Tag: Expert at the Card Table

Magic Law

Free Magic Summer Reading from Conjuring Arts Center!

Inside Magic Library Cover Page for Happy Hollisters and the Perfect FarosWe love to read magic books and love to read free magic books even more.

There are two types of  free magic books: 1) those in the public domain; and, 2) those that are not in the public domain but are being illegally copied and distributed by some evil person or persons.

We shy away from illegal anything and especially illegally copied books.  Perhaps it is our day job as an Intellectual Property attorney that has biased us against counterfeit and knock-offs.

Maybe if we were not so aware of how authors and inventors dedicate so much of their lives to creating the property others hope to steal, we would be all for the theft.  Maybe not, though.  It still seems wrong.

But what are you going to do, the cynics ask.  Everyone steals and books cost too much and they are only stealing a single, virtual copy and they pay for almost every book other than this one and they were raised by Honey Badgers so they don’t really care.

We know readers of Inside Magic are not like Honey Badgers.

Our readers do care about doing right and avoiding doing wrong.  Our readers are good people.

That’s why the news from The Conjuring Arts Research Center is so exciting to us.

The Conjuring Arts  folks are launching their perfectly timed summer reading program today.

At Conjuring Arts we believe that some of the greatest secrets of magic can only be discovered by reading great books. Every week until the end of the summer we will be giving away a FREE! PDF download of a great magic book. The book will be available for download for absolutely free from the beginning until the end of the week at which time a different free book will be given in its place. Please enjoy reading these classics of magic and spread the word about our FREE Summer Reading Program with your friends!

We promise that if you download each book each week you will have the beginnings of a Great magic library.

We just downloaded their fully bookmarked edition of The Expert at the Card Table.  It looks great and even has line and chapter numbers like you would find in a bible for those who treat the book like the bible of card magic that it is. Continue reading “Free Magic Summer Reading from Conjuring Arts Center!” →

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Holingworth’s EXPERT Gets Boffo Reviews

Inside Magic Image of Guy Holingworth from Expert at the Card Table In its review of The Expert at the Card Table, LA Theater Review identifies Magician and British Barrister Guy Holingworth as both “suave and debonair.”

We certainly do not disagree but wondered if the statement should be considered “news.”  After all, it is well known that all intellectual property attorneys are by tradition always either suave or debonair; and a select few of us are both.

We read further into the expertly written essay and understood.  The theater critic was using what us professional writers call, “an introduction” or, as we say around the professional writers’ clubhouse, “an intro.”

But we are quick to protest — probably because we were conceived during some beatnik protest in the late 1950s — that Guy Holingworth needs no introduction. Magicians and magic fans know him well from his writing and performing neat effects with ordinary cards.

Then we read further into the review and realized the introduction was primarily for those unfamiliar with Guy Holingworth.  We calmed down, popped a Chocks and continued sounding out the words as quietly as possible lest we wake those around us in the Mystic Hollow Public Library.

Neil Patrick Harris directed Mr. Holingworth’s show based on 1902 classic The Expert at the Card Table. The critic then explains the rich history and intrigue surrounding the creation of S.W. Erdnase’s gift to future generations of knuckle-busting masochists and their ever-patient friends and family.
Continue reading “Holingworth’s EXPERT Gets Boffo Reviews” →