Fitzkee Trilogy

Now, first of all, this is not a magic review... this is a BOOK review. Now, to stay on topic, it so happens that the book is about magic (coincidence?  I think not!) 

The 3 books that influenced me the most as a magician

Now, as the famous Taiwanese Magician, Lu Chen, said in his book, "In magic it (The Trick Brain) is equivalent to a supreme kung fu tutorial. Read through it once and you'll gain an additional 10 years worth of experience."


And this is NO exaggeration. I merely read through it once... and it wasn't a very thorough read at that, and I felt like a different magician. From my performance, to my crowd awareness, everything became incredibly different afterwards. If I manage to read and understand and then IMPLEMENT everything, I believe that I could become a first class magician and perform in FISM and all that stuff. 


Anyways, first of all, an introduction of the author. (No, seriously, if you're still expecting magic at this point, go shoot yourself in the face. Like seriously, you probably hate life anyways or something)


Dariel Fitzkee (May 14, 1898- April 6, 1977) was originally an engineer and a semi-professional magician. However, his trilogy is considered by many, including yours truly, as the most important series published in magic. First of all, this guy is a total baller. There's no doubt about it. He is the guy to put magic in all its categories that are STILL USED TODAY. So basically, he's like Charles Down (creator of Dow Jones Index) as he basically gathered just about all the magic in the world and shoved them into 19 different categories.


They are: 


1. Production
2. Vanish
3. Transposition
4. Transformation
5. Penetration
6. Restoration
7. Animation
8. Anti-gravity
9. Attraction
10. Invulnerability
11. Physical Anomaly
12. Sympathetic Reaction
13. Spectator Failure
14. Control
15. Identification
16. Thought Reading
17. Thought Transmission
18. Prediction
19. Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) 


Now, this is in 'The Trick Brain', which I found extremely useful in developing new magic and routines. 


to really p your actual performance, Showsmanship for Magicians is a must read. It will boost your level from a complete noob to... not so noob in just ONE reading!!! 


Alright, all jokes aside, this books will teach you everything from how to stand, walk, talk, laugh and even gesture. It will cover things from clothing to equipment, from your shoes to your hat, from your stage to the audience at the very far end of the room in which you are performing. 


Last but not least, Magic by Misdirection. Now, this is definitely something I recommend to anybody who is willing to make magic a serious hobby... you know that it's a serious hobby when you start blogging about it and you KNOW that nobody ever reads this shit. No, this book is REALLY good. Like REALLY REALLY REALLY good.


You know what, I can't stress how good this book is. However, this book made me go from a complete amateur to somebody that people think is a full time professional (not everybody... but I've been frequently questioned whether or not I do this as a full time profession... probably because it amazes them at how I'm able to make a living being so damn crap). 


Anyways, this book pretty much teaches you how to accomplish the impossible. It will go through pretty much every psychological weakness of a spectator and in turn, teaches you how to take advantage of it. This book is not only useful for magicians, it is also useful just for normal people. If you ever need to negotiate, or lie your way out of something, then surely, you will need this!

Weaknesses like this one

After using this, you could ask a girl out and make her think that she asked you out.


After reading this, you could go up to your foolish English teacher and get an additional 3 marks for all your papers.


After reading this, you could convince Bill Gates to let you take over Microsoft for a few years. 


(well... maybe not the last one but the first two are proven winners by me... and ignore the first one... don't ask)


Well... if I kiss Fitzkee's ass anymore, I'll have shit all over my face so I guess I'll stop here.


This has been a long yet satisfying blog entry. 


Again, I hope that you guys will take something interesting and useful from here.


So,... don't blink, don't breathe, just feel the magic!

And I'll see you guys in my next entry next week!


Next Review: Linking Cigarettes by Akira Fujii (I got the name this time!!!)

Jeopardy

Alright, I know I promised to find out who created the original effect of this trick BUT, the internet really has me puzzled on this. I mean, I even went through Dariel Fitzkee's trilogy again just to search but nothing came up.

So anyways... as usual, I would like it if anybody could tell me the name of the creator of the trick without putting me down too much for being the biggest noob at magic.

Anyways, a little history on how I came about this effect. I first watched it performed by Lu Chen on one of his weekly shows. I was so confused at that point that my entire head was probably in a state of 'dough' (yes, that is a new state outside of singularity, gas, liquid, solid and plasma). The tirck itself is amazing and the presentation was even better!

SO, being the ultra awesome gentleman that I am, I stole the routine...

I'm being quite honest here. I pretty much just copied him. I simply can't get any new ideas... or, more to the point, all my new ideas sucks and I don't like them.

Now, I WILL be performing this again under a new patter soon under the theme "Miracles from Hope". It's a donation event that both the Magic Society and the Red Cross society are co-hosting. Hopefully I can find enough inspirations after my small exams to figure out the details and find enough time to practice.

