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NEW REVIEW FROM JACK SHALOM TODAY

Steve Spill is at it again---writing that is, and his books just keep getting better and better. It's a shame that the title Lost Inner Secrets is taken, because this book is that. No, it's not going to tell you where to put your left pinky when (at least not too much), but it's a book that could supercharge a performance from just competent to extra special. I can't imagine a better investment of your magic time than reading this book.

Steve's recent retirement from daily performance at his Magicopolis venue, interestingly, has put Steve in a different frame of mind; you can feel it in his writing. There's still the same love of humor, magic, and people---still plenty of funny jokes---but there's something else this time around, something deeper, more philosophical…wiser. With his new perspective, he gets at what the real essentials are in this performing art.

To my knowledge, what Steve talks about here just isn't available in magic writing anywhere else: the information within comes only with the repetition of thousands of performances. It's about hard-won expertise that is deep in the performer's bones. And it's not easy to articulate it without a lot of self-awareness and self-reflection. Reading, I felt I had a privileged view watching from the backstage wings, thinking: Oh, that's what he's doing, that's how he's getting that laugh. that's how he's making rapport with the audience, that's why he does that move then. If you're reading this, you probably have shelves of magic books with tricks and sleights; you likely have near warehouses full of magic equipment. Those are not going to make you a better magician at this point. Leave them alone for now. Pick up this book. It will tell you what you don't know about performing, and will never know, until you perform as many times as Steve Spill has.

Steve starts off with persona. A magician, he explains, doesn't have to be relaxed and carefree---but s/he has to give that impression. Magic is an aggressive art at bottom; there's always the iron fist in the velvet glove. It takes a lot of time to find the right balance of mystery and playfulness to keep an audience from feeling abused. "It's important," says Spill, that magicians "not take themselves so seriously that audiences feel beaten over the head by the performer. I think a cultivated casualness is an antidote to the oft-perceived pomposity that comes with fooling people, and that can help whatever you do become more viewer-friendly." And, a bonus of such apparent casualness: "Performing without a lot of affectation can conceal methods, and presents everything that’s said and done as something brought about without laboriousness."

"Cultivated casualness" is a wonderful phrase and Spill goes on to explain exactly how to cultivate that casualness and how to use it to the performer's advantage. First, there is a terrific section on improvising, which is unlike any other advice on improv that I've seen. As Steve points out, the improvisation techniques that a comedy magician needs to learn (and really the techniques here are good for all magicians, not just those committed to comedy) are different from the techniques that one learns in a theater improv class. Simply put, an actor works with other trained improv actors, but a magician is largely exchanging banter with audience members who are untrained. Steve gives you techniques that make those interactions wittier, funnier and more engaging. I practiced his exercises for a single day, and I was already faster on my feet with other people. This chapter alone will improve performances greatly. It's a real gift.

Then there's a whole chapter devoted to comedy tags. Wait, I know---Dammit, Jim, I'm a magician, not a comedian! Okay, okay. But you know what?---Steve is giving you ready-made callbacks here, and if you play your comedic cards right, four or five-time callbacks. Even if you're not a comedy magician, only the most dour of performance personas would find these suggestions out of character. Short of some Bizarre Magic approach (and maybe even then) humor almost always lifts a performance.

On to a chapter about doing magic for teens. As someone who's worked with teens as an educator for many decades, I'll tell you this: Steve Spill understands and appreciates the way teens think and act. He is exactly right about how to approach them. He gives not only a general approach, but also some very specific bits that work and carry him through a show. I like that Steve Spill likes teens. And oh yeah, if you don't know how to deal with teens who love their cellphones---and they all do---once again, Steve comes to the rescue with both general and very specific advice.

Steve ends this section with some disarmingly frank advice about playing the long game:

Being a pro may be a labor of love, but is labor nonetheless. It is a job. Usually it is a fun job, but not always…Very few in our craft are ever in the position to turn down work. Some jobs are ones you desperately want---others you don’t want, but take just for the payday. In my lifetime I’ve given tens of thousands of performances. Some were great. Most were good. Some were bad. A few were really bad.

