What does everyone think of this book? I found out about through Eugene Burger's essay, Editing Our Scripts.

Cheers,
mackmania

I wouldn't part with my copy. It's Hermetic Press. It's Robert E. Neale. The selection is diverse, literary and practical.

I second the nod. It's a firestarter of ideas. IMHO

Doug

This one is a great book for give you ideas in develop yourself patter, I really like the material of Robert Neale.

Love the book! Isn't there another book along this lines by Neale...Tricks of the Imagination? I know I borrowed one and bought one...and loved both. Lots of great ideas!

Margarette

Well, allow me to dissent...

It's OK if you like that sort of thing. But frankly, much of the magic is rather lame. Yes I KNOW, if you're into story tricks and bizarre stuff etc etc then you'll have much more patience with this than I did.

But I haven't performed anything from this. It left me rather cold, as the magic does not match the build-up of the stories, IMO.

I have a copy for sale. VGC...

It all depends on how you present the stories. This book is NOT only about effects, it is about stories combined with effetcs. Normally you don´t buy the book only because of the effects..... This is the reason why I think the regular cardshark is not the target for this book.

Magixx

I think the posts above that suggest this book as a source of ideas are right on the mark. As is the comment by ross welford. These presentations are tailored for Robert Neale (no surprize there); for anyone else to do them as described would be a mistake, unless you have the same persona and style as Neale. I also found that many of the effects just did not support the significance given to them by the presentations. One trick, with the holocaust theme, I would never dream of performing. For me it borders on extremely bad taste. I think he totally misjudged the appropriateness of that presentation.
Dale Hoyt

Perhaps RObert Neale can present these things brilliantly.

Perhaps.

But I've seen Eugene Burger do the one with the grave stones: it's on one of his bizarre journeys tapes. And it drags and drags and has a "so what" ending. AND I'm a Eugene fan, so goodness knows how the rest of us would cope...

The story weaves the magic, the trick is secondary. The story makes the audience care. It creates an emotional response that no trick can equal no matter how good it is. The example that comes to mind is the "Tear" routine from "Tricks of the imagination". A trick as simple and unimpressive as "Ruperts pearls", touches the heart of the listener. That's real magic!

I suppose this is an illustration of the old Latin phrase: "De gustibus non est disputandum." (There's no accounting for tastes.) I have performed Bob Neale's "The Last Dream" (The Magic Mirror, Hermetic Press, 2002) hundreds of times in my Halloween show, and the ending has never failed to elicit a vocal response from the audience -- and the response was never "So what."

Life, Death and Other Card Tricks is highly recommended. There is of course material in it that is not in line with my style of performance. Nevertheless, there is such a wealth of effects and presentations, and Bob draws inspiration from such a vast variety of sources -- everything from Zen parables to the tales of Edgar Allan Poe -- that I find interesting ideas whenever I browse the pages of that book. If someone is willing to part with his copy, I'd suggest you grab it!

I thought that the magic was poor. I even thought about throwing the book away! I have it somewhere.

Maybe I should look at it again and use the patter with effects that I already do. I guess I better go find it and give it one more try before I toss it in the trash can.

Ray

I got the book when I was new in Magic. It gave me ideas and examples on how to structure a effect with a story. It help me to go past,the "see this, watch this and wasn't that great" type of presentations. The tricks may not fit or be what you are looking for but read beyond the tricks. Also some of what is in the book may not fit your persona. A great help in developing story magic and making magic mean something, beyond the "fooled you" concept.


Craig

Q.E.D.


May I suggest that rather than throwing the book away, you give the book to someone who might appreciate it -- say, mackmania?

Actually, if you want to throw it away - I'll take it

I don't actually own the book, but it's something that I've been seriously considering getting. At his lecture, Eugene Burger performed an effect called 13 for Dinner (at least that's what I think it was called) that I later learned was from that book. I really enjoyed the way the Six Card Repeat was presented through that presentation. Maybe someone here who has it could tell me how the other effects in the book relate to that one, presentation-wise?

Huge fan of this book. Even if you never perform one piece from it but pay attention to its lessons, it can still improve your magic.

E-inc, the effect you describe is Bob's "Thirteen at Table." As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a wide range of thematic territory covered in the book, inspired by diverse sources in literature, folklore and elsewhere. The tone of the material runs the gamut from light to dark -- some of it is funny, some of it is philosophical, and some of it is rather macabre, as in Bob's presentation for Six Card Repeat.

That was one of the worst magic books I ever bought in my life. I couldn't imagine torturing a lay audience with the crap in that book nor could I imagine sitting through it as a spectator. I would probably end up shooting someone - possibly the magician.

I'm surprised that anyone would not find someting of interest in Robert Neal's book, if only as a way of stimulating the the mind to conjure up some new presentational ideas. While I agree that some of the material may only find favour with a few I found many of the presentational frames to be highly memorable which has to be an asset in contrast to the more usual expository 'patter' favoured in much of magic.For those interested may I suggest Pentalogy by R. Shane as another book well worth studying (it is packed with novel presentations..... I haven't been able to put the thing down for days!!)