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Mark Rough Inner circle Ivy, Virginia 2110 Posts |
My god, this is a great book. I started reading it very quickly the day I got it, but then forced myself to slow down and stick to one or two chapters a day. It must be savored. I finished it a couple of days ago and it's been on my mind ever since. This is my favorite kind of magic book - mostly simple (notice I did not say easy) effects with intriguing story lines. Plus, the format itself, a series of reports, is a fun story in and of itself.
The effects run the gamut from funny, to heart tugging, to dark and scary. All with a wink and a nod. AND, there are just so many of them. This is a huge book. When you get it, take your time, enjoy it, drink it in like a nice pint of Sam Adams. Now as to the cd (which I believe is only available if you order before Wednesday, that greatest of holidays) . . . folks if you don't get it, you're going to wish you had, for it contains not only some of the artwork that allows you to do some of the effects, but contains some extra reports. Upon finishing it yesterday afternoon in front of the fire (with my Sam Adams at hand), I was filled with an overwhelming desire to visit. Sadly, the bar is no more, but you can be sure that the next time I'm in Boston . . . Anyway, to all involved, good show!! Mark PS Speaking of Boston, GO SOX!
What would Wavy do?
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
I'm about half way through and will be reviewing it when done.
I'll have to say this about the book, I have not been this surprised by a book in a long time. I was expecting another horrible example of bizzare magick, since most of those doing it suck at it, but this book is brilliantly written and has great material in it. I think it will be so far under the radar no one will notice it though, too bad. |
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Son of a.....I didn't get a CD!
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Peo Olsson Inner circle Stockholm, Sweden 3260 Posts |
Quote:
On 2007-10-29 18:33, MagicSanta wrote: Where did you orded the book from? The CD is only given if you purchase the book from LL directly.
Pictured to the left my hero and me during FISM 2006 in Stockholm.
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
From another place....darn me! Hey Leapin' Lizard! Give a brotha a break!
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Title: Devil of a Bar and Pub by The Scribe
Medium: Book, hard cover Arena: Close up, parlor, mentalism, other Available: Any shop, Distributed by Murphys Magic Supplies Things change. Twice this past year I’ve said that a certain book is the best one I’ve ran into, non-biography, on magic. One was the Josh Jay book Sessions and the other was the Essential Stewart James, both excellent books and well worth getting. I have to say that I have stumbled across a new book that, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting to be much more than a bit interesting that is far and away the most entertaining read and also contains great magic and mentalism that is old, obscure, or complete new handlings for classics, and that book is Devil of a Bar and Pub by The Scribe. When I went to my quiet spot to read the book I actually brought along a back up just in case I couldn’t get into this one and I found I couldn’t put the darn thing down. The book is published by Leaping Lizards who has been hit and miss with their publications and viewed by me as the guys you go to if you want to get a book out and no one else will publish it for you. Some of their works were really good but with this book, which is the first one by them I’ve seen in hard cover, maybe because it is almost 400 pages long, and it is a home run for them and I don’t know how the heck they got this book rather than some of the bigger houses. Good for them though, this should be a huge seller for them if there is any justice in the world. From what I understand from the books forward there is a web site that is by invitation only that was started by a fellow named Brother Shadow as a home for those into Bizarre Magick. Now Bizarre Magick is very difficult to do right and very easy to do badly and most who do it are more boring than anything else. In fact if most bizarre magick types were half as good as they thought they were they would be twice as good as they really are. On this board a person arrived using the name The Scribe. Not unusual for these folks to use interesting names and The Scribe would post short stories about the happenings in a bar called Devil of a Bar and Pub in Boston and the characters that went there. These stories would consist of an account of a magic routine, mentalism, a trick, all kinds of stuff. After the story there would be posted under the heading THE TRUTH an explanation of how the magic routine, mentalism, or trick, by trick I mean like an elaborate gag more so than a magic routine, was accomplished as well as the source. All done in character and as if explained later on while the pub was empty, as an example. No one knew who The Scribe was and the stories continued to appear every so often on that message board until they made up, as I said, nearly 400 pages and the average story with explanation being two to three pages, that adds up to one heck of a lot of magic and mentalism. That was all fine and dandy but what really struck me as soon as I read the first story was that they are extremely well written. Clearly they were written by a very talented writer with an amazing knowledge of magic and mentalism and a skillful story teller. This was not the work of your run of the mill internet bizarrist. As it turned out, and I didn’t know this before hand, the book eventually does give the names of those behind this amazing book and they are a few of the greatest minds in our art and in one case a man likely considered the greatest story telling magician who has ever lived. That explained the quality of the stories and the material. These were not written on the fly, they were written with the intention of presenting classics of the art and very obscure items with the intention of showing how they could potentially be presented in a strong and entertaining manner. This group of magicians and story tellers got together, decided what to base the story about, and sculpted the scenario expertly and then THE TRUTH tells you exactly how to do the same thing. You, of course, should work on your own presentation if you don’t have a bar but to be honest you can easily take the presentations from the story and do them almost as presented. This is brilliant stuff and the people, men and women, behind it are to be applauded. They said their reasoning was to show how these gems could be shined up and used and they sure succeeded. There is so much material of quality that I won’t even attempt to go over it all. Some of what is found are card tricks that often are self working but can be done with a spooky or mental slant. One routine uses a very basic force but is built around a really cool mathematical constant that is presented as a double and potentially triple whammy with a lucky number being picked by the spec. This is so simple