Note From The Author

- PARTY OF SIX – THE TOM STONE SUBTLETY

Tom Stone, a Swedish magician and author of the excellent Warpsmith books, sent me this e-mail shortly after we performed together at a convention in Denmark.

“I had a small thought regarding ‘Party of Six’ [page ??], specifically the force of the spectator. Let the first spectator who enters the stage go and stand as far to the right as possible (viewed from the audience). When you need to count from right to left [rather than the more intuitive left to right], just ask, ‘Who was the first one on stage?’ When the rightmost spectator replies, start to count ‘One’ from him.”

- “Random Acts of Magic” was five years in the making, and represents the bulk of the material I now do at corporate functions, lectures, television appearances and the like. Plus, if you have a small child who’s teething, it’s excellent to chew on.

For those of you who already own the book, you will note that I did not single out any of my personal favorite routines, a practice I find to be at best tacky, and at worst, racist. However, I can think of no better place to be tacky than my own website, so, for anyone who might be interested, may I direct your attention to five “must-reads” in the book.

- CHANGES (Page 21): I’ve used this to open just about every big close-up show I’ve done in the past ten years, including performances at The Magic Castle and F.I.S.M.! Earlier versions of the routine appeared in Magic, The Magic Menu, my “You Are Here” lecture notes and on “Extreme Close-Up,” but this is the definitive handling!

- PARTY OF SIX (Page 189): One of the few stage routines I’ve ever published, and the only trick I do at comedy clubs.

- RINGWORM (Page 212): This ring-and-rope move by Richard Sanders is destined to infiltrate the repertoires of magicians around the world. It’s pure magic.

- MITOSIS (Page 290): An insanely strong cell-phone effect, and all for the price of a couple of notepads.

- OVERTIME (Page 68): This routine is squirreled away in the book with no accompanying photographs and sandwiched between two flashier pieces. As such, I suspect it will be overlooked by most. It also happens to be one of my best card tricks. In fact, when I showed it to Jay Sankey, he said, “Dave, you’ve done it again,” and... wait a minute, I just realized the ambiguity there. Hang on, let me call him to make sure it was a compliment.

Okay, I just left a message with Jay. I’ll let you know what he says when he calls me back.

- RONNIE LEMIEUX’S PRESENTATION FOR “OVERTIME”

When Montreal magician Ronnie Lemieux performs OVERTIME at a bar, he presents it as a sobriety test. After the first phase (which of course the spectator fails), he has the spectator touch his nose to make certain he isn’t drunk. When the spectator passes this test, Ronnie gives him a “second chance” at the card trick, performing phase two of OVERTIME… which the spectator fails, whereupon Ronnie asks him for his keys