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The Times Supplement 16th. July 2012. 'IN SEARCH OF THE NEXT HOUDINI'.

In the 2 page article by Damian Whitworth, on magicians at FISM, there is a section by Alex Stone on how he totally messed up his Act, through nerves?? at the 2006 FISM.

He tells of dropping a silver Dollar; picking it up to ' vanish it with a retention pass-a false transfer that exploits an intrinsic lag in the brain's visual frame rate.'
'Ditching the coin in a 'topit', a pouch sewn in the lining of my coat. It's said that the magician's best friend is a good tailor and I sent my coat to a seamstress who specialised in fabric manipulation for magicians.'
'I pulled out a deck of cards. I was supposed to give them a false shuffle that leaves the order of the cards unchanged'.
'My hand stole beneath the table again, a few beats later; this time to grab a secret duplicate card on my chair'.
'This was supposed to be a sneaky deck switch but it fooled no one'.

'Next thing I knew the judge was waving for me to stop--' That will be all', he said flatly.'

'Nothing compares to the disgrace of being red-lighted in the middle of your act'.

And all this is from a book he wrote --now obtainable at a discounted price!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I would really like to know--even back in 2006--Why Mr. Stone thought he was good enough to enter a FISM Competition??????

Allen Tipton

... and indeed why the people that put him forward thought so too...?

Also, we're constantly told not to be precious about the 'secret', that the 'secret' doesn't matter, it's all about the performance etc. What gives? (in reference to your thread title)

His book, Fooling Houdini, received a not so favourable, and extremely funny, review by the great Ricky Jay.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87644.html

As a most distinguished author myself I am seeing things from an entirely different point of view altogether. The grafter in me is quite impressed in how well the book is selling. I am quite sure that it is selling far more quickly than Ricky Jay's books ever did. I have read the book and am lukewarm about the content but that is not the important thing to me. I am intrigued by how well it is selling and the terrific publicity it is getting. It is already being reprinted. I suppose the book is selling because it has an entirely different angle and a clever one. Nobody has ever written in any depth as to the gossip, chatter and infrastructure of magicians both professional and amateur. The nearest to this kind of thing is a more intellectually written work by a chap named Robert A Stebbins who wrote a terribly obscure work about this kind of thing that only he, me and his mother have probably ever read. He was not a magician but a Canadian sociologist who decided to write about various aspects of the variety arts. And one of those aspects was magicians.

It was probably in the sociology departments of bookshops. And it is interesting to note that young Alex's book is to be found in the psychology and well being category in bookshops.

And yes. I have seen videoclips of him performing. He is indeed an awful magician which makes me admire the success of his book even more.

I think there's a certain irony to this whole thing. The way he's describing it only makes him sound like a complete idiot.

I can imagine it now, people reading his book thinking "The magicians I've seen never do false shuffles, they do proper shuffles, I've watched them. And when I see them pass a coin from one hand to the other, I see it in their other hand before it closes. This fellow sounds like he's using tricks from a childrens book of magic..."

-Stacy