And then Steve goes on to say how he saves himself when things go South.

I really should stop the review here, because the book I've described so far is worth every penny to a person who repeatedly gets onstage for a living.

But duty says, continue. And it's not really a duty, it's a pleasure. Because the second half of the book consists of some unpublished wonderful routines from Steve's repertoire, with their full scripts. It includes "The Mindreading Goose"---"Not bad for a goose!"; and "Broken Mirror," a spirit slate routine done without slates, suitable for your favorite spooky holiday; then a lovely sleight of hand interlude done with a Cub Scout neckerchief slide; and a brilliant Torn and Restored routine that can be customized for special occasions. They are all effects that although not overly elaborate can play big and funny for a large audience.

But my favorite routine here is Steve's version of the Slydini "Paper Balls Over The Head." The piece should win some kind of award for the most brilliant comedy magic script of the decade. This thing is a comic masterpiece. This is one to bring down the house. Okay, remember what I said about the first half of the book being worth every penny? Forget that. Because for the right person, this script alone is worth every penny. Seriously. It could be a reputation maker.

Overall, the book is bursting at the seams with fantastic performance advice and magic routines. I can't recommend it highly enough. The icing on the cake is a back cover photo of Dai Vernon that I assure you, will have you laughing out loud.

You've got an uncle in the business. His name is Steve Spill, and he's telling you everything he knows. Thank you, Steve, for one of the most entertaining and useful books of magic I've ever read.

You can order it at https://stevespill.com/products/magic-is-my-weed

Jack Shalom |September 7, 2019 at 12:02 am |Tags: book, comedy, magic, Magic Is My Weed, magicians, performance, stage magic, stand up magic, Steve Spill |Categories: Books, Comedy, Life, Magic, Performance, Theatre, Writing |URL: https://wp.me/p5hWXS-5Om

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Pre-publication sale price ends 9-25-19
JANY IAN SWISS “I simply don’t know of a better book of real-world counsel on what it takes to perform professionally on stage, to make a living at it, and to be funny in the process.”

JAMY IAN SWISS REVIEW
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JACK SHALOM REVIEW
https://jackshalom.net/2019/09/07/high-t......e-spill/

Hasn’t indecision ruled your life long enough? Take a stand and buy this groundbreaking inspirational manifesto now. stevespill.com

NEW MAGIC CIRCLE WEED REVIEW.

Magic Is My Weed by Steve Spill, Magic Concepts, Santa Monica, www.stevespill.com, 2019; hb, 6” x 9”, 236 pp., $150 including international carriage.
A short while back I enthused greatly over the prequel to this: the author’s ‘How To Make Love The Steve Spill Way’. Such was my unabashed zest for that volume that I gushed, “There are woefully few books for the stand-up comedy magician: itself a dying breed as performing conditions increasingly favour the close-upper. This is at heart (and this book has a big heart) a love song for the parlour/stage comic performer, doubling as a lesson in scripting, routining and theatricality”. Steady on there: but it applies largely to this volume too.

This is very much Volume Two of a concatenation: it offers up a mirror to its predecessor. So you will find a combination of entertaining, insightful autobiographical details and quirky commercial routines that will resonate with readers of the ‘Love…’ book.

This wisecracking hippie speaks for most of those of us with the presumption and neediness to stand up in front of strangers and seek their unalloyed approval when he admits: “There is no more thrilling feeling then the sound of people who are surprised and clapping and cheering – it acts like a drug. It is my weed”. To his credit, few are prepared to go to such lengths to fish for that level of public approbation than Spill; some of the routines (in both books) are not only idiosyncratic but entail him going to unusual lengths to concoct a routine.

