

I was the first person to give her my seat in the front row cause I was faster than the old guy with hacking caugh and the walker.

the word was OLDER not OLD

Pardon me, but what the fuck does that mean? Obviously, you won’t be running into this dip wad at a MENSA meeting. I doubt he could even qualify as a member of Kindergartners for Gore.

Let’s examine his comments. Firstly, did it ever occur to this douche bag that maybe, just maybe, the older folk might be concerned with actually getting it right since they will be performing for people that can string two sentences together. That doing it well, with precision, might be important rather than doing it just good enough.

….and what the hell does he mean by older not old? What’s the point. The fact is he insulted those of us that are older and hasn’t got the balls to either stand by his statement or apologize.

Even more obscure is his “June Horawits” statement and the guy with the walker. I would hope this pathetic phonetic spelling of June Horowitz’ name is just a lame joke, rather than an inability to take the 10 seconds to find out how to actually spell her name. Based on his attempt to spell cough though, I seriously doubt it. He then tops out by making fun of a cripple – real nice!!

So to you Mr Knight – whatever your name is – you are our latest, and dare I say most deserving ever – i/m Disposable Douche.

Take care………