Category: Magic

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Philately Will Get You Nowhere
or Ethical conjuration under capitalism

I mentioned that people waste money at Blackpool. Lets drill into that a little.

Much to my shame I am on Facebook and I’m a member of quite a few Facebook groups for magicians. Three for actual physical clubs I’m a member of, about six attempting to set themselves up as online equivalents to magic clubs, countless which have virtually no posts ever and one which by far I get more notifications on than any other.

That particular squeaky wheel is Second Hand Magic, and right now it’s pretty much on fire. It always is in the late February to mid-March period.

What’s special about this time? It’s just after Blackpool of course!

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or Ethical conjuration under capitalism”

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The Unbelievable Truth
or Magic teaches us how to lie without guilt

I was watching an interview with Penn and Teller in which they talked about one of my favourite routines of theirs, Polyester in Excelsis Deo more commonly known as The Magic of Polyester and which I always thought was called Man of the (Synthetic) Cloth.

I guess if anything this is because magic tricks don’t actually need names unless you’re going to publish it and want people to be able to find it easily to buy it. Penn and Teller don’t publish their work so this never comes up I guess. I’ll probably talk about the publishing mindset at some point in the future. But this isn’t about that.

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or Magic teaches us how to lie without guilt”

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Star Trick
or Talk to the Hand Wave

I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek recently; not only the new series, Discovery, but also the ill fated series Enterprise. Star Trek: Enterprise was set a century before the original series and as such had the burden of retrofitting the existing canon into its plot.

I lack the encyclopedic knowledge that many people think I possess but there are three episodes which in conjunction have a fascinating quality which a lot of magicians would do well to pay attention to.

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or Talk to the Hand Wave”