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Ive gotten alot of replies but i guess what im really looking for is a list of what i should buy next to improve that list i showed earlier. If you have one please put the name and beside it what web site i should go to. thanks

You would be better off starting out with: Royal road to card magic book and dvd and also j.b. bobos modern coin magic both the books are very cheap if you look around.

Lindz is right, Royal Road and Bobo are both great places to start. Also Have a look at Mark Wilson's Complete Course, another great book

Greetings to you, AJ.

What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to be a magician, or do you want to show tricks to people?

You know, my dog does tricks. People used to watch him and get quite a kick out of it. Mostly, the only tricks he does these days is falling down accidentally...He's quite old. In fact, I am trying to get my ex-wife to choose a date when we shall put him down, which will be soon. It's going to kill me. I'll cry like a little girl when it happens...I'm really not looking forward to this job.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm a human being with a life and problems. This can be said of anyone that you walk up to in an attempt to show a trick. They have lives, they have aspirations, they have school projects due, they have failing grades to explain to their parents, they have husbands and wives and pets, they have relatives in the hospital and they have funerals to attend.

When you walk up to them to show them a trick (based on your definition of "street magic") you need to judge your relationship to them, based on a great many factors that you have no idea about...Did they just get fired from their job? If so, do you think they want a 13 year old showing them a magic trick? You have to judge your spectator before you walk up to them...

But, really, you'll probably just be showing this listing of tricks that you've acquired to friends and family at this point. That is generally where we start cutting our teeth when trying to figure out just exactly where we fit into the universe as a trickster or magician. And, as we show these tricks to those closest to us, we begin to evolve and come to a closer understanding of what we are and who we are and why we do what we do.

Is your list of tricks a good one? Yes and no. The answer to that question rests firmly on your very young shoulders. I've seen the age of 13 almost 4 times over at this point in my life. I was there, but times were different. I didn't have the internet, I didn't have access to other magicians locally. What I had was my school's library (which had some beginner magic books) and the local, public library. I also had a magic shop which I got to go to once a year, or so.

You just now dropped $100.00 on a kit. Such a large amount of money was unheard of when I was 13. I was happy to have a dollar to spend on a couple of candy bars. You've made your purchase and now you're asking us which tricks are good and which are bad.

Here's a little wisdom for you: A miracle in the hands of a poor magician is a sad, little puzzle. A sad, little puzzle, in the hands of a good showman/magician is a miracle. It isn't the trick, AJ, that makes it magic, it is what you do with it and how your present it that makes it magic. It's all presentation.

Okay, that's a little general and possibly cryptic, so let's get specific.

Which of those tricks on your list do YOU like? Which one, in your imagination and your dreams, makes you the great wizard that you want to be? That's the one that you choose to learn, right now. And, you choose to learn it to 100% perfection, no chance of blowing it in front of a spectator.

By way of example, let's go with the tired, old Balducci Levitation - that most exposed of magic tricks.

Now, since you have the explanation in your book that you've received with your package that explains the levitation, I don't need to go into detail on its method. But, if you look at it, then you realize that it is very dependant on the proper angle for presenting it. This means, further, that you can't do this to a large audience, but rather a smaller group where you can control the angle and the audience.

You are 13 years old, so we'll play off of this fact. You cannot say, "In my many world-wide travells, in India I learned this trick from an old fakir..." Rather, you have to come up with something along the lines of:

"I had an uncle who travelled extensively. I only got to meet him on a few occasions, because he was always somewhere on another continent. For some reason, he took a real shine to me and taught me a few tricks that he had learned while he was in the orient. I can't promise that this will work, but if you'd like, I'll give it a try for you. Would you like to see something really out of the ordinary?"

Hopefully, they say yes.

You then go into the fact that it is dependent on the poles of the earth, as was explained to you by your uncle, and that it relies on magnetic north meeting magnetic south in a particular way. As you explain this, you set yourself up at the proper angle, all the while acting as if you are trying to get the poles sorted out just right.

When you can feel that they are just to the point of boredom and don't care anymore, you levitate. Their attention will not be as sharp as when you first started, so they won't hone in on your exact method. Directing their attention properly, let them just get a glimpse of the fact that you are levitating. Done correctly, they will be gobsmacked. Drop from your levitation and leave it at that or see if they'd like to see something else. Don't do the levitation again as they will now be watching like hawks.

If you have 3 people watching, maybe one of them didn't see it happen because they were looking away or talking to the person next to them. The two who saw it, though, will explain what they saw and that third person will go on to tell others. Later, when people tell you about what they heard, you'll find that it was much better, much more of a miracle, than you realized. People's memory is a fickle thing and we, as magicians, use that fact to become even better than we actually are...Food for thought.

So, did you waste $100.00? Presently, at this very moment in time, the answer is yes. However, if you start taking each trick that you have, giving it a presentation and getting it down to 100% perfection, as time moves on, that $100.00 will turn out to be a long term investment and not a waste.

Patience, persistance and practice are your best friends, here.

Some of those tricks won't suit your personality. Some of those you'll realize right away, others you'll actually have to work through and present to family and friends to find this out. Regardless, it will be a learning experience and therefore, not a waste of time. Some of those tricks you'll put on a shelf and, maybe, a year down the line, you'll realize that it was a little gem that you overlooked and go back to it. As you mature, what works now won't work later and what doesn't work now will work later. Patience, persistance and practice.

What you don't want to do is take this deluge of tricks that you've bought, put a few minutes into them and start showing them. You will get caught, it will feel bad and you won't want to do magic anymore. That's bad. Take your time - you are 13, Little Brother you've got a LOT of time. Patience. Persistance. Practice.

Give each item in your repertoire the time and effort that it deserves. Give it a presentation, a story, a premise - a reason for being. When a trick has a reason for being, it becomes magic. When magic has no reason for being, it is a trick, a puzzle and nothing more.

Best wishes to you in the road that you have ahead. You can make it mean something, or you can be a trickster with no reason for being other than to show a barrage of puzzles to the bored masses. The choice is yours to make.

Make the right choice.

Mike.

for all that money I would have bought royal road to card magic ( 7.99 ), Bobos Modern coin magic ( 7.99 ) and Mark Wilsons complete course in LOTS of magic ( 10.99 )

And the other £70 Id have took to the nearest pub and got wasted in celebration of having the 3 best books about to be shipped to my address..

Thanks alot micheal that just helped out alot I will keep that in my mind always.