Title: Artwerks: DVD Lecture Notes by Arthur Trace
Medium: DVD
Arena: Close up, parlor, stand up
Available: Any shop, distributed by Murphys Magic Supplies

I’ve seen Arthur Trace perform his great stage act with the paints live and on TV but I was not familiar with him as a close up performer. He certainly is an artistic performer who understands magic and I knew he hung out with some serious close up workers so I was interested when I saw his lecture notes on DVD. I wasn’t disappointed, in fact I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, how good Arthur is. The quality of the DVD is pretty good, sound is great, the equipment used clearly professional and it is well shot with the right angles being used. You could tell Arthur is a stage guy because he staged the shot nicely. What I found a bit unusual was each routine, there are six, are separate from each other rather than grouped like you find on other DVDs. By this I mean if you click on a routine you get your FBI warning, intro, then you see the presentation, the explanation, and closing credits as to who the spectator is, who did the camera, who did the editing, etc, and you get this for every effect. I don’t know if the original plan was to release all individually or what is up but it is something I’ve not seen before.

Since there are only six routines I’ll give comments on each. I will say all are very good and range from pretty simple, meaning you could do it after getting the presentation down, to one that if you use the color change Arthur uses you’ll be practicing for awhile. Here ya go:

27: This is the easiest routine and it is a dandy. The spectator picks a card, no force is used, and then does cutting and adding of cards, all that good stuff. You then have the spectator pick a number, you do limit the choice but in a clever way, and they count down to that number and, viola, it is their card! This trick fooled me and it reminds me of something Stewart James would have come up with. This IS a trick you’ll do.

Duality: In this routine, which is great for larger audiences, spectator A looks at an imaginary fan of cards and selects one, he thinks, hee hee, and then spectator B selects a card from an actual fan of cards and spectator A and B picked the same cards! I’ll be honest, I watched this and when Arthur started his explanation I couldn’t believe he had fooled me so badly and had to re-watch the performance, dang if he didn’t spank my memory like a step laymen. This is a great example of how a simple card trick can play big and trick the mind.

Silver Certificate: Floating bill using the standard method, see LeClair, but with a nice ending.

Mouth Travelers: Card to mouth isn’t my cup o’ tea but this is an interesting routine where the four aces travel from the hands to your lips, not in your mouth like Lovell, in a magical manner. Nice trick.

Spatial Exchange: This one fried me. A corner is torn off a card and the bain part of the card and the corner change places. This is not an easy trick and the color change looks screamin’ good but prepare to practice long and hard to get it down. In Arthurs hands it looks great and if you want a challenging move, here it is in the midst of a darn solid routine.

The Crimped Cup: A cups and balls routine based on Vernons work. It is a nice routine, uses basic moves but has an addition of rings (not linking rings just rings) and a gambling theme, which is nice. Arthur shows his chops and got me with vanishes I knew. Ah, finally a chink in the armor, he does flash on one of the final loads, no one is perfect!

There you have it. Some excellent magic from a top notch magician. I was very pleased with this DVD, a bit confused by the set up, but I couldn’t have been happier with the magic. I may work on that color change but right now I’m a bit intimidated. Well done, too bad no one lectures anywhere near where I live, I’d like to have seen Arthur do that color change live.

I picked up Arthurs dvd at Blackpool and it is excellent. Duality and 27 were added to my rep within a couple of weeks of getting the dvd. Arthur not only explains the hows but also the whys in his routines and careful study will improve your performances.

Highly recommended

John

Cool...did you work on that color change? I did 27 at the lounge the other night and it went over really well.

Only worked on the two items mentioned above so far and am delighted with their impact.

John