tips
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An Ultra-Mental Memory
Category: tipsRead more: An Ultra-Mental MemoryDisclaimer: This is not original, just an independent discovery. This is for those of you who use a full memorized stack and an Ultra-Mental/Invisible Deck. (This is the last time I’ll be calling it the “invisible deck”.) It’s a way to organize the Ultra-Mental Deck so you don’t have to do that awful add-to-13 thing,…
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Read more: Like Cards In Rain: Why Card Tricks Are Forgettable
Editor’s note: This post sucks. It sucks so much, Jerry wrote a followup explaining himself. And although this art is so wonderful, still it is held in no honor…The reasons are various, it seems to me;first, the art is concerned with useless matters;second, it is practiced by men of low degree. Girolamo Cardano (no relation)…
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Jazz in Social Magic #7: Tripling Down
Category: tipsRead more: Jazz in Social Magic #7: Tripling DownA followup to Jerry’s “Doubling Down“, told through an account of Which Hand. This is the climax of our JISM posts for the time being. This took place at a surprisingly lively afterparty for a magic show, and a bunch of us were relaxing in the green room. There were perhaps a dozen magicians that…
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Jazz in Social Magic #6: Doubling Down
Category: tipsRead more: Jazz in Social Magic #6: Doubling DownJISM is our award-winning series on Jazz in Social Magic. That’s all the name means. Jazz in Social Magic. Don’t make this weird. Recently, I did two tricks for someone. They both failed. As a result, the performance was a huge success, bigger than it would’ve been if they had succeeded. Let me explain. I…
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Read more: Aesthetics: A Damn Principle In Magic
Aesthetics play an important role in our performance. Your style is an extension of your persona and helps create the magical atmosphere. In Tarbell Vol. 2, Dr. Tarbell says that clothing is the silent salesman. This is not to say we should be rushing off to buy playing card ties and growing goatees. Rather, for…
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Happy Counting: Advocate Addendum
Category: tipsRead more: Happy Counting: Advocate AddendumGuest post number two comes from Spain. Dani Marko, legendarily famed and renowned for recording a performance of every Art of Astonishment trick on his YouTube channel, kindly provided an insight he gained after trying the Advocate at our recommendation. This is a little specific to Madison’s Advocate, but could be adapted to other indexes.…
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Happy Counting
Category: tipsRead more: Happy CountingHere’s a tip for using a card index. This will help you retrieve cards faster, and it has no drawback nor does it need any extra practice. The index that I‘ve used for the last decade is Daniel Madison’s Advocate. You only need a deck of cards to make one, it all fits in one…
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Read more: …And Then You Show Your Shirt
(With apologies to The Roots and their excellent album …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin.) This post is a bit of a rant, with a moral and actual advice at the end. I’m warning you, today we’re going to be looking at YouTube comments. Don’t worry, this isn’t a feature where we’re going to look…
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(Card) Monogamy is Overrated
Category: tipsRead more: (Card) Monogamy is OverratedFoursomes are better than using mates. If you can watch the entire video above I applaud you, but it is merely used to serve a point. Method aside, there is one presentational thing I primarily dislike here (despite it being an awful video overall). I hate the use of mates. Whenever I see a magician…
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Action Button
Category: tipsRead more: Action ButtonThe new iPhone has an action button feature now, instead of just a mute switch. A lot of people online have talked about using it to activate shortcuts that do certain actions in apps. The untapped potential for this button’s use in magic is probably near limitless. You can create shortcuts that would be very…
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