John Carney’s ‘The Book of Secrets’ and other unplanned bumbling.

Right, oh, let me have a cup of tea over there. I'm gonna have to go and get it, but it's all right, there's no one here. And, oh, look what I've done, this is terrible. God, talk about unplanned, I had the wrong mic ready. Hang on, about there. It is four o'clock, it's, yeah, see you again. Happy New Year, everyone. Blimey, that was a bit full on, wasn't it? Just sort of getting it together now after all that. I hope everybody's been well. Thanks for all the lovely messages. I did a New Year message thing last week and got some really, really lovely comments. I will look at some of those comments in a minute. See if anybody turns up. Ooh, got a couple of people now. And yeah, I hope you all had a good one. I hope you got some cool stuff. Lots of people saying different books they got. A lot of people, I think, got Pure Imagination, which is really cool. Happy New Year, Billy. I hope you had a great one. And I'm gonna talk about a book in a minute because I got a message on Instagram today and I always forget to mention me Instagram. I want to try and do more Instagram just to like it, the visual stuff on it. Samuel, will you be coming to Blackpool? Yeah, I am, I am coming to Blackpool. And do you know what? I'm not, I went to Blackpool last year and did one day because that's all I could do because I had the kids and I haven't got the kids this year for the first time ever. So good to see you this year, Steve. Well, nice one, Will. And I am gonna be at Blackpool for the whole thing. So I'm really looking forward to it. I am gonna be kind of working-ish. I think I'm gonna do some videos like I did last time. I did a video from there, but I did that afterwards. I'm gonna try and do one every day. I'm gonna be at the session and I'm gonna be doing videos, definitely doing videos every day there. So I'll be doing them in the morning and posting them and reporting back on every day at the session next week. Again, I'm really excited about it. I've got a really full-on one because I've got a gig the night before, I've got the session, and then I'm flying from Heathrow to Norway. Doesn't it sound like I'm jet-setting? Hopefully catch you there. Get a drink, say thanks for the vids. Yay, save me countless cash on purchases. Thanks, I hope I did. That's why I do it, yay. So yeah, I'm going to Norway. So next week's gonna be from, other than the session ones, it's gonna be from Norway. I could do the session ones live, couldn't I? So I don't know what time it'll be next week. So I'll keep posted on the, I'll put posts out on the thing. So I'm gonna talk about this book because I've got my Instagram, by the way, if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's just Steve Faulkner. It's a bit of a mix. I've got this Instagram account, which is cardmagiccourse.com, just cardmagiccourse. And I think, I'm not sure whether I'm keeping that because it's a bit, it kind of feels like I'm selling something. I don't want it to just be like that. I want it to be about giving stuff. So my normal Instagram account is just Steve Faulkner, Steve Faulkner. So you can follow me on there. It's a bit of personal development stuff, a lot of faff from my life, but I do put the magic stuff and will be putting more magic stuff on there in the future this year. So I'm gonna go through a couple of comments. Happy New Year from loads of you. Thank you very much. Sure I haven't answered all the comments. It has been really full on with the kids being on holiday. Someone said, Daniel said, when are you gonna post an entire performance of your act? I love the way you've put that. When are you gonna do it? Like, there's no question if I'm gonna do it. It's like, when is it? At what point are we gonna do that? Right, so I will be putting more performance footage on. I don't know about the whole act because I haven't really, I've got an act, but I've got like bits and pieces of an act. I have got some more. Remember I put the, some of you saw the footage that I did, the Venom Cube. There's some more from that show. I've got my new camera, so I will be getting more footage. I want to invest in a new mic, which means things will start looking better. I also want to invest in being able to do these live things through my camera and not my phone, but it's all money, isn't it? And I've got, I've got maybe set up a Patreon account, but if you want to support the channel, do sign up at cardmagiccourse.com because all the money from there goes back into this channel. That's what I spend it on, which is why I could invest in the camera. Nice little montage of your act. Yeah, I should edit something together. Now I'm really struggling with time to, what I want to be doing is this full time, that the goal is to, I'll be totally transparent with you. I would love to, a few vignettes, yeah. I'd love to do this full time, get more out of this channel, put more stuff on the Card Magic Course and for this to feed the Card Magic Course. So basically if people can support the channel by signing up for Card Magic Course and I can spend my time making videos for both platforms. Obviously I don't want to give secrets away on here. That's what the course is for. So it's a nice model, but I'd need to do it in a way that has integrity, isn't just selling stuff. And I have, well, pretty much the same audience on both. So if you want to support the channel, go to Card Magic Course, the more money there, the more stuff happens on the channel and one day, hopefully I'll be able to do just this and share everything I know on this channel and on the course. So, there will