Caught the incredible Aladin over Christmas here in London. He is the magician from Book of Cool: http://www.bookofcool.com

I do voluntary work with a UK charity for homeless people called Crisis. We provided 6 cold weather shelters last Christmas. I was helping at the one in Middlesex Street and saw Aladin twice.

This is what I saw him do.

Outside the entrance to the shelter he was throwing cards about 6 storeys high. Not sure what was happening but he had a cluster of 'guests' and volunteers at the main entrance egging him on. I honestly never knew you can throw a card that hard. This was the 27th of December.

Two days later I was inside the games and recreation areas. Very bad conditions incidentally. Straight out of Charles Dickens, and a lot of people came down with a stomache bug. Aladin again had a group of about thirty or so stunned-looking guests and volunteers around him. He really has a lot of presence and although he didn't seem to be doing much, the group were absolutely hysterical.

Aladin was making up (for want of a better word) quite startling sleight of hand with the rubbish lying around the floor and tables; and also things he was somehow acquiring off the people standing around. I have never seen or heard described anything like it before. It was world class improvising, and keep in mind the men and women at Crisis are obviously street-aware and sticking to him like glue.

Someone offered him a very dirty, sticky pack of cards, very filthy. He then went off on a hilarious and completely baffling riff with us kicking the cards around the floor, so that we had a very jumbled up mess. Somebody gathers them up and puts a rubber band around it, after which the specator peaks at a card. I have to admit I didn't see any forcing or standard peak control or glimpsing; pretty puzzling to say the least. Later on I guessed he was really watching the conditions of the cards; maybe some kind of optical estimation? Amazing even if it was, as the cards were wet!

Aladin then got the same guest to undo the rubber band and dump them on the ground; and as you guessed they got kicked around again. All this by the way was getting a big reaction and lots of attention, just from people playing football with the cards. Finally Aladin gets the 'shuffled' cards handed back to him and he just fairly quickly looks through them with all of us surrounding him; at this point the hairs went up on the back of my neck as this sticky, grotty deck had somehow just ended up all face up (except for one card) while we were watching!

To top this off he closes the cards which are face up and as I expected does a spread on the floor, a wobbly ribbon spread as the (face down by this stage) cards were in just **** condition. Sure enough there is a face up card to match the chosen one (we had long stopped caring about this), whose appearance by this time seemed to give an actual headache to some of those watching. The best was to follow, though.

To top it all off, the cards got turned over one at a time (well, in clumps as they were gluing fast!) and they were neatly in four suits. There was a big scramble to look at the cards, but he got the biggest ovation you could ever get. Incredible magic, I couldn't describe it as a routine though.

It's interesting that Aladin doesn't bother with routines incidentally; he just kicks off with this very friendly, warm and genuine banter, which hides the fact that the guy has about as extreme sleight of hand and timing skills as are possible. Obviously.

On Sturday night comong up, 13th January, is the volunteers party for Crisis; any magicians there? It's at Camden Centre. I hope to catch Aladin and if I do I'll write some more.

JJ

I forgot to say - he has a website:
http://www.magicaladin.com

Hi everyone.

I caught up with Aladin last night!

He did some very special work with cards that got me Google searching for an explanation: he has hit upon an original way of separating the cards into groups of four [poker hands, suits and so on] which I will fill you in on later. It's not Angle Separation as we know it but very deadly and more efficient, believe it or not.

Magic Café member Soren Riis has written about him over at Talk Magic, where they call the technique 'Aladin Separation'. I am not sure it's exactly what I probably saw Aladin doing as he was separating to four POKER hands rather than four SUITS by and large, except that he is using ONE phase rather than the TWO you would think you need for the straight Angle Separation. It is unique. Here goes Soren Riis's entry which I have copied from Talk Magic - it also has MindWarrior filling in details [he's not here on Magic Café]] :

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ptopic15784.php
World Class Aladin
Soren Riis
This Thread is about Aladin (with one l’). I mensioned in passing Aladin in another tread, but think we need a special tread where we discuss this great magician!

From his webpage it appears that he is entirely self-taught! Aladin is one of only two Golden Turban members of the Magic Academy of Bangalore, India, guardians of the world's oldest magic tradition. He is also a former International Magician of the Year and has been a Selected Artist at the National Review of Live Arts U.K.

Aladin knew he would be a magician at two and a half years old, when his father vanished his favourite toys into a ceiling light at their home. This was by way of encouraging the young Aladin to follow the example of the assorted objects and go to bed!

