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He was superb. I hadn't heard of his Piff character before so I was a bit dubious when the line-up was announced, but he's genuinely funny and an excellent magician. I'd definitely go to see his full-length show.

If the creator of a flourish, or even a magic technique, has shared it on YouTube, then that's fine. They've chosen to reveal it to the world free of charge, so, go ahead, learn it. However, if someone's exposing another creator's material, then yes, don't learn it from YouTube, find the...

Jerry "The Flourishman" Cestkowski's contributions to Xtreme Beginnerz Volume 1 are extremely informative. Also, Andrei Jikh has some good material on Genesis Volume 1. I would avoid anything older for this kind of stuff (Capaso Casino's Back to Basics, Jeff McBride's The Art of Card...

I know people are divided on this, but, I think, in order to prepare for the everyday vicissitudes of performing, some "challenge", or "sucker" material, is a useful tool to have in your back pocket for the right occasion. Also, what's your problem with use of the vernacular?

I think that there's nothing wrong with the principle of compiling a few self-working tricks and making them available in a free PDF. There are two important questions, however, which I believe dictate whether or not this is a good thing for the magic community. First, who is your market? Is...

There's some interesting-looking stuff in the trailer, but the last person I saw described as an "Underground Card Expert" was Wesley James in the ad copy of his The Man Who Knows Erdnase DVDs. I am, therefore, wary.

Hey Rich, have you got any references for that move?

I'm sure he's much more talented than Deception would indicate. I've heard good things about him before, which leads me to believe that the producers of the show have done him no favours in selecting the style and type of material.

Just watched a couple of clips on YouTube. It looks like a Derren Brown tribute act, if Criss Angel's producers had got to him. Bad (and not in a good way).

I think a bluff pass fits the bill precisely. This is exactly the kind of situation it was designed for. You would be left with the impression of the two selections being inserted into two random positions in the deck, everything stays in order, and there's no extra spreading, shuffling or cutting.

I still haven't received mine either. I emailed them a couple of weeks ago to chase and they told me they'd dispatched the DVDs the previous month, and they confirmed they had my correct address. They advised me to wait 2 more weeks then contact them again if nothing had arrived, then they would...

I think it would be acceptable for you say it's your handling of the Winter Change, but it's not different enough for you to give it your own name, in my opinion. Plus, I think you filmed it a bit too soon. You seem a bit stiff and awkward with it. My advice would be, get the whole sequence...

Unfortunately, practice is pretty much all you can do if you know the basic mechanics. If you don't know the basic mechanics, then pretty much any beginner flourishing or manipulation resource will teach the pressure fan, and most teach the spread (usually called the "Le Paul Spread").

Not sure if I'm just not understanding the question, but, by EATCT, do you mean The Expert at the Card Table by S W Erdnase? If so, it's not really a fair comparison, given that the other two options are decks of cards. If that is what you mean, go for the book. It's one the most important books...

Since I've stopped performing regularly, I've found myself becoming more and more obsessed with moves from Erdnase. I think anyone who wishes to claim the title "master move monkey" should get all of the Erdnase material down.

I think there were about six episodes of Dirty Tricks. They also did a special called The Magic of the Bible, and one called The Magic of Jesus. These latter two were, as the names suggest, replicating miracles from the Bible using magic techniques. To be honest, I found The Magicians a bit...

I don't think those credits can be quite right! I think the people you named might have been influences on the moves, but they weren't the creators.

I would suggest that any magician who intends a modern, intelligent, adult audience to believe that what they're witnessing is "real magic", i.e. something supernatural, is fooling themselves. For over a century, the best known and most successful magicians haven't claimed any supernatural...

You might not have expressed yourself clearly, but it seems that your definition of "mentally questionable" includes "those who have strange theories". If this is the case, I think you might want to reconsider your attitude. People who think differently from the norm aren't necessarily insane...

While I don't think that this kind of exposure does much harm to magic, the thing that annoys me about these shows is the sneering tone they take. Rather than presenting it as, "Look how clever this idea is!", they come across as "These magicians are so stupid, thinking they can decieve people...