The New Marlo’s Magazine Reprint Is Here! And I’m Committing to It! Unboxing and Discussion

Hi, welcome to Real Magic Review. My name is Steve Falner and in this video I'm gonna unbox a book or books, very special ones, and talk about my struggle with keeping up with magic books. [Music] Before we do this, can you please like and subscribe? Check out onlinemagic.co. You got to keep up with that. You won't be able to. There's 900 plus videos, but the point is not to watch all of them. is to go in there, research, join the community, learn what you want to learn out of the card moves, rope magic moves, sponge ball course, coin magic course, mentalism, special guests, live sessions every week and it's just a great community, great Discord server as well. So have a look at that online magagic.co. Don't take my word for it. I'm banner say it's good. Uh have a look at the Trust Pilots reviews. Trust Pilot reviews, right? Oh, follow me on Instagram at Steve Falner. Listen to the podcast. Steve Funker's Magic Show soon to change its title. Spotify and Apple. Just give it a a uh a search and please review it if you will. That'd be lovely. The guests have been stunning. I'll let you find out who they are. Long form conversations, loads of waffle and lovely. So, have a look at that. Right, I've got a box of books here which I have yet to open and they are if I put them back out the Marlo magazine books from Vanish Inc. Now I can't really review these. I'm not going to leave it there for the whole thing because I'm going to go out of focus. The box is going to be in focus. But I'm going to go off. I'm going put it here. Where have I put me knife? So, this has really brought up a question that a few people asked me. Well, I put a little short out the other day and people I said, you know, what do you want me to talk about? I don't just want to do reviews. I love doing reviews, but I want to talk about other things. And I think I share some of the same struggles with a lot of you. I'm trying not I'm not going to cut the books. There's going to be loads of stuff in here in there to make it. But I share the same to protect it. I share the same struggles with a lot of you, which is of course, you know, look behind me. Have I read them all? Of course I haven't. Do I research? Yes. Not as much as I I would like to, but that's kind of the point. Maybe when I finally retire, which is never going to happen, I will. But we get these books and we get a a kind of anxiety about not keeping up with stuff. Same with magic tricks. We kind of think we're going to keep up with them. We don't. Then we feel guilt because we spent money on this stuff. and and oh I'm going to I'm going to cut myself lie here. So with these I really and I do I have done this before. Steve Reynolds brought out some keeps bringing out some brilliant Marlo stuff which I have watched and learned a great deal from and know Steve was coaching me so some accountability there. So he'd recommend me things and and his magazine's great. Outlook oh god I haven't got that wrong have I outpost outlook. Oh, I think it's out. Anyway, >> sorry I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry, Steve, if you end up watching this. Um, output, but I've got all of them. Output. And this isn't This has got loads of Marlo in it, but it's loads of other stuff and loads of Steve's stuff as well. So, that is Output, not Outpost or Outlook. Oh dear, that's my brain. Steve, sorry if it's um, you know, and John Rakaban stuff. Some great MO stuff. And this appeals obviously because I've got a Marlo section up there. This can't fit in there, but I just love that idea of of being able to work through these Marlo magazines. If you want to know more about them, listen to the podcast of me and Andy Gladwin. He talked about it recently. Steve Forman's magic show as I've mentioned, but you know, oh, there's a second box. This is going to be fun. Oh, how enjoyable for you. So this, you know, it's not a fake. This is real. The real deal. A proper unboxing. It could be here for about an hour. So there's box number two now that way, wouldn't it? So I really It would break my heart if I got these and didn't read. So I'm I'm really going to try and commit to this. Yeah. I'm going to try and teach some stuff out of these and I want people to learn from them and decide whether they want the books, whether it's their kind of thing. and Marlo and Vernon. You know, I've probably meant read more Vernon than I have Marlo. And and to be honest, where I'm at the moment, I think Marlo stuff is kind of appealing more just because of the sort of depth of it. And I I kind of been thinking about what it is about magic books. Now, when we buy stuff from from anywhere, from Amazon, you know, we so many of us have that thing where we buy too much. We we get addicted to that thing of something arriving in the post. The excitement of it, the hope that it brings and of course, you know, getting down to the nitty-gritty, the dopamine hit that we all get. That's a big part of it. It kind of gives us a little hit of dopamine. We get addicted to it. Goes on the shelf and it's that moment that we want. But with this, I don't want it to be a moment. I don't want it just to be this unboxing and and for it to be an ornament. All right? It's too, you know, it's too nice for that. There's too much in it. So, I don't know when I'm opening it yet. I could be here for a long time, like I said. So, this I'm kind of doing this, I think, for a bit of a commitment to say, you know, I'm not going to read the every single word and learn everything out of it. You know, I won't be alive for long enough, but I want to teach some stuff out of it. And I don't want it to be the usual kind of crash and disappointment where I look at