You're not going to find a better teacher than Max. He explains things thoroughly, he's interesting,
funny, charismatic, and very entertaining. You will use some of the effects Max teaches AND you will
learn a lot from his thought process and conversation with Michael Weber. This is one of the best
Penguin lectures.
I have to address another review...
The review calls Q & AVM
confusing and says the directions were hard for the spectators to understand. The "AVM" in the
effect's title stands for Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral. The idea is that objects fall into one of
three general categories/kingdoms: Animal (if it is alive), Vegetable (if it grows), or Mineral (if
it isn't alive, doesn't grow and comes from the ground).
Spectators are given a card with
the name of an object and Max guesses the object after being told if it is an Animal, Vegetable, or
Mineral.
So, if you were given a card that said, "Steel" and were asked if it fell into the
general category of Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, you would say.... Mineral, right? "Goat" would
be... Animal. And here's the one that caused problems... "Rose". Rose is in the Vegetable category.
For some bizarre reason, Patrick Redford thought it was a Mineral. He mentioned that there is a Rose
Quartz. Yeah, but the card doesn't say Rose Quartz. By that "logic" you could say it's an Animal
because there's an actress named Rose McGowan.
Also, about the book test... The first
spectator didn't work out.
Max said, "I'm going to send you back to your seat with my
thanks", shook his hand, and when the spectator apologized, Max said that there was nothing to
apologize about. After the effect, Max talks about letting the first spectator go and says, "I did
so in a way that I hope didn't make you feel bad or embarrassed". And somehow another reviewer says
Max was "rude"?
The effect works perfectly with the second spectator. I thought it was
interesting to watch Max handle the entire situation. Things don't always go smoothly for me, it was
nice to see how a pro handles tough situations.
Time: 4 hours 5 minutes
Effects:
The Four Places
Ghostwriter 2
Overdose
Four-sided Triangle
Fearless (Book test)
Q & AVM
Numberskull (Similar to ACAAN)
The Grid of Life