A routine that embodies the Spill style of chutzpah will be the one those familiar with his oeuvre will flip the pages to locate upon unwrapping the book: ‘The Mindreading Goose’. It has become something of a signature routine for Spill; it is very funny, in the Venn diagram of Rocky Raccoon but with a (hopefully) unique climax when the featured Goose takes a wazz over the front row. It sold for the best part of $500 – may still do as far as I know – as a dealer item, but like the afore-mentioned Rocky, I cannot envisage it in any one else’s hands. It’s laid out here in all its glory and to the requisite detail to allow you to make one for yourself; I doubt many will, and in many ways, I hope they don’t: it would be a calamity to see such a gem ruined in lesser hands than Spill’s.

As with its prequel, this is very much a book of two parts; ‘Contact High’ (geddit?) is a sequence of great anecdotes, autobiographical insights that offer a thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly unnerving trip through Spill's bizarre mind. Do not be beguiled by his entertaining anecdotal style though; there is much hard-gained wisdom contained in this half of the book, and for me just these 80 pages or so would be an invaluable publication on their own; in which case the routines come as a huge bonus. A particularly welcome aspect of this is his entry into an examination of his approach and attitude to comedy; David Regal pronounced this segment as “priceless”, and Regal certainly knows his comedy.

Then come the routines, and there are a few veritable pearls amongst those that are, shall we say, somewhat idiosyncratic: likely to remain Spill’s alone. ‘Mindreading Goose’ aside, I was attracted to his unusual and beautifully staged version of ‘Paper Balls Over Head’, as far from Slydini’s as you are likely to encounter. His ‘Miser’s Dream’ with spluttering finish is a hoot; you’ll have great fun just envisaging yourself standing on a stage and delivering it.

Even if you do not pick up any of these routines as written, you will certainly learn much from his approach, thinking, attention to detail (which is extraordinary) and the relationship he develops with his audiences (for example his take on the T&R Newspaper). And there are so many great lines included that the comedy performer will seize upon with an ungainly alacrity: like a pig snuffling out truffles, the result is a joy to digest.

You can only get these volumes from the author, and they come with an eye-watering international delivery charge; and an asking price of over $300 delivered for the two books may seem veering towards exploitative. As tends to be the case with the release onto the market of a lifetime of commercial insights and material from a true professional: here’s a price to be exacted for such a release. If your wallet forces you to choose between the two, I’d point out that the first book gave me more pleasure than its still-excellent successor and is still an essential purchase for me. Whichever way you decide to go, you will rarely enjoy the fruits of such an investment in magical literature with such laugh-out-loud relish.

Today's WEED REVIEW LITTLE EGYPT GAZETTE

STEVE SPILL TELLS ALL -- Steve Spill makes me laugh. I became a huge fan in the early eighties, visiting his and Bob Sheets' Brook Farm Inn of Magic a half dozen times, the most perfect full evenings of dining and magic I can imagine. If you have never encountered Steve's twisted sense of humor, you can via YouTube (see my notes in July 2019) or through his more formally compiled DVD, 10 Years of Steve Spill 1980-1990. Alas, you can no longer encounter him at Magicopolis, at least not on a regular basis, as he has sold the establishment to the Magic Castle's Randy Sinnott. More recently, you can encounter Steve in his new book, Magic Is My Weed.

Said book mimics the previously praised How to Make Love the Steve Spill Way, with about half devoted to essays (theory and history) and half to a dozen fully polished professional stage routines.

Professional magic you can do!
Now shipping!
Theory. The opening chapter "Let's Party" makes the case that performing magic generates extreme bliss (the drug metaphor), a true high for a boy who grew up loving (as I did) magic, old rock and roll, and various magazines (Mad, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Genii). Ah, but unlike me, Steve's dad was a Magic Castle medium and his "uncles" were Dai Vernon and Charlie Miller. Not fair. He sold Magicopolis not so much for getting bored of performing (although he did over 200 shows a year for 21 years) as for "work" (paying employees, making the monthly nut, etc.). He has dropped back to a few shows a month.

The rest of the chapter focuses on agents and managers, show producers, being a wisecracking hippie, being yourself on stage (huge part of the Love book), the notion that humor enhances mystery, being more analog than digital, and what the rest of the book promises, especially if magic is your weed.