Aladin's ventures in entertainment include being commissioned by private clients in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo as well as in London (Hurlingham Club, Sanderson Hotel, Peacock House etc.), opening onstage for artists ranging from Paul Weller to Mark E. Smith, and as Master of Ceremonies and co-organiser of the world's biggest magic event (800 magicians from around the world converging on the city of Bangalore). According to Aladins web site several British and international television channels have projects currently in development involving Aladin as a principal.

I like the following quote by Aladin: (see http://www.magicaladin.com/magic.html for more details)

“Do I have something to 'say' in the context of where I am meant to be performing? I'm not into going into a 'muscle-building convention' situation where you just go in for the audience to 'ooh!' and 'ahh!' over your physique; in other words I can't just bring myself to 'do tricks' to impress. You wouldn't ask a painter to go off and impress you with two colours and a brush."

Let me quote the correspondence that lead to the focus on Aladin.

Soren Riis wrote:
stepSeven wrote:
Cheers for the welcome chaps.

Soren, I love OOTW - particularly the impromptu vers. Stonehenge is a new one on me - any recommended reading to pick this one up? I will be buying "Scarne on Card Tricks" very soon (£3.50ish amazon!!), do I need to add more books to my order?

I'm aware of the G-principle but (shamed to say it) haven't explored it. Will put that right over the Xmas holiday.


I know what you mean by the impromptu versions of OOTW, however all version are in fact impromptu!! The setup takes with some practice roughly 30 sec using 1-2 separation (Lennart Green) or "angle separation" (Lennart Green or Harry Lorraine) 20 sec or flip-flop method (Willard) 15 sec. All setup methods can be done under disguise of another effect and no-one ever called me on this.

The most impressive I ever watched was by Aladin (yes, with one l) who is an outstanding world class Indian magician living in Hampstead London (where I also used to live). He could separate all 4 suits under guise of another effect in I would say less than 20 sec. (I think he used a version of angle separation combined with multiple bottom "steals" (bit of smoke added here)). He told me that his handling had impressed Lennart Green and that Lennart did not personally dare to do this! I have tried to replicate his feat but for me its not practical and I would never do it in a performance situation.



Soren Riis wrote:
mindwarrior wrote:
holy moly! I finally meet someone who has also seen this guy aladin.

soren riis you mention seeing him do this angle separation nobody else in the world can do. well earlier this year I was in docklands excel centre for the truly horrible (don't go next time) dave's weekend. but was just my incredible luck to be lurking near the poker games when I saw this guy being hustled away as he was firing cards from his bare hands from about 70 yards away and into the area where the tables were. I mean my friends and I were like 'what are you hustling HIM away for?!' as he was clearly having a laugh but also in possession of some just unbelievable skill with cards.

but I don't think he was invited to the party. anyway he has this tall minder guy who rescues him and we trail the two of them until they get to the book of cool stand (you know http://www.bookofcool.com) and there we got talking. seems he was just dropping in on the book of cool who were doing a promo and we realised he was of course one of the cool people on the product.

anyway aladin gets talking and I ask him how he managed to throw cards so unbelievable far and fast/hard (you have to be there like soren says otherwise you really can't believe it) so he borrows our decks and starts spraying them around the arena. now you need to know the ceiling must be about 40 yards from the ground and he is hitting it with my cards (plastic coated poker size bigger than in england but what gamblers use ;o) ). and when he throws them it is so fast you can't see them until they suddenly stop I guess wind resistance and all then they just fall. so it is only when they fall you notice where they have gone to. and I mean they are out far far away like more than 60 70 yards.

but what completely blew me like with soren was that he took my cards after I shuffled them and just like looked at them except when I bother to look at them after I walk away I thought there was something funny but hell he had put them in suits right across the deck with all the suits separate. we were screaming and ran back.

by the way book of cool is AWESOME too and so is aladin in it but please note he does not do or explain any separations so don't buy it for that. he does though have several neat ways to flick and throw cards I have not seen before. by the way do not buy this either to learn the exact same way he uses TO THROW CARDS AT 100MPH as he did tell us that as it was a little dangerous and so he only showed the less dangerous ways to get cards to fly about 40-50 (as compared to the 70+ we saw) yards in book of cool. but trust me not knowing how to throw the extra 20 yards won't matter.

