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rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Saturday at the Session Jan 2018
(My review of The Event on the Friday before the Session, can be found in the Penny for your Thoughts forum.) The opening session was a series of short presentations from well-known magicians. Roberto Giobbi showed us an X force subtlety which appears in Card College 1. Ponta Smith gave us a glimpse of his dazzling coin work, At one point, host Andi Gladwin selected three random spectators. The lucky person who cut to the highest card won a stack of donated prizes. So one person ended up with an abundance of goodies. I thought Andi could have taken advantage of having three people up on stage. For example, The Contest, the new version of the classic Poker Players Picnic, would have been more entertaining and much fairer. Everyone would mysteriously end up with an Ace and the prizes could be shared. Alas, this moment was squandered. Ben Earl showed us some amazing deck switches which he'd fooled fellow magicians for the past ten years. He pointed out that if you use a gimmick you then have to work out ways of getting the gimmick in and out, so why not concentrate on ways of getting the new deck into play? Good thinking. Ben was very convincing with his moves. Even when you are told in advance what is about to happen, and you are shown in slow motion what actually will happen, the manoeuvre, when it is executed in real time, looks quite natural and deceptive. I highly recommend his new dvd Real Deck Switches which details these bold moves. Roberto Giobbi published a collection of deck switches in 2013. Did he miss something? Well, to his credit, Roberto does include a similar ribbon spread switch on page 59 of The Art of Switching Decks. Adam Rubin gave an introductory talk on puzzles and impossible objects. He is the author of a best-selling children's book Robosauce, with a Z fold twist, which I have ordered from Amazon. Adam showed us some unusual business cards, eg, with mirror writing. He examined the famous Jastrow illusion. When two identical curved shapes are placed next to each other, the one nearer to you looks significantly longer. Adam showed how this could be turned into 3D items. The Less/More bowls, depending on where you placed each bowl. Adam then discussed the famous rabbit/duck ambiguous image. He was able to envisage a 3D version which could act as salt and pepper shakers. I mentioned to him after the lecture that there was an even stronger version of the rabbit/duck figurine which added a third animal - a dolphin, but I have not been able to locate the reference. I think it was designed by a Japanese artist. I did however find a pleasing 3D metal version of the rabbit/duck at http://www.paulstgeorge.com/rabbitduck/ Adam then discussed the geometric redistribution effect, documented by Martin Gardner. Many different versions have been created such as Sam Lloyd's vanishing chinaman way back in 1896. Mel Stover drew the colour changing pen (1951) P. Lyons came up with the vanishing leprechaun(1968). Rubin has tinkered with this effect and has recently designed a 3D cigar/ashtray version. I realised about two weeks later that I had already wrestled with one of Adam Rubin's problems. I will quote the puzzle as it appeared in the Guardian newspaper last year: "A retired professional wrestler boards a crowded train in Chicago when a young man stands up to offer his seat. The wrestler is not injured and is only 36 years old. All week, riders on the train offer to give up their seat so that the famous wrestler can sit down instead. Why do people keep offering their seat to this muscular former athlete?" This is a classic challenge. Good luck! The Other Brothers, who are not brothers, were weird looking but very amiable. They had good audience rapport. They presented a clever book test boosted by the versatility of using hidden anagrams. Another effect Smooth Prediction is available as a dealer's item and is a great way of revealing a prediction about a freely chosen card. Michael Close began by joking about Vanishing Inc's bizarre blundering reference to him as being "away from the magic community for a decade". In actual fact, he'd just spent almost 10 years as editor of M.U.M. Magazine! Then after a pause he came up with one of the best asides of the Convention: maybe the description of being away from the magic community was accurate after all, given the post he had held. Michael is now busy as a behind the scenes consultant with Penn and Teller and Johnny Thompson on the TV show Fool Us. I didn't realise that Johnny and Michael actually work together with the magic competitors to strengthen their content, presentation and script. Michael strongly recommended that students of magic should seek out a mentor. Just as a musician should seek out a proper instructor. Michael performed his version of the Vernon trick that fooled Houdini (and his whole *** family) This can be found on his Devious dvd. Then he presented an unusual trick You Bet Your Life inspired by a puzzle from a Car Talk podcast. The original puzzle poses the dilemma: you need to take one pill A & one pill B. But you accidentally take out a second B pill and the three pills become mixed up. They are all identical. So you can't tell which one of the three pills is the A pill. Taking two B pills together will make you ill. What is the best way of ensuring you take the correct dosage of pills (ie just one of A & one of B)? I've read Michael's trick in print somewhere, perhaps in a recent copy of MUM. I then caught Paul Vigil's early show. He gave a very professional and confident performance. He started with a routine with a metal cup and a disappearing & reappearing olive. There was also a free will prediction effect with everyday items like a watch, a coin, and a pen. He performed an impressive version of the Chicago opener where a freely named card turns