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rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Session 2015
This is an independent review of the Session 2015, which took place in Cheltenham, U.K., January 9-11 2015. Regrettably, I was not able to attend the Friday afternoon Roberto Giobbi workshop on the Vernon touch - although I later heard many positive things about it. I opted instead for the Friday evening Tamariz workshop, another extra pay event. This was uncomfortable in terms of numbers and visibility. E-mails had originally advertised the event as an exclusive workshop and had referred to seating being VERY limited. In reality, we were crammed in like double-decker Phoenix cards. This was not a close & personal workshop; this was an overcrowded lecture. Well, I was fortunate to see Tamariz memorable performances at the Magic Circle centenary in 2005 and at the London Convention in 2012, so my expectations were high. Would the quality of this 2015 lecture make amends for my initial disappointment at the seating? Tamariz started in strong form by jesting with a couple of spectators who then hid freely chosen cards in their pockets. He was able to identify their selected cards without any difficulty. Tamariz did not explain how he achieved this. I assume he was using his memorised deck, holding breaks and getting secret glimpses of adjacent cards. It all went quickly and smoothly with amusing interaction. He then performed his classic Travelling Cards. Two thought of cards mysteriously vanish from one packet and reappear in the next. It all seemed fair and hands off. Again, he did not explain this trick, but it appears in Sonata. [Aside: I remember seeing the Tamariz version of Cards Across many years ago on a VHS tape. Completely baffled, I could not see any possible solution, but the answer was already in plain sight. I’d been messing around with Wallet Wallop, from Meltzer’s Card to Wallet. Two cheap vinyl wallets, an ordinary deck of cards and a pair of deceptive jokers were the building blocks to a two-phase miracle. Wallet Wallop already contained the secret method behind the impossible vanish and reappearance of the Travelling Cards, but, back then, I failed to recognise it.] Next, Tamariz performed an impressive coincidence effect with 13 cards from two suits. reminiscent of the classic Sympathetic cards, but dispensing with packet switches or card gimmicks. Tamariz explained in detail how he achieved this. The dirty work, the re-assembling shuffle, is executed well in advance of the climax. Then came a three-phase sequence of Oil and Water, which originally appeared in The Magic Way. Tamariz explained each phase. Tamariz spoke about the importance of Symbolism to magic: For example, he emphasized the significance of the ambitious card going to the top and not to the bottom. It is Lost, then there is Ascension, Liberation, and Freedom, when it reaches the top. Tamariz argued that sending a card repeatedly to the bottom of the deck, which ought to be equally as puzzling, lacked any symbolic meaning The Cut and Restored Rope. For Tamariz, the Rope signifies Life. Cutting the Rope is a form of Death. Restoring the Rope is a form of Resurrection, a return from the dead. For Tamariz, the Egg Bag symbolizes the uterus. Interestingly, Tamariz found as a young performer that a black egg bag had greater impact and that other colours such as tartan failed to get the same reaction, even though the moves involved were identical. (I wonder what Sadowitz would make of this imagery!?) Tamariz will expand on these symbolism themes in his new book. Tamariz referred to the Eggbeater mind reader trick developed by Clayton Rawson. This, he said, was something that surely would have appealed to surrealists like Magritte. (Panhandler Dan Harlan revived this Thought Sender on his Pack Small, Plays Big tape.) Tamariz then performed Follow the Leader inspired by Vernon. After this, Tamariz recreated a close-up version of the invisible gorilla experiment. He placed a card face down on the table and asked us to guess which one it was. He insisted that we knew this card, even though we could not name it. He then reminded us that some seconds beforehand he had already displayed the face of this ‘invisible card’. He had even waved the card in front of his own face, but in the context of explaining a problem he had with his glasses. We were focusing on his words and his eyes and his glasses, and not the playing card itself. Cognitive psychologists call this form of misdirection inattentional blindness. I came across the following definition in an academic Psychology Journal: Inattentional blindness (IB) refers to a phenomenon in which observers often fail to notice a fully visible item or event whilst being otherwise preoccupied with an attentionally demanding distractor task. Nearing the end of his presentation, Tamariz announced that he had almost completed a new book, which would analyse the seven veils or mysteries of magic. The seven mysteries according to Tamariz: 1. Love of the Art of Magic 2. Mystery of Effort 3. Mystery of Knowledge 4. Mystery of Energy 5. Truth (Authenticity) 6. ??? Sorry, I failed to jot this one down legibly. 7. Love of the Audience Well, I cannot really do justice to this last part. In the end, the extended lecture proved inspiring and worthwhile. Tamariz certainly lives up to the ideals behind these mysteries. Ricky Jay, the conjuring curmudgeon, was once asked which magician would be remembered in years to come. He gave only two names: Rene Lavand and Juan Tamariz. To be continued, |
rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Saturday
The morning began with an elegant lecture from Roberto Giobbi. He performed Deck of Missed Opportunities, a variation of the Fred trick, from his book Confidences. He shows us a deck with many different famous names written on the back of each card. Freud, Sartre, Mozart etc. The spectator mentally selects a card (no force), and the chosen card has Einstein written on its back. This name matches the author of the quotation within the prediction envelope and the name of the sender on the back flap of the envelope is also revealed to be Einstein. Giobbi said the Fred trick could be achieved by different methods, but he preferred a solution using a normal deck. He then explained how the audience’s free choice of a card could be cleverly manipulated and modified. Giobbi then resurrected a baffling trick by Al Baker from Hugard Mental Magic with Cards. The deck is shuffled by a spectator and then placed in the magician’s empty inside left jacket pocket. Any number can be chosen between 1 & 15. The magician predicts the name of the card at that precise number, and then removes cards one by one from his inside jacket pocket to verify this. The last card removed matches his prediction. This feat can be immediately repeated. This effect badly fooled me. Giobbi traced the concept back to a Spanish magician Partagas in 1900. Giobbi then performed a clever version of the Vernon Trick that Cannot be Explained. Giobbi’s additional subtlety increases the chances of reaching the desired outcome by a factor of four. He also introduces a 52 on one gag card to create a diversion. Giobbi ends up clean and gives out the prediction card as a souvenir to the spectator. In the afternoon, Peter Clifford gave a short talk on voice work. He made the audience stand up and gargle their lungs out and emit strange noises while reciting tongue twisters. I thought he might be a subversive comic making us do ridiculous things. But I knew a little bit about diaphragm exercises from a drama friend in Melbourne, so I joined in with the lunacy. Peter re-defined spectators as talking props, showed ways of handling their position on stage and also explained the derivation of the term upstaging. Daniel Madison, card sharp, then showed some impossible moves: A fast gambler cop; a false in-the-hands riffle shuffle; a squeeze shift; a top card cop and a phenomenal bottom card drop cop. He did exceedingly well to execute these challenging sleights in front of such an audience. Boris Wild then demoed his Show-Off card, a new twist to the Ambitious card plot, but, in my opinion, it failed the Tamariz test (symbolism) and confirmed the Al Baker hypothesis that many tricks are ruined by improvement. Far more interesting was his idea for combining a marked deck with The Trick that Cannot be Explained. Boris now has a revised edition of his book on Marked Cards, retitled Transparency, which includes a chapter on Inexplicable. He also demonstrated his Open Prediction and his ACAAN or ACAAB. (B stands for Birthday.) These are strong tricks. Luke Jermay performed a challenge blindfold routine with cards. Unfortunately, I missed the start of his lecture. The close-up camera was switched off, so from the back of the room I could not see the action clearly. He was dealing through a shuffled deck, yet locating specific cards. He explained the history surrounding gambler Walter Scott and the use of a modified deck, but Luke’s deck was borrowed and was clean. I will not reveal the method but it had me fooled. |
rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Saturday Evening
The Michael Weber workshop was another extra pay event. Michael is an assured speaker. He gives the impression that he is actually thinking while giving his talk, rather than regurgitating a script. Michael began with an impossible drawing duplication. For me, this was the best effect at the Session. Weber set the scene: two separate spectators are approached before the show. The first one (the sender) simply thinks of a picture, i.e., something that can be drawn. And the time noted is, say, 7pm. The second spectator (the receiver) across the room is then given the following challenge: Please imagine you are a mind reader. See that person over there? He is thinking of something that can be drawn. Look at the back of their head and try to imagine what he is thinking of drawing. And to avoid ambiguity, think of a name for this drawing. The time is again noted. It is, say, 7.05pm. As the show progresses, the two people are called up on stage. The mentalist confirms with the second spectator (the receiver) the following: I asked you to look at