Been Reading

In my opinion, Harry Lorayne is the best magic teacher around. The first book I ever bought of his was Personal Secrets. I was blown away by his effect "Leap Frog." Essentially a thought of card vanishes from a packet and reappears elsewhere. But it was the thinking behind the magic that I really enjoyed. So starting in 2001 I started collecting everything that he wrote. I was a long-time subscriber of Apocalypse already. Then Harry Came out with his Personal Collection (a great book in itself) along with L&L's reprints of Apoocalypse, Best of Friends 1 & 2, and others. The hardest to find was his Epitome location. I wrote Harry and he kindly told me that it was going to come out in his Classic Collection series- another great buy.

Harry makes a big deal out of learning his effects the way he teaches them. This is because he has thoroughly thought out most of, if not all, the routes he uses to get the biggest bang for the magical buck. I've seen guys do what Harry pleads us not to do- they take a simple straight forward effect, "simplify it," then add to it. What happens is they simply muddle the effect.

Another thing I like about Harry's magic is that when you learn one of them, you often can use the sleight or ideas in other effects. For example, Harry has a devastating Ultimate Peek effect in Personal Collection. Then he keeps going with #2, #3, etc.

Some time ago I sent a copy of one of the magic magazines to Harry and asked him to sign it for me (of course I sent a pre-paid Express mail with it). He graciously signed it and sent it. (As he does for most of the books of his that I now own).

So I've been reading through his material again lately...many of the effects are now earmarked for my repertoire. By the way, one of his card to wallet effects in Classic Collection 2 is absolutely devastating. I plan to use it with Steve Draun's wallet.

Let me highly recommend ANYTHING that Harry puts out. You can find many of them directly from Harry himself.

Dual Control Revisited

Sorry it has been so long since I've blogged here- been taking care of health issues. But I'm back.

Dual Control Revisited is another entry from Alakazam Magic that is just incredible. The basic effect is items such as cards, spoons, pencils, chop sticks, etc., stick to your fingers invisibly. Also, you can do a rising card from the pack, apparently impromptu, and all can be examined. Here's the video.

Firstly, what I like about Dual Control is what I like about ALL Alakazam magic products- you get exactly what they tell you and it just works. I've quite a few items from Peter Nardi's vast number of offerings, and these always have a high quality of production and that killer factor in magic. I've NEVER been disappointed with anything they have produced.

Next, you get the gimmick and a DVD that goes into EVERY aspect of how to install, practice, and utilize the gimmick. Michael Vincent is a patient teacher and walks us through all the set-up and different effects. He gives proper recognition to Alan Alan, and there is a bonus video of Alan Alan doing the effect at the Magic Circle (with a rather "cheeky" magician who is not so cooperative). This is an incredible offering for so little- they could have sold it for twice the amount than they do.