I rang Luke today and he said that the limited edition TT was the higher price one that you could only get from him. The unlimited edition is the cheaper version available from Lybrary. You can still purchase the higher priced first edition from Alakazam magic.

Joker.

MT, since you did not put in a smiley face, I am hoping this is a great bit of humour on your part! As it is funny - but if true, very sad.

VERITAS/SADITAS

Glad to hear it Chris. I thought that would be the case. I believe your trading reputation is pretty good.

Can you tell us if your sales are unlimited? Or do you have a limited number you are allowed to sell? If so, how many?

Thanks,

G.

Mike Throxenby,

I have never spoken to you even via email let alone on the phone. I have no idea what your talking about.

The manuscript is still limited as Chris can attest to. It is being stocked by a few dealers all of whom have a certain number they are able to sell but once they have sold that number the edition is out of print.

Hope this clears things up.

By the way if you order from me directly it is higher priced and it is the same as the copies offered else where. I however uphold the price of 40 rather than 30 which is what most dealers seem to be selling it for.


Villa - please email me directly if you have not got your copy of telling tales yet.

I find it odd that people feel the quickest way to get things solved is to post on here instead of email me directly.

Who did you order telling tales from and when?

As far as I know all orders made directly to me have been filled. if it was an order directly to me please provide the order ID in an email to me and I will check into it.

L.

Thanks again for clearing things up Luke! I find it odd too, now that you mention it. I guess they just want their opinions heard before the creator defends himself. No problem though, you have my support here! Hope you enjoyed my review.

Michael Kras

Luke,

I guess I just find it odd that you would come on here 2 or 3 months ago and tell us that if we wanted in on this we needed to pick it up soon because they were almost gone. I find this especially odd considering you apparently had already allocated enough of these for dealers and apparently sold them to dealers at a deep enough discount for them to charge 25% less than you charged myself and others. I'm curious with your reputation how you weren't able to sell a mere 200 copies of this on your own. But perhaps it's actually your reputation that prevented you from doing so.

In regards to the material in the notes. As I mentioned in a previous post on this thread the first effect as written would not work. The second effect you provided two methods for which were both good and workable. Unfortunately the good method wasn't workable and the workable method was lame.

For anyone else who bought this and felt ripped off, here's a way to do Big Spender that would actually work. It's not pretty, but it's good. Simply call the restaurant beforehand and set it up with the manager and waitress. If you're going to stooge the waitress, why bother doing it on the fly? What is the benefit in that? There is nothing to be gained by it and it will likely cause you to have a waitress who is confused at the important moment and blows the gag. Set it up beforehand and you can pay the waitress in blank paper, monopoly money, tiger pelts, or whatever. And the waitress would be able to ENHANCE the effect rather than be an obstacle in the midst of it. There are a couple ways to set it up logistically, but the easiest way is to just leave your credit card with the manager at some point. Have her run the card for the total of your meal, a 25 percent tip for the waitress, and an extra $17 bucks (for example). The $17 is for the waitress to return as your "change" from the play money. If you want she can return your credit card to you hidden in with your change or you can get it back some other way. I've done similar stunts to this from time to time and it works brilliantly.

Magicsquared, I thought the exact same thing the second I heard about this effect. It's much more logical than Luke's method and less risky.

Actually it's so logical that some people might suspect that's what really happened, no matter which method you choose.

Good point. It probably wouldn't work in a vacuum. You would need to have established yourself as being able to pull off this type of thing already.

In the book How to Play With Your Food by Penn and Teller, they have a great stunt where the waitress offers to comp your meal if she can have a doodle you've done on your napkin. I've done that before and it works great and there is little suspicion because the point of the whole thing isn't "look at this incredible power I have," it's just to create an intriguing situation.

I e-mailed this to Luke after getting TT that I do the pick up the tab effect is something I learned from Business 101 and etiquette school... it is not "magic" or "mentalism" per se but you just go to the establishment beforehand and drop a wad of dough to cover expenses and have tab at the place... when you are with your VIP and you are finished the meal, you do not even bother for a cheque, you just get up and go... the person will usually say "what about..." and all you have to say is "Do not worry, it is taken care of."

