MAGIC SHOP - Daytona Magic, Inc.

This is a technical book of card finesse. A well-known publisher and writer, who should know better, recently wrote: "I don't care for 'refinements,' especially microscopic details that are supposed to be the real work." This remark was undoubtedly aimed at books like CARD FINESSE or other Marlovian works. Yet this same author has written some complicated and technical books of his own. Some of them, in fact, have little or no bearing on the subject of practical magic. If you share this view, don't buy this book. This book is not for you. It is filled with microscopic details, refinements, and other bits and pieces--all the iota's magicians tend to minimize, overlook, or omit.

You may ask, "Who wants to read long, complicated algorithms? Who enjoys atomic analysis? Why does magic have to be so technical?" The answer to these questions is implicit in this book. Almost everyone has heard of the Vernon Touch. It has been lauded by countless respected names in magic. What is the Vernon Touch? In brief, it is nothing more than fastidious attention _to details. Great magicians like Vernon and Marlo are detailists; they are artists who strive for perfection. This is why Vernon has frequently quoted Michelangelo's aphorism: "Perfection consists of trifles, but perfection itself is no trifle."

Great magicians realize that perfection consists of countless small elements; that it demands a certain calculated specificity. The delicacy and subtlety of a card expert's performance is due to little things, and the sum total of these tiny bits and pieces constitute what I call "card finesse". This book is divided into seven sections: Bluff Stuff, Change-Ups, Trifles, Technical Touches, Control-Craft, Faro Finesse, and Affects. This is meant to give the book some scope. The last section, of course, is a necessary concession--a last-minute reprieve from all the explanations of technique ... technique ... technique ...