R Paul Wilson

The work is the point. That’s the pulse of this candid, wide-ranging session with R. Paul Wilson, creator, consultant, and the mind behind The Real Hustle, where we dig into what actually makes magic land: clear effects, honest timing, and an audience that edits your choices in real time. We open with a hard truth: there are no shortcuts. From Vernon’s Triumph to cups and balls, Paul shows how iteration, not novelty for novelty’s sake, transforms a trick from “doable” to “devastating.”

We trace his path through cornerstone pieces, Coins Across, Cylinder and Coins grounded in Ramsey’s discipline, and the folded card as a perfect state-change convincer. Each routine becomes a lab for tightening language, shifting moments, and cutting clutter so spectators feel the miracle before they hear it. Paul’s story about reconstructing and refining a rare take on René Lavand’s Breadcrumbs reveals what deep study looks like: research, respect, and a poetic frame that makes people care.

Then we zoom out. A guitar shows up, not as a prop, but as cross-training. Learning music sharpened his teaching, exposed the myth of “easy,” and mapped directly onto sleight-of-hand: structure practice, embrace the slog, and aim for competent, confident, and comfortable. We also step into memorised deck thinking, why Simon Aronson’s “Everybody’s Lazy” still feels impossible, and how Tamariz’s mindset unlocks new doors in any stack. Paul rounds it out with cups and balls as an act-in-a-pack and a lifelong workshop, from Elmsley and Williamson to Tommy Wonder.

Along the way, he buries one thing: resentment. We talk about healthier ways to handle influence, invention, and disagreement in a small, connected art form, private conversations over public pile-ons, and effect-first decisions over hype. If you care about building stronger routines, cleaner methods, and a better culture, you’ll feel at home here. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves real craft, and leave a review telling us which routine or insight you’re taking back to your practice.

R Paul Wilson’s Desert Island Tricks: 

1. Dai Vernon’s Triumph 
2. Coins Across
3. Cylinder and Coins 
4. Folded Card
5. Breadcrumbs 
6. Musical Instrument 
7. Memorised Deck 
8. Cups and Balls 

Banishment. Resentment 

Book. The New Greater Magic

Item. A very good knife

Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk

Chapters

• 0:00 No Shortcuts, Only Work
• 1:40 Guest Reveal: R. Paul Wilson
• 3:20 Career Highlights & TV Projects
• 5:33 Building Reliable Sets and Repertoire
• 7:10 Iterating Material at The Magic Castle
• 9:20 Audience as Co‑Editor of Effects
• 11:12 Desert Island Setup: Rules & Format
• 12:05 Pick #1: Vernon’s Triumph
• 15:04 Methods vs. Variations: Depth Over Volume
• 18:13 Pick #2: Coins Across and Timing
• 22:16 Preferred Versions and David Roth’s Influence
• 26:09 Creation, Influence, and Ethical Lines
• 30:09 Pick #3: Cylinder and Coins
• 35:02 Ramsey, Galloway, and Method Discipline
• 39:06 A Suite Summit: Sharing Real Work
• 43:10 Pick #4: The Folded Card as Anchor
• 47:52 Mystery Boxes, Presentations, and Convincers
• 51:20 Two-Phase Framing: Seen and Unseen
• 54:02 Pick #5: René Lavand’s Breadcrumbs
• 58:35 The Kurt Fortier Story and Refinement
• 1:03:20 Poetic Framing and Personal Voice
• 1:06:30 Pick #6: Bring a Musical Instrument
• 1:10:18 Practice Truths: Competent, Confident, Comfortable
• 1:15:20 Cross‑Training: Music, Juggling, and Slidini
• 1:19:28 Sponsor Message: Alakazam Unlimited
• 1:20:45 Pick #7: Memorized Deck Thinking
• 1:24:04 One Trick? Simon Aronson’s “Everybody’s Lazy”
• 1:27:10 Pick #8: Cups and Balls as an Act
• 1:31:56 One, Two, Three Cups: Classics and Variations
• 1:36:40 Banishment: Burying Resentment
• 1:42:00 Conflict, Social Media, and Better Conversations
• 1:46:20 The Book: The New Greater Magic
• 1:48:20 The Item: A Very Good (Swiss Army) Knife
• 1:50:30 Where to Find Paul & What’s Next
• 1:53:00 Closing Thanks and Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

This is really important. This is where you want to listen. It's not easy and there are no shortcuts. It doesn't matter what anybody tells you. You have to do the work to get competent at things. Not just to be able to do it, but to get competent, confident, and comfortable. To get to that stage with anything just takes doing the work. This is a journey. All of it is a journey. You are never going to make the destination. The destination is literally, you know, the mirage in the distance. But the journey itself is supposed to be enjoyable. When I talk to people, there are some people in the audience who are going to go out and make a living from what I teach them. And there's some who are just going to add it to their list of things they'd like to do or like to play with or like to have in their collection or want to do one day. But I figured out that now I can talk to all those people and give them what they need by understanding that as a teacher, my failure is in forgetting the journey and what's required to get on that journey with each and every different little thing. Hard work delivers in ways that you don't expect the video.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39

Today's guest is someone who I've wanted to come on here from the very beginning, and as soon as we found out that he would be appearing, we were all very, very excited at Alakazam HQ, and I'm sure you guys will be as well. Now, this is another video one, so you can go on to YouTube and you can watch this if you would like as well. I'm going to give you a brief introduction, even though, in absolute honesty, he needs no introduction, but I will give him one anyway. He is the writer and star of the hit BBC shows The Real Hustle, Scammed, and The Takedown. More about that in a minute. He's a consultant and second unit director on films like Shade and Smoking Aces. He's worked with the likes of Sylvester Sallone, Jamie Foxx, and Jeremy Pivin. He's written, produced, and directed acclaimed documentary Armagic, Conmen, and the multi award-winning Scottish thriller Ice Solani, which I'm hoping I've said it said right. He has so many incredible tricks as well. Of course, one of them for avid listeners has been mentioned several times on this podcast. Do check out uh, I think Peter might have mentioned one of them, and also Steve Deller mentioned it as well. Uh, tricks like traveling chips, predator wallet, predator deck, fantasy, and various online lectures. He's just got such an incredible mix of routines and tricks. And let's circle back to the real hassle, which of course was a huge, huge hit here in the UK, and it was something that a lot of us used to race home to uh to watch when we were younger, and I was an absolute obsessive watcher of it. I used to think it was fascinating to watch, and it was so enjoyable. And of course, this man was uh a pivotal part of all of that, from writing it to, of course, starring in it as well. So, of course, today's guest is the legendary R. Paul Wilson. Hello, how are you? I am quite well, thank you. Good. I'm very, very pleased to have you uh on. And looking at the bookshelf and card collection behind you, I'm guessing we're in for a treat of a list today.

SPEAKER_01: 3:54

Uh this is just a green screen.

SPEAKER_03: 3:59

It's a very good one. A very, very good one. So, with someone with such a diverse career as yours, putting a list together like this, was it particularly difficult for you?

SPEAKER_01: 4:10

It's easy because whenever we performed, there's there's kind of, you know, what are the what are the ones that you hit? Um what are the ones you rely upon? What are the ones you always go back to, and why? So um, so from from that point of view, in that list, yeah, it's it's kind of baked in there. Um there's there's obviously the ones that you always want to work on and practice and play with. But uh, you know, I I think that if you've been doing magic for any period of time and it was the um, you know, uh put a um put a theoretical gun to your head and you have to do a trick right now, but you can do any trick you you're confident with. There's gonna be one or two that drop into your head. And so those are the those are the ones. I I think those are the ones. But of course, you know, if you're on a desert island, who are you gonna do them for?

SPEAKER_03: 5:06

Well, that's that's always the question. And when I think about your material, when I was younger, I remember Fantasy coming out, which was just an amazing trick. It was so visual, and that's had a resurgence recently with the relaunch of it as well. So your list are these things that you've literally done throughout your career and they are still things that you do now, or are they generally new things that you've worked on as well?

SPEAKER_01: 5:31

Uh definitely a combination, but I I never stop working on stuff. I think it's one of the um it's one of the advantages of being not necessarily uh not entirely professional as uh as in it's not what I earn my entire living from. Um the the way to think about it is that if I had to go out every single night and do the same material every single night in order to pay the bills, that's a living, and that's a that's a form of of uh you know performing art, but it becomes um very difficult to find time to then start refining and changing and and even putting in a new piece, right? If you've got your 10 minutes or your 20 minutes for your hour, adding anything into that becomes harder and harder and harder the more that you're doing it and the more that you're depending on it. So I have the luxury of always still playing with the material, with the um sometimes enormous gaps I have between shows. Uh you know, um the the issue then becomes whether or not I fall into what I'm very familiar with, or I actually take the next step and try the new idea or the new touch or the new little you know thought. And usually, you know, things like a week at the Magic Castle is always good because the first night I'll be comfortable and I'll do this stuff as as how I like to do it. But by the second or third night, I'm trying new things and playing around and I'm more comfortable in the in the space. And I think that I don't really consider anything that I do to be complete. Therefore, I'm always there's always something new about everything.

SPEAKER_03: 7:25

Amazing. And do you still get enjoyment from like practicing magic and learning magic and adapting those tricks?

