Well, I do understand and respect where you're coming from. It's in no way my intention to try to cheat my way through as a magic enthusiast. If I have been doing that without realizing it, I do apologize. But what can you expect from a newbie with barely any guidance, right?
I get that I come across like a prickly dick, but I'm really not a bad guy. We all have days where it's hard to even smile through our teeth.
I'm going to be honest and confess that I don't own any books on magic right now, but I do own the In The Beginning there were coins DVD by Jay Noblezada. Other than that, I've been learning from Youtube. I plan on buying royal road, the approach, and tarbell to get a solid foundation in this art.
Okay, before I begin I just want you to know that this is in no way a personal attack on you. This is just me being an exhausted, irritable Slav.
Jay Noblezada seems like a nice enough guy... but I've never been especially impressed by him. His teaching is... adequate. Something about him though just doesn't work for me. No... can't hang. Snob that I am, I continually refer to the ur-text of coin magic, Bobo's Modern Coin Magic. That's not to say there are no good DVDs on coin work. The Metal DVDs are good, and I like David Kong's muscle pass DVD. But the tactile feeling of a book, the ability to really take my time with it and internalize each little piece on its own is something that no other medium can adequately recreate.
On top of that, YouTube tutorials are the bane of my existence. Most of them are made by guys who couldn't hold an audience to save a bag of drowning puppies. The last one I stumbled on was so bad that if you told me the house it was shot in was built on an Indian burial ground, I would believe you. Ninety percent of all YouTube magic tutorials contain more testicles than human faces because the guy making it just angles his webcam down and hits RECORD. I can only see so many videos of someone's disembodied hands jiggling cards in front of (the same?) someone's junk before my family friends have to hide all ropes and sharp objects from me for at least three days.
Okay, got that out of my system.
The books you've named are good choices, though I would recommend getting Mark Wilson's Complete Course before the big investment in Tarbell. I love Tarbell and will hear nothing negative about it, but it's also a very steep investment. Mark Wilson's costs 20 bucks and covers the fundamentals very effectively. The real treasure in Tarbell is the essays on history and performance theory. Harlan Tarbell's writings on mentalism alone would cause most of today's "honest deceivers" to involuntarily rage-vomit. Oh yes, I'm still on that kick. There are probably some people here whose bodies would reject those essays like a bad organ transplant.
Also, if you ever feel like naming that out-of-print manuscript that you mentioned above, that would be really awesome, too!
Totally honest, dude, I think that particular batch of material is a bit out of your reach right now. The good news, I decided to do some checking and found that the author has revived this trilogy of booklets as a PDF download on his website along with some other lost gems from his catalog. Most amateurs still aren't going to download it or use it because... let's call the author Mr. K... is a bit too cerebral for most beginners.
I've always wanted a mentor, and I feel like the closest thing to that that I can get to right now is the advice of magic veterans out there, such as yourself. Maybe I could update you on my progress from time to time, and you could offer more suggestions?
I always make time for those willing to learn.