this thing in 3 years time and realize I haven't opened it. But why why is it that for me like what is this thing about magic books? It's different to other books. I still love getting other books but it's different. Part of it I think is a psychological thing. They tend to be more expensive. That isn't it of course but we've invested a bit more in them. And it's not just about money. It's about you know how we get that money. What we spend our time doing to get that money and we've used that to get this thing. But also, I remember my first magic books that I bought and when I became a magician, I'd learned a couple of things that I didn't know you could buy. I'm so worried about I'm going to have to turn it upside down. Let me get up. When I started learning magic moves, I learned a couple of really nice things and I thought, "Wow, they're brilliant. I wonder if there's more of this kind of thing." I learned a coin vanish that someone taught me and you know a couple of card things that I've probably done awfully. Here we go. We're ready to go in a minute. And and someone said, "Oh yeah, you can get magic." And I went into a magic shop. Actually worked in one in Australia, but they didn't have loads of books. But then when I got back, I went to Davenport's and um International Magic. And I couldn't believe they didn't have that many books. They didn't have as many as that, but I couldn't believe there was a hole. I remember looking behind the the thing and they had uh Dave Ruff's what I now know is they used to mention Dave Roth and this was Dave Ruff coin magic book. It was it was the main book which I'm I always get it mixed up with the name of expert card. It's not expert coin magic, is it? It's Oh, it is expert coin magic. Um and I thought a whole book a whole book of of what can you do, you know? And it it was so exciting it could do that much. And then with card magic, even a whole book on card magic and the fact there were books and books and books and I remember getting the obviously the royal role and things like that which was also very exciting. And I remember getting the books of wonder. Jerry Celit um did sold them to me. Not I didn't know him or anything, but I was kind of freaked out cuz I didn't know he's a magician. I went into international magic and there he was. And I said, "Can you recommend any books?" again and I went back and I read them and they were so advanced for me. I I couldn't I sort of knew they were good and I got a lot from them but I it was it was overwhelming. I thought I thought he's going to you know teach me a couple of car tricks but I think every time I get a magic book I relived that feeling. I relive that feeling of the hope and the the what the knowledge and it's like any hobby isn't it? you know, you get that inst, you know, it's just full of things that will if you were to embibe it, which is probably the wrong word. You would be such a better magician, not just with the knowledge, but with the skill you practice. And and it's always that and the fact that something like this has so much is so intoxicating to me. The fact I can open this and it doesn't matter whether I'm going to use it in a gig or use it in a trick, I will learn something I didn't know before. And for those of us that are, you know, really into learning magic, I think what we're really into doing is learning. and magic is so endless. It it fulfills that thing, but also kind of adds a a kind of hopelessness to it because we're never going to reach anything. You know, we're going to get better. And and I think that's also comforting in a way. There's lots of paradox here for me. There's a comforting that actually there's no goal really other than I'm going to learn this trick, which I can probably do, but that's not going to be the end of it. It's just going to keep going. And like the magic books I get, like the reading I do, that's going to keep going. But I really I'm 52. I was 52 last week, a couple of weeks ago. And I really want to go on. This why I'm shooting this video so late at night. I just seem to be so busy with the things I don't really want to do. I'm happy to do, but I want to just spend time doing the things that really bring me joy. And I forget how much joy they bring me when I don't do it for a while. So, if you haven't picked up a magic book for a while, pick it up. I did this with a Simon Harrison book the other day. My friend Tommy who's a member of the course recommended I look at the undo influence stuff which I'd seen Joshua Day Jay perform Joshua Day that's his brother um of the session and really blew me away and it's pretty much selfworking I spent half an hour of it the other day an hour later performed it performed demonstrated for members of my own family which that dutifully and patiently who I did it and were by the way really blown away and I've kind of forgotten what that feels like I have talked about this before so this is what We have I've not looked at these at all. I've never seen them in in I've not been to any conventions. So Oh my god. So what you're going to see is me break my wrist. So that in itself now if that was a box with nothing in it, it would be pretty cuz people say it's not about the packaging, but it's not about the packaging. It's the psychology of knowing what's in the packaging that makes it so beautiful. You know, we wouldn't buy a a MacBook Pro box knowing there was a MacBook Pro in it just to open it, would we? There's a lot going on. So, this is lovely. And and there is a feeling of, you know, I know Andy, like Steve, Andy is very passionate about Marlo and there's definitely a feeling of respect in this. And oh no, I don't feel weird turning it upside down, but I think I have to because Yeah, I'm going have to. So, if I if if by