be more performance stuff. Andrew Short made a really lovely comment. I think you made a case for an important point. I've been in and out of magic for decades, every time I fall in love with it again. That in and out of magic thing, it happens to all of us and I think the key is to maintain motivation. It is hard to maintain motivation, even with the things that you absolutely adore. I love doing this. I love magic. I love playing with cards, but sometimes when life gets on top of you, you just have to do things to motivate yourself and to have those little hacks in place. How do you do it? For me, it's making sure I put in the diary, all those weird things that you wouldn't usually put in the diary to make sure I, when I'm not feeling like I'm still checking in with what I do. And part of starting this channel was all about keeping me active, keeping me enthused and not going into the wilderness years like I did before. So, yeah, lovely. So, new camera looks great. Thank you. Not on it now, unfortunately, but I love Richard Fairhurst. Steve, your books look a bit messy. They do, don't they? Thanks for being as OCD as me. They look proper messy. I'm gonna mess around with them because I've got a new angle in here and they're all a bit up in the air at the moment. But I'm gonna answer it on the Instagram. So it was, oh man, I forget who it was on Instagram. I'm so sorry. The book collector, magic book collector or something like that. Anyway, asked about the book of secrets. John Carney's book of secrets. And I have mentioned this on a book before, but he was saying, what is it like? And this was one of the early really good quality books I got. One of my first magic books was actually sold to me by Jerry Sadowitz in International Magic. It wasn't the first, it was the first meaty magic book. Hey, magic book collector. There you go. Sorry about that. Blink of inspiration, I'm a magic book collector. Hey, listen, good. So this was, so I got the book of wonder, books of wonder. Now they're obviously incredible, but at the point I was at magic wise, it was more about the theory than for me. I couldn't, a lot of the tricks were a bit above me. This was the recommended to me by my friend Pete Wardell. And I remember I got it and it just answered so many questions for me. It's in the same, can you read my name? Andrej Jevrenovic. No, is the answer to that. So this comes in the same camp as like the Michael Amar book of magic. Even though you've got the Mark Wilson book of magic, those books that just have a load of, like kinecopia as well, have a load of stuff in them that kind of manages to encompass so much of magic, but not be overwhelming, if you see what I mean. All kind of, you know that you can open that, this book anywhere and there'll be something worth learning in there. Even if at first blush, it looks like it, there's this trick near the end, which has a massive setup and you look at that and go, oh God, but then when you read it, it kind of makes sense. And if you're doing a stage show, it's a kind of thing. But let me just give you an example. So it starts off, and this is quite funny, with this thing rubbed away, which uses a pull. And I remember I went out to the material shop and tried to make this thing, but I didn't have a clue about, I hadn't even seen somebody use it. So I had no idea how to put it together. And that's why YouTube is so good now. I mean, I got this before there was that much on YouTube. I don't think YouTube was around, but don't let that put you off. Cause the first thing in it starts to, you know, you kind of try and make this thing up. Shows a trick. No, cause I might humiliate myself, but I will show you a thing in a moment. I might expose, I'd get done for exposure. Not that sort of exposure. Don't be silly. It's not that sort of channel. Okay. So I'm going to just highlight in this book of secrets. We've got just a cigar. Now that's a brilliant, happy new year, and this is a guy's brilliant thing with a cigar and a purse, which you get, it's really unique. You don't get, you do get these things in books now, but from John Carney, you know, it's going to be a worker. His thing on palming was one of the first things I ever read on palming. And it really helped me, there are instant collectors out there. It really helped me get the theory around palming. Because yeah, anybody can say stick a card in your hand, but to understand it, and he has this sleeve routine on it, which I thought was really nicely done. So I love reading that. My new show does that stuff. You know, you need to read stuff on palming because it isn't about just sticking a card in your hand. There's so many little subtleties. And I think palming is so powerful and he gets that across really nicely. Here is a version of the cups and balls, which she, which is called Muscade or Muscade magic, which I think that's the name of the little thing in the avocado. But he takes Vernon's routine, which I do on stage. And he condenses it, which is a really important thing to do because sometimes for some situation, that routine is just too long. Now I use that length when I perform to put into gags and stuff, which a lot of them I got from my friend, Peter Wardell and Gazzo, people like that. And so you use that space, but sometimes in a closeup situation, you want something that's a little bit streamlined and he's done that for you there. So that's a really good one to learn. First of all, and he goes through the moves as well, really nicely. The illustrations, by the way, are beautiful in here. It's really, it's really nicely put together. It's got these lovely sort of drawings. Ah, the