like soren says aladin separates cards unbelievable but deceptively quickly except he seems quite slow and not really looking or interested. was about 15 seconds it seemed to me I know this sounds stupid as lennart takes longer and does TWO PASSES to separate to 4 suits and aladin just does one pass. wouldn't you say soren that having seen lennart do this aladin's method just leaves the master a little bit in the shade incredible as it is to say? what fools me being in the know is that he only uses one pass! soren I can understand after your explanation that he must have been doing bottom stealing at the same time but man this guy deserves a section of his own in card magic he has just got a freaky skill. this guy's technical ability is just out of this world pardon the phrase. you are just never going to meet somebody with this level of skill .

soren you say he is world class and you seem to know him - he blew our minds and for poker players this is not easy with a deck of cards by the way. we both saw one of the world's greatest magicians.

what do you think about the material he puts out on book of cool? neat presentation of really versatile bottom/top forces if not groundbreakers (this is a general DVD with skateboarding after all) but really superb and beautiful card boomerangs. really elegant. but I still haven't mastered the card spins he does so effortlessly on the tip of a finger - soren can you do this or did you seem him do this? he was doing it all the time but I have to say I couldn't concentrate by this point

maybe as amazing as the magic is that aladin does not seem to bother to do much magic apart from book of cool. he would be huge HUGE draw for an audience. also a really really nice guy generous and very humble surprisingly. great guy wouldn't you say soren? we can consider ourselves to be in a exclusive club.

that has made my night. and by the way until I found this post my buddy and I had seriously been thinking ridiculous and funny explanations for how aladin did all the stuff using my deck.

by the way soren - this guy gave you a lesson in the technique? are you able to tell us some detail or is this unfair on him? there is a great book out called phantoms of the card table by the way about gambling cheat who used an amazing method one day soren and I can write a chapter about the indian phantom.

just a great posting.

mark: the mind warrior


Hi Mind warrior!,
You seem to be new here so welcome to TM. Yes I am very pleased I met Aladin around 2002. Unfortunately I moved from Hampstad shortly after and today I regret very much that I October 2003, were away at a conference when I was invited to a debate, “Is London’s diversity too much of a good thing?” that was chaired by aladin. Besides being an acclaimed magician, Aladin has also worked as a strategist as Ken Livingstone-appointed co-architect of London’s first ever integrated strategy for culture, media, sports, arts, heritage and tourism [www.magicaladin.com].

With Aladin’s method one should under guise of another effect for example be able to perform “J.C.’s Super Closer” (on easy to master card miracles by Micheal Ammar Vol4) impromptu using a borrowed deck! I can also do this but I need essentially to prepare using two effects (rather than just one) that serve as cover for the preparation. Using Aladin’s method one should be able to perform “J.C.’s Super Closer” is less than 30 sec after the spectator has handed you his shuffled deck of cards. For me the preparation takes around 15+25 sec, but it is still quite effective since the spectator is watching some strong magic while this happens and the procedure is done in two parts on the offbeat. In all circumstances the spectators have no idea what is going on! And believe me to do "J.C.’s Super Closer" with a borrowed deck is absolutely killing!!

PS. As you might know there are a few different handlings of J.C.’s Super Closer, that requires a slightly different setup. There is a slight tradeoff between using the most convenient setup or a slightly more awkward setup that is more practical using a borrowed deck, but requires a bit of extra work during the performance of J.C.’s Super Closer.


I will copy and quote some of the posts above and start a new tread about Aladin on "About that magician"



Remark: I edited entry giving the right reference to J.C.’s Super Closer (rather than Dayley last trick which is a different effect).
_________________
Magic is slight of mind!

Last edited by Soren Riis on Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:45 am; edited 1 time in total

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mindwarrior



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I just wanted to add about the cards aladin uses. his personal deck is bicycle but poker size and not the smaller bridge size you get here. I think it was a ghost deck he had in actual fact - it was certainly in the ellusionist box with the amazing ace of spade on white background. the incredible and I guess we can safely say unique separation of the shuffled deck into 4 suits during one hand to hand pass he did with my cards which are unfortunately plastic coated and promotional cards from 888 although but he coped. obviously he might be even slightly quicker in the separation I guess with his own cards - it was under 20 seconds maximum with the stranger deck.

he is a small guy maybe 5 foot 8 inches very strong but elegant fingers. very elegant, handsome man of arab or asian complexion looks about late 20s maybe very short hair shaved I think. one thing which soren you must have noticed is that the way he handles cards is actually quite hypnotic and different to how other magician I have seen before - relaxed and natural not usual magician's rather stiff or self conscious way. the first thing I noticed was that the cards seemed to go through his fingers like sand and generally he lets them run around quite continuously in a flowing way. the way he does his card spin
http://www.bookofcool.com/html/trailerpo......ards.swf
he doesn't draw attention to it which you would only understand it if you were standing next to him.