That promise includes theory chapters on exactly how to address various aspects of stage performance, analysis I've seen rivaled only in David Kaye's work on kid shows.

"Spur of the Moment" addresses improv: why you should do it and how you can do it. Why increases being now with your audience. As to how, Steve advises no fourth wall, thinking while they are laughing, saying the second or third thing rather than the first, interviewing spectators and reacting to their answers, living a full life, reading humor, being informed, applying the acronym PESK to your routines to make them funnier, and limiting profanity. (That last suggestion does not apply to magic books.) Regarding humor, I regularly read Steve's suggestions of James Thurber and S.J. Perelman and would add to his list P.G. Wodehouse, Jean Shepherd, and Peter De Vries.

"OA" is Steve's technique for controlling a general audience via callbacks and tags. It is guaranteed to generate plenty of oohs and ahs.

"The Dope on young Humans" is Steve's strategy for controlling a theater full of young kids -- school field trips were popular at Magicopolis. Let's just say the method would be explosive. I have often wondered: the rumor at Brook Farm was that Steve and Bob Sheets used to host pizza matinees for kids only. Could these kid control techniques have been developed there?

"Paparazzi!" contains general thoughts on entertaining teenagers -- graduation parties were popular at Magicopolis -- along with a specific strategy involving a pop-up necktie. I must admit the latter made me a bit squirmy, and I am someone who performed and published Love Potion Number 9 (a unique Card from Fly routine) and The World's Most Obscene 21 Card Trick (The Little Egypt Book of Numbers). Steve's teen chapter concludes with some ideas on performing for seniors.

"Tough Skin" takes me back to the MAGIC Live session called Ghost Stories, hosted by Mac King and Max Maven in scout uniforms by a campfire. Various pro magicians told horror stories of their worst performances. This chapter contains Steve's worst, and they are really bad. The chapter concludes with Mark Wilson's advice on what to do when things go that wrong.

Magic. And then we have a dozen complete routines with all the little touches that have made them so great over thousands of performances. Among them ...

Mind Reading Goose is Steve's most iconic trick. I doubt that you are reading this review if you are not deeply familiar with it. "Not bad for a goose!" There is a great story about how the routine evolved from a car ride with John Kennedy (the magician, not the President), Tim Conover, and a bumper sticker that read SAVE A TREE, EAT A BEAVER. All the performing details are here, including permission to perform it, but you will be money and time ahead if you purchase the whole darn thing from Bob Kohler.

Not bad for a goose!
See the material performed here.
Grab N Stab is Steve's Russian Roulette routine with five knives. Don't worry about it failing: it fails every time, with a great comic ending.

Broken Mirror is a bizarre effect, with a Satanic message in blood on a piece of broken mirror. Perfect for Halloween.

Rice Paper is Steve's Paper Balls Over the Head routine with toilet paper that he and Bob Sheets turned into a hilarious two-person routine, at least twice as funny as any prior version. Wife Bozena later handled the honors at Magicopolis. History note: Steve first encountered this routine as a volunteer for Slydini himself.

And eight more: a terrific mind reading routine re menu selections, a Miser's Dream that uses a pot, a spoon, and six dollar coins, a business card force, a mental effect for Multiplying Bottles, a manipulation trick with a Cub Scout neckerchief slide, a new use for a Grant Temple Screen, a haunted record album collection, and a Mother's Day wrapping paper restoration.

As I opened, Steve Spill makes me laugh. Not just on stage, but in his writing. He has a humor-centric approach to life and the written word. But funny as he is (his writing is up there with Regal and Caveney), the best laugh in the book goes to Bozena, for her comment at the bottom of page 210. I am still laughing.

Like the previous book: Hard cover, 238 pages, highly entertaining writing, with funky illustrations by the author, from Magicopolis.com. $125.

Are there more of these books in the pipeline? I am thinking illusions. The Spill-Sheets Substitution Trunk and the Levitation of a Lady from the Audience play large in my memory.

