It's Wonderful - Life By Mike Bent

In his magic career, David Oliver was known for mentoring and unfailingly helping others. When he was diagnosed with a fatal lung disease stemming from his many years of performing with birds, the magic community returned the favors, helping David beat the odds with a double lung transplant.

Don't Trust Andrew Mayne By Rory Johnston

When magician and trick inventor Andrew Mayne takes to the streets, peculiar things happen — sometimes just puzzling, sometimes teaching a victim a lesson, and all captured on a new A&E television series.

Harry Monti: Conjuring, Cups, and Castle By Randy Kalin and Alan Howard

Last November, Harry Monti set a record unlikely to be beaten: performing at the Magic Castle every year for the past half-century. And that's just one of the many accomplishments of this magician, escape artist, and creator of enduring magic props.

Snapshots of History By Stan Allen

Every two years, the Los Angeles Conference on Magic History is held by invitation only. The 2013 edition featured another enviable display of classic magic and scholarly presentations.


Gary Peterson, Making His Case By Rory Johnston

After leaving a career in magic to become one of the world's leading builders of shipping cases, Gary Peterson returned to his performance roots by creating his own theater within his manufacturing plant and warehouse.

Plus Updates on…

• Play Dead in California
  
• The new Cardini display at the Magic Castle
  
• The International Magic Convention in London
  
• An interview with Wayne Houchin, one year after his burning incident
  
• Lawrence and Priscilla Khong's Vision show
  
• Performance news on Justin Willman, Mac King, and Criss Angel
  
• Remembrances of Parker Swan and Roland Hill
• 
  

Bonus Content in MAGIC Plus…

• Video teaser of Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne on A&E
  
• Additional photos of the Cardini display, the International Magic Convention, and Vision.
  
• Jason England's videos on "In One: David Solomon"
  
• Convention Podcast: Abbott's Close-up Convention
• 
  

Marketplace Edited by Gabe Fajuri
Fifteen products are reviewed this month by Gabe Fajuri, Peter Duffie, Jared Brandon Kopf, Francis Menotti, Arthur Trace

Japan Ingenious: A Compendium by Steve Cohen and Richard Kaufman
Tick Tock by Sean Goodman
Intercessor 2.0 by Gaëtan Bloom
Sneak Peek by Spidey
Circuit by Zach Heath
The Carey Collection Vols. 1 & 2 by John Carey
The Magic Apple Live! by Brent Arthur James Geris
Greater Magic by John Northern Hilliard
L&D by Lennart Green and Dani DaOrtiz
Invisible Magic by Dr. Simon J. Carmel
Clarity Box by David Regal
Seventeen Secrets from the Hat & Rabbit Club vols. 1 & 2 by IBM Ring 17
The Eden Project by G. Clarke
Rosepad by Martin Lewis
The Lookout Wallet by Paul Carnazzo

In One
David Solomon

Over the past five years, David Solomon has published 55 monthly installments of his e-zine, the Card Magic Bulletin, and his name has been a prominent one in the realm of card magic for much longer than that. The four effects in MAGIC Magazine this month follow typify David's brand of card magic: classic effects that are direct and easy to follow, but each one reworked with well-considered and subtle touches that will not only take in anyone "in the know," but will deeply fool those who are not.

Loving Mentalism By Ian Rowland
Vision in Gold

A familiar plot with a very unfamiliar ending is on offer this month. You scribble a prediction in pencil on the back of your business card. Three selected objects are arranged in a row. Their order is rearranged according to the audience's free choices. That's right, the audience freely chooses how to rearrange the objects. Clearly, the point of this exercise is that your written prediction will correctly name the chosen order. It's the sort of thing that could be achieved using a nail writer or similar device to "cheat" the prediction before the big reveal. This is what suspicious minds might suspect, and you encourage their suspicions. When you turn over your prediction, it becomes clear that you only pretended to write something at the start. In fact, the prediction message is preprinted on the back of the card, and embossed in gold ink. The prediction is 100 percent correct, and it's ungaffed, so you can give it away.

Bent on Deception By Mike Bent
A Fly on the Wall

The SAM Annual convention was being held in Boston in 1981, and Ray Goulet was the head honcho. A few weeks before the show, John Calvert, the convention's star attraction, came to town. He and his wife, Tammy, stayed at Ray's home, and the Magic Art Studio became their base of operations. Was I impressed? No. I had never even heard of John Calvert.

Creative Play By Tracy Atteberry & David Parr
Building Blocks

The creative process is a personal reflection of our individual quirks, habits, and preferences. What works for one person might not work for someone else. Similarly, what works well for tackling a particular creative challenge might not be well suited to working on a different one, which is probably why Stewart James developed and collected a great variety of creative tools. In the "Creative Play" series, we too have provided a variety of approaches, so you can experiment with them and use the ones you find most appealing.

Real-World Methods By Richard Hatch
Booking Referral Websites

Let's say you don't yet have a website or that your website is not yet bringing you the number and quality of leads that you'd like. This article will examine alternative booking referral websites that may prove helpful until your own website starts to bring in the leads.

Classic Correspondence from Egyptian Hall Museum By Mike Caveney
Chefalo to LeRoy

After a two-year hiatus, we now begin 24 new installments of this column with a short, handwritten note from the Italian illusionist Chefalo. Raffaele Chefalo immigrated from Italy to America in 1900. As a young man, he worked in a Boston barbershop that was conveniently located near the well-established magic shop of W.D. LeRoy. It was during this time that young Raffaele's interest in magic blossomed. It's impossible to imagine that Raffaele didn't, at the very least, become a customer of LeRoy's and quite possibly a student at his school of magic.

For What It's Worth By Mark Kornhauser
OMG! Maturity!

As it turns out, life is not fair. Childhood influences are disproportionately powerful. Kids lucky enough to be influenced by theater arts will develop an appreciation of acting, music, technology, and the meaning of the art form. Those kids have a much better start in the world of magic than that clever, hard working junior high school kid who has never seen anything other than YouTube clips, and his Uncle Morrie doing Sponge Balls.

Walkabout Soup By Simon Coronel
Performance Enhancing Drugs

Of all the things I've ever done for a magic act, furtively taking drugs in an airplane bathroom is definitely one of the most — let's say, memorable. The drugs themselves were perfectly legal, though the reason I was taking them was more of a gray area.