the back of his head from across the room. Yes. Did I give you any clues about what the other person might be thinking? No. Did I somehow restrict your choice in any way? No You were free to choose anything that came to mind? Yes. And you have not communicated with this other person about the task? No. The two spectators then stand away from each other, back to back, and, at the command of the mentalist, draw their image on the back of provided pads. They are advised to add a descriptive word, in case of ambiguity. They then simultaneously display their image. To the astonishment of the crowd and to themselves, they both display similar images – in this example, a circular image of the earth, with the word globe, handwritten below. This was a stunning display of drawing duplication. We might suspect a mentalist can use clever ways of peeking at drawings or can employ high or low tech impression devices, but we cannot understand how he can make one spectator read the mind of the other, unless one or both are stooges. Afterwards they will be cross-examined by colleagues. Were you in on it? Did he arrange things beforehand? And they will honestly answer. No. Michael specialises in lucrative corporate shows, rather than large public shows. He anticipates that the sender and transmitter could know each other and/or might talk to each other afterwards. Even if they share their recollections, they won’t be able to find the solution. The more they analyse, the deeper the hole they dig. Of course, I am not at liberty to reveal the solution, which is as ingenious as the stratagems used by golden age detective writer John Dickson Carr! Book test Michael passes a paperback book to a spectator and asks them to think of a word that is not on the page! How? By having them freely select a word in the book and then thinking of the opposite. For example, black/white; enemy/friend; lose/win. Michael was able to zero in on the actual word after some accurate verbal byplay. Skeptics may question the spectator afterward to no avail: did the mentalist arrange this? No. Did he make you stop at that page? No. Did he show you any words beforehand? No. Magazine test: Michael picked up several glossy magazines from a local restaurant. The spectator can select any magazine. The pages are not gimmicked. The spectator opens the magazine at any point and shields the page from the mentalist. Focus on any of the words you see. Got one in mind? Change your mind. Settle on another one. The spectator follows these instructions and chooses another word. The mentalist attempts to pin down the building blocks of this word, letter by letter, sometimes seeing curved letters and straight. He is gradually able to visualize the word. This is clearly a daunting task. The chosen magazine had over 140 pages, yet Michael did not need to memorise the key content on every page as in the classic Time Magazine test. To perform this feat, Michael employed a very deceptive method that fluttered past my very eyes. Michael closed by discussing the origins of sn amazing trick Steam by Ali Nouira. As you probably know, the Alakazam Ghost Pad is based on the same principle. Michael said the first person to take advantage of this anomaly was Mark Salem about 20 years ago, but Mark kept it secret and only told an inner circle of mentalists like Tim Conover. |
rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Saturday Evening show:
Chad Long was a surprise guest. He pulled off a great gag with a padded envelope. Chad has perfected one of the best close-up illusions of all time: he plucks playing cards from empty walls. He deserves a statue in Trafalgar Square. Rune Klan – I rarely remember what he does as I’m too busy laughing. Boris Wild performed an over-sentimental wild card effect with butterfly cards and silhouettes and a dead (?) woman. The routine was set to a syrupy song by Evanescence. This washed over me like an acute attack of labyrinthitis. Asi Wind performed his neo-classics: Time is Money, Catch 23 (a chair prediction effect) and his ACAAN. Dazzling stuff, professionally executed. He also did Switcher, a Pegasus burned & restored page routine, and threw in a joke about Uri Geller’s dubious autobiography. Sunday Morning Asi Wind‘s lecture covered material from his performance the night before. I would vote Asi as the most professional performer at the Session. His wondrous ACAAN is like fresh air to those who admire the late Ken Krenzel. Next came a dual session hosted by Andi and Josh. Andi joked that he’d come across some convincing Derren Brown and David Blaine lookalikes. Andi spoke about Scarne’s legendary four ace trick. Scarne reputedly could riffle shuffle a borrowed deck and cut to all four Aces. Andi showed an old deck from Scarne’s private collection and isolated this to one side. Andi borrowed a shuffled deck from the audience and attempted to emulate Scarne’s feat. In a series of riffle shuffles, Andi cut to each ace. This was an impressive effect in its own right, but at the climax, the four Aces suddenly had different backs, matching the old Scarne deck. And the Aces from the borrowed deck were