HOW TO MAKE LOVE THE STEVE SPILL WAY
& MAGIC IS MY WEED
Both books are coming out in new softcover editions. The hardcovers of these books sold for $125 each and were out of print within a year. The softcover editions are $75 and go out to customers early March 2021. To ensure you get yours, specify LOVE or WEED, or LOVE & WEED, and PayPal to info@stevespill.com
USA orders add $8 postage and handling - total cost per book $83.
International orders add $25 postage and handling - total cost per book $100.
Here are descriptions of the books from when they were first issued in hardcover:

https://stevespill.com/products/how-to-make-love

https://stevespill.com/products/magic-is-my-weed

THIS WAS JUST POSTED ON STEVESPILL.COM

If you’ve followed my career, been to my shows, or read my previous books, I wrote ASSASSIN just for you.

It’s a 260 page turner hardcover that can advance your career, both artistically and lucratively, either to take you to the next level or to get you back on track. Whatever the case, over the last five decades I’ve been there, and in terms of what I know, no stone has been left unturned. Some think, “Only a few special people can make it.” There are only a handful of Penn & Tellers and Copperfields in this world, but there are moderately successful magicians who live amazing lives. You can be one of them.

If you are a competent performer and need a full calendar of gigs, a residency, or want to own your own theater - be like me and get those things… my step-by-step guide, from real-life experience instead of theory, encompasses one-third of this book. Some readers will only be interested in audience-tested material they can do to bring laughs and surprises, included are these twelve little gems right here…

THIRD EYE
A lot of mentalism seems to be about suggesting it’s the art of suggestion or that one has a sharply developed sense of non-verbal communication or other psychological or scientific influence or precognitive ability. You can’t say that about this merrymaking wonderworker that features a telepathic fish expiration date projector, cleverly disguised as an ordinary flashlight. What can be said, without giving everything away, is that audiences will tell you they had no idea you were this amazing and amusing. A thing of real beauty that’s real magic and real funny. Another plus, this routine also makes use of a real fake fish eye.

LOVE LETTER
A prediction that’s not a magician’s prediction-comes-true scenario. It’s all about a twist in time, a clumsy mistake in the postal system. You received a yellowed-with-age love letter from the year 1914. Even though they’d be well over a hundred-years-old today, you wish you could find the person it was written to. Instead an unintended reverse forecast, fortune telling from the past thing happens, involving members of your audience. Though not my intention, someone once told me this trick was proof of reincarnation.

ENZYMES
In this experiment, plastic eating enzymes devour a borrowed credit card into nothingness which reappears, restored, in a gift-wrapped box of Cracker Jack.

CHOKER
A Public Service Announcement about how to save a restaurant choking victim that finishes with the surprise appearance of a large bottle of wine.

YOUR TOASTER IS EVIL
Your toaster - that burns everything - has a bad influence on your empty microwave, from which appear multiple cans of burnt vegetables and a real live burnt bunny rabbit.

WEAPONIZED DENTURES
If you are looking for a good holiday themed routine to add to your act, you might consider a Santa hat that doubles as a change bag or a trick about Rudolph. This is neither of those things. What we have here is a chattering teeth card revelation that tells a holiday story which is absolutely completely different in both script and effect to Terry Seabrook’s chattering teeth card revelation.

CUBISM
Solving a Rubik’s Cube as a magic trick does not, aesthetically, appeal to me. But this little caper does, because it’s a mystery with a painting of an unsolved Rubik’s Cube, done with crayons, by Picasso.

JAVA SCRIPT
Nothing to do with a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, this is a recurring bit of connective tissue to tie your show together with a Thermos that’s constantly proved empty, but repeatedly replenishes itself, and ultimately fills nine clear mugs with black coffee.

TOXIN
A quick infomercial about the new Toxins from Around the World Collection. Those who do this routine demo the first offering, Nuclear Waste, by multiplying their fingers which glow and are eaten and then blow into their thumbs and grow giant ten-inch mutant fingers.