However, the idea from TT did get me thinking of something I saw in X-Files, so I e-mailed Luke that I would attempt the following, which worked great for me... but as mentioned above as per others suggestions, I prepare the "actors"... if you recall in X-files, there is this cool villain who has a brain tumour that lets him mind control people and make them see mental illusions as needed... at one point, he just takes a piece of paper, writes FBI on it as a "ID Badge" and waltzes through the FBI security area, as he is projecting the image of a real badge using the paper mock-up as a focus for people to see the illusion... so, I figured, that would be a cool premise to mind control cheque paying versus play money - so, I look at the bill, take out a piece of blank paper and draw, let us say, a $20 bill (poorly) on it... my guest goes "whatcha up to?" I explain the mental force premise, and ask him to focus on the bill... which I have switched for a twenty... I take the mental force off him and say see, it is paper and magic marker ink... now watch... the server collects it and returns real change. You smile at the VIP and say "don't worry - I respect how hard the servers work...and would never rob them..." you call the waitress over and give her back the change and ask if you can get your twenty back and pay by credit card. She returns the paper. You give the paper to the VIP.

Reason I think I like to add the very end part - the concept of paying for something with Play Money, or whatever, then moving on... really demonstrates to the VIP that you are a thief, crook or liar of some sort, 'cuz the end message also is that YOU ARE NOT PAYING FOR YOUR MEAL... there may be a remote chance the VIP thinks that they love you so Play Money is Ok - but most likely if they buy into the mental illusion or whatver premise, you are doing a scam using mental/magic powers. Now, if you are demonstrating your powers then show you were doing this just as an example, this might be kosher. i.e. you then really pay so the VIP can see you are giving the establishment its due. Otherwise, perhaps the message will also be - he will get robbed next...

I did this X-Files thing once - but really, I will stick with the classic basic business etiquette way I've always done things - as it leaves you clean, classy and seemingly possessed of something mysterious (Is he a regular at this Club? When did he pay? He paid before... if so...what a nice guy anyway)... whatever.

Well, that is my two cents. (well note ven real two-cents but e-cents).

Spektor, good points.

I think with this manuscript I was expecting something subtle and clever. Something that would improve on the "set it up in advance" way of performing these types of effects. But to me the method provided was a significant step backwards because you cannot handle the play money as freely, and if the waitress is the least bit confused (and there's no way she WOULDN'T be given the situation) then the effect is ruined.

When this was a "limited edition" and almost unavailable, I didn't feel the need to voice my opinion because I figured it didn't matter at that point. But now that it's back around I wanted to give a point of view I wished had been available before I shelled out my 40 bucks.

I'd also like to say thanks to Dr. Spektor for sharing his thoughts. Nice to be reminded of that x-files episode. Lovely idea of drawing a bank note at the table! It has a nice build to it.

Thanks David! The X-Files is a great source of inspiration (although I haven't figured out how to work in Fluke-Man into a routine as yet )

I have now bought and read this manuscript. The effects are both good (I think Luke is a master at creating new premises for routines) and his thoughts on myth building are worth reading. My only gripe is that Luke could have gone more into depth about:

1) How to set up the con (i.e. get your "vicitim" to suggest you do that which you want to do)
2) How to rule out the obvious methods in the minds of the “victims” of these effect
3) How to structure these events to promote the story telling they are aimed at achieving

I think that Luke would have a great deal to say about all this, but perhaps that’s another book.

I also wish that Luke would get into the habit of having someone edit and proof read his copy. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would volunteer to do the job.

What about handing a blank piece of paper like Derren Brown does in one of his US shows?

By this, the mystery remains the same and the craziness that would trigger strange behaviour from a waitress are drastically eliminated...

What do you think?

I think you haven't read this manuscript. It doesn't matter what you hand to her instead of money you would still have the same problems.

The only real way isto tlak to her before hand and promise a big tip.

Gabelson, Café member, is a great person to do editing (for a reasonable fee). He has helped me with some things that I am working on and he is professional writer. Interested parties should really seek him out. He is here often.

Sean

A blank piece of paper would not really limit the reaction that might occur when you hand it to the waitress, the monopoly money would maybe have a faster reaction of puzzlement but not by much as it's still odd to hand someone a piece of plain paper as payment.

There is one thing that has worked for me which, while not always possible, allows for a better chance of succeeding and lets you know beforehand if it will go... and it's still basically impromptu with the first time the person your with sees the waitress being your first time also.
It's so simple that I'm sure if you really think about it you will come up with the same thing.
Well actually there is two ways... one more for magicians and the other for those who don't perform 'magic'.

At first I wasn't keen on this but now actually enjoy it.

Could someone PM me the episode of the X Files episode mentioned if they know it please!

Cheers!

MC