SPEAKER_01: 7:34

Uh yeah, I've you know, um at any moment in time in the the many little workspaces I have, I you know, I'm working on something here, I'm working on something downstairs. I have a little thing that you know I've been toying with now for, I don't know, two or three years that's just been sitting near me, so I can pick it up and play with it. And in the last uh year I've taken it out and actually done it for early people. And it it's start it's starting to find its its legs, not in the idea, because I think that's what happens here, is the idea and the method and the sequence gets refined. And I'll look at all the things, but then when you take it out in front of people, you start to find the moments that you didn't anticipate. You start to find the little tweaks that change it and make it go in directions you maybe couldn't anticipate until an audience got their hands on it, so to speak. So yeah, always always there's something new, and um, you know, uh in the last sort of month, I've taken something I've done for a few years and uh I've looked at it and went, well, how do I do it without carrying that big thing around? And how do I break it down? And then going back towards, you know, I've got notes up here, finding ideas that I played with and then reviving them with, you know, maybe in in one case, 20 years of experience and taking out all the all the stuff that was unnecessary and then making it a little bit more practical and but not too practical, which is always another problem as well. If you make it too practical, then it ceases to be quite so deceptive. So there's always that little line of finding that. And again, the audience helps you with that more than anything else. So if you're working, you know, every hour of you know your life as a magician going from place to place to place or table to table to table, you're um refining one aspect of what you're doing, but you're losing the opportunity or you're you're you're finding it harder to to make the opportunities to to try something new and to refine something new. Whereas I think um it's always valuable to take a big step back, look at it and think about how you might do it um differently and better in a way that you know I quite often see a lot of us do too much in a trick or do certainly too little. That that definitely happens too, but you know, um it changes, and then this happens, and then this happens, and then that happens, and then it's on my forehead, and then it's in my pocket, and then it's over here. Any one of those could be very powerful if you just tweaked it a little bit and figured out how the audience might inter. But then, of course, some of these things need time with the audience, which sometimes we don't have. Sometimes it's like you gotta get in there, smack them around magically, and then you know get to the next group, and that's a different skill set, and it's a real skill set. So, you know, I kinda try and find how to squeeze as much juice out of the lemon as I can, and I'm not always right, but by the time I've sort of um consulted with the audience is the way I like to think about it, you know, and and kind of listened to how they they react to things and how they think about things, then suddenly everything sort of starts to gel. And that's that's when I think I have something.

SPEAKER_03: 11:11

Amazing. Right, let's get into the podcast. So if this is your first time listening, the idea is that we're about to maroon Paul on his very own magical island. When he's there, he's allowed to take eight tricks, banish one item, take one book and one non-magic item he uses for magic particulars. Who's there? What's there? All of that good stuff. We do not mind. It exists in Paul's own imagination. That being said, let's go to your magical island, Paul, and find out what you put in position one.

SPEAKER_01: 11:38

Okay, I'm gonna be very honest. I might as well just be honest. I didn't write a list down. Um, and that's because I'm terrible at home. Uh that's my excuse is I've I literally just got back from a two-month trip. But uh I was thinking a minute ago, I'm gonna maybe I should ask Jamie to stop the podcast and I'll write one down. But I I think we could do this. I think that um when uh when I realized that I had uh failed at my homework, um I think everything I said a minute ago is true. So let's let's let's find out. Um so let's go item by item. Because number one on my list of things to take, of tricks to take, assuming I have a pack of cards, of course, is um is Dive Vernon's triumph. I mean, you've got to have heard of that. That that's got to be on this list for lots of people. But the more I talk to people, the more I do it, the more I play with it, um, the more I perform it for a lay audience, the more I think it's possibly the greatest card trick with sleight of hand ever created. Um I mean there's lots of great card tricks, and there's there's tricks that may even hit harder, and and you know, but the reason Triumph is important is because it's such a clear effect that if you were to do it silently, everybody can follow what's happening. If you were to um uh have never seen a card trick before, it would be the greatest card trick you'll ever see because it it'll hold that, it'll hold that position in your memory. But more importantly, I think that if you go to all the variations, and I have one, I do a variation of the original, um, and I do that because it gives me things that other variations don't, and that the original doesn't quite. Um but if you go just to what was published originally, um Divernan had a habit of giving us, generally speaking, the best available method at the time. Um now, Ed Marlowe fans they like the fact that he gives you 40 variations for every effect, and I don't particularly enjoy reading that. I don't particularly enjoy going, oh, and here's another method that does this or does that. But with Triumph, you read this method, you tried it, you learned it, you went out and you did it, and it just blew the roof off the place. And now here I am, I don't know, a few years later in my magic journey, still doing it, still loving doing it. Um, and it would be, you know, if you could never do another card trick again, that's kind of on that list of the one I would choose, right? So yeah. Um so one to take the island for me, number one, would definitely be Dioron's Triumph.

SPEAKER_03: 14:36

You mentioned that uh you're someone that doesn't necessarily like reading loads of variations of one thing. Uh is that or is that where the journey stops from you then? So is it a case of you find the one that you think is perfect for you and then the exploration would stop, or do you still explore past that point?

SPEAKER_01: 14:55

Oh no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I meant by that. What I meant was if somebody publishes a version, I want to see what their best version at the time was, right? So I'll read their version and then I'll go find someone else's version and someone else's version. You know, I will go searching for all sorts of similar stuff. But when I when I hit this um, you know, this volume all in the same effect, all with different ways of doing it, I don't think that's the same thing. I think it's a very interesting thing. Um if you know, if I took a trick I'm I'm particularly obsessed with at the moment, um if I opened up a Marlowe magazine and he had 18 variations on it, I would read those 18 variations. However, I don't think that would be as illuminating as reading somebody's version. So one of the guys who has a version right now is uh Jonathan Kem, um, has a really excellent thing that is very similar to what I was doing. Um it's different, but it's very informative because this is a guy that does it every night and does, you know, is part of a whole sequence. So I I was watching his stuff and really getting, I felt, um a great step forward in understanding what I was doing by reading and seeing what he was doing. Because he's kind of sharing his real work, real world experience with this effect. But you know, the I've figured out a way of doing it, and oh, here's another way, and here's another way, and here's another way, and here's another way. Well, sort of I I do that myself. I've got 14 different ways of doing it, but the the one that I enjoy, the one that I rely upon, the one that I ultimately so far have come up with is the one that I would be sharing if I was sharing it right now. Um, that's always been the case. And I got that from Roy Walton. Roy Walton was the same, you know. He always published you know his best solution for something. He may come up with another solution later and come at it from another angle, but that's not the same as just trying to kind of you know explore the entire range of what and maybe even cover and own to some you know intellectually the the entire possibilities with that effect. And you know, there's a thing in Mint, um Marlowe and New Talks, I think it's called Mental Queen. And I haven't looked at this in forever, but I remember reading all of them when I was a kid, all of them. And there were immediately after I came up with my own handling, which was very simple and direct and really was not in any of those versions. And that's the only version I kind of remember. Now Marlowe, if he was sitting here, maybe he is, because you know who knows how the spirit world works, um would would say, well, you know, you wouldn't have had that without me and all that kind of stuff. Well, he's right. He's right. But um I think that it's it's very much the quality of what you digest and what you consume. And if you are I I just think the somebody publishing their best solution for something rather than all their solutions for something is more interesting. So yeah, I absolutely go out and find as many things as I can. And you know, um, if I can find any books on the topic, I'll I'll try and read them.

SPEAKER_03: 18:33

Amazing. Well, that's a great one in at number one. Yeah, I can see. Uh, there's a great one in at number one, and it makes us wonder where your book's gonna go as well. I'm not sure if we've had an idea of where your book is. We might be able to guess where you're gonna go, um, but we may not. So let's find out what you put in number two. So what's in your second spot?

SPEAKER_01: 18:51

Um coins across, and I would say coins across like this rather than like this. Um and and that's uh very you know, coin coin tricks for me uh I cr constantly people will you know magicians will be surprised that I even do coin magic. I don't know what don't know where that comes from because it pretty much everything I've ever put out has some kind of coin magic in it. But there is this kind of um coin guy versus card guy thing in magic, right? Where you're one of the one you're one or the other. I'm I'm very much in the uh you know, I I I grew up reading Divernon, I grew up reading um magicians who did everything, you know, and I kind of like the idea of um if you do a show, a show of all cards is totally doable, and I've seen great shows of all cards. Um but I do think that I like to fairy it for me as much as for them. And Coins Across is one of those routines that if you do it really slowly and really fairly and make every moment count, it's um it's one of those things where every time I come away from performing it, if I could perform it like that, I I have that sort of experience where some shows are better than others because I made the I made the connections between the audiences' um perception of what was going on and the effect that I was trying to create. And with very simple methods and props, you can create this kind of you know moment of absolute astonishment here, here, here, and then here. And finding, you know, a little change in timing, a little change in the way that you say what's about to happen. I still find those things always. And so Coins Across is that thing where sitting on my desert island, I could still be practicing it and finding those little nuances and things. And I think that's one of the reasons that I make my choices, because I I genuinely think um we're all on our own desert island anyway, right? Um, so therefore, I would I would like to be um polishing that routine and practicing it and uh coming up with new ideas all the time. So yeah, coins across.

SPEAKER_03: 21:16

Now, do you have a preferred version of Coins Across? I know that David Roth's gets mentioned uh a decent amount on the podcast. Is there a version that you would recommend?

SPEAKER_01: 21:26

Well, I'd certainly recommend David Roth's. Um my version that I do now is was created because I was doing a slight variation of David Roth, something that Jennings and I actually talked about years ago. He had this couple of sequences, but it was very much the same series of what was going on, but just different ways of making the the things happen that we need to make happen. And I was doing that for for years, and then I just started to ask, well, what if what if we took some advice from um Erdnace, the the unknown writer of Expert at the Card Table, who says, you know, you can't change the method, change the moment. And what if I change the moment on these things? What would happen? And then I started to take the utility device that we use for the day of the draw off and try to use it in different ways and at different times, and to get more clarity in the sequence. And so, yeah, um, my preferred version is my restructuring and it you know, by restructuring it it's very different. There's lots of things happening that are different, but at the same time, without David, you know, where would we be? Um certainly I have other coins across that I do. Um I you know, I do a coins to glass, which I'm very proud of, but I don't do it as often as I used to. Um, and that was sort of inspired by a couple of sources, um partly John Ramsey, partly Steve Hamilton. Um Steve Hamilton uh very cleverly came up with a solution to how we hold one of the props. I'm not much we're giving away here, but you know, the way that we hold something that we show the audience, it was necessary to hold it that way because of how it worked. Well, he figured out that you didn't have to hold it away, you could hold it away that looked a little bit more um delicate and clean. And that led me to completely change the method to hold it in a similar way, but I think even more fairly because of the way that I held it. And that that was born of a thing that I published in my first book. And I I was like, oh wow, look at this, this works even better. So you can see where the idea came from. Um, not the same idea at all in the end, but you can see the progression of the idea. But what that gave me is this is a very fair, very honest way of making the coins travel from one hand to the other. And again, you know, the methods vary, but the best method I I shared years ago. I don't think it's even available anymore, but I had a little booklet years ago with that in it. But again, you know, that was um that was one of my favorite ways of doing it. Um you know, I don't want to keep saying, you know, I recommend my version because my version isn't always available, but for me, I recommend my version because that's the one that I sort of feel more um licensed to play with and change and to criticize and all these types of things. Um but if we go back to David Roth for a second, the version he published is a fantastic example of a really complete solution, the best possible solution. He and he had touches for sure. But um, you know, and uh yeah. Um talking about David Roth, if you're ever around Danny Buckler, you must ask him to do his David Roth impression.

