The December 2019 issue concludes our 20th year as stewards of Genii. We sincerely hope you are enjoying the magazine. If you don’t already subscribe, but you join us now, your subscription will start with the January issue. Of course, all of our back issues, and all back issues of MAGIC magazine, are online for you to read. For only $35 you get tens of thousands of pages of the best our field has to offer. www.geniimagazine.com

Derren Brown is a mentalist, magician, hypnotist, mind-controlling star earning accolades on Broadway. In Britain he’s a huge (GIGANTIC, REALLY BIG!) star and a household name. People in the United States are starting to fall under Brown’s spell, which you can sample right now on Netflix, which picked up some of his U.K. specials. In addition to his many stage and TV shows and series, he’s also written a number of book for both magicians and the public. Derren is an incredibly talented and likable man, and even Chloe Olewitz fell under his spell when she interviewed him for our cover story.

Oh boy, did we have a convention … a big convention! 30 artists, 640 attendees. I’m still tired. You can read all about why you should have been there this month.

It is the time of year when the new tricks from Tenyo sneak out into your editor’s hands before their general release outside Japan. The Tenyo 2020 has six tricks, most great, and I’ll give you the guided tour, which includes the official demonstration vides.

Alexander de Cova is a most clever fellow. When I read this month’s installment of his column “Notizen,” I saw a thing of genius. A simple alteration in the cutting of the secret slot in a coin envelope has created an achingly clever template for folding the bill you insert within into eighths. Quickly, too, and no monkey business from the front.

Do you like the idea of the “Card Duck,” but are rather less excited about the daffy-looking apparatus? (See what I did there?) Jim Steinmeyer conjures up an Origami-inspired method that does not require a decoy … or a Daffy Duck.

Roberto Mansilla traces the cracks between pieces of pottery, and wonders if the material used to fill them is more important than the original piece, and how this intersects with the notion of filling in the moments in tricks that are normally empty.

It’s an amazing thing when you can roll a Sharpie over a face-up card on the table and it changes as the marker moves across the face. Jeff Prace explains this more-than-worthwhile addition by Jeremiah Zuo to a classic card sleight in “Left-Handed.”

Did you eat glue or paste as a kid? I did. Sometimes Playdoh, too. And once in kindergarten even sand from the sandbox. Anyway, David Kaye has some fun with Oreo cookies, kids, and white glue (non-toxic, of course) in “The Expert at the Kids’ Table.”

From Germany we have yet another odd essay by Helge Thun, whose meandering thoughts this time run to the topic of CONTROL, said in all caps and with a big hearty yell.

In “Cardopolis,” David Britland takes a look at three items Malini was known to perform and speculates—as is often necessary with Malini, a man who set up elaborate climaxes to tricks (tricks that people would remember their entire lives) which he sometimes never got around to performing. Sometimes with a pork chop.

I saw something in these pages this month that made me look twice, and then again—a strange gimmick which you can find in John Gaughan’s “Chamber of Secrets.” If you have a few ribs removed, it might make you a star with a billiard ball act.
This month Jonathan Friedman does something in “Magicana” that is unusual: he devotes the whole column to one person. Who has the creativity and talent to carry that off? Why it’s Nathan Kranzo!

Yes, we have news in “The Eye”; yes, we have reviews of books, tricks, and videos from Tom Frame, Danny Orleans, and Ryan Matney.