PINK FLAMINGO
There was a time - for real - when I was a fashion show MC, that’s when this bit with invisible accessories was tailored. The surprise climax happens when a lit candle - used for meditative purposes - transforms into the exact color and design of an invisible pocket square imagined by a spectator. Here’s the routine intro, “When I started in the comedy magic game, every magician wore a tuxedo, and every comedian wore a T shirt and jeans. In terms of fashion, as a comedy magician, I was a wardrobe half breed… one foot in each craft… until I met a stylist…”

HAIRLESS WONDER
A striking practical example of a one-off special routine developed for a corporate event that’s a how-to object lesson, done with photo blow-ups of famous women you didn’t know were actually bald. Their names are - Oprah, Cher, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Dolly Parton.

BARNACLES
A unique method and presentation for the classic Chess Knight’s Tour.

Hardcover book available for pre-order now, shipping in May - ORDER HERE - stevespill.com

It's me Steve Spill the Magicopolis guy and THIS is what GENII MAGAZINE has to say about my new book HOLY SMOKE released this week:



Highest Recommendation and Pick of the Month
Nathan Coe Marsh GENII MAGAZINE August 2024



Holy Smoke
Ways To Work In Mysterious Ways If You’re Not God
Steve Spill



Steve Spill’s Holy Smoke is a remarkable book that manages to mix practical insight into developing a stronger act, writing original material, and building a sustainable career with a self-aware look into the soul of a stand-up magician. By turns bitingly funny, candid, insightful, profane, and poignant (the book closes on a memory of a last meal with a now departed colleague that hit me in the solar plexus.) It also teaches a ton of strong, funny stand-up magic with an original voice.


The majority of the book is split between two sections: “Reflections,” a set of practical and thoughtful essays, and “Deceptions,” descriptions of 12 pieces of stand-up magic written by Spill (fifteen are taught in total including the pieces taught in the “Sermons” chapter on custom corporate presentations).


The central metaphor of the book first comes up in a significant way with an observation of Teller’s: “The God-like plot of -- I wish for something and get it -- in terms of theater, is dull and boring and without humanity.” Spill expands on this “Some, like a guy I’ll call Nick Brainiac, embellish this feeling [of acting like God] with an unspoken, yet nonetheless heard, testiness and attitude: ‘Of course I can tear and restore a newspaper, cut to the aces, and separate two silver rings. I’m !@#$***g God! Now clap like baboons you idiots!’”


Spill argues, compellingly, that this alienating dynamic is why human connection, and the expression of a clear personality onstage, are particularly important to magic. “One needs to make themself the bubbles in the champagne, the yeast in the dough, the force that drives the sap in springtime, the tingle in the testicles.”


Having laid out what’s at stake in putting more of yourself into your magic, Spill gives us some practical steps to do just that. There are strong suggestions here that will benefit performers of all experience levels. This is one of the things Spill does remarkably well. It is one thing to tell students to “be yourself” or “create a show that feels like a unified whole.” It is another, far more valuable thing, to be able to teach specific strategies that readers can implement in their work to do those things. Spill gives actionable advice and it is clear that he practices what he preaches.
The discussion of the importance of personality and plot leads to one of the better explanations of the danger of using other performers’ presentations: “you run the risk of using a script that just looks and sounds wrong, mismatched, the way you can tell when someone [is] walking someone else’s dog.”