SPEAKER_03: 25:00

Okay, maybe we'll have to get him on this podcast and then we'll ask him to do it live. Um, but one thing that I'm learning about you so far from just DiVernon's Triumph and your coins across that you just spoke about is you seem to take lots of inspiration from different places and different touches, and then to meld them into your own creation. Um, is that just something that you've always done? Is it just the exploration of methods that has led you to be this way when you process tricks?

SPEAKER_01: 25:32

Generally speaking, for me, yes. And I think that's really true for almost all creators, really. I think there's a the dividing line is you know, um, you know, art art is about stealing from other artists, you know. And uh if I go to a museum, you know, I always call it a raid. I'm going on a raid for ideas, you know, and I've taken ideas from really great museums, and um I've I've taken photographs of them, I've you know, I've I've catalogued them and I've created them in movies or you know, things that we've done visually just to try and um you know reapply them in interesting ways, sometimes in a new medium, sometimes not. Um and in magic's kind of the same, you know, you you go out and you see these ideas, and hopefully they form something, some new neurons and come up with something different. That's there's always a there's always a sort of different enough thing where you know um I I saw recently something where you know ultimately it probably shouldn't have come out because it is really too similar to the thing that you know um that they eventually found out about. I think it was created in isolation and then they found out the other thing existed. But it was one of those, yeah, I think this is a little too close. Sometimes you come up with it and you go, well, that's not you know, that uses something that's the same, uses something that's interesting, but you've applied it entirely differently, or you've created something brand new from it. And um, with a few exceptions, that that usually is a great um razor to dictate whether or not you're into something new. But new isn't always the um objective. Um different isn't always the objective, better is always the objective. Um so when I when I do come up with stuff, I always try to remember. It's not hard to remember where I was directly influenced, but then the next stage is finding the influences I didn't know about. But then that also is that kind of research part where you find other stuff where you might be knocking yourself down by going, oh, actually somebody's come up with that really clever idea. However, it's still good and it's still usable and you can still take out and perform it, right? I mean, not everything I come up with I intend to, you know, market or anything like that. And I think that's always a a very bad distraction for good magic, is if your intention is purely to market it rather than actually use it as you know, magic should be used, and in you know, I I think we see many magicians. Um I've done this thousands of times, or it's my everyday carry. You know, I there are some magicians whose everyday carry must be a giant truck that's following them down the street, because they've said it so many times. Um and I think that that's that's an unnecessary thing to say for people who are clever, um inventive, and you know, exploring and creating all the time. There's you don't have to say that you take this out and do it every single day of your career. And I don't because I don't perform that much. But what tends to happen is anything that I've brought out, by the time it gets to a lecture or a release or something like that, it has a few years under its belt. It has me trying to figure it out under its belt because that's kind of my favorite part of the whole process. And the other part of the process is the trying to unpack exactly where all the elements came from. Sometimes, you know, I come up with something absolutely ingenious and I think that's fantastic. But my first thought is, well, that is fantastic. Somebody must have come up with that. And you, you know, you can show it to a hundred great magicians and they'll all say no, and at the minute you bring it out, someone will put their hand up and go, wait a wait a minute, and you go, Okay, fair enough. Um I had something years ago. Uh I don't even remember what it was. I remember it was with a pen. That's all I remember it was with a pen. It was a very good trick, and I was doing it a lot, and I was going to release it. And I was one of those days back in the early 90s or late, maybe early 90s, where you you know released everything yourself, and you know, I was buying all these pens and making this thing up. And uh somebody went to the States, I think it was Peter Duffy, and he came back and he said, Oh, this guy's doing Exactly the same trick as you. And uh and he was, and I hadn't shown it to him, and neither had anybody else, and you know, the internet wasn't there at the time, so done, you know, it's it's one of those things, and unfortunately, I I didn't even pursue it beyond that. But I'll bet you anything you like, if I could go back in time and figure out all the things that funneled down into that idea in my head, a lot of those same things probably funnel down into the idea in that other person's head. And I think that that's one of the issues we have. The more information there is out there, the more of us consuming it, the more of those funnels can sometimes lead to the same places. Um and uh, you know, so yeah, I I kind of wear that on my sleeve as much as I can. I'm a product of all of the information that I absorb. I always think I've brought something new to the table and I've improved it. And I think that's kind of true of most musicians. Even the the ones that kind of come up with crazy out-of-left field ideas, those are probably they're they're probably just their input is probably more crazy and outlandish than ours. That's that's all it is. There may be somebody out there who's, you know, I mean, there's guys like Angelo Carbone, who, you know, ever since I first met him when he was, I don't know, 16 or something, I just looked at him like, you know, what planet does this guy come from? Because these ideas are amazing, everything. Um, but again, you know, if we sat down, we could probably see the you know that his um his ability to to create something is just much more um fertile and more outlandish and more creative. But again, those inputs are still there. Um and you know, Calen Morelli, another guy, every time he brings something up, I'll look at it and go, you know. And I've only ever spoken to Kaelin once in my life, and he's so smart and he's so clever, and you know, he's just one of those guys who just, you know, if he's got an idea, I'm really always interested in seeing what he's done with it. And and there are other people who take well-established stuff, and they don't do very much to it, but what they do is really important. That little that little thing, that little thing, that little cherry on the cake is always important. Um, so I kind of find myself in the um uh I try and work with great ingredients and come up with good recipes, end of the market.

SPEAKER_03: 32:43

Amazing. Well, let's see where this leads us then. So let's go to number three. So, what's in your third spot?

SPEAKER_01: 32:49

It's another coin trick, and again, it's a coin trick that I spend a lot of time with. It's uh the cylinder and coins. And cylinder and coins, um, I first I think I read about it um somewhere, and I read about it in a book, and I asked Roy Walton about it, and then Roy Walton, um, as it turns out, was a very close friend of John Ramsey and was one of what used to be called Ramsey's boys that would follow him around conventions um, you know, when he was at his height. And um, those Ramsey boys was Jack Avis, um, John Darris, Alex Elmsley, um and Bobby Bernard. Right. And uh, I think uh uh I want to say Ted Danson as well. So, you know, that this group of young kids at the time, you know, following him around and learning magic and being part of his little scene. So I um was very lucky. I was able to go and meet with uh Andrew Galloway, see him perform it live, um, and uh I think entirely missed the point, frankly, uh as a kid. Um famously and rather rather uh obnoxiously missed the point. But um in the end, adopted everything kind of the I saw in that first performance. I you know, the the moving slow, the very gentle humor, the you know, making sure everything was super clear, the uh the use of misdirection that was not super overt. Um and you know, I think that ultimately um without that, without seeing it in that context, I don't think I'd be where I am with it now. Where I have um, I think three versions. Um one that I do more than the others, and the other is the classic Ramsey version. And one of the great things about classic Ramsey version is you don't have to do it for people, you can just have it on your desk. Um and I have you know various sets lying around here, but doing it as an exercise in in the techniques and in the timing and the process and the memory that's required, all the things doing the original Ramsey method, which is a pretty hard routine, really, is really useful for me when I do my own version, which is a different method, uh, same effect, has advantages and disadvantages, but um I think being anchored to the original is really important for me. And I, you know, I had this discussion with um a couple of guys over the years, one of them being Tim Coniver. Tim Conover years ago hosted a little um uh um cylinder and coins summit at the World Magic Seminar, I think it was. And uh he had a suite as his deal with the uh with the uh with the convention, and the suite had a bar, and he invited uh four or five of us up who all did cylinder and coins. And this kind of a who's who who does cylinder and coins now, with one exception being um at that time uh Eric Mead was not doing the routine actively. He started doing the routine after Tim passed away and he adopted the um the uh um the responsibility for doing his books justice, which he has been doing for a long time. Spent an awful lot of hours and years working on these books, and I know they're coming out very soon. Um but part of that was mastering some of that material, right? And by mastering the material, he understood it better. And one of them, of course, he does you know better than anybody now is the cylinder and coins. But in that room, we had Tim himself, we had uh um Michael Forbes was there, uh Bob Kohler was there, and um uh somebody else who I I won't I won't name the other person. And the only reason I won't name the other person is because they saw me perform mine and they said, Oh, I think we're using the same method. And they performed theirs, and it was incredibly similar to what I was doing and had been doing for a very long time. Um, because uh unfortunately part of my method was made by someone who um, without my permission, passed that method along. And uh that's when I found out that they passed along. So it was just very uncomfortable. But the benefit of that was that later, when you know he was apologizing and asked, It doesn't really matter, you didn't do anything wrong, and we started needling into it. We had this insight into our routines because we had both kind of come up with it that was really, really valuable. And one of the things that we shared was that we both did the original Ramsey routine exactly as Ramsey did it regularly in front of a mirror, not for an audience. I'll do it for an audience. Um I have four versions, sorry, four versions. Um I have another version which I put in a book which uh uses only three coins, and uh that was in the Scottish book that Peter Duffy produced for Kaufman. And uh I have another version that Joe Porper brought out where I said to Joe one day, as I often did, I have this crazy idea, and then he would go make it. And this method was ridiculous. You know, the the cylinders made of metal, uh, used a coin instead of a cork, so you can imagine all the problems that come with that. And uh it was just a very um, you know, kind of how to crack an egg with a sledgehammer type, you know, all the solutions are in there. But um it was very fooling. The only thing is it was also very expensive, and he gave me one, and then somebody wanted to buy one, and so I let them take the one that I had and never replaced it. So I don't even own my own uh cylinder and coin set, sadly. But it's out there, and I I have been to some somebody's house and they said, Oh, I've got this thing from Joe Porper, and then I did it for them because you know that the methods are I can do it. I did it, I did it for them, and they were like, I had no idea, and now they're doing it. So, you know, I didn't sat on their shelf for so long, it's in a beautiful box, that's all they presented. Um, but when they figured out exactly how it looked, it was a different story. So now they're doing it, um, which is a shame because I was thinking of breaking into their house and stealing the prop.

