By David Goodsell

To the magic world, the name Dariel Ftizkee immediately brings to mind The Fitzkee Trilogy, long considered among the classic books of magic. The first book of the series, Showmanship for Magicians, is credited with changing the careers of many magicians. But who was Dariel Fitzkee and how did his Trilogy come to be?

Born in the Midwest in 1898, Dariel Fitzkee had a brief stint as a Chautauqua performer, then pursued a career in theatrical supplies, which took him to San Francisco in the late 1920s. By 1939, he had published seven small but successful books on magic about performance theory, including Misdirection for Magicians, and was a columnist for Genii magazine. His next book, Showmanship for Magicians, would be based on his experiences producing a remarkable full-evening show. To appreciate the book, it is important to understand the show.

By Tobias Beckwith

Magicians love scams and swindles. Here’s a scammer attempting to scam us! Watch out for these guys. While I personally found the whole thing to be somewhat suspect from the beginning, my friend Scott Hitchcock warned me immediately that he had been approached similarly, and had done some research to find it would be a scammer. It’s easy to do that kind of research on the Internet today, and worth your while. I chose to let the whole thing play out, just to see how it would work — and it did give me a few unpleasant moments, as you’ll read. Remember, this is a true story. Only some of the names of innocent parties have been changed.

By Rick Marcelli

The saying goes, “The difference between knowledge and wisdom is experience.” I would alter that saying slightly to read, “The difference between knowledge and wisdom is applied experience.” Wisdom is useless if you do not use it. If you do not learn from your experiences and apply those lessons to your life, you will continue to repeat your mistakes.

This article deals with tricks and secrets I have learned over the years as a performer, music agency executive, producer, and personal manager. Many of these secrets will apply to other types of performing artists as well as magicians, and depending on the level of your own experience, some secrets may already be known to you. I hope you can adapt some of these tips to what you do. These secrets are listed in no specific order of importance. Think of this as a “buffet of secrets” where you can take what you need and leave the rest.

By Andi Gladwin

“A conference for magicians?” the passenger next to me inquisitively asked mid-flight across the Atlantic. “Surely there aren’t enough magicians in the world for a conference to be held for them!” He was genuinely surprised to hear that as many as 2,000 magicians were to descend into Louisville, Kentucky, for a busy week of hustle and shuffle.

It was apparent from the first few minutes after I arrived: this convention was different. There were people here who don’t attend many magic gatherings; it was obvious that this one had some kind of appeal beyond the customary get-togethers that remain circled in the convention veterans’ diaries. It was apparent that the crowd was more eager and more diverse than at the year-in-year-out conventions and there was a glimmer of expectancy in the air. Something exciting was going to happen this week and we were all going to be a part of it.

Television, television, and more television this month. From David Blaine’s new special to a magical Law & Order, from Fox News exposing Criss Angel’s implosion to Phenomenon in Russia, plus America’s Got (more) Talent and Penn & Teller’s got more Bullshit. In Vegas, World’s Greatest Magic Show closes down at the Greek Isles, and Jeff McBride opens up nightly at Palace Station. While magic picks up two inductees into the Speakers Hall of Fame, the latest issue of HSToday (Homeland Security magazine) suggest that magic effects could be used to foil security measures at airports. Sad farewells to Lou Lancaster, Jason Scott, Ken de Courcy, and Chris Pratt. And Cesareo Pelaez clarifies his surprising statement that the July 13 performance of Le Grand David may be its last.

Sixteen products are covered this month by Gabe Fajuri, Peter Duffie, Brad Henderson, David Kaye, and John Lovick.
• Card Warp Finale by Paul Green
• Psyche by Andrew Gerard
• Paths to Enchantment By Malcom Yaffe
• Puzzle Paradox by Larry Becker and Lee Earle
• Mindreading and Telepathy by Erik Jan Hanussen-
     Steinschneider
• Super Clipped by Cosmo Solano
• Extreme Burn by Richard Sanders
• Theomancy by Roger Curzon
• Sympathy for the Devil by Paul Vigil
• ICON by Paul Vigil
• The King of Custard by Paul Megram
• Fiber Optics Extended by Richard Sanders
• Silent Magic by Dr. Simon J. Carmel
• The Judah Notes compiled by Bill Coomer
• Split Spades Lion Series decks by David Blaine
• The Extractor by Rob Bromley and Peter Nardi
• A Magical Upbringing by June Barrows Mussey

Order from Chaos (Lew Brooks) — You remove the thirteen Hearts from a shuffled deck and proceed to mix the packet with several eccentric and amusing shuffles. Despite the mixing, the cards end up in perfect order, Ace through King.

Chapped (Vanishing Vinny) — You show an orange tube of ChapStick and then change its color to black. To conclude, you change its color to blue, then hand it out for examination. (The special gimmick has been included in this issue, ready for you to cut out and wrap around a regular tube of ChapStick.)

Inertia Shift (Andrew Hall) — This startling, one-handed color change is tremendously difficult but worth the effort. It’s a peculiar change, in that you can watch it from both the front and the back and see cards changing. The change has several applications, which we will explore later.

Ring Master (Stephen Tucker) — Two examined lengths of cord are draped around the neck of an assistant from the audience. You borrow a finger ring, take it behind your assistant’s back for a moment, then lift the laces up and over his head to reveal that the ring is now threaded onto both cords! The ring is slid off the laces and everything can be examined. You repeat the feat, but rather than simply sliding the ring off the ends, you have the ring owner use scissors to cut through the laces and free the ring. As a finale, you magically restore thelaces.

David Kaye wraps up his long-running column with this look back at some of the highlights over the last 100 installments.

In “Edifice Complex: Part One” [August 2008], Max Maven set up the plot and provided the eighteen images needed to be memorized. This month, he offers details on construction of the props required. It all comes together next month in performance.

Dear Show Doctor: “My question is, when selecting a spectator, what kind of signs or body language do you look for to ensure you have the right person for a particular routine coming up later in the show. What do you look to avoid?”

First off, I want to say that I may have very different views on audience participation from many of today’s working pros. I grew up in a world that applauded comedy magicians who ridiculed and belittled their participants with Breakaway Wands and cheap put-down lines. By trial and error, I found out that the audience responded the most to my giving the participant an opportunity to become the hero of the show. It is a philosophy that I’ve had ever since.