Lose the TV Magic Cards. If you’re like most jaded postteens, you don’t care about the dinky little card and coin tricks explained in any of the hundreds of magic books for popular consumption. You just want to know how the bitchin’ stuff works. How to saw a person in two. How to make a handkerchief dance in a sealed glass bottle. How to make Doug Henning’s stage persona actually seem cute. It’s fun to be fooled, sure. But it’s even more fun to be able to point out the wires and mirrors and ruin it for everyone else.
Magicians get territorial when it comes to the primo material. But even the pros have to learn the secrets somewhere. The somewhere happens to be a handful of professional magic-materials suppliers, including Abbott’s Magic Manufacturing Co. (Colon, MI 49040), Fiosso Hornmann Magic Co. (304 West 34th Street, New York, NY 10018), U. F. Grant (P.O. Box 44052, Columbus, OH 43204), and Louis Tannen, Inc. (1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036). All publish large catalogs advertising “workshop plans” for illusions. The plans—short, photocopied manuscripts—detail the secrets of the spectacular stage illusions and sell for a few dollars each. We sent away for some of the real bafflers. Promise you won’t be disappointed afterward, and turn the page.