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At The Table Live Lecture – Erik Tait – A Review

At The Table Live Lecture – Erik Tait – A Review

At The Table Live Lecture – Erik Tait – A Review

Donavon Powell

I would like to get this out of the way early. I am not surprised that I enjoyed this. While Erik Tait did not fool Penn and Teller he did win the I.B.M. Gold Cups Close Up Competition. He is obviously a talented Magician. But he is much more. While it is true he is quite the thinker I think, possibly more importantly, Erik knows how to apply what he thinks to constructing Routines that are Practical for Real World use.

Nothing that he teaches on this At-The-Table Lecture is unusable in a Working setting. Erik shows a wonderful ability to construct modular Routines that can be incorporated into different places within an Act. He explains which items he considers appropriate for openers and why.

That leads me into the next portion of this review. What is in the Lecture? That is a tough one. Erik teaches seven full Routines. If you have ever wanted to do a Svengali Deck Routine with a Non-Gimmicked Deck this is the place to learn it. I have been doing a version of this for years. I walked away with some visual elements that have elevated my Routine to another level. A Bar Trick with a Bit of Cork and a Borrowed Dollar is now in my regular carry and is another Routine that I frequently did prior to this Lecture that I am adjusting because his version is better.

This Lecture is about SO much more than the Routines within. Erik teaches his work on the One Handed Top Palm, the Dribble Pass, the Click Pass, and Culling. Additionally, he shows uses for some traditional card gaffes that most of us have lying around. The Coin Coaster could have been released as a solo release and people would have bought it. If you are ready to try something bold and knuckle busting take a stab at the Spanish Train Change.

The level of difficulty in this At-The-Table Lecture is definitely not for the Novice. While Erik does teach the techniques necessary to accomplish the Routines, the Novice would have to get VERY comfortable with them before they could even attempt to work with the material. That said, I would still recommend this Lecture to a Novice for the Theory contained within. The section on the Fool Us and I.B.M. Routines is a great window into the process a Professional goes through when developing something. Limiting yourself to Create is a mindset that is not often considered, but it generates some phenomenal results. Erik explains very well how he uses this concept in his approach to creating Magic.

Much like every At-The-Table Lecture the video quality is top-notch. Multiple demonstrations of Technique are used to capture the important elements. The audio is phenomenal. Perhaps it is a little too good. There are points where you can hear EVERYTHING. Certain things, like Clicks or Riffles, are very much louder than you would expect them to be. This is just nit-picking on my part to be honest as I really did not mind it. The quality of what has been provided in this Lecture more than compensates for that very minor annoyance.

At The Table Live Lecture Erik Tait April is $7.95- From Murphy’s Magic and dealers who carry their product line.

https://www.murphysmagic.com/product.aspx?id=64396

Donavon Powell – The Magic Roadshow

The traditional Chinese magicians calling for greater censorship of their ancient tricks

The traditional Chinese magicians calling for greater censorship of their ancient tricks

Beijing, CNN (CNN)In a small room in a West Beijing cultural center, magician Tian Xueming is working hard to deceive a group of university

students from Macau that he has teleported three pearl-sized balls from one bowl to another.

For first-timers, Tian’s sleight-of-hand illusion is as infuriating as it is entertaining. Some audience members become hellbent on exposing the magician, by any means necessary.
“Many have tried to grab my hand mid-act, wrench it open, only to find there was no ball,” says Tian.
The 55-year-old refuses to give details about his tricks, citing an unbreakable magician’s code of secrecy. But this hasn’t stopped the trick from being exposed online.
Millennial magician Li Yunfei posted a video of the trick on YouTube last December, using two transparent bowls to show there is no teleporting, only nimble handiwork.
Millennial magician Li Yunfei posts in this video how Tian Xueming seemingly makes balls teleport from one clear bowl to another.
In seven months, that clip has racked up 1.6 million views. According to Li, trading secrets for clicks — and thus profit — has become an increasingly common practice among young Chinese magicians.
“There are tens of thousands of live-streaming and video channels dedicated to exposing magic tricks,” says Li, 24, who has over 420,000 fans on Chinese video platform Tik Tok and claims to make over 1 million yuan ($145,000) per year from his videos.
Tian, and other traditional Chinese magicians, have condemned this practice, even forming an association, the League in Opposition to the Revealing of Magic Secrets, to combat this trend. Many of the tricks exposed were invented by their ancestors and passed down via tight-knit, student-teacher relationships.  READ MORE
This World-Renowned Heart Surgeon Has a Few Tricks Up His Sleeve

This World-Renowned Heart Surgeon Has a Few Tricks Up His Sleeve

DR. RANDALL WOLF IS USED TO BLOWING PEOPLE’S MINDS. The cardiac surgeon at Houston Methodist Hospital’s DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center is a pioneer in the minimally invasive treatment of atrial fibrillation called the Wolf Mini-Maze, in which the surgeon makes small marks on the heart while it is still beating. It’s a procedure that requires the steadiest of hands and has saved thousands of lives. Again, mind-blowing.

But in this moment, in his office, it’s another incredible feat that has an observer reeling in amazement. “Hold this in your hand,” Wolf says, placing a miniature Rubik’s cube in his visitor’s palm. The goateed, bespectacled surgeon muses about the toy’s pretty colors for a distracting second, then slaps the cube. An explosion of colored M&Ms fills the astonished visitor’s hand. The cube is gone. “You can eat them,” he says with a grin. “They’re real.”

Wolf isn’t just a world-renowned heart doctor, he’s also a master magician.  Read More… 

By Jeff Balke.. for Houstonia

Penn Jillette: America’s Next Big Magic Star Will be a Woman..

Penn Jillette: America’s Next Big Magic Star Will be a Woman..

Legendary magician Penn Jillette, along with his longtime partner Teller, are currently in their sixth season of their show “Fool Us” on the CW. On the show, other magicians try to get a trick past these expert illusionists in order to win a prize: a guest spot in their Vegas show.

They’ve also launched a VR video game where players can fool their own friends, “Penn & Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary and Underhanded.”

Jillette visited Salon’s studio for a conversation about his underlying theory of practical jokes, why “our goal in life was to be carny trash” and what the number of women competing and winning on “Fool Us” says about the direction magic is going in America.  Read More HERE