Magician Magazine formerly Street Magic!!! On the way to shops near you

Genii does have tricks and effects in each issue as well. Harry Lorayne has started writing regularly in there as well (kind of an "Apocalypse lite" column).

I like the Time vs People magazine analogy above. I agree.

Oh yeah, I subscribe to Genii...

As noted above, Genii does teach a bunch of effects on a regular basis.

And this month (well, in the July issue), Genii includes a free 'Crystal Method' card.

Well, *Genii* has Harry Lorayne.

On the other hand, *Magic* has David Kaye and doesn't have Jamy Swiss. So I get every issue of *Magic* and two out of three issues of *Genii*.

*jeep!
--Grandpa Chet

I like both. In the area that I live (Wichita, KS), it is easier to market platform shows than it is close-up shows. In the Silly Billy column in Magic, there was a routine for Stratosphere (substituting plastic apples for the balls), and a Die Box routine that I have used frequently to always strong responses. I love close-up, but platform seems to be where the money is (where I live).

Bob Phillips

Hmmm.
If Magic is like people and Genii is like Time, that means they're both junk?
Sheesh,
Which magic magazine is like the Nation...
Having actual content...

=)

I won't buy into your assumption that Genii and Magic are junk, but if you are dissatisfied with them you might try Antimony.

I can't imagine that Antinomy would even come into a discussion regarding Genii and MAGIC magazines. How bizarre!

We have a kick-ass section of tricks every month called "Magicana" and if you like the tricks in the the dozens of books I've written and published over the last three decades, you'll like what you get in Magicana.

I get both, but if I had to choose id go with genii. Richard does a great job with it

I think he was actually saying that "People" and "Time" are both junk.

Man I just got some old issues of genii from the 60's and 70's for 50 cents each there is some good stuff in those things. the larry jennings issue, and some christmas issues. I really like the art they used to use

Yes, and by making the comparison he's also saying that Magic and Genii are both junk. Which I said I don't agree with. And because of his reference to the Nation -- a third magazine -- and asking what might be magic's version of that, I thought of Antinomy, which targets a small niche within magic's larger (but still small) niche. Not bizarre at all! (Although there are probably some politics here I don't know about.)

For the record, I read Genii every month, Magic two issues out of three and, despite my positive opinion of it, I don't read Antinomy.

Genii

Magic is a colorful and interesting magazine. However, I cancelled my issue when they didn't seem to find Mindvention a convention worth covering annually.

GH

Not arguing with you, but I just interpreted that post differently. I took it to be saying "IF (emphasis added) Magic is like people and Genii is like Time (someone ELSE made this comparison), that means they're both junk?" Notice the question mark. Perhaps he was implying that they ARE junk, but you may be inferring that when he was just questioning the analogy someone else used.

Gotcha. You might be right. The question mark does give it a debatable inflection.

I get both, but prefer Genii personally.

I get both and like them equally (though for some reason Magic keeps shipping to me very mangled ).

When Mike Close was the reviewer for Magic, I think I would have given them the edge, but since he's left, I no longer have a preference in the review department.

The tricks in Genii are a little better written and illustrated, though I do like Magic's ExpertTalk most of the time.

My advice would be to get both.

In a sentence, Genii is better for those who swear by learning from books, MAGIC for those who prefer DVDs. Longer attention span needed for Genii.

This is in part due to the in-depth articles they offer, compared to the superficial variety in MAGIC, but it's not necessarily always a good thing. Genii seems to be full of 'big names' who, one imagines, were expected (by family and friends) to grow up and do something smart, but they then dedicated their life to card tricks. Don't get me wrong, there is more intellectual weight behind the Genii authors, just not as much as they think. Jon Racherbaumer, Jamy Ian Swiss, Max Maven, and Jim Steinmeyer all contribute regularly (and have had columns in Genii), but with the possible exception of Steinmeyer, none of these guys would be considered 'smart' outside of the magic world. So they compensate by pretending to be smart - i.e., using wordy prose and convoluted style to get simple points across. JIS and JR in particular could easily write more clearly if they weren't bogged down by their own sense of 'cleverness'. And JIS really should be given a word limit. It's a shame, really, as it probably turns off some readers (the ones who prefer DVDs).

MAGIC also has its fair share of wannabe intellectuals or 'thinkers' - you gotta love professor Lawrence Haas, with his adorably bad card sleights (see the cover to his book) and one can only respect the intentions of Jeff McBride the spiritual thinker. And then there's Joshua Jay, cute kid who still looks like he's going through a growth spurt or something. He's definitely improved his writing 'voice' - no more magic-cliches and few typos/crediting issues. Maybe its the influence of Simon Aronson (a sort of great grandfather figure to JJ, and someone geninuely bright - though note that he he's lived up to early family expectations and kept the card tricks at hobby-level). It's hard to top David Regal as a reviwer, though. (Again, note the correlation between smarts and not doing card tricks for a living). Michael Close thinks he's really brainy (did you know that he can play the PIANO!?!), but it's all really innocuous now that he's no longer reviewing tricks for MAGIC and scratching Bob Kohler's back with over-the-top reviews of so-so products. At least it was transparent enough to people post U3F.

So there's quite a lot of pretentious stuff in both magazines, but it's more commonplace in Genii and MAGIC has writers who simply can't pretend to be smart in the way that Jamy Ian Swiss and Jon Racherbaumer do (I won't name names, but it tends to be the gentiles).

Richard Kaufman is a more serious magic-editor than the LA dude guy who owns/runs/reluctantly gets called back to edit MAGIC. RK certainly has fewer spelling and grammar mistakes than the recent editors of MAGIC.

To summarize, get the both and have a hoot imagining the expressions on the childhood friends and family of the mock intellectuals in Genii, and then read MAGIC for content. Unless, of course, you prefer to learn card tricks from books, in which case, Genii is the way forward.

Adios amigos!

joeyjojo