it could be explained to any of you in less than a minute and you could go out and kill with it. They present a mentalism coding system that is impromptu and easy to do. In this case you ask for people to give you a list of, say, points of interest in the city you live in. Once done you pick a few items and eliminate the rest. Your side kick comes in and looks at the random list of locations and they pick a few and both lists match perfectly. The method is devious and can be learned in minutes. There are routines with coins, napkins, physical feats of strength, money routines, just an amazing list of effects and routines. Have a goat and need a trick to do with it? It is in this book. I suggest you keep a log as you go through the book so you can easily go back and find the routines you really are interested in and I promise you, there will be lots and lots of them you’ll be interested in. I found it fun to try to figure out the method prior to reading THE TRUTH, I was right a few times but man did I get fried by others. If you can read and are interested in some excellent magic and mentalism that you can and will do this is a book you will want. If you like to read extremely well crafted short stories based around magic then this book is it. To the ladies and gentlemen behind The Scribe, and I’m not going to tip who they are, you have put together one of the best collections of magic that I’ve ever seen and done so in an entertaining fashion. To be honest once I saw the head Scribes name I wasn’t at all surprised at the quality of the writing and the material. Congratulations Leaping Lizards for coming out with what I think will be a very sought after book, with reason, and congrats to those of you smart enough to get a copy before it goes out of print because you will not be sorry. In closing let me say I suggest you do not go to the back of the book and read the sleeve or the last chapter so that you will be surprised by the writers names or at least read a bit before you are overcome with the need to read the names of who The Scribe is. I know I said it about Stewart James but I’m going to change my conclusion that this is the book of the year, the decade, and will go into my list of best books on magic I’ve ever read and it goes on to my night stand on a permanent basis.. Oh, for you visual learners, since this book isn’t likely, due to volume, to be put on DVD I guess you are left out. |
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Blindside785 Inner circle Olympia, WA 4541 Posts |
When was "Blood" supposed to come out...sheesh
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Blood? Sorry, I don't get it....
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Blindside785 Inner circle Olympia, WA 4541 Posts |
An effect that was supposed to be released this summer from leaping lizards
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Oh, you are going to have to talk to Leaping Lizards about that, I don't know 'em or what they plan on releasing.
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Magiguy Inner circle Seattle, WA 5467 Posts |
Thanks! I Just purchased this, based on Mark and Santa's reviews. These are two opinions I have come to blindly respect and follow. Thanks again, guys! I'm looking forward to receiving this.
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
It's cool. There are some things that have been hiden for years in there and some cool bar trick type effects too.
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tuffnavyrn Inner circle San Diego, CA 1238 Posts |
Just ordered mine from HP.....can't wait to get started on this one!
Brian-
"That smart thing that somebody else said". |
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SpellbinderEntertainment Inner circle West Coast 3519 Posts |
Dear Mr. Santa...
Your review made my Christmas come early! All eight of us who've been a part of DOAB&P did this work as a labor of love, and we never dreamed at the start it would end up in one book. To see your praise and enthusiasm is very heartwarming, and for us to be able to share our work with the greater magic community has been a fantastic privilege. I hope many of the more "traditional" magicians on the Café will read the reviews, and realize there is practical and usable material in the book, which any restaurant or bar worker can use, as well as stage, parlor, and close-up pieces that can polish the bizarrists or storyteller's work. We were lucky to have a great gang of authors, the marvelous Scribe who attended to the details, and two great editors who pruned the work for publication by LL. Thanks for stuffing our stockings and swelling our heads with your praise. Magically, Walt (one of the lucky DOAB&P contributors) |
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
I pick that durn book up every night. There is some devious stuff in there and I like the material using non traditional magic items. For those who didn't write it they have this method for making a ball roll across a table or floor that is evil genius and I never would have thought of it. I also have fun trying to figure out the people behind the names used in the stories. They mention Max Maven and Tony Icoviella (forgive the butchering of that name) and others.
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Andy the cardician Inner circle A street named after my dad 3362 Posts |
I now remember why I try to avoid this section - it makes me go for my credit card.
Seriously - thanks Santa Andy
Cards never lie
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
I found a bar trick in there that I tried two nights ago and it is evil. You take six coasters and put three symbols on them, so you have three pairs. The bet is if the person you are playing with picks three different symbols you win, if they pick two matching symbols, they win. You win every time! I also found a story that the secret character is Walt. I figured it out from his post because the character is visiting from San Francisco, Walt is from Northern California, and they refer to his magic as 'spellbinding' and you'll see the name he uses here is 'spellbinder entertainment'....he can't fool me!
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SpellbinderEntertainment Inner circle West Coast 3519 Posts |
Hi Santa,
My DOAB&P pieces are under several names: -Tony Walters -Gauthier LeMage -Louis Cypher -The Storyteller I think one of my best was Jack O’Shea. It was fun for me to recall and find them all when the book came out! Magically, Walt (and the rest) |
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Mark Rough Inner circle Ivy, Virginia 2110 Posts |
One of the fun things for me was not only figuring out which folks wrote which pieces (I'm still not sure about most of them yet), but seeing different cameos (as characters not authors) that were made by folks we all might know. I believe Tony Eye showed up once or twice, just to name one.
Mark
What would Wavy do?
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Yeah, Tony Eye is there, Max Maven and Phil Goldstein, McBride, and others. It is fun trying to figure it out. I can't tell who wrote what though.
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