No blog posts in ten days...

Yeah so I've not posted in almost ten days. Not because I've been too busy, but because theres fuck all happening in the magic world worth talking about.

I have now seen a performance of "Come Fly With Me" by Mark Mason (www.jbtv.co.uk). Yes it looks great - but to a lay person it's still just coins going across. So my original comments stand - why waste that much money on a bunch of gaffus to achieve the same effect (as far as a lay person is concerned) that you can do with four ungaffed coins or poker chips?

I don't like much that Lee Asher puts out but his Three Stylin' poker chip 3-fly is a nice handling that makes sense and its cheap. It's certainly better than any of those manuscripts that had rude and shocking titles. I really dislike people who use smut for effect, they're cunts.

MW.

The Black Widow

Right off the bat let me say I don't have one of these nor would I consider buying one even though some of the stuff in the video demo looks ok.

If you don't know what I'm talking about then check out this link to Darryl Hamburgervans Black Widow.

As always the ad copy makes some big claims and in this instance some really fucking stupid ones. The opening line of the sales pitch is:

"Sadly, the Black Widow will make large chunks of sleight of hand obsolete."

Surely that should read "Sadly, the Black Widow will make lazy magicians with $250 in their pocket even more lazy than they are now".

If you need a $250 gizmo to vanish and change objects, which are fundamentals of our art then you really shouldn't call yourself a magician.

Also notice that most of the advert bangs on about how it impressed magicians. And that's a key here. To a lay person the black widow user just made something vanish/change, it's the same trick to them as if he'd done it with sleight of hand, the only difference is the black widow guy had LONG SLEEVES and most decent sleight of hand workers roll em back and mind fuck their audience.

MW.

Seperated at Birth.

A cunt...

Criss Angel...

Another pointless magic product.

What the world of magic needs is another book test right?

Well for $55 you can buy this piece of shit... The Cousin of all book tests

Yep, even the name isn't original.

Effect: Similar to Max Maven’s Autome, but using a different book and offering 6 different force phrases, rather than one. Several spectators randomly pick numbers from 1- 400, the number of pages in this book.
Another spectator SECRETLY mentally chooses one of those pages and opens to that page, silently reading the first sentences on the page. (Note, we offer a different procedure than Autome to make this work, and we suggest you invest in Max maven’s DVD to find out the clean elegant method HE uses- along with the original book used.)

Why solve a problem that never existed? In reality this should read:

Effect: Exactly like Autome but with a different book. We use a different way of switching out the numbers that the original, but the original Max Maven version is better and you should buy the DVD that has the original on it.

The DVD that has Autome on it costs about $35 and you can probably get it for $25 - $30 if you shop about. That DVD also contains some other really great mentalism. Autome is done using a regular paperback novel which will set you back a few bucks if you buy it new and a lot less if you grab a used copy.

All that this cousin of a goat buggerer book does is offer six different outcomes "in case of a repeat booking". But as Max Maven points out there are other books you can use with other results and a quick search on the web will find posts where people outline different books with the relevant page numbers. In fact I have used Autome a number of times and I have three different books that it works with, all of which were purchased used but in mint condition for less than $2 each.

But wait the cousin of all book tests also has a peek system built in (probably flashback by the sound of the description). So their key selling point is that they've taken two ideas of someone elses and built them into one book which costs $55.

It's not even good value.

Larry Becker's Ultimate flashback is a set of five different books and a dictionary (all included) with multiple methods/effects built in and you can get it for $70 - only $15 more than this piece of garbage.

Why do people even bother marketing shit like this? Oh yeah, because magicians are suckers.

MW.

Dipshit II

My old friend Mr Anonymous is getting upset. He's apparently posted apologies and confessions that he's a right wierdo but to be fair - those two comments aren't really by him.

The problem with being anonymous is that anyone can do it, as I've proved. If you're going to be smart about it you create a unique persona and nick name and use that.

Anyway he's now getting mad that I've put two comments up that aren't really him and he continue to pretend that the issue is with my spelling and grammar and while he persists in pretending that's the arguement I'll delete comments the little dipshit makes.

Fact: He said I never reviewed or commented on things I liked.

Fact: He's wrong, there are posts where I write about things I like.

Fact: I pointed out that he hadn't read all my blog and had jumped to a conclusion (at the time you only had to go back a few posts to find a positive review).

Fact: He didn't like that he had proved himself to be a liar and a twat and then began picking on spelling and grammar.

Fact: I don't a flying fuck about grammar or spelling. I don't complain if people spell things wrong or use bad grammar. This site is not meant to be a fine example of the English language.

Blogroll.

I'm really picky about who makes it onto my blogroll now. But I've just added a blog I think is well worthy of listing. It's written by Smiling Mule and called The Phantom Notebooks.

MW.

Private messages on the magic cafe.

Why does Steve Brooks find it necessary to blast out broadcast private messages to users of the cafe that are not at all of interest to most of us?

The last two being;

Posted: Thu, Aug 3rd, 2006 - 8:29 PM (EST)

Born to Marcy and Mad Jake - our new baby girl 551 AM EDT, Monday July 31st, 2006 AD Samara Jean Paige 6lbs 5 ozs 19.5 Inches

and;

Posted: Fri, Aug 4th, 2006 - 1:02 AM (EST)

Café member Jim Davis informs me that just before 7:00 P.M. this evening; Joshua Gene Edwin Davis was introduced to this world in the glorious micacle of birth. He is 7 lbs, 13 oz; and 21 inches long. Blue eyed, and red headed! He was born with his hand next to his head, so he was either trying to hide from us, or wave hello. I tend to believe the latter! Mother (Cynthia) and baby Josh are doing great! Congratulations Jim!

I urge you, if you get messages like these, click on the "report this pm" and complain that is has nothing to do with magic. If Mr Brooks really insists on births being broadcast then he should also fill us in on all the cot deaths, still births and abortions to keep the balance. Maybe if we all request it we could soon be getting PM's like this...

Posted 4th August 2006 - 2:02am.

Not that most of you give a shit but Cafe member Arce Wipe informs me that just before 6pm this evening his wife had a miscarriage. They are calling it splat. Splat was reddish brown and blue, about 6lbs and 20 inches long. Arce and his wife say they may use it as a draft excluder.
Love Brooksy.

Or...

Posted 4th August, blah, blah.

Cafe member Ivor Tiddler and his wife Dippy, have just had a baby. He weighed in at 6lbs 7oz, has red hair, blue eyes and downs syndrome. They have named him Spazzo the Clown.

We can hope eh?

MW.

Dipshit.

There's some twat who goes by the genius name of 'anonymous' who has chosen to comment a few times to a recent post. He accused me of only posting about things I hate. He obviously hadn't read many posts which have been about things I like and in fact have raved about.

Now he's decided I have litracy issues or something.

Basically what he's done is taken issue with something, been proved wrong and then fires back with a totally different arguement. What he doesn't seem to get is he's still fucking wrong.

Go read the comments on the post before this one and see for yourself.

MW.