highlights. Oh, someone said, and it was you that said, wasn't it, the Macbook Collector, the bit skeptical about the egg on fan. Now Ben Hart did this for Britain's Got Talent. The egg on fan is, and I'm glad he did that because when I first, it's funny, I first read the egg on fan in here and kind of went, yeah, right. But man, what a trick. He did it in a session as well. When you see that classic old trick done, it's real magic. You know, it's beautiful. Happy New Year once again. Happy we got there today. Hey, no worries, Victor. How you doing? He's got, there's a great coin trick, the developers, mercurial cards, a lovely color changing trick. So already you've got, that's it. You can make a career out of that, can't you? Color change routine, coin routine, cigar and, hi James. A palming, you know what I mean? That's just the first half of the book. Loads of great essays, art and magic. The Leipzig Skinner Surprise is a great thing. Let me see. Okay, I'm not going to do it because it uses misdirection this, but Leipzig Skinner Surprise is basically a chosen card. So they choose a card and then you do your business, show it's not on top. Don't you dare criticize me for this. Show it's not on the bottom. And then you show that the card like that, put it in their hand and it ends up on bottom. And obviously the angle's all wrong there, but you've just got this lovely thing where it goes from there to not being on the top, not being on the top, not being on the bottom and then putting it in their hand. So you kind of show it like that and you see it's there now. I hope that's not exposing too much. We're all magicians, aren't we? If you're not a magician and you're watching this, Jesus get a life, you know? So that's basically a really, and that's, so what's the other book you would trade it for? Yeah. So you look at that, a peak, it's a lot of, people don't do this trick. I do this in closeup. A peak, show it's not anywhere and then all of a sudden you show the card on the bottom as it goes in their hand. It's in their hand and they lift it up and it's right there. And there's three phases to that routine. Now that, it's kind of a routine that a lot of people know, but a lot of people don't do because they feel like it's not going to play really strongly. It really does play really strongly. Obviously you wouldn't be looking up like you are at the moment and my hands, it all happens kind of down here. And there's a great thing where it looks like it's going through your hand afterwards. And if anybody comments saying you expose a trick, I know, don't matter. We're all friends together. Classic pass and other myths. Off the vine is this really nice routine where they, with grapes. So you've almost got like, it's almost like a corn routine with grapes. We end up eating one and it's quite funny. Just really good stuff. He's got a thing about all the, is my Paul Daniels magic wallet working? Mop slip, multiple shift routine. Swing blade is great. It's the, it's a paddle trick with a knife. And so, you know, it's a classic thing with bits of tissue, but really, really strong. Now, and the thing, and the thimble routine. I love a thimble routine. I'm sorry. I do. Ever since I saw Shooter Gal, I do that thimble routine. I don't care who you are. It's so magical. I don't care whether thimbles look ridiculous. They do look absolutely ridiculous, but it's just really, really lovely. Goes for around $200 on auction websites, this book, apparently. Right. That's the case. But, I, I got a feeling that a lot of people are going to be starting to reprint these books. They've got to. I mean, I don't really see why they don't, because there's such a, there's such a sort of need for them, a want for them. You know that if they reprint them, they're going to, they're going to do, I don't know whether it's the right thing. I don't know why, but it's, it's quite unusual. I think that I get the books go out of print, but I don't really know why they stay out of print. You know, I always think of Sonata, Tamarix. There's got to be a reason. But, but surely if that gets reprinted, it's just, it's literally going to fall off the shelves, isn't it? They're not going to worry about selling it. So I don't know why. I wonder if reprinting two books. Yeah. Again, Darren Brown books. I don't know with him, because it's a bit different, isn't it? Because he's got such a, he's so famous, that I don't know whether there's a clash with reprinting that. I don't know. Yeah, it's always gutted when you pay that money and they reprint it the next day. this is my magic group in St. Louis. I hope they join in. Thank you. James, I hope they do as well. I'd love to come out there. If you want me to lecture in America, you want to pay me to go out there, that'd be great. So I suppose that's, you know, it's not really review. It's just me looking through it, isn't it? But, and I know some of you can't get it, but you might know someone with it. And you, you know, just to borrow a book and have a look through, is, is worth doing, isn't it? So, I won't lend it, yeah. Cause a lot of times I've lent books and forgot who they've come from. but yeah, but the point is, I had to read through this beforehand. And again, I'm banging about this forever. There is something really different about reading a book. There's something different about that learning process. I know that, I know people say, I don't know very well from books. I'm shocking at learning from books. It's a skill. It's a different kind of skill. It's, you learn, you start doing it, you get better and better at it. And I've been, again, learning some