The Magic Live Update No. 5Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

She Barred Me

Joe M. Turner asked an excellent question on the Tag-Board (which then had to be fixed, but not because of anything Mr. Turner did, I think). His question was both valid and excellent: What happened to Magic Live Seminar Update No. 5?

Mr. Turner and for everyone else, I present to you now the Inside Magic Update No. 5 for the Magic Live Seminar.

Read On . . .

Meir Yedid is one cool guy. In the past, I have paid him millions (okay, thousands, okay hundreds coming close to a couple of thousand) for retail merchandise and advertising space on his former Magic Times. I never met the man, though. We?ve spoken on the phone and by email but I had no idea if he was really a jerk that tried to seem like a nice guy in his press and merchandising and advertising sales and everything else.

I figured no one could be that nice and helpful and know about magic like he claimed to know.

Meir Yedid Doing Fadeout

Once again, the cynical side of my evil twin, Timoteo, was wrong. Mr. Yedid is one great guy. I had the chance to meet him at the Magic Live seminar dealers? room and became like the…

She Barred Me

Mr. Turner and for everyone else, I present to you now the Inside Magic Update No. 5 for the Magic Live Seminar.

Read On . . .

I figured no one could be that nice and helpful and know about magic like he claimed to know.

Meir Yedid Doing Fadeout

Once again, the cynical side of my evil twin, Timoteo, was wrong. Mr. Yedid is one great guy. I had the chance to meet him at the Magic Live seminar dealers? room and became like the twelve year old I had once been in the magic shop I had once haunted each weekend.

Magicians can be prideful people and I have more pride than the common magician. I never want to walk up to a dealer?s booth and ask for a demonstration. I know that is their reson d’etra for paying the enormous fees they pay to the convention organizers but I hesitate because I want to appear to know everything within the confines defined by the ambiguous terms ?magic stuff? and ?new magic stuff.?

Within seconds of approaching Mr. Yedid?s booth, I lost my pride on the rocks of curiosity and amazement. I introduced myself to Mr. Yedid and told him I was with Inside Magic just after he performed his first new miracle for me and several other by-standers. He was very kind and acted as if he remembered me, Inside Magic, and my constant, almost stalking-like, emails asking for things. Maybe he was just being kind because he did recall these behaviors but didn?t want me to feel horrible for my past actions.

I beamed when he praised Inside Magic to the others standing around. I felt like I belonged ? this sounds more dramatic than it should. I know that I belong at a magic convention. The way I just wrote it, ?I felt like I belonged,? made me sound like one of the minor characters in A Chorus Line or an illiterate Viagra salesman.

I asked Mr. Yedid every question I could fabricate in my thick little skull. He answered each adeptly with the exception of one ? ?Assume, arguendo, Billy Buckner fields Mookie Wilson?s grounder cleanly: with his bad legs, could he have made it to first to end the inning and give the Red Sox a chance to take the lead in the 11^th inning?? I don?t know if he heard this question or just didn?t care to answer.

Mr. Yedid demonstrated to my heart?s content and I purchased to the content of his. We were a symbiotic team. Like a frog in a terrarium, I breathed the oxygen Mr. Yedid produced by the photosynthetic demonstrations of great packet tricks. Man, I am clearly simile challenged.

Mr. Yedid demonstrated four tricks and I bought, coincidentally, four tricks. I am guessing by the transitive property of magic demonstration, if he had shown ten tricks, I would have bought ten. If he had shown twenty, I would had to sell one of my organs to buy the twenty tricks.

Meir Yedid Makes a Sale

The Amazing Jumping Arrow. This is a paddle routine with an arrow engraved into an anodized aluminum rod. Mr. Yedid described the rod as ?looks like steel, feels like plastic, sounds like aluminum and is actually made of wood.? I fell for this because I was already in his spell. He told me he was just joking when it became obvious that I was the only one in the crowd that didn?t get the punch-line.

The effect is by Mark K. Young, and is impressive. ?Oh, no, Tom, I don?t do paddle tricks.? First of all, the name is Tim and second of all, don?t read this review, then. Plus, stop interrupting the incredible, Faulkner-like flow of the article with your inaccurately directed protestations.?

For those of you still reading, Mr. Yedid showed a black rod, blank on both sides. An arrow appeared at the end of the rod but only on one side. It then moves to the middle, to the other side of the rod and then moves freely up and down the rod as the rod is shaken. At the end, the rod can be handed out for examination. (This was when I realized it wasn?t really made of wood, he had been joking).

The piece looks great and even I was able to master the uncomplicated routine. At $15.00, I considered it a steal. Mr. Yedid considered a steal to be my attempt to use a credit card I ?found? in the hotel lobby. I explained it was my mistake and paid cash.

The second effect purchased on the spot was David Solomon?s incredible Four Flusher. The effect was about as straight forward as an effect involving five cards could be described ? assuming you don?t ask why it is called ?Four Flusher? if it involves five cards.