SPEAKER_03: 39:54

But if only you had a back catalogue of ways to steal things from people from uh old TV shows.

SPEAKER_01: 40:00

Yeah, I think there's a book about it here somewhere.

SPEAKER_03: 40:02

Amazing. Now, this is one of the coin plots which you don't really see as many variations coming out nowadays. I think Joshua J had one a few years ago um that was a marketed thing. Do you think that's just because the the routine is sound as it is and there's not a huge amount more that you can do with it?

SPEAKER_01: 40:22

Well, I I think you can do lots with it if you want to. Um the problem is that you know you may be you may come up with solutions for problems that don't exist, or you may come up for a way of framing it differently. But I think if you go too far away from the framing of John Ramsey, which is to essentially make it this very focused, hyper-focused, impossible effect, then you're going back to where Ramsey started, which is the the the coins in the back of the hand. And that stack of pens is a phenomenal trick, and you know, you might as well just do that. So it's like, where do you go? Um, if you take it too far away from one thing, you kind of end up leaning more towards the other. Um, and of course, there are many versions of that too, of the the captain pens. But yeah, I think it's again, you know, the staging of it is is kind of perfect. The methodology-wise, Tim Tim's method is phenomenal. Um I like what I'm doing for the moments it gives me, but you know, I think that when that method comes out in the books, I think a lot of people will start playing with that. Um, you know, uh Eric DeCamp's just released his um approach to everything in his book, uh, which is a very lovely little booklet. And uh, you know, um there's just you know, there's lots of ways to go if you want to learn the routine, but I think if it steers too far away from this idea of, you know, here's a you know, here's a cylinder and a piece of cork, and then in a moment something utterly impossible is gonna happen, and I want you to be focused on it. You move away from that and you make it look a little too impromptu, then you might as well just go to the impromptu thing that started the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03: 42:13

Amazing. Well, let's see where we go with number four. Uh so what did you put in your fourth spot?

SPEAKER_01: 42:19

I think my fourth spot would be the uh the folded card. I I'm being a little bit I'm cheating. I'm cheating. Uh the folded card. I I think that over the years I you know, I I started doing the restaurant act uh professionally, which was just a routine that everybody was doing, and everybody was doing exactly the same routine. They were doing um uh um vanishing silk, spongeballs, cartel wallet, chop cup, right? And you know, if you went up and down the country, everybody was doing the same tricks. Um and and here in Glasgow, um probably the most successful magician was doing that sequence, and so was the rest of us. And you know, that same magician in a lecture recommended those tricks. So that's kind of where I started. But when you see everybody doing the same tricks, you start to think, well, I should do something different. And one of the other most successful magicians in Glasgow, Douglas Cameron, was doing different tricks, and so I looked at the fact that he was doing things that were different to everybody, and I wanted to do that too. And so I um I had bought the John Kennedy um uh mystery box, is that what he calls it? The the little yeah, which is great, uh really great. But the effect, the folded card in impossible location effect, um has become a punctuating point through all the things that I've done, you know, through my professional magic performances. I don't want to say career, because I'm not a professional magician, but I think the folded card is a really powerful thing. The timing that I found originally with that was um perfect for the table hopping environment. It was um, you know, literally here's a box with a rubber band on it. Um sign a card, put your card in here, take the deck. I'm gonna show you there's inside here, there's a little folded card. Um and uh this is what's really interesting about it is it has your signature on it. And boom, the place is to go crazy. We never looked through the deck to find the card gone. You know, it was literally the there already. That was the timing that I was going for, which takes a little bit of doing. You can't just go from here to there. There's a little bit more required to make it feel like it was a done deal before we even started, right? And and so I I kind of fell onto a great presentation, a super practical, great method. Um, and then I think that method has been just evolving constantly over the years to the point where I have a ridiculous repeat on it, um, the way that I do it now. And you know, having just uh spent a couple of weeks working in uh in a venue with a very um uh very attentive audience with a very concentrated audience, and the moment that that folded card creates is always the moment that you know you literally they put their head in their hands. It's so ridiculous. And you don't even have to show it to them, frankly. They know, they know. And that so what it is about the folded card is is that it's configuration, it's folded, right? That that folding action, um, not not the action, but the the state that it's in, being a different state, the fact that it's apparently been there the whole time is very clear. Um, and then the opportunities that gives you in order to you know ramp the effect up. So the and you know, there are other methods. So for musicians out there, the Jay Sankey method, you know, this thing is is um although uh someone told me there's maybe another credit that I've I think that Sankey probably credited um before that, and then you know there are other versions, many versions of that, um, and all the other ways of doing it. It's doesn't matter how you get there, the the Kennedy thing or the you know the clip or any of those things, it's the it's the effect, right? It's the it's the that that folded card is that card that is supposed to be over there that is not folded, right? Somehow it's it is that card. Now, did it vanish, fold itself, and appear over there? Has it somehow traveled through time? Has it done all of these types of things? There's so many ways of playing with that moment, and so the folded card is for me a really great um template for effects, and the many, many different ways of playing with it, many different ways of um solving it, you know, and uh Christian Grace of course has a really terrific one as well. Um his thing is fantastic, but yeah, it it's just it kind of amazed me how I've sort of forgotten, going back through time, how important that effect has been to all to the sets that I've done a lot of and the ways that I've presented it. And you know, one of the things that has happened over the years is I've kind of neglected some of my early solutions because not better solutions, but easier and more you know um interesting because they were so you know, uh I I think when I think I was at the genie convention for the first convention when David Regal I think I was there when David Regal showed me his box thing. And you know, I laughed, it was so good, right? And so, you know, I did that, and then of course, you know, other versions came out. John Allen had a version and and Wayne Dawson had a version, and and all these different things came out. But I'd kind of forgotten that I had something that was really um very analogue and you know, very much in keeping with my approach to these things. Um, and then you know, figuring out what Jonathan Cam was doing recently and and looking at what he did and going, oh wow, he's really solved a lot of his problems there. Um, and one part of it absolutely helped me with part of mine. But again, I'm imagining myself on my on my desert island, you know, just sitting there coming up with more solutions and maybe another idea, and oh why didn't I think of that before? And um, it's surprising how much is out there. Uh so yeah, the folded card would be the thing I'd like to play with.

SPEAKER_03: 49:37

Amazing. Yeah, it's almost like one of those rare, unconscious uh convincers that you don't have to give any explanation to an audience they understand without you saying, Oh, look, and it's folded now. Um, it just happens. Now, have you settled on a way that you prefer to present it? As in, are you someone that presents it as a mystery card which is in full view from the beginning, or is it a case of it's out of sight, something happens, and then this has been here, but you didn't know what was inside, and now the card comes out.

SPEAKER_01: 50:15

Um, I I sort of do it twofold, pun intended. Um I do it twofold. I I start with some I start with an empty object and I show it that way, and then I cover it, and the audience creates a card between all of them, and then that card appears there, as if they've created it out of their imagination. And then I leave it in full sight for the rest of the show, and at the end of the show, a signed card vanishes, and you know, I wonder where it could be. And that's the moment where they they're they're done, you know, and it's there, very, very fair. Um so getting getting to that and the ways that I've gotten to that, you know. Paul Nardini, uh I spoke to him years ago, and I I said, you know, I like I have this very basic idea, um, and I have this um prop that I think would work with it, that I had bought, and I didn't really like, but I thought it was interesting, and I showed it to him. He took it away. So the initial idea he made better immediately, as he always does. And then he took that prop and did something with it that was just so ingenious that made it possible to do all sorts of things you couldn't do with the original prop. And then he added to that something else he was um uh making and and and designing that made it, you know, both elegant and practical and really fascinating. And so I've done this at the Magic Castle, I've done it in you know in New York, I've done it um on ships, you know, whenever the the rare times that I've worked on ships. So I think that it's for me, it's it's kind of like I get away with doing both. I get away with creating something from the imagination of the audience that becomes a uh you know a folded card, and then leaving that in full sight so that then something that existed in our time here has always been over here. Is you know the fact I get to do both has always been quite compelling to me. So, you know, um, and every time I come back to it, I find some little wrinkle, something new, and uh um so yeah, that that absolutely would be um high on my list.

SPEAKER_03: 52:35

Amazing. Well, let's go. We're halfway through. So so far we've had Divernance Triumph, Coins Across, Cylinder and Coins, and folded card. Let's see where we go to number five. What's in your fifth spot?