lovely stuff recently. And I tend to, it tends to stick more when I learn from books. so yeah, I hope, well I hope that was useful. That around what we got? Most of the magic effects, this book are inside the master session DVD set. There you go. Glad you said that. Just by magic, et cetera. Yeah, this is really good. This is a really nice, and I'm glad I got this. It is sort of very studio based and it's got that thing sometimes that is sometimes a little bit awkward that you have John Carney doing a trick to one person. It's always weird, isn't it? Doing a trick to one person. I don't know where I've done it on my thing, but you kind of ideally want a group of people, but it's a lot that, yeah, those routines were just mentioned. They're all in there. So you can see them done and the tutorials are great. And John Carney is a great teacher, isn't he? So I presume you can still get that. That doesn't go out of print, does it? It's a file, isn't it? On a disc. So have a look at that. If you haven't got there, the book of secrets. Good point. Thanks a lot. Right. So let's see if we've got any, see if there's any comments. I guess a lot of people, happy new year. Thank you very much. Like your philosophical ramblings. Thanks very much. I think that's it. I think we'll knock it on the head now. Please don't just want to see me sort of, I will hopefully at one point these, these live things will be looked at a lot better. Since you're talking about books, what do you think of drawing room deceptions? If you have it, I do have it. Shall I move? Hang on. I'm going to try and reach it. I've got, I can, I can with the mic. Drawing room deceptions. With the same kind of cover. So it looks good on the, on the shelf. Well, it's Guy Hollingworth. It's great. You know, but you've just got, I was talking to someone the other day that I do. Now I'm very, when I get into something, whether it's photography or anything, I always try and learn the really hard stuff. So I don't, I can do anything. And actually that can be, but I, and somebody I was talking to, was learning Waving the Aces from here. DVDs easier to learn from the books? No, I think books are easier. They take more work, but they're easier. Books that I'm looking forward trying to get? Yes. I want the code. That's what I want. And loads more, but that's one that I really want to read. The Fennec one. So in answer to this question, drawing room deceptions is brilliant. It's things like Waving the Aces, which my friend Alec was trying to learn and he said he started getting it, but I found that really difficult because the way the cards are. I think it's a good one to read. I think, I haven't tried anything yet. It's that sort of book. You won't sort of get something out of it and take it straight out and do it. I mean, the Triumph and stuff in there is brilliant. Really, really lovely, well-written book. But I think you'll probably get more commercial stuff because John Carney takes those classics, as does Guy Honingworth really, but takes those classics and makes them workable. and that's it. And my first book was, my first ever book. It was the Australian Magician's Handbook, which I talked about before, which is a really good book. Oh man, where is it? I'm never going to find it because I'll go and find it. There it is. Right, so this, when I was in Australia, when I first tried, when I first saw magic, live, close-up magic, when I worked in this little magic and juggling shop, I've given this book, close-up Australian Magician's Handbook and it's lovely. It's a lovely, lovely book. It's a little bit like the Henry Hay thing. Is that what it's called? The Amateur Magician's Handbook. It's just great. It's got loads of little workers in it and it's a bit like, it's got a Midas Dream in it, as does the Carney book, but so it's, yeah. First ever book I got. And I'm thinking about putting together a course on the Royal Road to Card Magic on my Card Magic course. So there you go, because that's obviously one of the first ones I've got as well. Listen, 20 minutes. You guys, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Check out cardmagiccourse.com. Go and have a look at it. Please like and subscribe. If you share this, that would be absolutely lovely. And so, well, one more thing. Someone did mention, which was a good point. They said, you ask us to share it on our social media, but what about if we, Strong Magic, great. It's brilliant. What if we want to share it on a normal, do you know, we can't really share it on normal pages for non-magicians. Well, do you know what? I'd sort of, whenever I do that and I share something for magicians on, I just put magicians only or put this is for magicians. Not because I'm worried about, I don't really mind if normal people see this, but they're going to get bored after a minute and not watch it. So I'm not really that worried about it. But on things you're looking forward to at Blackpool, a buyer's guide sort of thing. If I do, I am going to Blackpool, but if I do videos from there, I think I'll do it in real time because I think a lot of the things I won't see until I'm there. But I will be, yeah, I'll be doing recommendations and things like that. And hopefully I'll pick up some stuff to review. I do host leadership seminars. So have a look at leadwithsteve.com for that. All right, everyone. Thanks so much. Have a great one. See you next Monday. And I might even be in before that. I came in too late. No worries, Paul. Have a look at it. It's just my usual rambles. It's probably, well, any of them, they're all the same, aren't they? Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.