the way, if there's anything wrong with these, it's it's a rarity cuz people imagine me unboxing it and they're all knackered. So, right. Oh my gosh. I didn't think I thought they were going to be like this big. Oh, I haven't put the hair light on. That's very unprofessional, isn't it? I'm going to put that on, actually. Uh, I thought they were going to be Oh, mate. There you go. Let's do that. Now I'm going to be too bright probably. That's better, isn't it? Probably. I thought they were going to be this big. Tel big, but they're not. They're big. They're big. So, I'm doing that with a knife. So, these deserve, you know, if you bought these and they go on the shelf or you've got any, but just pick them up and don't think you've got sometimes that's too daunting in it. We've got so much to learn. But, please let my mic be on. Um, but you haven't, you know, you haven't got to learn everything. It's not something to overcome. It's not a mountain to climb. It is something that you can delve into. And if it brings, look at this. If it brings you joy even for a moment for I mean it's bringing me joy at the moment just to and you know let me finish what I'm saying cuz I never do if it brings you joy for a moment for 10 minutes to 5 minutes that's a gift all right that's not oh it wasn't an hour it wasn't 2 hours it wasn't 5 hours I didn't have a whiskey and a cigar all that you know don't worry about that it's and there's a beauty to this and we forget this right This to me is art. And I know that sounds like it's not art. You know, it's it's mass-produced. I don't mean it like that, but it has art on it. It has art within it. And there is an aesthetic to books that brings me something that a lot of the time, you know, classic art doesn't. Yes, I appreciate it, but this makes me feel something. I used to go into Water St. It was called Dillan's before that, the bookshop when I was a teenager, and I loved reading horror books. I used to go in every lunchtime from college and just look at the books. I used to look at the books. I wasn't going to buy them, but the I just used to look at them and think, "What's in there? What are all these stories?" And I still feel that bit. So, let's pull the fourth one out. I mean, it's just stunning. I mean, these are really, you know, gone overboard, aren't they? and and importantly the font. Put the glasses on to show you. I'll just pretend obviously properly um it's all very readable. It's it it's presented in a way as a lot of the other Mara books I've got in a way that has you know I struggle with the kind of serif that's say it serif fonts the typewriter I really struggle with them. There's something about them that I find hard to read and this just looks beautiful. So, I'm not going to do overheads and stuff like that, but you know, I might cut something in, but if I don't, forgive me. Um, but I'm just I'm overwhelmed with how good these are. I have not I promise you, as you can see, they've not been pre-op. I haven't seen them. I haven't seen them at all. I haven't held them. I haven't even really watched that many videos. I didn't want to. I don't watch any actually. I've just seen a picture of them. But, man, what what a thing to spend time with. So there it is. Hopefully more than an unboxing. If you do struggle this stuff, and I know it's first world problems. When I say struggle, I mean that with perspective. All right? There are worse things to deal with. I'm demon worse things now and and they're not even that bad. So, but we got to respect the things that frustrate us and try and iron them out to make us happy people in a very troubled world. than I think to escape into a book or into a trick or into a movie or into something like that isn't to be sort of cast off as just a silly hobby or anything like that. It's why we do what we do. So, we have those moments. We work so hard. So, we have those moments to just sit and be with whatever we do that other people might not understand and um and bring us those moments of happiness or elongated times of happiness. And then if we perform them, that's another thing, but it's not necessarily better. So, for the hobbyists and the professionals out there, um I I'm going to really try and commit to this to maybe demonstrate some stuff on the channel or on the course or something like that. Um and thank you Vanishing for making them. Thanks Andy for the work you've put in. I know he has cuz as I said, you can hear about this on the podcast, Steve Fner's Magic Show. Maybe soon to be called just a Steve Fner show because we're we're going to go off um to other people that aren't just magicians. Um but fascinating stuff. So check out that. Check out Steve Reynolds's releases on Marlo as well and John Rack Obama as well. You know, there's no overlap apparently, which is incredible. And now, don't quote me on that. There might be somebody watching this saying, "Well, you know, I'm not about there wasn't a thing mentioned in a thing, but apparently they complement all these things complement each other so well. And I'm I'm excited to learn." So, thank you very much. Hope that some of you got something out of that bit of a different video. Thanks for asking questions about magic books and about where you get time to practice. Things I don't at the moment, but I'm going to carve it out even if it means staying up and not being in there with my family. Um, my new family. That was a bit creepy, was it? Um, so, uh, so there you go. Uh, have a look at onlinemagic.co. I'll bang on about him on that on the live session as well. And, uh, and have a great one. Follow me on Instagram, Steve Fulner. And please like and subscribe, share, tell people about this in whatever way you'd like to. That would be lovely. Take care. See you. [Music]