SPEAKER_01: 52:47

Uh it would probably be the breadcrumbs trick. Um I have a version of uh the René Livon breadcrumbs trick um that uh is derived from a version by a guy named uh Kurt Fortier. And um I've done this routine for well, for certainly 16 years or so on and off. And I I think it's um again one of those sort of regular things that I carry, and I often end my show with it essentially. I always end with the predator, always that's usually my last trick. But it's sort of a an on-quarry type of thing. Um, but the last thing that I do, the the sort of last moment is usually the breadcrumbs. And again, just it's taken that number of years to refine it and to strip it down and and play with it, and still requires me to practice quite a lot. And I I think one of the you know one of the razors I'm using for choosing anything in for a desert island is is stuff that I like to do, but also I like to work on and improve. And that's still in that category, like they all are. Um but uh yeah, um the interesting thing about how I came to this trick is that in uh um 2009, um I was in Beijing for FISM, and I stayed around afterwards for a week with uh Paul Marinardini, my wife and my sons, who were both there. It was my son's my youngest son's birthday, he was 11 years old. And uh we were going on a trip to you know see the uh lots of stuff. I mean, whatever whatever touristy day we were doing that day. And um, I remember we the the van came that we had hired, and we all got into the van and we all got out because it smelt like some cats had peed in there, like a lot of cats had peed in there, and not like the ones we'd had before. So we basically um got out and let the guy argue with the guy in our hotel about the whole thing. It was quite funny because the guy in the hotel was like, Well, I he he says you booked him. I says, Go and look in his he worked. I saw him walk outside and put his head inside this uh bus and then come right back in and go, Yeah, you know. So uh we had to wait for another bus, and we we had to wait like an hour or something. And um in the meantime, Jeff McBride happened to be uh in our hotel, and he was came over and we were chatting, and he said, Oh, have you seen the breadcrumbs thing that's up on some very random website? And I hadn't, so he gave me the link, you know, on a bit of paper, which I then later that night looked at. And here's a guy in uh a restaurant somewhere with some friends, and someone was videoing him doing a variation on René Lavon's breadcrumbs, and it had coins and all sorts of things were going on that were complicating matters, but it fooled the hell out of me. I I was like, I don't know where the hell he's getting these from. No idea. And and Jeff was fooled as well, and so I when I got home, I reached out to try and get in touch with him. I I found out almost nobody knew who this guy was. I had his name, it was Kurt Fortier. Nobody seemed to know who he was, and uh I managed to do a search for him and I found out that on August 4th, 2009, while we were watching him in China, um he uh died in uh in a car accident. So you know, across the world somebody's found out who you are and and is fascinated by your work and a tragedy happens. So I kind of thought, well, I'd like to I'd like to pursue this. So I reached out as brother, who I think his name is Richard. I reached out and I said, Hey, you don't know who I am, um, but you're you know, and I never met your brother, but I'd like to pursue this thing. And um he's like uh we don't know anything about his magic thing. He was kind of, you know, so I uh I took it upon myself to spend a couple of years just deconstructing that video, getting to what he was doing and why, and then taking that, and then I think cutting away a lot of the stuff I felt was unnecessary, and then changing the method in little pieces here and there, but essentially keeping quite true to what he had in terms of what he was doing. And the result is, I think, a really clean, really clear, really practical, and really magical version of the breadcrumbs that doesn't really look like the other versions in terms of, you know, um Kurt had a very clever idea to make one of the to make the returning breadcrumb distinct. Um he had a couple of vanishes and a couple of sequences to get ahead that were ingenious. Um he had more than I'm using, but it was too much. And so I basically kind of tightened it down. And and I've been doing this routine around forever, and every time I pick it up and do it and sit and look at it, a little something comes up, a little idea. And I have spent all that time trying to figure out what to say at the end, and I've tried everything. And recently while performing um at uh 69 Atlantic in Brooklyn, the the line kind of emerged in a show, and that's how I've been ending it since, and it works absolutely great. But it's taken all this time to figure out what that thing is to say. So, another advantage of having something like this on the desert island is I get to keep improving it and exploring it, and then hoping one day somebody will uh rescue me so I can share it with someone.

SPEAKER_03: 58:54

I remember, and I'm sure this is the video that everyone's seen, seeing Renee Lavan do the breadcrumbs for the first time. And I think the thing that really got me with it is just how slow and deliberate and controlled every single moment of that performance is. Um, if people wanted to explore that plot, where would you recommend that they start looking?

SPEAKER_01: 59:24

Um, I believe it's in Mysteries of My Life. Um, and uh and his other book, I think it's in there too. Um but you know it's and and other people have played with it. I think there's other versions of it now that are being sold. Which, you know. Um but yeah, uh you know, it's out there. The the thing about that trick that a lot of people need to understand is it's it is in its nature a poetic piece of magic, right? Um I have I have thought. Myself for years to not fall onto the poetry that René Lavant himself used and to find my own. And that not poetry so much as narrative. But it has to have something meaningful in it because it that's what elevates it. You know, otherwise it's just a really cool trick. Really cool version of a very classic staple trick. So in order to make people care, you need to make people care. And that comes from what you say and what you do. So, you know, I would say if you want to do the trick, then you know, start with Renee's method and be prepared for a journey. You know, I uh I took it to Spain to perform in Spain a couple weeks ago, and I was working um with duo, um great uh Ruby and uh Ferdinando, who are you know that they they um were Fism winners and they have this great act where the the two of them are doing one hand each type thing, including playing a guitar. Um and they they perform a version of breadcrumbs. So I didn't perform my breadcrumbs in that show, uh in the shows after I did. But it's it's great to see what they've done with it and how they've explored it and how they've made it about what fits with what they're doing and what they're about, right? And so I'm you know constantly seeing new ideas with it. Um you know, Johnny O from Japan, uh years ago we were both performing in uh Hakone, and uh he got up before me and does the does the damn breadcrumbs. I'm like and so I turned to Tono Nasaka and said, you know, what would you like me to do instead? He said, No, no, no, do it do the thing. And I did it, and it was fine, they're very, very different, but still, you know, still one in the hand, two in the pocket type thing, you know, or two in the hand, one in the pocket. It's one of those. But it's it's um it's a great, great effect. It's a great version of that. I have a version which I think I tipped on some online lecture somewhere, I can't even remember where, but you know, I do it with coins sometimes, but that's more of an impromptu version. So if I'm somewhere and I want to do something for some people, I'll take three coins and I'll do the same effect with coins in a coffee cup, um, which is very, very effective. Um, and I it has a change at the end as well where they all change to to silver at the end. So it's kind of like a it's not a wild coin, but it has sort of the wild coin ending, if that makes any sense. It's a bit weird. Um but yeah, I would start with Randy Roman.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:49

Well, let's go on to number six then. What did you put in your sixth position?

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:53

You know, I I I told you I didn't do my homework, but I think I would have said this anyway. Um, and I don't know if I'm gonna get put in Al Kazam jail, but I would bring a musical instrument. Uh I'm not musical at all. Um, I've never been musical my entire life. I've always liked music. But I have two sons who are very musical, a great guitar player, great piano player, and they both play a bit of both as well. And they both, you know, have interests in magic, uh, one intellectually more than anything else, and the other one. Um my oldest son is uh secretly a monster with a deck of cards. Um, people have no idea. Um he's he likes to keep it that way. But um I picked up a guitar a year ago and I started playing around with it because I'd spent you know, a whole group of us. Um John Archer and the Nardinis, uh Fifth Dimension, and uh Peter McClanakin and Noel Britton and our partners all get together and have like a great week weekend every year together. And during one of those weekends, um, you know, there was some guitar playing and singing, and I just for some reason, for the first time in my life, thought, wow, I'd love to be able to play guitar. And so I picked up a guitar and I started playing around with it. And the the first thing you do is you you have to learn the basics, and then you have to start getting, you know, stuff you can do, stuff you can't do. And then me being me, I start drawing the lines between learning this and learning magic and teaching this and teaching magic, and starting to see the gaps, you know, why why people find it so under so difficult to understand something that seems so basic, I think, as a teacher. And then I realize, well, that's because it's my fault as the teacher, and I haven't explained it correctly. And then when you find guitar teachers who who do a very good job of illustrating stuff, so I I've kind of come at it, you know, if I say here I am in magic, maybe I had an aptitude for magic. I I'm guessing I did, right? So that aptitude means that things came a little easier to me. I understood stuff a little quicker. I that's not happening with guitar at all. But what it is, what is happening is my understanding of how to bridge that aptitude gap so that people get the benefit of that. And and I think find their own aptitude because once you can smooth that over, you start to see them flourish, right? And so when I help people, I I think I'm a lot better at breaking stuff down. And so I genuinely think, and maybe music's not the only one, I think juggling might be another really good thing as well, where timing and and you know using our hands and our body and our minds to accomplish something similar, but not the same. Um, so rather than the set of juggling balls, I would bring a music and almost certainly a guitar since I'm you know spend a couple hours a day playing on guitars, but I I think that it's how it helps the magic. And one of the things that you start to understand is this is really important. If you're a magician, this is where you want to listen. It's not easy and there are no shortcuts. It doesn't matter what anybody tells you, nothing's easy, there are no shortcuts, right? Um, you're Alakazan, you make a living from telling people that stuff's easy to do and you can do it tonight, right? And the truth is, you could, you're not gonna do it great tonight. And I'm the inventor of the ultimate uh something. I mean, I always used to hate it, you know, whenever I saw why is it called the ultimate? And then one of my things came out, and the the the guy that did the typesetting called it the ultimate uh reset, I think. I'm like, but it's not the ultimate reset, there'll be another one next month. What are you talking about? But that kind of framing of stuff, and you know, where we say stuff is easy to do, it's easier to get to the point where you can do it, and that's that's good. That's not a bad thing. But there are no shortcuts, you have to do the work to get competent at things, not just to be able to do it, but to get competent, confident and comfortable. Competent, confident, and comfortable. To get to that stage with anything just takes doing the work. And right now, you know, I'm learning my scales, like kids, like here's eight-year-old kids doing scales, you know, within a mile of here who are a thousand times better than I am. But I've realized all these guys on YouTube who are saying, you know, here's an easy way to do the scales, they're all full of it, right? They're just full of it. At the end of the day, they are trying to help, but they're really just trying to get likes. The really good ones are like, look at this chart and memorize it. Right? But the really good teachers go and do this, this, and this, right? And and those extra things make the work more productive. And so the benefit you get from you know buying a trick, trying and struggling with it, but then having the having the fortitude, right, of continuing to try and continuing to struggle until you find yourself struggling less and not giving up, that's a skill that we all have to learn, right? Um, I know I picked up a guitar when I was a kid. I know I picked it up a couple of times and never really did it, but my God, it's just the work that delivers. And that's absolutely true of magic. And so the reason I take a guitar is to remind myself that this is a journey. All of it is a journey. You are never gonna make the destination. The destination is is literally, you know, the mirage in the distance. But the journey itself is supposed to be enjoyable. And by picking up something where I don't have that aptitude, where I have just enjoyment for its own sake, right, is a wonderful, beautiful thing. And I when I talk to people, there are some people in the audience who are going to go out and make a living from what I teach them. And there's some who are just gonna add it to their um list of things they'd like to do or like to play with or like to have in their collection or want to do one day. But I figured out that now I I can talk to all those people and give them what they need by understanding that as a teacher, my failure is in forgetting the journey and and what's required to get on that journey with each and every different little thing. Um so I would say a musical instrument. Take a musical instrument with you, um, because that or or or three juggling balls, but just take something that you're not good at yet, because it it's really it it hel it'll help you health-wise, it'll help you mentally, it'll help you, um, but more importantly, it gives you this comparison that will always remind you that you know hard work delivers in ways that you don't expect. And I, you know, um I wake up in the mornings and I pick something up, and if I practiced it correctly, in other words, I put the work in yesterday, I will see some improvement. Always. And I took that, specifically I took that to dive uh to diverse to Slidini's uh coins through the table, which I've been practicing now for two years, um, and carrying those coins around for two years, um and showing it to very close friends, you know, showing them where I'm at with it, and trying to accomplish what Slidini could do without being Slidini. And that's not necessarily possible, by the way. He constructed material that suited his actions and his personality and the way that he interacted with people. So I'm trying to adapt, but I'm also trying to get the moves right, and there are things that are easy and things that are hard, and there are things that are within the way that I handle coins and are things that are not. And all of that was easier to work with and understand just by taking something that I felt challenged me and re-ignited all of those um parts of my brain. And it's you know, I'm not the first to do this. It's it's you know, um, certainly, you know, Dy Vernon, I think in his 80s, asked Ray Grismer to teach him piano. Ray Grismer was a professional piano player, and uh so they traded lessons, you know. Ray Grismer was also a fantastic magician with unbelievably good ideas. So I would say um bring a musical instrument or something that will um uh um complement your journey.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:15

