Idiosyncratic legerdemain blog.

  • Phantom at the Magic Festival

    Anne
    Category: ,

    The blog was in full force at Mystify Magic Festival. If we did our job right, nobody realized we were super cool magic bloggers, but we were taking notes. We are immensely thankful to all involved for putting on the event. There were a lot of really important discussions going on, and seeing the turnout made me so incredibly proud of the magic community. There really is a first time for everything!

    Day one launched with a lot of enthusiasm in the air. There were crowds of people meeting up with friends from previous conventions, and once the event was underway we were free to look around the dealer’s hall. Frankly at this point I was most interested in purchasing water. I was certainly reminded we were in the desert and I would have traded my kingdom for a Lota Bowl.

    (more…)

  • Halal Magic

    Jerry
    Category:

    Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
    Success in Circuit lies

    Emily Dickinson

    This post is inspired by a Muslim magician I once met, who taught me a valuable lesson about halal magic. If you’re not familiar with Islam, just pretend I met George Washington instead. The point is what kind of magic someone like that would perform.

    Shit, now I have to explain that to the worldwide audience. George Washington famously, supposedly, could not tell a lie.

    Shit, now I’ve spoiled the main conceit of this post.

    No half-truths. What I’m here to talk about today is performing magic without lying at all. Halal magic. Not just doing it as a rule, but also the benefits it has as an exercise.

    There are several benefits, of which there may be none immediately apparent.

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  • Bits and Bobs #1: On Realism and Reality

    Jerry
    Category:

    Editor’s note: This is a new feature where we’ll do something kind of like Odds and Ends, only instead of being the equivalent of People magazine for magic, it’ll be actually useful and relevant to your performances. Hopefully.

    Let’s say that the dreaded situation has occurred where someone authentically believes in your magic and you have to break it to them that it’s only a trick. Because that’s what you’d do, right? You’re not one of those magicians who would let them believe it’s real, right? I hope not.

    Anyway, how do you confess without A: making them feel stupid or B: ruining the future magic if they still want to see any?

    Here’s what I do.

    (more…)

  • Spaced Out Tarot

    Anne
    Category:

    Editor’s note: Don’t buy this deck, donate directly if you want to support the charity. We’re just doing a fun thing where Anne reviews some quirky decks of cards over the coming months. Don’t trust Uri Geller with your money!

    Uri Geller has released a tarot deck so that you too can communicate with extraterrestrial lifeforms. Frankly, I figured they had better things to do like building pyramids or running world governments. Geller is a controversial figure, but his impact on mentalism is hard to ignore. Especially when he gives quotes for so many products. At 20 bucks the price seemed a little high, but it’s a novel tarot deck with some interesting art and according to Geller his cut of the proceeds are going to a charity for children.

    (more…)

  • Reassembling the Woman Sawed in Half

    Editor
    Category:

    Anne is not the only woman on staff, and that’s not counting the illustrator. There’s another woman with a man’s pen name. Am I going to tell you who? Well, no. You’re welcome to guess, but no guesses will be confirmed nor denied. With that being said…

    I’m very proud to announce that The Magic Oval will be sponsoring Mystify Magic Festival!

    You may have some questions.

    Why on earth would a tiny blog be sponsoring a festival? Surely we must have paid out the ass for it? Well, yes. But we’re also attending Mystify and want to see it continue into 2026 and 2027 and so on.

    Needless to say, we’re extremely excited!!!

    We have some very special stuff planned for Mystify attendees, so pay attention to our ads in the program if you’re going.

    Why Mystify in particular?

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  • Last Minute Thoughts on Blackpool

    Jerry
    Category:

    I wish I were going. Maybe next year. No, I’ll manifest it. Definitely next year.

    Timon Krause’s book sounds great. I’m very hyped up for it. I don’t know much about it (cold reading?), but everything Timon releases is golden. Hopefully, there are a few less footnotes in this one though. Or, hell, if Harrison Greenbaum loves them, so can I, I guess. I can learn to love footnotes. I can become a footnote fetishist.

    New force options for Random Card Generator by Plainsight Magic! Fuck yeah! The only problem with Random Card Generator is that it’s one of the forces I most want to repeat later on and use it for other tricks.

    Not a new release, but Babu’s Nest of Wallets is amazing. Snap buttons? And you pull the wallets out face up? Brilliant.

    The Atomic Deck is, of course, going to be very exciting. I can’t wait for us to review it and finally not shit on Craig Petty.

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  • How To Spend Your Time At A Magic Convention

    Jerry
    Category:

    Franklin was supposed to write this post. Unfortunately, Franklin died at a recent convention. (Editor’s note: This is not true.) He did get his notes to me before perishing, though, and I’m going to see what I can do with them.

    1. Come a day early and make sure you’re caught up on sleep.

    It’s really nice to not have to worry about checking into two things the day that you get there, and catching up on sleep will pay off handsomely over the course of the convention. But if you can’t do this, at least do this next one…

    2. Stay as close to the venue as you can, if possible the same hotel.

    Many of these should speak for themselves, and this is one. Even if the hotels are next to each other, it’s impossible to overstate how convenient it is to be able to stop by your room in under 2 minutes. Which isn’t possible if you aren’t in the same hotel as the convention.

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  • Odds and Ends #8: The Burgle Ass Effect

    Editor
    Category:

    We’re big fans of David Berglas and Mark Elsdon here. So when Murphy’s Magic and Craig Petty released promo for a seemingly perfect version of ACAAN, with a glowing endorsement from Mr. Elsdon, we were very excited! There’s just one tiny problem…

    That’s not just once, either. The entire page was loaded with this typo. Great quality control as always, Murphy’s. (Hey, at least we’re beating up on Murphy’s and not Petty this time, right?) I really love how you put the word ass in the name of one of the greatest magicians to ever do it.

    Update: The tutorial page brings this typo back. I wish I were joking.

    Alright, I know how this looks. We abandoned the schedule and almost as quickly abandoned the site, right? Why else would we have no posts for you for almost a month?

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  • Notes on the Number Forcing Stack

    Franklin
    Category: ,

    Editor’s note: Now that we don’t have a schedule, I can do important things like schedule posts for the 7th day of the month.

    There’s a long history in magic of using a deck of cards to force a number by adding up the values of cards. A significant portion of this history is devoted to the 14/15 stack. I think it was the most popular primarily because it was the first.

    Today, I’m taking a stand for the 13/14 stack.1 And I’m adding plenty of footnotes just for you footnote fetishists.2

    To be clear, a 13/14 stack is one in which every pair of adjacent cards sums to 13 or 14. I think a 13/14 stack originates with P. Howard Lyons’ “Northern Force”. He explains how to set it up from new deck order with a Klondike shuffle. Sure, great, but who has the time for a Klondike shuffle? And besides which, that only works in a “new deck order” where all the suits are arranged Ace to King, and decks aren’t usually arranged that way today. That’s actually good news, since the modern new deck order permits setting up a 13/14 stack with a single perfect faro.

    Fast stack from NDO

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  • New Year, New E-Mail

    Editor
    Category:

    You can now email us individually again. Sorry about that before. Please email one of us about an article of theirs that you liked, or a question you might have. Especially because after my boneheaded decision to put everything together into one excessively long email address, we got exactly one reader email in the following months. Besides, every time we get an email the team jumps for joy. One big synchronized leap. It’s beautiful, you should see it.

    That’s drew@themagicoval.com, franklin@themagicoval.com, anne@themagicoval.com, and jerry@themagicoval.com.

    I can still be reached at themagicoval@themagicoval.com.

    We’re going to get even weirder in 2025. For example…

    (more…)

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