now in the Scarne deck. (At least that’s how I remembered it.) Josh performed a full deck coincidence effect embedded within a sentimental dating theme. Andi did a blindfold gambling trick, which ended with a surprise card revelation. Josh performed Blind Man’s Bluff, a revamping of Lovick’s I Dream of Mind Reading. Josh’s presentation gave a clearer justification for having the spectator count out cards to represent suit and value. Josh also added a further climax. (Lovick’s original is still marvelous though.) Andi wisely recommended GrippingStuff a removable, reusable sheet that is perfect for Justin Flom’s Card Artistry. Josh demonstrated his Rainbow deck and Phantom deck as well as showing an easy deck switch. Sunday Afternoon Michael Weber gave his Sessions Lecture. Luke Jermay introduced him by way of an informative interview. Luke confessed the real meaning behind a special tattoo on his hand: WWWD. I assumed it meant World Wide Wrestling Drongo, but Luke was adamant that it was an inspirational acronym for What Would Weber Do… We learned that Michael helped with the special amputee effects for Forrest Gump. Industrial Light & Magic played their part, but Michael helped modify Lt. Dan’s wheelchair so that actor Gary Sinise's legs could be hidden away more comfortably. Weber is a lateral thinker. He said he tries to approach problems from a different angle. He will think the unthinkable. He will examine how these problems were solved in the past and assess their relevance to the present. Luke warned that taking Michael to a budget Pound store was both enlightening and expensive! I particularly liked the following three tricks: A deck is shuffled, dribbled in a messy, careless way to the table, given a series of loose cuts, and reassembled. Michael then performed a two phase Moe’s Move a Card, followed by an impressive memorisation of a long sequence of cards. Michael taught a cunning way of secretly preserving and controlling a slug of 20 cards. He also tipped a way of easily remembering the values of each card in this slug, based on how rabbits breed. Michael showed how to genuinely riffle shuffle a deck of 52 different cards as many times as you like, while still having immediate access to a ten card Mexican poker hand. Michael showed us The Drink that Stooled Einstein, a reframing of the old Trick that Fooled Einstein. Michael recommended David Britland’s Cardopolis Blog which asserts that Al Koran never even met Einstein, let alone fooled him. For Michael’s version, you need four pint glasses and two shot glasses. I will be trying it down my local. |
rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Guest of Honour
ENORMOUS surprise Guest of Honour. He will NOT be announced, but he will ASTOUND you. I had been tipped off in November that a VIP would be attending the Session, but would not be named in advance. I thought maybe Andi and Josh had pulled off a miracle and persuaded Paul Harris to come out of seclusion? Astound. Astonishment. Yes, that code word might be the clue. No, my psychic powers had failed me. The Guest of Honour was Derren Brown. I have seen two of Derren s shows live - Svengali and Infamous - which were enjoyable but not overwhelming. I did not like the way his team fabricated the Svengali automaton story. I am sure that many gullible people in the audience went away thinking the Svengali tale was true. The authentic material on 19th century automata such as Psycho is fascinating in its own right and needs no embellishment. I never liked the Derren TV specials: the Russian roulette farce, the Lottery scam, and the ridiculous Apocalypse. I see these as over-hyped low-end concepts aimed at the credulous masses. However, I am a big fan of Derren Brown’s card work, especially the high calibre material in the Devil s Picture Book. At the Session, Peter Clifford, the same chap who appears in Picture Book, did the interview and also threw in written questions from the audience. Highlights: Derren was very grateful to Jerry Sadowitz for kickstarting his career. Jerry apparently facilitated the publication of his first book, Pure Effect, and also passed his name onto Objective Productions, the TV company. In his early days, Derren was making a decent 300 pounds for his close-up work. After the first TV show, his agent now insisted that he charge 3,000 pounds per booking! Derren soon afterwards gave a private show at this higher rate. The tip alone equalled his previous fee! Success at last? Not quite. There were no more private bookings after this. Derren was advised, due to his man on TV status, not to drop his fee back down to the previous level. Derren then had to go through a very lean period, not earning any further money for several months, and having to borrow from his Agent. Eventually, as his TV career picked up, the money filtered through. Derren admitted that the explanation for the Lottery scam was very weak and did not make sense, and he had wanted a different ending. They had shot film on an open top London bus of school children holding up the same winning numbers against the backdrop of the Xmas lights on Oxford St. This would