While most of the essays in the “Reflections” section contain advice gathered around a specific subject -- crafting a unified show, conveying your personality in your material, managing career burnout -- there is a lovely catch-all section called “Gospel” which contains an assortment of specific, practical insights about a wide range of issues for performers: how to keep creative momentum going, develop your own point-of-view, open a show, use a “mind script,” etc. etc. etc. There is a great deal of enormously valuable information here in easily digestible form.
I have seen one, just one, great magic show that didn’t have connective tissue between the material: Penn & Teller perform a piece, there is a blackout when it ends, the lights come back up and they begin the next piece. Every other first rate magic show I have seen builds and sustains momentum by moving fluidly between pieces and by using devices like running gags, callbacks, and themes developed across the material to create the feeling of a unified whole rather than a collection of parts. Many a crappy show, however, has started and stopped and lost energy in the moments between pieces. Our goal is to immerse the audience in our world, and to do that they need to remain connected to us. The easiest place to lose that connection is to have moments when nothing is happening. Spill’s chapter “Unitarian” describes a series of practical tools for creating connective tissue for a show and delivering an act that feels like a unified whole (and I very much want to see Barfo the Clown, the act described in the course of teaching several of these strategies.)


The chapter that hit me hardest is “Resurrection” which deals with something I have never heard another performer talk about, have never talked about to anyone else, and had never named or reflected upon to myself. It has, however, been a persistent force in different ways throughout my career: burnout. Being a professional magician, especially in the early years of a career, feels like building a plane while you are flying it. You are developing the product -- your material and your act -- while also figuring out how to both market and sell it. That means that there are endless tasks you could be doing every day.


My first 10-15 years as a performer were spent, somewhat paradoxically, both drained by the work I was doing while also feeling a persistent sense of vague guilt that I could and should be doing more. I was always on the wheel and felt a little twinge of shame when I would relax. When I worked hard on the show (in retrospect, the most important and beneficial work I did over the long term) it felt like play, like an indulgence that was taking away from the “grown-up,” important, Work of finding and converting leads. When I threw myself hard into growing the business, on the other hand, it felt like I had given up art to give myself a sales job. I did not recognize it as such, but I was burned out.


Following the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic, I stopped prospecting for new corporate event work and chose to fill my performing schedule with a mix of long-term residencies, cruise ships, and touring the various magic theaters and nightclubs that have sprouted up. It has been a lovely three years of a full calendar without feeling like I have a sales job, but I have certainly left a pile of money on the table. I did not realize it until reading Holy Smoke, but that career shift was forced by burnout.


“Resurrection” tackles that head on with practical strategies for being highly productive without getting drained. It sounds trivial, and in my twenties I would have scoffed at seeing a chapter about it in a magic book, but the ability to be immensely productive while also letting off enough pressure to not have it all blow up on you is one critical key to having a long-term, sustainable career as a performer.


Speaking of critical career skills for a performing magician, being able to customize your material to communicate a corporate client’s message is an especially lucrative one. In “Sermons,” Spill gives a fantastic overview of this side of the work -- including a perceptive meditation on the sense of artistic compromise that often comes along with these assignments and a look at some of the ways these gigs came to him over the years -- that moves into sharing three different, fully realized, custom corporate pieces from his career.


His routine for Coppola Winery has an Annemann-esque feel. A small, folded piece of paper is isolated inside a bowl. Behind the bowl are the five bottles from the winery that were awarded “Gold Outstanding” at the previous year’s International Wine and Spirit Competition. A guest names which bottle interests him most and Spill gives a gorgeously written overview of that wine and what makes it special as he sets it aside (“The oak is present but subtle with a character of toasted bread and grilled almond.”) Another guest nominates a different bottle, and gets a beautiful script about that product as it is set aside, and so it continues until there is one bottle remaining. The final bottle’s praises are sung and then the message in the bowl is revealed to have predicted this outcome. The method is direct and versatile, but the presentational framework is the real star here. This approach of progressive elimination to allow you to talk about each product (or, one could make it more abstract and create a prop to represent each benefit so you could talk about each as its symbolic object is set aside) during a prediction effect is a lovely template that I could see many other working performers adapting for corporate presentations.


Next is a lovely presentation of the Sands of the Desert created for Daiken Global to memorably communicate the benefits of an air filtration system. This is an object lesson in connecting an effect -- or a compelling visual in an effect like the moment the clear water becomes black -- with the benefits of your client’s product or service.