Uh so all of that phenomenal. It's really hard to make comment on any of that, but just uh a couple of thoughts. So, number one, just the amount of incredible performers we have that have worked musical instruments into the racks. So, you know, uh some of our previous guests, of course, John Archer. Uh I cannot think of John Archer without his ukulele. I think uh it it just goes hand in hand. I know Timon Krauss, who I would love to get on here one day, had a great show years ago where he just had a bass player and a piano player off to one side um just to help with the act. Uh we had Oliver Tabor on here, who's got a great production of some uh instruments, you know. It's a great thing to put into a show. But absolutely what you said there about the practice and the fact that I think there's a stark difference between performing a trick and understanding a trick. And I think that's very evident in what you've said so far in this podcast in terms of your exploration of magic. It's the fact that you start with the basic version or the original version, and then you just explore all of these different routes. When you spoke about uh the breadcrumbs and how you started with Renee Lavon's and then you carried on searching all of these different methods. Uh, my next thing is does that mean that one day we're gonna have an Arpo Wilson uh album? Because I'm excited already.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:41

God, I hope not. Um this is the moment where you know the time traveler will appear to shoot me because you know, to save the world. I think um I think that one of the reasons I picked up the guitar, apart from you know, I really liked the fact that I was with friends, and by the way, John Archer was one of the people playing, uh, him and him and Nardini. Um, when I sort of went, you know, I really like what they can do, and I don't really have any interest in playing for anybody. Very much like my sons, you know, like my sons play for themselves and for their own, you know, um processes, and I think that's that's really good. But I don't I don't imagine I'm gonna come up with any uh uh uh you know hit songs. Um I think I'm I'm more in the uh Andrew Ridgely Millie Vanilli end of the songwriting um area. But you know, I do I do think it's it's interesting, you know. You know, Guy Hollingworth told me once um that of all the things his parents forced him to do that he didn't want to do, the thing he's glad they persevered with was um piano. And uh he had in his apartment in uh in London this beautiful little baby grand that he would sit and play. And it did what it did for him was important, and um, and so that really encouraged me to get a piano for my kids and to get them a teacher, and um and that's become an important part of their lives. And uh and and kind of I just thought, well, why why shouldn't I try? I mean, you know, what what would it require? And I realized it would require a lot of time and effort. And that part's true, and that part I actually quite like. But I I've noticed that if I had a fear, it would be a subconscious fear, but if I had a fear, it would be that maybe I would um neglect the magic or something, or become you know obsessed by only music, right? That's never happened, quite the opposite. I've I've kind of um found uh a renewed uh direction and charge that comes of it. The only downside is it's it's expensive. It's expensive, um, especially if you accompany uh John Archer to um a guitar store in Las Vegas where he's gonna buy you know um his new ukulele um after incidentally not buying a much more expensive and uh you know thing that was in uh Nashville. He uh he got close. I guess I I guess I'm actually arguing myself here. I realized that I this is all karma. I tried very hard to talk him into buying that really, really, really expensive ukulele in in Nashville, and he didn't. And then he found another one. It wasn't certainly as expensive, it wasn't cheap, but it was another beautiful ukulele he found in in Vegas. And uh unfortunately for me at the time, I also pulled down this guitar that was amazing, and I just fell in love with it. And uh, you know, he didn't he did nothing to discourage me, is all I'm gonna say. And uh so it's over there. So it's really expensive. So yeah, it's a you know the only thing more expensive than magic is guitars.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:28

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SPEAKER_03: 1:18:25

Well, I think that's amazing, and it does lead us to the tail end of your rate. Now, considering you said you didn't do your homework, quote unquote, the fact that you've put this list together off the top of your head is phenomenal. It's such an interesting list. Uh, but it does obviously mean we've only got two left. So let's see where you went with number seven.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:46

So with number seven, I would probably put the memorized deck. Um, because again, endless, you know, endless possibilities. And I have um I have my own uh memdeck, but I did originally have um uh Aronsons in there, and I also played around with with Juan's. And at one point I came up with the idea of being able to have all three available to me, and I I came up with a way to do that. And uh all it took, all it required me to do was to you know work with it more and practice more. The system's very good, actually. The system works, so yeah, I'd bring a mem deck, and I'd probably, you know, depending how long that ship takes to find me, have multiple uh memorized decks. But also one of the things about living with a mem deck, you know, I um a great tip for anybody who's playing around with a mem deck is to have a deck of cards with the numbers on the back and all that kind of stuff that you can play with. But because that's a great way of practicing, that's a great way of doing stuff, but also to constantly be memorizing and trying new things and going through and then seeing patterns that you hadn't seen before, and doing all the stuff that you know Tamaris has been doing his entire life. You know, that's why we have Dnemonica, is because he you know never stopped thinking, never stopped exploring, never stopped finding. And it you know, as he says, it doesn't matter what order the deck is, there will always be opportunities and possibilities. All you have to do is find them. So yeah, I would take a memorized deck and um and hopefully come out with uh Demonica Volume 2.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:38

Okay, so we're gonna bring out Devil's Advocate here. So if I was to hold you to one routine using a memorized deck, what would the one routine be?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:48

It would be a Simon Aronson trick. Um and it's because I can do all the other classic ones other ways if I had to. So if I have to pick one, I'm I'm thinking, well, you know, I can do all of those with a shuffle deck. But there's a Simon Aronson routine uh called Everybody's Lazy, which is you know, um I I it's the fact how it how it works, I understand, but the fact it works still blows my mind. And what you can do with it is is astonishing. And doing it is great. Uh the challenge when doing it is to make sure the audience understands how utterly impossible this is. Utterly impossible. And I have ways of doing that. Um so you know, I I basically I could do it just with a deck of cards off the cuff, but I like to have something else with me to make that that little thing at the end work even better. But you know, um it's like uh you know they shuffle everything and you can tell them where their cards are and they can tell them tell you where your card is. And everything was shuffled. Shuffled. So I don't know, that's a pretty great trick. Um, and oh, by the way, you you you uh you you get all of this um without looking at the deck after it's shuffled. It's it's an absolute miracle. It's an absolute miracle, but it's a miracle of creativity, and so Simon Aronson, absolute genius, um, a lovely, lovely, lovely man, um, a really sweet friend and um much missed. But uh he left behind um I think just some of the most remarkable um pathways to explore with the memorized deck. That is not to take anything away from anybody else, especially Tamarese, who also explores ingenious pathways. But um I would say uh I would do that trick purely because it even though I know how it works, it's also kind of magic for me as well, just the fact that it's you know, I I know everything in the minute I know everything is just great.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:22

See, I'm not very averse with memorized deck um methods at all. So you saying that has absolutely piqued my curiosity. That just sounds phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:34

Yeah, it's it's just you know, yeah. Uh you do it and you'll you'll you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:42

Well, that we we all know what I'm doing straight after this podcast. So um let's go to number eight. So what would you have put in your final position?