as I said before and soren you appear to know he is not your average intelligence. by this I mean that he is not just a man of a giant iq but very intellectual in many subjects. just how he talked about entertainment industry is really interesting although you see he is really more into art.

here is the clip someone put in youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=MNr2v174Zw4

this separation we may as well call aladin separation I have just been thinking about after soren's comments about bottom steals and so on. what is obvious is that the bottom stacking is from the specator's point of view the same action as separating the top stack if you understand that he is doing two angle separations simultaneously. [just imagine if he were a full time magician I can't think what kind of stuff he would be inventing]. he is probably doing incredibly difficult and deceptive magic of other kinds too but as he does not exactly spend time doing public shows or talking with magicians we are not going to experience any of this outside of meeting him in the street or maybe when he is doing stuff in an art gallery.

the card throwing he does not use a grip with a triangle of card poking out between forefinger and middle finger as ricky jay and so on. he kind of cups the card in his right hand - when we say him he actually took the card by the bottom edge in his left hand and then raised it above his right shoulder and cupped it in his right hand gripping while keeping left hand behind the carde. I guess this could be to give it more momentum but you really can't see too much as the card is completely enclosed this way. this way he was throwing over 60 yards easily without a run up or wind up action so I guess he would add some yards with a run up or using a pitcher type action. on the dvd he shows the cards thrown singly from the hand various grips - funny looking pencil grip style clipping the inside top corner with thumb and middle finger below and forefinger above; he snaps the card with a drawing back action which takes it shoulder high and then straight out. I adapted this by exaggerating the upswing to way behind the right shoulder assuming you also are right handed. I can do about 30 yards this way which is anyway impressive enough. on the dvd he only shoots the cards indoors inside a drawing room type room I think youtube says it is sketch.

I would say just based on seeing him doing his aladin separation (i like the fact we have described a technique we have both seen but nobody else has mastered) and the really crazy card throwing that he is totally up there at the pinnacle technically and just sets his own standards. like you quote him soren he 'does not do tricks to impress'. but you realise you are seeing a unique magic genius one, world class and certainly better than some fism card champs. I think he bests lennart green I think we have seen both of them now - aladin has at least same degree of out of this world technique and innovativeness

soren I play poker I am guessing you do too? how is your chess? I like reading about the card cheating methods I buy card books magic books by post is excellent. would you think we could interest aladin in being interviewed by us for a phantoms of the card table kind piece? he has done some interviews but nothing for magicians.

I will reply to your piece about out of this world. we should write down in detail our exact detailed memory of aladin's two performances as these are likely the 'perfect' versions which we can maybe decode the techniques for. or is that not good form to explain all that?
_________________
Don't mention gambling. Or cards.

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Soren Riis


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mindwarrior wrote:
....

soren I play poker I am guessing you do too? how is your chess? I like reading about the card cheating methods I buy card books magic books by post is excellent. would you think we could interest aladin in being interviewed by us for a phantoms of the card table kind piece? he has done some interviews but nothing for magicians.

I will reply to your piece about out of this world. we should write down in detail our exact detailed memory of aladin's two performances as these are likely the 'perfect' versions which we can maybe decode the techniques for. or is that not good form to explain all that?


How did you know I am playing chess?? I used to play at an international level. I am also a keen bridge player and like poker but life is limited so I had to focus so I only played a bit of poker (7 card stud).

At http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3465 you can find an article I wrote at chessbase.

I do not think its appropiate to discuss or speculate about the techniques used in the "Aladin" separation (in fact what I wrote did contain some smoke). I see no problems speculating or discussing what can be achieved given such a technique is availeble, however probably such a discussion is better done on using PM. As I said J.C.’s Super Closer is I think a perfect application (especially with a borrowed deck). It just absolutely kills, since 4 different spectators shuffle the cards, and a fifth spectator cuts the shuffles cards in 4 piles. Yet, all kings and aces are found using amaing spelling procedure and as the final kicker all cards are sorted out in the four different suits! To do it with you own card is OK, but an inteligent spectator can usually reconstruct a bit of the method. Preparing using the aladin separation (compromising by disregarding the order of the kings) using a borrowed deck is just SO much stronger.
This is COMPLETELY beoynd what the lay person can accept as possible.

