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bignickolson New user 87 Posts |
I've always greatly enjoyed magic and off and on have put in the effort to learn a trick or too. My first real exposure was my great grandfather giving me a copy of Scarne's Magic Tricks. I really wished I would have thought more at the time about why he had the book. Was he an amateur magician, did he know any great stuff? I tried learning the tricks in it, but my 8 year old brain couldn't quite make sense of the instructions and my mom wasn't to hip on letting me try out a bunch of magic tricks with matches and cigarettes. I've always had a couple of ok card tricks at my disposal, along with the old salt shaker/napkin/coin classic, but that was about it.
Flash forward and I turned 30 this year, and my interest in magic has been resurfacing with a vengeance. It started maybe 5 years ago, I'm very interested in the scientific skepticism movement and that usually means an interest in the likes of James Randi, Banachek, Penn & Teller, Jamy Ian Swiss, etc. In fact, one of the best tricks I knew for a long time I learned when I was around 11 watching a rerun of Randi's expose of James Hydrick. Being able to "telekinectically" move a pencil around was a cool feat in my school at the time. Anyway, that slowly reawakened my interest in magic along with the fact I now have a lot of nephews and nieces who are old enough to appreciate a fun little trick. So I started to relearn a couple which led me deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. I was browsing Amazon one day and somehow came across the Ben Salinas Encyclopedia of Sponge balls dvd. I threw it my cart and started playing around. I also volunteer with Big Brother/Big Sister and I was showing my "little" a couple of vanishes and did the two in his hand bit and completely fooled him, which is not always easy with a 10 year old. My wife happened to be watching and she made me redo it about 5-6 times before I finally flashed and she figured it out. It gave me such a rush to actually pull a "real" trick off. I've mostly been working on actually mastering sleights to bring it beyond the simple "pick a card" stuff. Recently, I had my proudest moment and probably did a solid 20 impromptu minutes for some family and friends over the 4th of July involving a fun mix of cards and coins, including my current goto bit of a simple gambling demo with some false shuffles and faro stacking to deal myself the 4 aces in a poker game. I hope I can learn quite a bit here, thanks for having me. |
Mary Mowder Inner circle Sacramento / Elk Grove, CA 3659 Posts |
Welcome bignickolson,
Sounds like you're having a blast. Have you been able to find out anything about your Great Grandfather's interest in Magic? You might do a google search of his name. There are times when the Magic community knows more about someone's interest or credits in Magic than family members. I'd ask your family members first. Sometimes people just don't think to tell you something like that unless asked. -Mary Mowder |
bignickolson New user 87 Posts |
I've tried searching, I believe his name was Leland Shirley, but we always called him Smokey. He lived close and we saw him often and he never did a trick for us that I can remember, but it does make you wonder. People generally don't have magic books laying around. I'll have to ask my grandma when I see her again.
I'm definitely having a blast. My fondness for Penn & Teller led me to Johnny Thompson and I got some copies of his Classic videos. Between that, the Mark Wilson Complete Course in Magic, Expert Card Technique and Modern Coin Magic I feel I have enough to keep me busy learning and practicing for a long, long time. |
Kingman Loyal user Willow Spring NC 294 Posts |
Welcome welcome! I had a similar experience. Loved magic when I was younger, father used to do a staple of tricks each year at Christmas. Never thought much about it until I got older and caught Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants. That's all it took. Now I have decks of cards everywhere, never leave the house without at least two packs and learned to perform much with a borrowed deck. It is a great art to be in love with. There are many great people here and good groups to join. You sound like you might like the PEA, if you have not found them yet. Not easy to get into from what I heard, but I have not tried personally since they are not my niche. http://www.p-e-a.org/
Hope you visit often. |
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