Presale price: Rory Adams – Magic for the Rest of Us

Description

Hopefully you can tell that I’m sincere about this.

With that out of the way, let me tell you about Rory and why this book matters…

Rory Adams has spent a decade writing and producing magic tricks for magicians like Justin Willman, Dynamo, and Neil Patrick Harris and consulting for TV personalities like Gordon Ramsay. Over the last few years he’s also built the popular magic newsletter One Ahead.

Basically—Rory ‘gets’ magic better than most anyone I know.

Now, based on a decade of writing for famous magicians, Rory decided to write his definitive book on magic.

Here’s what Rory said about it:

“Almost all of the core pillars of magic put in place by magic societies and magic companies will only hold you back as a performer.

Big-name magicians find success, connect with audiences, perform brilliant magic, and make a lot of money because they ignore the rules we’re all supposed to follow.

To mark the end of ten years in TV magic, I’ve written a book.

Not just “a” magic book.

It’s “the” magic book.

It’s the one book that will cover everything I know and can share to help improve the magic of professional hobbyists.

The book will serve as my total contribution to magic.”

The 225-page large hardback book includes ten tutorials and ten essays that debunk the ten biggest misconceptions most magicians have about magic, along with sharing ten of Rory’s best effects.

I won’t reveal all of the essay topics, as I think trying to quickly summarise them would do an injustice to the depth of thought Rory has put into them…

…but I will say that they have genuinely changed the way that I see, perform and talk about magic.

A quick example:

I always used to stick to classic lines like ‘a magician never reveals his secrets’ or ‘a magician never does the same trick twice’ when interacting with people, but ever since reading essay 8 and 10 I’ve either stopped or thought twice about using these lines—and I feel so much better about my magic as a result.

This is just one example of the impact that Rory has had on me, and I’m confident that if you read these essays—even if you disagree with his conclusions—the depth and care with which you approach your magic will grow.

What about the effects?

There are ten effects. I’ll give a quick summary of what each looks like along with my thoughts on it:

1. Word Prediction

You sit down with a few friends and have each friend think of a word. You write down three predictions and each prediction is correct.

As Rory writes, “If you could read minds, you would of course ask someone to think of a word and be instantly able to write it down.” That’s the effect this method allows you to achieve.

This method uses a clever structure and classic method along with an unorthodox technique that might surprise some readers.

It’s not 100% impromptu but the preparation isn’t much.

2. Open Prediction

You place a red-backed card face down on the table. In a blue backed deck your spectator freely names any card they see. Whatever card they name, you cut it to the top and display it has a blue back. You pick up and hand the red backed card to the spectator who turns it over to see that it matches the card they named.

This is a great method that reminds me of Paul Curry’s ‘Touch’. I love direct open predictions, and that’s what Rory’s achieved here.

If I had the deck set-up, I would 100% perform this. I’m a bit lazy when it comes to setting stuff like this up though so not sure how often that would happen.

3. Easy Transposition

The spectator picks up the deck and cuts anywhere they like. After you instruct them to look at their chosen card and remember it, the cards are replaced and the deck squared.

When the spectator spreads the cards again, their chosen card has vanished from the deck—reappearing in the card box.

The whole trick is performed without you ever touching the cards.

I like the idea of effects that are 100% ‘hands off’ during performance, but often those tricks suffer from being too procedural or just not that impactful. This effect doesn’t have any of those weaknesses. It’s very solid.

You won’t be able to perform this with any deck, but once you’ve set up for it you can use it as many times as you like.

4. The Refilling Drink

You hold a transparent cup of orange juice up. It’s almost empty, and you even drink some from the straw to show it’s real. Then the cup suddenly and magically refills itself to the brim.

I LOVED reading this effect because it’s so different from the kind of magic I usually perform. I had absolutely no idea about the method and even reading the description completely fooled me.

To be clear, this trick is designed for social media or video. It might work in person but that will probably depend on the environment and I wouldn’t want to guarantee that.