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:51

I think it's in Simply Simon, by the way, if you're looking for it. Um uh so in number eight, I mean it gets harder and harder. So I started I started with Triumph as sort of the number one thing, because it's it's one of those you know hold my you know, you can go out and do one trick for the queen type of thing, you know, any you know that's that's sort of in that in that ballpark. Okay, I'm gonna cheat again. Cups and balls. Cups and balls. Again, I'm sure many people have said cups and balls here, but here's the reason why. Cups and balls kind of gives me all the tricks of magic, you know, in one in one routine. Um I have uh up here on my shelf um uh a really phenomenal set of cups and balls um that uh I've owned for a long, long time. Beautiful set. And every now and again I bring them out and I will spend uh you know, a couple of months every time I come in here, you know, the guitars are here, the cups will be there, and I'll play around and I'll do the routines and I'll do all the sequences and I'll play around with ideas, and then I'll all go back again, right back there. Because I've never performed cups and balls for anybody. Maybe a couple of friends here and there, but I've never done it. And the reason I've never done it is because going back to what I said about doing the Ramsey cylinder and coins, it's a great way, it's a it's a it's an exercise routine, it's meditative as much as it is informative. And with cups and balls, there's all these sequences and all these ways of getting from one place to the next and coming up with different things and all the methods that I know, practicing them all and playing around with them, and then thinking, that's interesting. What if I took that from here and I put it over here? Um so cups and balls, you know. I I actually, you know what? I have done cups and balls for people. I did it in uh Isle of Man close-up competition. I was one of the winners for that, I think. And um in that competition, I did uh um uh the chocolate box uh prediction, which people still ask me about, and I only ever did it twice amongst magicians. I used to do quite a lot um for lay people because I had a very um uh very practical way of doing it, um, or a couple of practical ways of doing it. And I had this kind of crazy magician version where the the prediction was in the the uh the the advertising page of the local newspaper and I put the advert in a week before and uh you know tonight's newspaper had the prediction in it, and so a lot of people talked about that, but then um a couple of years after I did the Isle of Man thing, somebody else said, uh, you know, that cups and balls was pretty good as well. And so they remembered the cups and balls, and it wasn't it was the Alex Elmsley cups and balls that I did. But I had a little touch on it. So the Alex Elmsley cups and balls is a three-cup routine where um you produce the final uh surprise, and then you're one of the cups is full of salt, and then you pour the salt onto the newspaper that you're performing on, and then you gather the salt up and you pour it back in and you refill all three cups with that salt, which is a great bit. Um and I did it without the newspaper um method that that Elmsley did. And Elmsley really liked the method. I told him what I did, um, and uh he he he realized that was actually really um sneaky um and uh and kind of you know cheeky. But I uh I adjusted that and I think a couple of years later at one of the shows I did at the festival, I did it a couple of times, and um I sort of came up with three loads and then the salt, and then the salt filled everything, and you know, so it was kind of a cool bit. And I assume on the desert island I'll be doing this with sand. But uh it's cups and balls is definitely a bit of a cheat because you know you take away two of the cups, I can do it. Um Larry Jennings one cup routine, fantastic routine, um where uh you know you start with nothing except a handkerchief, and then you you know you roll the handkerchief up and you try and stand it up and it falls over, and you try and stand it up again, and then you tap it and you can hear something, and there's a cup underneath, and then the cup is empty, and then three balls appear, and then you make them vanish and reappear under the cup, and then giant thing appears inside the cup, and then the cup vanishes. You know, or the the giant thing vanishes first, and then the cup vanishes, and then you're left with a silk handkerchief, everything goes away and you're clean, right? A real miracle. And then you've got the two cup routine by um uh Tommy Wonder, right? So, you know, if I've got one of my socks from the shipwreck, uh I've got the bag and I can do that part of the routine, and I, you know, so I can get a sea urchin out of the sea to be the pom-pom that he used, right? And all the kind of things I can do, so I can do his routine with the two cups, I can do the David Williamson routine with two cups, which is also phenomenal. I can do a version of John Ramsey's routine with two cups, again, phenomenal. I have a two-cup routine, which is okay. And then I can go to the three cups and I can do the Vernon routine, I can do Johnny Thompson's routine. Johnny taught me uh twice, actually. And um, you know, I can do the uh the Ireland routine, and I can play around with the um uh Wilbur Kelsey routine. So, you know, there are just so many things you can do, and I've got the balls, so then I can do the four ball routine or the sorry, the three ball three ball routine, and I can you You know, practice that and I can, you know, so it's a real cheat because I've got all of these props to do all of this magic. Um which I guess is why cups and balls has been around for such a long time, is it really is an act in a pack.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:14

Yeah, we've had uh cups and balls a decent amount of times on the podcast, but you mentioned that that was a cheat. Uh you should hear some of the things that people have done on this podcast. Honestly, that is not a cheat, that's just wise. I think that is. Um, and it's such a great list. Just going back over it. We started with Divernon's Triumph, Coins Across, Cylinder and Coins, Folded Card, Breadcrumbs, your musical instrument. We've got a memorized deck, and we're ending with cups and balls. Considering that's off the top of your head, that is a phenomenal list.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:44

Uh, you know, it should anybody making this list, it should just be what you like to do. You know, and you know, there are other things that I like to do. But these are the things that, you know, if I have to, um, you know, I could I I could hit the road with those tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:00

Yeah, I agree. But amongst all of the things that you like, there are obviously things that we do not like in the industry. So we do have a banishment. So you're allowed to banish something onto your island. So I want you to imagine that you're gonna dig a big sandy hole and you're gonna throw something in that hole and bury it. Now, this could be a trick, this could be a trope, this could be a line, it could be absolutely anything in the industry that if you could get rid of it, you'd get rid of it for good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:30

I probably would say one of the things that we should actively be digging a hole and and putting and burying is um trying to pick the right word because there's several words that would apply here, but I think resentment is the word to put in. We see too much of it in magic. Um it's all too common. I think that uh one of the one of the problems with being so connected, you know, yet separated, is that people are quick to judge and quick to um uh quick to combat without discussion because that's the first option you have is to throw stones rather than actually get together and discuss issues. And sometimes issues need to be resolved. I mean, sometimes people do wrong, sometimes people you know need to be challenged, and sometimes they don't. But I think that a lot of what we have in magic that's a problem is just down to easy resentment. And um, you know, it's it's not jealousy is part of it, of course, but that's just that's like a little facet, competitiveness, um, it's like toxic competitiveness. I and I think that's the the thing I would put away. Um, generally speaking, when you put magicians people, people enthusiastic about the art of magic and the world of magic together in a productive space, it's always wonderful. But when you put them together in a competitive space, it's it becomes quite uh negative quite quickly. And I think that all comes from this idea that there's only one cake, and if someone's got a slice, you're not getting it any more cake. There is no cake, there is no slice. You've all got the ingredients to make your own cakes. But there's that thing of, you know, you know, I mean, certainly we we do, you know, the other thing I would I would have considered putting in is just you know the the the lazy uh reinvention stuff, which I think is constant, just constant. Um but you know I what is lazy reinvention and and what is not, that that's hard to judge without being resentful, uh without being that that guy as well. But I do think sometimes we just see invention for the sake of invention, and we certainly see invention for the sake of um profit, you know, regardless of ethics. We see that a lot. But the that that's never going away from any aspect of life. Um I think the thing that we need to work on as a community is just being a little bit more um respectful and a little bit less um argumentative in spaces where argument has no product. You can't really argue over the electronic thing, right? You can't. Um social media the more that we interact with it, and the more we learn about it, the more we realize that it is not as um helpful as we had imagined it was going to be, and it is not as safe as we had imagined it was going to be. Comes with lots of problems. And we're at the stage now where we're recognizing those problems, and maybe we'll be more intelligent about how we use it in our lives in the future, but in our community it can be ridiculous how things kind of devolve into you know nonsense. Um and I see it constantly, and I occasionally hear about it, you know, so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so. And I, you know, there are people I've had issues with, but I've had conversations with them, and I still have conversations with them. You know, um, I mentioned earlier that uh a guy made something for me and then he sold it. Didn't ask my permission, he sold it, and he knows he knew how extremely pissed off I was about it. And uh I saw him at a convention and we went and we had a chat and I told him I thought it was wrong, and he told me why he thought it was right, and he had conceded that it was wrong, and that was kind of the end of that, but you know, still liked him. Kinda, you know. I mean it was I didn't like what he did there, but I I kind of understood some of his thinking. And he wasn't a bad guy, he wasn't somebody who was like, you know, but it was uh it was a bad thing between us. We talked about it and we joked about it, but at the end of the day, we you know we sat down like two human beings and got through it. Um and luckily we did that before the hype machine around us, which is social media, really kind of got a hold of it. But I think we we resolved our um our disagreement. In other words, we we disagreed we resolved the fact that we disagreed and then we moved on. And I think that we need to see more of that because I think when magicians and we're a very small community, we don't need it. Um and of course, you know we're also open to more scrutiny eventually. And you know, when somebody throws an accusation and the rumor goes round the world before the you know the truth gets its socks on, as um a wise man once said, it's it's kinda it isn't you just don't want to be involved with that. You don't want to be involved with that kind of thing. And it happens way, way, way too often because we have what I would call the community of magicians, but we also have this extended um audience of you know a much larger audience of real birds, you know, if you know that term real birds, so the people that sit and watch poker games, um call them real birds. But you have all these people, and so you know, you'll have them jumping in and and taking part and like adding to the discourse. And some of them are bots, for God's sake, but you end up with this kind of you know swamp of stuff, and really the only way is to just step back and not engage at all. But you know, if somebody doesn't want to talk to me about something they've done to me or that they think I've done to them, then probably there's a reason for that. You know, there's a reason they don't want to talk about it, and that's fine by me. Uh, and then I see other people, and I've seen it recently with friends, just you know, the the machine of accusation and stuff is rolling before he can even get an answer. And and his answer is perfectly valid, and his answer is perfectly, I think, right, but too late, you know, it's already out there. And we see that so often, and yet my friends who are magicians, but they come from other fields like music and film, and they look at this and go, what the hell is going on? You know, it why why are you talking about each other in this way? I thought this was something to enjoy. And I think it is because of the competitiveness thing, that thing of resentment is driving all of it. It's completely unnecessary, you know. At the end of the day, um, you know, you know, Rick Ricky J once got very upset at a magician because he, in front of him, and for a bunch of very well-known celebrities, and this this L Magician is also a celebrity, by the way, um did it did an invisible deck and fooled everybody horribly with the invisible deck. And I think uh Johnny Carson was there, and he knew how that worked, of course. And uh he was really bigging up what this guy had done, and this magician is not no, he's not even a Johnny Carson, but he certainly know Ricky J, right? But he had an invisible deck with him. Oh my god, did that upset Ricky apparently? You know, Ricky was furious. Why? It's a great magic trick, it's a great magic trick, and I'll bet he did it well, and I'll bet everybody loved it, and it was funny, and all the other things. Um, but we have this weirdness in our community that you know, take something that you get is somehow taking it away from me. And that's resentment. It's toxic, it's unnecessary. I would put that in the bin um and I would replace it with conversations and you know, even debate, even disagreement, that's all fine. But the other stuff is you know, is a distraction. It's a distraction from something genuinely wonderful and genuinely a great thing in life, you know, is that we get to deceive people for the sake of you know, enhancing their imagination, you know, all these things. So yeah, I would take that petty resentment, put it in there, and um yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:25

Do you think that resentment is something like earlier on you mentioned about learning your musical instrument and you know it's the the challenge of it, and you have to learn everything that is about it and grow? And you also mentioned the the same with the tricks like the breadcrumbs and how you know you start off with a little thing and you practice and practice. It's my theory, based on just my own experiences in magic, that resentment is almost something that you learn to deal with as you go through your career, and it almost phases out. The more you know yourself and the more you know what you're good at, your strengths, your weaknesses, resentment seems to fade. Do you think that through your career it's something that has become less so?