Now, you're probably bored by my ranting. So without further annoyance from me...


Effect: The effect is simple. The magician would first present his predictions and places it at somewhere that is visible the whole time. The magician then asks the AUDIENCE to mix up his cards in a fashion that completely messes up the order of the deck as well as the direction that the cards face. Afterwards, he then opens up his prediction and matches the conditions of the cards that the audience messed up.

Now, this is actually a 3 part performance. It's a routine that I called 'Destiny' due to the heavy prediction nature of the routine. I'm still working on the exact patters and the actual tricks itself. (The last one isn't as strong as I want it to be)

Anyways, I hope that you will have fun watching this. I most certainly had fun performing it. I still think that it's one of my best close ranged performances so far.


Spectator's View: Now, the interesting thing is that people often ask me to perform it again afterwards...

If you ever hear that. RUN! Because it will definitely work again! And that would freak the shit out of the audience.... so seriously. For once, I am not concerned about your safety (well... I never did concern myself with that... I was always concerned about exposure in magic).



Angles: This is 100% angle proof. IN fact, so angle proof that the spectators are going hands on! Now, you may wonder how this trick works... and I must say now that it's not all that easy... BUT it's not all that hard either... but I'll discuss that later.


 Overall: Now, the trick's difficulty, I would give a 4/10. There's really no sleights. You just need to make sure that you don't screw up the fundamentals. There's a bit of misdirection involved as well so yeah...

Now, for this trick as a whole, I give a very solid 90/100. I strongly recommend you go buy the trick somewhere and practice practice practice. This is DEFINITELY a reputation maker. I know that I personally LOVE this trick!


Next Review: Dariel Fitzkee's Trilogy

Triumph (review)

First of all, I know that I promised to review an awesome Magician  (Mirko), HOWEVER, I actually don't have all the time to check out all his info and nor could I find any performances other than his most recognised bubble routine at the IFSM. SO yeah, if you want to watch it, I have it favourited on my youtube page.

Again, this trick shows how noob I am. The lack of understanding of where the trick even originates from. To be honest, I am quite annoyed with myself, however, after googling something like Triumph magic etc. will usually lead to really weird and incorrect explanations of it on youtube.

Before I begin, again, I would like to say that this blog is for noobs only. Please do not waste your time reading this if you think that you are confident enough to choose your own tricks to learn or if you think that I am the big noob that I am. I am reviewing simple tricks for now, stuff like the Berglas Effect can come later when I'm a little more confident in my reviewing skills... or at least I get feedbacks that won't make me shit myself from embarrassment... that's right... if you get me too embarrassed, I will shit in your face! So don't do it!

Anyways, there are MANY variations of the 'triumph'. There are gaff'd and non-gaff'd versions of the trick. I mean, I personally prefer the non-gaff'd version, however, that is just a personal preference. I'm not saying that all of you must be like me and remain close-minded and bitter about life!

As usual, after around 20 minutes of rambling, I'm taking you to the effect.





Effect: The trick is simple, the effect is simple, everything is simple!

 So basically, from the video you could see that the spectator selects a card at random and then it gets shuffled into the deck. Now, unhappy with the current state of the cards, the magician makes his life around 26 times harder by offering to shuffle the cards up-side-down.

And men saw that it was leet!

So anyways, After some mumble jumble, the magician snaps his fingers, AFTER showing everybody that the cards are all mixed up, and turns the cards all the same side up.

Now... as if that isn't impressive enough as it is, the magician continues to show off by making one card appear face down. Which card? Why, of course it is the card that the spectator chose in the first place!

Anyways, my performance was a non-gaff'd version, I will now give a gaff'd version of the trick (courtesy of my friend David)

As you could see, using gaffs makes the trick look around 10x more leet.

So basically, the rule is that if you want to look awesome, use gaffs. :D


Spectator's View: Well, I have had mixed reactions for this trick. Some are unimpressed, some peed themselves a little.

SO yeah... later on, I realised that it was the way I presented the trick. People OFTEN care more about the performance than the actual effect. Again, I suggest following my principle of 30% magic and 70% performance.

Some really smart audience would obviously question everything but don't be scared, if you do this right, it's actually angle proof.

Speaking of angles, it brings us to...


Angles: This trick is ANGLE PROOF!!! Both versions are. If you are getting caught out, I suggest practicing with a friend and ask him/her to stare you down. Make sure that you can do this angle proof! This is very important. Because not only will it be well... you know... angle proof, it will also greatly improve the fluency at which you can perform this effect.


Overall: To be honest, I don't really like this trick. Well, not as much as the previous tricks that I have reviewed anyways.

SO, I will give this a 65/100. I mean sure, the effect looks good, I mean sure... you can do this with any ordinary deck, HOWEVER, the amount of work and risk you have to put in just to perform this isn't worth it.



Next Review: Jeopardy (by... I promise that I'll find out!)