5. Coin through T-Shirt

You take a borrowed coin and place it under your T-Shirt, using your other hand to pinch it in place. You can even see the outline of the coin beneath the fabric. Then, with a click of your fingers the coin visually melts through the T-Shirt.

As Rory says, this trick is “highly visual and surprising and should be performed by more magicians.”

It’s pure sleight of hand but not anything too challenging. This is also the trick that Rory performs the most.

6. Cutting Tens

You borrow a deck of cards and explain that card cheats are experts at cutting the deck to an exact location. You ask your friends to try to cut ten from the top of the deck. One at a time they try but appear to fail to cut exactly ten cards off the top of the deck.

Then you turn over the top card of their packets to reveal that all four spectators are holding tens—which is what you were really asking for.

This is an incredibly easy trick but I’m being totally honest when I say it has become my new ‘go-to’ effect when I’m out and about and someone asks to see a card trick. People love it and it’s laughably simple.

(I’ve used it twice in the last week alone.)

I perform it slightly differently to how Rory teaches it, but if you purchase through our link below and send me proof of your order ([email protected]) I’ll explain the additional handling I added that I think makes it even more deceptive.

7. Tell a Lie

In a parlour setting you invite around five people to come and help you. You shuffle and hand out cards that either say ‘TRUTH’ or ‘LIE’ on them, instructing the spectators to keep their role secret. You ask questions and based on their response, decide if they’re telling the truth or lying.

All but one of the cards are ‘LIE’ cards, so one by one you eliminate players until you are left with the final two players.

You have them shuffle their cards again and redistribute them, again instructing them to keep their role secret. This time you ask questions and tell them just to answer in their head.

Somehow you’re still able to correctly guess who the truth-teller is among all this.

This is a nice routine that, as Rory points out, is designed to play well for a big group where people will get a kick out of watching people try to answer the questions you ask them, especially if they know the volunteers.

It’s more of an entertainment piece with a magic twist, but I think that’s exactly the point.

8. Linking Rubber Bands

You wrap one rubber band around your thumb to the end of your finger, creating a rubber band gun. You hold the other rubber band free. Suddenly, you release the rubber band gun and it appears to fly directly into the other band. Miraculously, the two bands have impossibly linked together.

A picture tells a thousand words, so let me help out anyone who couldn’t visualise that:

 

This requires a little bit of preparation but I think it’s well worth it. It’s rare that I see rubber band effects that stand out from all the other band effects out there, but I think the premise for this one is so unique and visual.

9. Invisible Bullet Catch

You give an invisible gun to a spectator along with an invisible bullet. To the audience’s amusement, you scold the spectator for their poor gun safety, especially when you ask them to check there’s only one bullet in the gun.

You ask another spectator to name any number from 1-100, which you then ask the first spectator to write on the imaginary bullet using your pen. You take the pen back and draw a simple target on your palm. The spectator fires the imaginary gun your way and you close your hand, opening it to reveal a real bullet with the chosen number written on it.

I like what Rory’s done here. I personally wouldn’t condone performing a bullet catch routine with a real gun, no matter how safe the method is—but using an imaginary gun is an elegant solution and also results in a great effect.

10. Any Book Book Test ‘Steno’

While Cutting Tens is the effect that I’ve really taken and ran with from this book, this is the effect that dropped my jaw when I read it.

Imagine this:

You have a couple of friends over for dinner. They ask to see a trick. You tell them to pick any book from your bookshelf, which they do. They then name any page number and look at the first word they see on that page. You type a prediction into your notes app and then place the phone down.

When they reveal their chosen word, you turn the phone over to show it’s exactly what you predicted.

This method doesn’t require any special apps, and the spectator really can pick any book and any page. There are no extra steps hidden from the effect description—it really is that clean.

It will take some preparation before you’re ready to perform this, but once that work is done, the actual effect will be incredibly easy to perform and can be done at a moments notice.

Those are all the effects in the book.

A final word:

Rory Adams is one of my favorite writers. There aren’t many newsletters that I actively seek out, but I do for Rory.

His writing is insightful, funny and always somehow takes your expectations and turns them upside down.

Magic for the Rest of Us is my favorite work of his yet.