prove that he really did predict the numbers because the live show aired in the summer, not the winter. The theatre show titles have to be prepared many months in advance (the theatres need to be booked well ahead of time and require a working title) so these are only vaguely or very loosely linked to the actual content. The material has not been written at this point. For example, the new show is called Miracle, which is intentionally open-ended. Many years ago, late at night in an isolated Welsh town, Derren was suddenly confronted by an aggressive drunk. It was a classic Derek & Clive scenario, with the yob mouthing threatening obscenities. Derren resorted to verbal distraction techniques and came out with an absurdist line: The wall around my house isn’t four foot high. This stopped the aggressor in his tracks. And Derren repeated the line, adding: It’s not like in Spain… The drunk, experiencing an adrenaline dump, then sat down less agitated and shared his emotional troubles. Derren’s counter-intuitive verbal outburst had paid off The written question that got the biggest laugh was: would you prefer to have sex with a goat and no-one will ever know about this or would you rather not have sex with a goat and everyone believes you did? Funny, but hardly original. This question was lifted from the Internet. Sunday evening show The Session ended with an evening performance and lecture by Tamariz. Highlights were his classic Jumbo Three Card Monte routine, with astounding impossible transpositions; Total Coincidence, where two shuffled packs match card for card; and the legendary effect Mnemonicosis over the Phone. To paraphrase the chapter in Mnemonica, Mnemonicosis is not a card trick; it is a Miracle! I’ve seen this miracle on three different occasions. This time it almost fizzled, but it was rescued by the surrealistic image of a young man from the Russian Federation phoning through to his mother in Moscow and then chatting at length in Russian. Tamariz had such a bemused expression on his face! In summary, a great convention with an embarrassment of riches, but it may have outgrown its present venue and it needs to be more careful how it defines workshop. |
Daniel Meadows Veteran user Manchester, UK 392 Posts |
Great review/summary of a fantastic weekend. I can't begin to imagine all the work Andi, Josh and team put in behind the scenes! Just looking round at all the big names there, and that's before you got to the lecturers! Awesome. It will take some topping as a convention!
Cerberus Wallet, Equilibrium, Counterfeit, Deadly Marked Deck, Infamous, Instinct
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Mister E. Regular user Germany 189 Posts |
Thanks for the extensive review! Brought back a lot of memories!
I have to admit, I was really disappointed with the Madison Lecture. He seemed unprepared and unwilling to teach. To me it seemed more like a demo-session of hard moves. All in all, it felt like a lost hour of my life... On the other hand, almost the whole rest of the weekend was fantastic, so I won't complain. I have to agree with you, the first trick of the Weber workshop was probably the best item of the weekend. Not sure, how soon I will find the balls to pull that one off, though... I was a little disappointed though, that there were no lecture notes to the workshop. Afterwards, I was glad I filled six pages with notes myself. Still I probably missed a lot that I can't remember now. I also liked his magic square idea. I immediately had to buy that Banachek product... |
Mister E. Regular user Germany 189 Posts |
BTW, the sixth veil is the interior world: The richer your interior world, the more people will like your magic. I wasn't in the workshop, but he talks about it in R. Paul Wilson's film "Our Magic".
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Michael Dustman Inner circle Columbus, Ohio 1220 Posts |
Mister E...did you double check about the Weber notes? Usually in his extra pay workshops, you are given a slip of paper or card with instructions on how to access the notes in a reader only format on a tablet or computer. Maybe it was different this time around, but when Josh and Andi had him at Magifest last year, that is how they ran it. You could only access the notes to the workshop with a special instruction card.
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Mister E. Regular user Germany 189 Posts |
Hmm... not sure... We got a DVD full of material, but most of it was public domain or free material from other performers. Good stuff, but not related to the actual lecture. And we got a gimmick for one of the routines from the workshop. That had a lot of print on there... maybe I have overlooked something there. Have to check. Thanks. Maybe someone of the other attendees can chime in?
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Mister E. Regular user Germany 189 Posts |
I wrote Michael and he was kind enough to answer back quickly. No notes for that workshop. He apparently mentioned that in the beginning and I came in a little late. So I must have missed that.
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