I've written a review about The Ultimate Sphinx, you may enjoy. It's a review of the CD compilation of fifty years of the seminal magic magazine, The Sphinx.
You can read the review here:
http://jackshalom.net/2015/05/17/the-sphinx-speaks/

Here's my second installment, surveying The Ultimate Sphinx:

http://jackshalom.net/2015/05/25/the-ultimate-sphinx-part-2/

Here's the latest, next-to-last wild gallop through The Sphinx in this series:

http://jackshalom.net/2015/06/07/the-pen......-part-3/

Great review Landmark. I have the Lybrary.com version of The Sphinx and I think that Chris Wasshuber deserves a tip of the hat for digitizing The Sphinx back in 2002 - long before CARC. It's also important to note that Chris's index for this in terms of search capabilities are VERY robust.

I am guessing that The Sphinx is public domain because it would make sense for Chris to sell the rights to CARC since he still sells The Sphinx on Lybrary.com. Perhaps someone from CARC might shed some light on this?

Thanks for the review and I DO agree that The Sphinx is an embarrassment of riches and moreover is one of THE most important magic periodicals ever published and ever to BE published.

Your review has me motivated to write a review piece for The Magic Wand which as you know was a UK magic journal that ran concurrently with The Sphinx but is perhaps less well known to American magicians as The Sphinx is metioned more in the literature available to American magicians than The Magic Wand. That said, The Magic Wand is every bit the treasure trove as is The Sphinx.

Chris has often been in the forefront when it comes to the digital preservation of the magic heritage. His lybrary.com is an extraordinary resource.

Vlad, I'd love to see a review of The Magic Wand. Could you provide a source--digital or otherwise--where we can get copies of it?

Ask and ye shall receive my friend! http://www.lybrary.com/magazines-comics-......301.html

I obtained mine in 2007 from Martin Breese International. Chris Wasshuber now owns the rights. At $4.00 a volume it's a great deal. It ran from 1910 to 1957.

Best,
Vlad

Many thanks, Vlad.

The new and final (Thank God!) installment of my survey of The Ultimate Sphinx is now available to be read here:

http://jackshalom.net/2015/06/20/the-sph......-part-4/

Thanks for this walk through the Sphinx, landmark.

I bought the CARC Sphinx DVD when it came out but was so daunted by its vastness that I ended up not exploring it much. I'm now motivated to dive back in and splash around.

Thanks for that.

Thanks, Tim.

I totally understand your comment about being so overwhelmed by the vastness of the resource, that you left it untouched up to now.

I get that way when I go to visit a large museum as well. So I've come up with two different strategies when I visit a huge museum like The Metroplitan Museum of Art, here in NYC:

1) I decide I'm only going to look at one or two rooms, but that way I can really take my time to enjoy them, and stop and look and consider everything in those rooms.

or

2) I race through the entire museum extremely quickly and only stop when something really grabs me by the collar and stops me dead in my tracks. That can be a fun way of doing it as well.

As you can see, in this survey of The Sphinx, I took kind of a combined approach--I limited myself to just four years, and then I galloped through, only stopping when something really caught my eye. But I am so glad I did this, because I was not familiar with the contents of [i]The Sphinx before this, and now, I am just gobsmacked at what a great magazine it was. This compilation is truly a fantastic research tool, and a goldmine of history and magical thought.

What's the main difference between library's version and the carc's version?

I enjoy The Sphinx Golden Jubilee Book of Magic.

^^^^^ For those who don't know, I should add that this wonderful "best of"
Was published in 1951 in celebration of 50 years of the magazine.
The Introduction by John Mulholland, and the Preface by Milbourne Christopher (I know right?) explain the criteria and the difficulty of the selection process. Fascinating.
Think, The Essential Stewart James but for 50 years of the Sphinx.
Illustrated by Sid Lorraine.
Incredible.