I had just delivered a Monday Night Mystery lecture for the McBride Magic and Mystery School entitled “Inspiration and Invention.” It was time for a post-game review with Dean Larry Hass, an insightful, scholarly magician with whom I had been discussing a new project following the success of Wandcraft. While I thought the presentation had gone well, Larry was even more enthusiastic. A few minutes into our conversation, Larry asked “You realize that’s your next book, right?”
It was what most people would call a rhetorical question, one intended to make a point and requiring no answer. For Dean Hass, a former college professor, it seemed an outgrowth of his Socratic approach to teaching, a tool to gently lead a student to an important conclusion.
At the time, I had been inventing magic for more than a quarter century and thinking deeply about the practice for about a decade. These experiences had given me a profound appreciation for Maskelyne’s assessment in Our Magic (1911) that novelty and invention number among “the most vital topics comprised in the whole range of magical studies” and “the goal towards which the aims of every honourable magician are directed.” A guide to magic invention seemed an interesting, unusual challenge that could prove useful to magical artists.
And so it began.
While working on the project, I used a spiralbound artist’s sketchpad to mount handmade cardstock models – like the one seen here – embodying concepts I hoped to include in the
book, and notes about their construction. Eventually, this volume swelled with entries. I brought the book to a well-attended magic event in order to show it to a cherished conjuring advisor. During a break, we began to page through it. A few pages in, my friend stopped me. “These are amazing, original ideas,” he said, quietly. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Then, glancing at the magi milling about, he added “Maybe you should put that away . . . for now.”
I had received similar advice only once before. In 2016, while at a magic convention, I was demonstrating a rough illusion prototype I had built to a few acquaintances. Dave Cressey, the “King of Mouth Coils,” pulled me aside. “What are you doing with that thing?” he snapped, “Listen to me, I’d come out of retirement to make that thing. Now put it away!” It was good advice: That “thing” became “The Viking Spirit Trumpet,” and my ticket to performing on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us.
This all seemed promising. Things were coming together . . .
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