A different, but likewise compelling, example of this is Spill’s script for Keith Clark’s Silks Supreme Act adapted to memorably sell ExxonMobil’s line of polymer nonwoven fabrics in the hospitality suite of a textile show.


The chance to read through these kinds of pieces is a rare and valuable one. This is the kind of material that pros tend not to document for other performers. They are the children of a prosaic creativity, we are proud of our cleverness in making these assignments work but they are not art and always feel like a compromise. Combine that with the fact that these kinds of templates can be reused in some of our most lucrative bookings and you rarely see this stuff taught, and when it is published it is rarely from a performer whose writing is as strong and imaginative as Spill’s.


Those enormous gifts as a writer are on particular display in “Shrinkflation” and “Ghosts,” pieces in the “Deceptions” section that are both original presentations for two routines of the late, great Tommy Wonder. “Shrinkflation” juxtaposes the striking visual of Wonder’s “Diminishing Cards” with a hilarious and timely monologue about manufacturers’ creativity in finding ways to give us less and less for the same amount of money. The direct and uncompromising visual of Wonder’s method dovetails gorgeously with Spill’s script. Method affects effect, as Racherbaumer perfectly put it.


“Ghosts,” meanwhile, takes a novel approach to the presentation of Wonder’s “Ring, Watch, and Wallet.” Here the impossible happenings are the work of meddlesome spirits. It is a funny, humanizing approach that is a refreshing break from the now hackneyed “Hold Up” premise.
This presentational gift is likewise showcased with “Classic Cat,” which is the only presentation I am aware of for the Rice Bowls in which the effect makes sense and is relatable (here as a demonstration of innovative Cat Litter that is self-refilling).


Spill’s creativity, however, is not limited to innovative presentational premises; there are immensely clever, original methods described here that make for strong magic. In “Grapes I Ate Anyway” Spill has adapted a rarely used principle in a fascinating way to allow four grapes to completely vanish from his bare hands (worth emphasizing: no pop-up moves in sight and this bears no resemblance in method or presentation to the “Balls In The Net” -- Spill has created an original piece that fits in a pocket and plays massive).


I have been intrigued with “Smashed And Restored” since I first saw it performed on one of my favorite magic videos: “Ten Years of Steve Spill.” Spill wraps a champagne bottle in a handkerchief and then smashes it with a hammer. When he whips away the cloth (silently, mind you) the bottle is restored. The method, in particular the way he has designed it so that you hear the pieces when you are supposed to and do not when you’re not, is brilliant and has me thinking of other applications.


One of Spill’s presentational gifts over the years has been adding compelling visuals to mentalism routines. This is a huge contribution. Visual variety is one critical tool for keeping an audience engaged. A show that is all envelopes and papers can easily feel like we are watching the same thing over and over (particularly given, as Max Maven pointed out in Prism, how much more limited mentalism effects are in variety than conjuring effects). Spill’s inclination toward mentalism with memorable visuals is most famously on display in “The Mindreading Goose,” which is a thing of genius. We see this gift at work here in “E-Meter,” a hilarious parody of Scientology’s device for “auditing” in which the machine divines a guest’s fear, climaxing with two different hilarious and visual revelations.


In the opening essay, “Dogma,” Spill talks about the difference between influence and imitation. He compares the army of dove manipulators who mindlessly imitated Channing Pollock, and are almost all forgotten to history, with the way Johnny Thompson was deeply influenced by Pollock but filtered that influence through his own personality and skills (along with Pam’s) to develop an act that was their own: Tomsoni & Company. It would be a shame to see folks using the material published here in a mindless paint-by-numbers imitation (though Spill explicitly gives you permission to). There are, however, rich possibilities here for being influenced and clear examples of making magic that is relatable, personality-driven, and more human. For those willing to do that work you will find fabulous seeds to nurture and examples to study.

Highest Recommendation and Pick of the Month

Nathan Coe Marsh
GENII MAGAZINE August 2024


Holy Smoke • Steve Spill • Hardbound • 190 pages • $125 • Available Exclusively from


SteveSpill.com/book/holy-smoke/