I like the idea of interviewing Aladin, but maybe we should first wait to hear what other magicians think.
_________________
Magic is slight of mind!

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mindwarrior



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soren I am only guessing that you play chess as you seem that type who is strong in logic. my poker is not so different to your experiences I think I am quite strong but find it is getting expensive!

for aladin separation you are of course correct. but these days there are so many blogs and websites discussing techniques that I am wondering if secrecy is necessary. from speaking with aladin he does not seem to be interested at all in secrecy btw.

for the record however we should note that aladin separation can in theory be generally performed in a variety of ways and mainly with borrowed deck if/when aladin performs. so generally this separation should and can be performed in all conditions with borrowed or spectator decks.

I think aladin separation if we could master the technique would be more versatile than say j.c. closer but I would agree with you that it is: COMPLETELY beyond what the lay person can accept as possible.
to be honest it would be beyond belief for majority of card specialists. as we are both very knowledgeable in this category and I am guessing you also have seen lennart green and so we are both capable of his angle techniques. this one is for the history book I think - aladin separation is like gary mason Gazzo's punch second deal in phantoms at the card table I believe nobody would seriously try to master aladin separation just as nobody would seriously try to master punch second deal. maybe painful!

I won't disrespect aladin's innovation with separation by then describing what I think he is doing but would you agree that he must work very hard at making the movements for bottom separation to be identical to top separation ? do you see what I mean - we both know angle separation but in performance we would not notice when aladin must be doing double the separations when he is 'looking through' the cards from right to left.

what I mean is that the two actions are pretty well identical in appearance which is a finesse on top of the mind-numbing technique:

[i have just edited out some text I just wrote detailing to you what I realise aladin must be doing; as you say and I stopped myself it is not appropriate to discuss or speculate]

I have written to him this morning but there was a holiday response - I wrote to him before, just after I had book of cool. I don't know he wants or needs our attention but I feel this level of skill and personality deserve it.

a handshake to you and have a good year. what a wild coincidence too like all the best 'discoveries.
_________________
Don't mention gambling. Or cards.

As I said at the top, I will be returning to this page to describe in detail what I saw Aladin doing last night [all cards, incidentally]. Adding to Soren's excellent work on 'Aladin Separation'.

Sadly, Aladin also mentioned that he is retiring from volunteering at Crisis - he first started in 1990! He has quite a lot on the boil though.

JJ

I just want to add my tuppence to building up a picture and a method for 'Aladin Separation'. I realise I saw the separation in action down at Middlesex Street but also a shorter version on Saturday night.

I agree that it is almost certainly Lennart Green's 'Angle Separation' that Aladin has pushed further. Soren mentions that Lennart has referred to the theoretcal possibility of culling and separating into four suits by angle separation.

I tried the separation [very slow motion] of black cards to above and red cards to below. Personally I found it far too ungainly to be able to get away with in performance. Keep in mind that cards joining the face-up packet in the right hand go to FOUR locations: and also bear in mind that contrary to what Mindwarrior states Aladin can't be merely 'closing' up the cards which have gone singly and face up into his right hand. He has to actually strip out the angled cards and then return them to the top or bottom of the deck.

Lennart Green's action after the cards are lying angled in his right hand is to appear to be cutting the the packet. But this is really him stripping black cards out and placing them on top of the deck.

In Aladin Separation, the cards are stripped out in ONE move still - except he pulls out the two halves already separated into two suits each. By this stage Lennart has separated into all blacks in one half and red in the other. So Aladin MUST be doing a quadruple-decker angle separation to start with as opposed to Lennart's double-decker.

Reality check: the control Aladin has over playing cards just doesn't bear thinking about. Decades of painful preparation and seclusion come to mind! Although when you meet him you appreciate that he probably doesn't spend most of his time practising or inventing magic. He is a 'natural' like Lennart; and it's funny to have TWO separation kings who have got to be among the the world's greatest sleight of hand magicians. They aren't 'just card magicians' I hope you realise!

But the key is that he carries out the techniques with really good disguise and natural movements; I only saw a blur because of all that movement and rhythm. The cards he was using in December were ****e so he was really having to put an effort into digging/pulling out cards from the left hand and pushing/shoving them into his right hand. Sorrry - this was AFTER an initial angle separation he did just to get the cards face up again from the jumble, and with the selection face down. Our surprise that the cards were face up again was good cover for all the gardening moves he had to do.

