phill smith
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A Hot Rod in My Drunken Fist
Category: trickRead more: A Hot Rod in My Drunken FistEditor’s note: Switching to posting Friday instead of Sunday. Psychological research shows that small amounts of alcohol can lower inhibitions enough to improve certain kinds of creativity. But those papers frequently qualify that with “however, getting completely shit-faced has never helped anyone’s bottom line.” Or, you know, something equivalent in dry academic language. On the…
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Stop Using the Same Damn Decks
Category: tipsRead more: Stop Using the Same Damn DecksThe last time I talked about card magic on here, I wasn’t very kind. But I actually love the stuff, so let’s talk about a problem that too many card magicians have. This applies less to professionals, but even pros have repeat customers. A popular topic between magicians with nothing better to do is to…
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Recent Posts
- Oz and Woes
- John Raven Stacks the Deck
- Chicken Soup for the Socially Inept: Flirting for Magicians
- The Off by One Principle (Not That One)
- A Hot Rod in My Drunken Fist
- Shuffling for Virtual Audiences: Free, Fair, and Fully Fraudulent
- The Theatre Behind the Fold
- On Weight and Touch
- Chicken Soup for the Socially Inept: Narrative Ease
- Justifying the Vanishing Deck’s Leftover Joker
- I Hate “In & Of Itself”
- Rich Man’s Which Hand
- Hanging for Later
- Stop Shtooping Steve Sheraton (or, A Joyful $1)
- Hey, Doxxing Isn’t Cool, Actually
- Get Rid of the Get-Ready
- An Actual Hello From the New Girl
- The “Creativity” Discourse
- Commenting Works Again!
- The Glossary, or ‘We cannot eliminate the root causes of codes by magicians, but Oval can.’
- Support the Heck Out of Craig Petty
- Tips for a Bigger Clock
- Clockwork Apple
- Odds and Ends #10: The Perfect 10/10 Trick
- Air Remixed
- Odds and Ends #9… …#9… …#9…
- A Magifest 2026 Retrospective
- The Day The Pedophile (Un)subscribed
- The Transport Peek
- Reader Mail Number Four: Can You Believe There’s Even More?
- I Spent 25 Dollars, and All We Got Was This Lousy Comment
- The Extreme Workout Universal Presentation
- New Year’s Comments and 2026 Plans
- Franklin Assumes Dominion Over All (Things Oval) In 2026
- A Color Coded, Tailor Fitted Effect
- Let’s Move False Shuffles Out of the Grey
- The Berglas Effect That Got Away
- The Loaded Lightning Principle
- How We Generate The Best Anagrams Around
- Making Your Anagrams Commute
- Toward Better Progressive Anagrams
- Announcing Anagram August (And Presenting A Trainer)
- 21 Savant (Degaffing Petty and Barnes)
- Bits and Bobs #2: The SUMS Out
- Let’s Talk to Invisible People
- In Defense of Lecture Patter
- My Cheap Uncle: A Bank Night Presentation
- Further Notes on Halal Magic
- Phantom at the Magic Festival
- Halal Magic
- Bits and Bobs #1: On Realism and Reality
- Spaced Out Tarot
- Reassembling the Woman Sawed in Half
- Last Minute Thoughts on Blackpool
- How To Spend Your Time At A Magic Convention
- Odds and Ends #8: The Burgle Ass Effect
- Notes on the Number Forcing Stack
- New Year, New E-Mail
- The James Hydrick Presentation, or Amateur Telekinesis
- Bricking Around with Drew Perry’s “Bricked”
- Holiday Hiatus and Schedule Scuttling
- Conducting Trains and Bones
- Excessive Errata, Non-Jerry Edition
- Zen and the Art of EmotiPsychic Maintenance
- Constructing Your Own Matrix Force
- Cut Your Nails
- Decoding the Matrix Multi-Force
- The Magic Oval 101
- The Annual Company Picnic (In Lieu of Bonuses) Part 1
- Odds and Ends #7: The One About Asian Competitions
- The Poor Man’s WikiTest Approach
- A Review of Michael Kras’s Synthesis & Secrets
- Meeting of the Masterminds
- To Put Too Fine a Point on It
- The Zen of Magic: Avoiding Method Overloading
- Double Blind Control, or Move Them With Your Mouth
- Memorability: A Misguided Proxy Metric
- I Was Wrong About Memorability in Card Magic
- Mnemonic Possession: The Arc of History Bends Towards Oblivion
- Spectators as Mirrors
- No One Is Keeping Your Souvenirs
- Odds and Ends #6: Electric Boogie Licks
- History in Flames: Why Magic Needs Public Museums Now
- Reader Mail #4: The Benefits of Not Using the Same Decks
- The Stripper Fakes A Breather
- Prisoners Passing the Pat Downs
- Banachek’s Salad: Eggplant Is the New Broccoli
- Taking a Peek to the Cinemas
- In Memoriam of Katakura Yuichi, a Japanese Underground Legend
- Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 2
- Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 1
- Oops, Private Post Fixed, and An Unscheduled Update
- “Sorry, I Have To Ditch This”
- Why Do People Hate Crazy Sam’s Mind?
- Magic Mirror on the Wall, Who Has the Fairest Dribble of All?
- Curse You, Andy
- Easter Errata, and a Schedule Shift
- The Forbidden Library: A Prelude
- The Chinese Knockoff: A Presentation For Obvious Gimmicks and Other Things
- Sharing A Thank You