Five cards are shown and Mr. Yedid explained that the lowest form of gambler is the Floor Flusher. This is the character who has four cards of the same suit and one card that is off-suit but the same color and claims to have a flush by waving the hand around quickly, hoping no one will notice that the cards don?t all match. Now, Mr. Yedid closed the fan, and explained the next step up in the decrepit world of cheats is the kind of guy who uses some skill to turn the hand into a four of a kind featuring the aces. Sure enough, as he opened the fan that had previously shown four-fifths of a flush, there were now the four aces and an indifferent card. Finally, the fan is closed again, the hole card is shown and the fan is spread to show a perfect royal straight flush.

Not so bad, I thought.

Then, Mr. Yedid tabled the five cards and apparently showed me the back of each of the cards. I think I made a gurgling noise at this point. I am not sure because my eyes had rolled back in my skull and my contact lenses ? already dried from the dessert air ? shot from my eye sockets like translucent Frisbees. This was a great trick. At $15.00, it was a steal. I practiced it while playing Video Poker on the fringe of the casino. Because I didn?t have my contact lenses replaced, I couldn?t believe my eyes. I asked the bartender what she thought, and she had security escort me from the casino area. It is such a great trick that I got barred. That?s a good trick.

The Visual Coin Assembly by Michael Gallo was next up and the next one purchased. Four quarters separated on the close-up mat reassemble in a Matrix-like routine. So what, asks Mr. ?I don?t do ?paddle tricks?? Man. Well, here?s the so what. You perform the routine with the volunteer?s business card (not a playing card) and you use quarters. The visual part of the Visual Coin Assembly comes in the neat way you can cover one or two or three of the quarters with a shot glass, and as the remaining quarter vanishes from under the business card, it will visibly appear inside the shot glass with its brethren coins.

I knew how it was being done but I really appreciated the gimmick and the fact that I can use a borrowed business card and borrowed quarters. I love the Matrix but I don?t love that I am unable to borrow the coins from my audience because they don?t walk around with half dollars ? actually my audiences probably wouldn?t have four quarters either but I can hope. I also love the Matrix for the effect on the audience but I really did not like Keanu Reeves.

What Happens at a 7-11 in Vegas, Stays at a 7-11 in Vegas

This effect was so expensive that I had to really think about the purchase. It was a tough call. Ten dollars for a gimmick I can use for hundreds of tricks involving the commonly-found quarters and that comes with three Matrix variants that are incredibly clean? Hmmm. I was going to spend the ten bucks on the Video Poker machine at the 7-11 Men?s room to try to win back what I lost after my donut and Double Gulp breakfast.

I bought the effect and didn?t return to the 7-11 bathroom; thus gaining a great trick and avoiding the disapproving eyes of those waiting to use the facilities while I cursed what I believed to be a Video Poker machine installed just over the urinals.

The final effect is one that I could have sworn I had. You know that feeling don?t you? Please say you do. You have bought so many tricks that you don?t know your current inventory other than to describe it as tricks other than the four effects I have been using in my act for 15 years.

Fade Out is Mr. Yedid?s effect and in his hands it looks like real magic. A deck of cards is shown front and back. I was asked to name a card and that card was removed and returned to the deck. As the deck is shown, face up, every card has turned blank with the exception of my card. Mr. Yedid then snapped his fingers and my card also turned blank.

Man, I thought, I know I have this trick but I must do a terrible job in presentation because if that?s how it is supposed to look, I would use it in my close-up routine. Then it hit me. It was Blizzard by Dean Dill. What a bum, Mr. Yedid is. Stealing Mr. Dill?s trick and marketing it as his own. ?Hey, Meir, isn?t that Blizzard by Dean Dill??

In my mind, the room got quiet and all eyes were on me. I felt like I was in a Dickens? novel. Pointing my finger at Mr. Yedid and calling him out. (I don?t know that Charles Dickens ever used the modern phrase ?calling him out.? He does use the phrase, sort of, in the article/essay Going Into Society:

?I say, I wasn’t best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn’t blessin him in my own mind, when I see Chops’s little bell fly out of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, ??Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I’m a dead man, for I’ve come into my property!??

I digress. Mr. Yedid accepted my accusation with style, flair and even understanding. He pointed out that his effect was different in method and presentation than Mr. Dill?s Blizzard. If you have a Blizzard, you will know why there is a significant difference between the two effects when I tell you that you hold the deck in your hand the entire time. The effect is, I think, better than Blizzard if only because it is safer and more practical.

I apologized for screaming at Mr. Yedid and showed my contrition by purchasing a fantastic effect for $15.00. I can promise you that this trick will be included in my close-up routine. It has all of the impact of Blizzard but none of the draw-backs.

I stumbled away from Mr. Yedid?s booth and almost tripped over the subject of the next update of Inside Magic?s report on the Magic Live Seminar, John Sterlini of Sterlini Magic. Look for Update No. 7 tomorrow night, Sunday.

Thank you, Mr. Turner for your question.