BUT - on Saturday night with his own beautiful Ghost cards [confirmed!] he took the shuffled deck back from some drunk ass-hole and just did the one glance through before we realised he had separated into four suits; this was done with a smooth action as the cards were clean. It had to be a quadruple-decker angle separation on that one look through - that has got to be what he does. And it ohad all the angle separation look with cards crooked and messy. Please note - he did not take two run throughs to separate to four suits; it's just the one 'pass' as mindwarrior and soren saw too.

This all sounds gigantically complex, but to look at he's just this intriguing, gentle guy scaring us with his magic and entering into serious conversation.

He got a little mad I think at one guy (drunken amateur magician) who kept thinking he was forcing; seems even magicians forget you CAN control a randomly peaked card.

JJ

This is about a totally impromptu Zombie I also saw Aladin do over Christmas. It needs no special props or set up but needs you to be extremely dexterous to pull it off.

I only today remembered a funny manipluation Aladin does. Basically he took what looked like a fragment of polystyrene cup and was doing continuous loading to a spectator's pocket, underneath an ashtray, onto his shoulder. But he does some a neat trick of making a 'zombie' out of the object; it seems to float around the edges of his entire hand (think of his hand as the cloth you would use in Zombie.

Aladin then takes a cigarette lighter from someone and does the whole one-handed crazy Zombie. So he is using his thumb like the stem to hold on to the lighter; it looks absolutely impossible from the spectator angle. Very very funny routine he made up as he went on of the lighter 'refusing' to stay in his left hand - he does a pinch vanish type move and then the lighter amusingly 'floats' to the top or bottom of his right hand to Aladin's apparent surprise.

I have never seen this done before. But Zombie that Aladin does is something I can now do too more or less - you just have to practice hyper-extend and twist your thumb and get the item to be gripped between the tip of your thumb and edge of your hand. You slide the thumb about. You'll get a lot of cramps at first. You can more or less pick up anything small, of course a coin too, and have fun with a real illusion. No props and no Hank Lee. Jeff McBride should take a look.

jj

Are you in love with him?

LOL

Majestic this guy works with the homeless. You would not exactly consider him attractive in his uncool denim jacket, several fleeces underneath and baggy combat pants. But the point is he is one of the good guys you only meet if you like me care about other people.

I admit he cuts a dash on Book of Cool. He was dressed totally differently when we saw him last month though. But we can all be jealous a little. My older sister thinks he is hot though.

Sorry Majestic; I just noticed your denim trousers!

Great posts you do by the way.

jj

Do you know this guy is in the movie Magicians? Just opened here in the UK a week ago and was No. 5 in BO receipts. Here's the trailer at youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYlBaQl9EuI

Aladin is in the trailer about halfway; you'll notice the card flourishes and faro weave and fan he does. The film is hilarious! Aladin looks good there's much more of his cardwork in the film and you also see him in the main scene when Mitchell and Webb playing deadly rival magicians meet for the first time in 5 years.

The have a !@#$%y scene just like we know in UK magic at a magic competition. Mitchell and Webb (they are so cool these comics) will have to beat the world's greatest magicians to come back. Really funny ending! Aladin is there as one of "the world's greatest magicians". Pat Page is also there and Scott Penrose looking lame as usual.


Aladin was a guest of Ali Bongo and Alan Shaxon at the Magic Circle last year and they made a thing of receiving a 'special' copy of book of cool. I don't think he has been there for a very long time as he was saying and one of his students had come over from india bangalore and performed that night. They had some pictures taken.

The young guy was a very relaxed performer did Pat Page's TR newspaper . Pat is popular tonight.The bangalore guy was a little corny in how he spoke as we might expect he is not used to performing to western audiences. More impressive was a screening they did of his really top drawer manipulation work; world class. These Indian magicians are excellent.

From what is going on with the film Magicians, book of cool and all the different people talking about what they know about his card magic we are going to see a lot more of his card work which is all round world class; actually the card work he does in the film looks fantastic - just very relaxed flourishes seems to be a trait of 'magic academy bangalore'.

He was a little bit reserved, very gracefully dressed exactly as in the movie (long elegant indian robe and he shaves his head). He's obviously a sophisticated man and to tell the truth we didn't know who he was except that Ali Bongo and Alan were treating him respectfully. He didn't seem to be planning on hanging around so none of us really talked with him. Gentle man, listens really well. Somewhat glamorous maybe because we only see finger flingers at the Magic Circle!

Hope to hear more of this "the extremely cool aladin"

But go support magic and see Magicians. I promise you it is hilarious. Just don't read any reviews or the plot before you go in. I am going to see it again next week.