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:12

I think so. I think that you you learn to just you know, at the end of the day, what what what you understand is the truth is that that's that's all you have. And there, you know, there's no point arguing with other people. You know, I've like basically managed to to survive by applying a very simple rule of life, which is if you wrestle with a turd, you end up covered in shit. And I I genuinely think that you know when these things happen, it's it's because of it's because of perceptions and problems that you can't resolve and you have no say in. So, you know, arguing your your part makes no difference, you know. Um I think that uh the fact that you know if somebody thinks something, even if the evidence is absolutely clear, and there, you know, there's like a written version of this and there's a version of that, and you can see they're completely different, that doesn't matter at the end of the day, and it would be ignored in order because at the end of the day, what they prefer is whatever they're thinking, and and there's nothing you can do about it. And so over over time, I have just you know, I just walk away from it, and I am much, much happier. And I think that most mostly I've learned that from other people because I wasn't always that good at it, and um I think that uh, you know, I I still, you know, I hear negative things about myself and always traces back to people I haven't spoken to in 35 years. And so my rather than discuss what was said, I just ask the person asking me, I say, well, when was the last time we spoke? And they say, Well, I don't know, a few months ago. Well, I haven't spoken to them for 35 years, so why are you listening to them? You you know more about me than they do. And then you kind of speak to someone else, and they they start telling you all these stories about other people going through the same thing, and you realize that it's kind of universal, it's just kind of everywhere, you know, and and kind of in a way it's city-based, you know. You go to cities and these people that you've met around the world, and then you go to their home, and you find out that they don't talk to each other, or they dislike each other, or they have different schools of thought, and they're kind of at odds with one another, and there's this weirdness that you didn't experience because you know, because this is the swamp that they live in. And me over here in my swamp, you know, I have my own tadpole and I stay away from the other tadpoles, but the or the lily pads. But it's just the way things are, and I'm guessing that you know, when you start looking into you know the music scene in the 1980s and all the bands that were hanging around LA playing, you know, hair rock at the time and developing what became you know glam rock, and the it the you know, the the things they're all disagreeing with one another, and yet being friends with people who are in you know thousands of miles away because the distance helps sometimes. You know, the distance uh when you're too close to one another, you start getting the magnetic um repelling and attracting issues that come. And I think that you know, um probably the smartest advice I ever got was you know not to not to really get involved with local politics, and that has paid off. Um I think any advice I've I've shared, and I've shared this with several people, is you know, the world gets smaller and smaller, and your friends become more and more distributed, and you meet in these intersections. And that's kind of how the the magic world is quite unusual, I guess, but the magic world works that way is that your friendships kind of span distances in time and and um but you you have to be more um careful about the friends that you have close to you because you know they're they're the ones you're living with. And so the friends I have in my local area um are they have been lifelong friends and they are good friends, and we can meet and talk about anything, doesn't that be that magic? Magically, I tend to, you know, keep myself to myself because I don't really want to get involved in the local scuttle butt. And anybody who joins a club suddenly becomes immersed in whatever the club's about, unless they come to it and they go, I'm gonna sit over here and let them deal with that over there, and I'm just gonna talk about this stuff and enjoy the magic thing. And whenever the scuttle starts, I'll either go away or not get involved. And so you learn when you get older that it's uh a mistake to get too close and involved with something that will eventually rebound on you as well, and you'll also be part of it, and it can destroy entire communities, and I've seen it happen. Um, but you know, generally speaking, I kinda made the right decision. I think I uh much, much happier for it. And I think that most people who I've talked to who are in similar situations, as soon as they understand that it's a matter of understanding that you can't really fix it because it's not because of them that it's happening. It's because of that thing that we buried on the beach. It's it's better to just, you know, have the confidence in yourself and at the same time, you know, understand that you're not perfect, you make mistakes, and so does everybody else. And if you have genuinely, you know, always tried to do the right thing and even failing, the people who are criticizing you are probably um compensating for something else, I guess, or you know, um something else is going on that you again you can't really resolve it. But it happens less and less with distance. And and again, social media throws everyone together and then suddenly having exactly the same problems with people who are you know they're they're close but in a sort of digital sense. And and you know, again, step aside, walk over there, do something else, do your own thing. And if that doesn't work, then maybe do something else.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:05

Okay, well, resentment is gone, it is buried, it's gone. We have conversations instead going forward. Uh, but it does let's lift the mood a little bit and go to your book. Now, I've noticed behind you, it looks like you have quite a large library. And just listening to the way that you've spoken all the way through this, I'm guessing you are someone that likes to explore and go back to your library often. So I'm guessing this would be a difficult one for you to select.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:36

It is difficult. I I think um, you know, there's books here. I've I've read almost all of these to some degree. There's a couple that I, you know, there's there's there's at least one or two here I can think of that I haven't read almost at all. Um sort of reference pieces. Um you know, I have up here. Uh I have a stand up here which has basically got uh basically has a book that I will stand and look at and turn the pages off every now and again. Um and uh up here I'll put a magic book sometimes or a film book or something. At the moment, this one is my uh Napoleon book, Kubrick, and I haven't looked at it in two months because I've been out of the country. Um so this is a a movie that Kubrick didn't make, but it's all of his work on it. And it's great, you know. I'm I'm probably a hundred pages in, and there's another six hundred to go or something. And I have a couple of magic books like that. But I think that if you're gonna bring something to Desert Island, it's gotta be that rereadable thing. Or the, you know. Has anybody taken the Encyclopedia Britannica? For me, I would take the the closest we have to that, and it hasn't actually hit print yet. But uh the new Greater Magic is astonishing. It's just astonishing. Uh what Kaufman is doing is you know, it blows my mind. And I'm the author of one chapter. Um, and uh I would expect it to be one of the smallest chapters, and it's quite big already. But um if you have the greater magic that he's putting together, that um will encompass more magic than anybody needs in a lifetime. So that would be my choice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:51:30

Amazing. Well, we like uh we've had a couple of people tease books that are to come out, so that's great. It gives us all something to look forward to. Now, the interesting thing is you've already taken a non-magic item that you use for magic, in that you've taken your musical instrument. So you could, if you wanted to, move your musical instrument to your item position and then choose another trick, or you can select a different item.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:56

I think I would probably take with me as an item. I mean, I'm being practical, but I I would take uh a very good knife. Um because you know it it is like if knife's knife's useful, obviously. You can cut, hunt, uh, cook, um, but you can also whittle and and make, and you know, uh now that I'm on the island and I've had my eight things, I can maybe learn how to make my own little uh ball and vase. Or, you know, I mean, who knows? But I would I would bring something like that. I I think a tool that allows you to um interconnect with all the other things, you know, a knife does that and it would uh be that would be my choice. I also quite like really good like cooking knives, and you know, I have a I have a ridiculous collection of of you know these little things lying around all over the house. I got one here, there's another two downstairs, there's another one up there, and yeah, there's another one up there. And you know, I'm always using them for little things here and there, and uh, you know, obviously that's got dozen tools in it. So I I would say uh a Swiss Army knife would would allow me to both survive in the survival sense, but also survive in the magic sense, because all these little things that are on here, you know, I use things for preparing stuff for magic, I use things for making stuff for magic, I use stuff, I use them for you know fingernails and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, that would be my recommended item.

SPEAKER_03: 1:53:43

Amazing. Well, I think that's a great way to close out your list. So let's look at it one more time. We had Divernance Triumph, we had Coins Across, Cylinder and Coins, Folded Card, breadcrumbs, your musical instrument guitar, uh, we had a memorized deck, we had cups and balls, your banishment is resentment, your book is the new greater magic, and your item is a very good knife, and that is a very good list indeed. If people want to find out more about you, your products, lectures, all of that good stuff, where can they go to?

SPEAKER_01: 1:54:16

Um uh I have a website, rpawwilson.com. It's mostly about the film stuff. Uh, there is a little magician's section on there. Um, product-wise, you know, this stuff comes out when it comes out. I am about to release probably in the next few months um a couple of very interesting, unusual things that are, you know, I think uh um great tricks and really useful magic items. I don't want to say too much, but they're um I bought a 3D printer a couple of years ago, and and that's another rabbit hole that I went down. Um and you know, there's you know, there's obviously there's tons of stuff you can do with 3D printing that's but I think the the interesting thing for me was the idea to prototype, refine all within the cycle of a day, and then go down and then suddenly have something I could go out and test and then come back and remake it. So I think um I think I'm probably gonna market a couple of those as sort of limited runs where you can get an advanced, you know, you can because they're both quite good in magician foolers, I think it would be quite good to have before everybody else can get them. So I'm probably gonna do that. So if you keep an eye on our powilson.com, those may uh those may appear in the in the coming months.

SPEAKER_03: 1:55:43

Amazing. Well, I'll be looking out for those 100%. Um and in terms of lectures, do you lecture at all?

SPEAKER_01: 1:55:52

I do. I uh you know, I lecture whenever um I'm invited and I can do it. I I can never book anything too far in advance simply because there's always the uh, you know, I don't know when I'm filming, I don't know when I'm doing any of that stuff. And and all, you know, always whenever I end up with a filming project, it it's right in the middle of all the other stuff, and I end up canceling things. So I I kind of say, yes, I can lecture. It's much easier for me to say three months ahead than it is six months ahead. And um, so I don't know when the next lecture is uh you know talking about one right now, but uh we'll see as that comes through. But you know, yeah, whenever whenever the opportunity comes, I try and get up and talk. I just did a couple in Spain. Um and I guess I'll be doing a couple more there at the end of this month. Um, but uh yeah, who knows? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:50

So amazing. Well, thank you so much again for your time. Pleasure. And uh thank you all for watching. Of course, we'll be back again next week. Do go check out all of those links. Do go check out uh Paul Wilson's website, do look out as well on Penguin Magic because I know that they stock a lot of his stuff. And do go check out his Penguin lectures because they are phenomenal. Of course, we'll see you guys again next week with another episode. Thank you for joining us until next week. Have a great week.

SPEAKER_00: 1:57:23

What a performer gigs, I look at effects that tick these three boxes. Is it super strong and powerful yet? Will it last of your spectators for a lifetime? Absolutely, please. And does it leave them with a two veneer?