out to have a different coloured back. This is then repeated with a different card and ends with a transposition twist. (Suggestion: I would dispense with the Top or Bottom ruse when doing the Hindu running cuts.) He also showed us a phantom safety pin routine with a handkerchief. The evening show compered by Danny Buckley began with a strong monologue - the ghastly external design of our Thistle Hotel and a cruel reference to David Blaine mired in the MeToo rape allegation scandals. The sofa guests - Morgan & West and the Other Brothers - dutifully played their part, but the show never really caught fire Fortunately, the late night Rubin Show turned out to be a real winner. I found the whole act clever, amusing and witty. It was loosely built around a theme of I'm going to perform 7 tricks tonight including one I hate doing. There was a wonderful comic escape routine featuring a chair, mouthwash, duct tape, and a length of rope And his reworking of Sneak Thief with Cards Against Humanity was brilliant. I will review the final day of the Session in my next post. |
rjs Loyal user 296 Posts |
Review of the Session January 2018 Part 2
Sunday I made a point of entering the Dealer's Room early. Michael Weber was already setting up his stall. This included Ten, his highly praised collection of 10-card poker routines. Very tempting, but 100 quid was outside my price range. I almost bought it, but I've hardly touched the rich pickings inside Bob Farmer's mammoth book on the 10-card poker deal. So I compromised by buying 23 Enigma. I tried to backwards reason this trick but could only get halfway there. A red card appears in the 23rd position of a blue backed deck and it matches your thought of card. I also spoke to Christian Schenk, the Card Shark. I have many of his older items. Two new tricks were on display. Teleporter, a cards across routine. And, very puzzling, the Destiny deck. 52 cards are openly shown, all with different faces. The deck is ribbon spread face down. No matter what choices I made, I ended up with the Queen of Hearts. A well-known TV magician ordered two of these decks as I stood there. I also bought the latest John Bannon dvd from Big Blind Media. Dealing With It Season 1 contains all his routines from Genii Magazine throughout 2017. I would buy a cd of Bannon narrating Raymond Chandler. I would even buy John Bannon underwear if they were available at John Lewis. He has democratised card magic. Miracles are within the reach of fools like us. The Bannon Triumph is as good as it gets. The Paul Vigil lecture explained some of the effects in his close up act. I really liked his handling of Fast & Loose (a.k.a. the Endless Chain). At one point in performance he convincingly shows in slow motion how the mark has missed placing his index finger into the correct loop. Ondrej Psenicka's presentation of his beautifully designed Butterfly deck was very assured. He explained in detail how the markings worked. He then showed how versatile this weapon was. For example, Clocking with a Kicker not only finds the missing card but also finds the other three matching values. I was not able to attend Morgan & West's lecture, but I can highly recommend their new dvd Decoded which explains in detail their low-tech/no-tech ways of secret communication. I sat down to watch a sample and found myself watching both discs to the very end. I like the way they have designed alternative methods to rule out obvious solutions. Key parts of their signalling were completely missed by me in the performance sections. For example, the Bankcard revelation and the Playing Card coding methods were ingenious. Johnny Thompson was the star guest of The Session and he appeared as mentally agile as ever. I saw him once at the Desert Magic Seminar in 1990 when Vernon was in the audience. His Nemo effect struck me as one of the great card tricks of the modern era. At this year's Session he performed a mentalist routine, executing perfect fans and asking several spectators to think of any card. He carried it off perfectly. And finally we come to the Gala Show. The best act for me was Tom Binns, the hilarious comic who came on as Ian D Montfort, the idiotic Sunderland Psychic. He indulged in wicked homo-erotic banter with Joshua Jay in the front row. We will probably never know what took place in the toilet cubicle before the show, but I am sure Mary Gorman would have understood. Tom will soon appear on an episode of Death in Paradise, the cult whodunnit TV series. He also reappeared in the Session show as the irritating Hospital DJ Ivan Brackenbury, backed by the annoying announcer from X Factor. Ivan's motto was Out & About, reaching out, and touching patients. 'If you're feeling at death’s door, I'll pull you through!' Tom also has a separate crazy ventriloquist act which cruelly parades a stroke victim dad who can't speak, an inarticulate wife who is recovering from a tongue-piercing who can't speak, and a two year old daughter who is just learning to speak! Tom Stone intentionally chose an attractive girl for his Hug or Kill routine. Her unwitting dicing with death got a strong positive reaction from the audience, but I wonder why we laugh at this murderous scenario in the post-Weinstein era? Based on an idea from Ted Bundy, I guess. Even Tom Stone in Maelstrom admits it's edgy and has psychopathic elements. And Rob Zabrecky reminds me of Norman Bates when he performs it. Let me see. Throw a dice and if it comes up 1,2,3,5 or 6, go along the passage way and kill your motel guest? In conclusion, The Event and The Session lived up to its strong reputation. I would like to thank Andi and Josh and all their crew for inviting such a high calibre of performers in Mentalism and Magic. Long may it run! |
Markymark Inner circle 1686 Posts |
Fantastic review,thank you.
''In memory of a once fluid man,crammed and distorted by the classical mess'' -Bruce Lee
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