You go for ages without any shit being released, then it all comes along at once (ref. English bus metaphor).
Allow me to enumerate:
I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the secret, as it’s worth jack shit and the performer doesn’t look convinced.
I know it’s not new news, but I’m still gutted about the recent death of Beastie Boys’ MCA. I always have this lot in my cans when snowboarding, it’s just the perfect music to shred some serious snow to.
I have very fond memories of one particular snowboarding trip with my mate, both of us with To the 5 Boroughs in random mix on our MP3 players with plenty of other stuff, and we managed to get this track to hit our ears at the same time, bliss:
To St Helens, then, for the penultimate trip of my month-long celebration of the work/life imbalance. And by golly, I’ve hit paydirt! The Park Inn is dead easy to find (all motorway, get in!), is very near my work location for the week, and actually has decent hotel food. Shock, gasp, etc.
The first night I elected for the potted spiced Gloucester Old Spot pork with sticky apple and crackling salad. Wow! This was like warmed rillettes, never a bad thing. The only downsides were that the salad had very little crackling to it, and it was somewhat inelegant rummaging around in the bottom of the jar with cutlery to get the last bits of goodness out. I remarked to the waitress that it was amazing, then heard a satisfying whoop from the chef when she reported back. Yeah, get me, spreading the love…
The main of pan-roasted haddock with mussels, in a saffron white wine sauce with crushed potato cake was glorious - no overpowering flavour from the sauce (which can often be thick and gloopy), all the ingredients tasted as they should, which made for a wonderfully refreshing change.
And I got the staff to change the TV channel from endless news to the Bond film. More win for me!
Sadly, day two was quite odd - they served me the wrong starter (not the tasty-sounding lamb kebabs with chilli jam, but the Indian kebab instead), and when my roast pork with shank & black pudding mash arrived, there was more curiosity afoot. The pork fillet was a slab that had been shaped and dusted with some unknown substance to look like a bread roll, and it was overcooked & tough to cut, particularly as there was a lack of decent cutlery. Why is there no usable cutlery any more? Knives are meant to cut things, not just to spread butter. Oh, and the pork was supposed to be served with baby turnips, but instead I got potatoes.
Overall, it was tasteless and the ‘pork jus’ turned out to be a rubbish cream sauce.
My final day of three was a sad echo of day two - I elected for the amazing potted pork again, which was ace, but I got thin slices of slightly warmed white baguette bread instead of the thick, perfectly toasted hunks of brown bread I got on the first night. The apple and cracking salad was also missing, and when I pointed it out I got an, “oh yeah, must be out of it, that’s why we gave you the other salad.” The OTHER salad was just some green leaves that I got as well on the first night.
The main of Thai red snapper was a let down. Firstly, the fish portion was fucking tiny, dwarfed by the glutinous mound of coconut rice next to it, which looked like one of those Ambrosia rice puddings. The snapper was also far from the delicate piece from night one, and was definitely overcooked. The “Thai salad” that accompanied it was the same bunch of green leaves, but with some sliced chillies, peppers and mint thrown in.
I mean, it’s like they hired a new chef on the first night, who then couldn’t be arsed turning up for the rest of the week. What a let down.
As I look around the magic world I see plenty of shit, and I’m only too happy to let you guys know about it. See shit, call shit, that’s my motto…although maybe I shouldn’t put it on my family coat of arms just yet.
So it’s a relief to share magical goodness with you, which today happens to be Tyler Wilson. I’ve appreciated Tyler’s stuff for a while - I saw a video of him doing SloMoFo earlier this year that completely floated my boat and I’ve been trying to get hold of Reinventing the Real from a UK stockist for some time with no joy. If anyone knows a UK stockist, please let me know.
Tyler has just added a members-only area to his Cherry Villain site, and he’s got a few videos of tips ‘n’ stuff, of which I’ve just watched the one on the pass. I’ve been practicing and using various forms of the pass for some time, so most of the advice he passes along is comprised of tips I have picked up elsewhere, but it’s a great video that covers a lot of wisdom and if you’re in need of some help on this particular move you could get a lot from it.
I especially liked his point about the action being fast, but the cover slow, “like honey slowly dripping off your nipple.” Nice.
Access is invitation only, so PM me for an invitation code.
Oh fuck, this reminds me of those awful Microsoft trade show “parties” that redefine forced fun. I particularly love Dave reading his scripted “before I step down and get a drink” line - what a fucking rebel! Autism in action.
After the sheer bliss of not having to be away from home for work for months, I find myself in the middle of a very extended period in which I’m away all the bloody time (I’ve seen my baby daughter for less than 24 hours in the last 11 days, father of the year award, here I come).
Right now I’m working in Durham all week, and I’m sure that Durham is very nice but I’ve foolishly chosen to stay at Bannatyne’s hotel & health club just off the A1, which means I’m in the middle of desolate fucking nowhere, and the chance of getting a decent bit of tucker is woefully low. Let’s see what treats have been available…
First off, Bannatyne’s itself, with its ‘healthy, freshly-cooked’ menu. Why, yes, it’s healthy on the pocket (£5 a main…hmm more expenses money to spend on pints), but the only way any fresh cooking took place would have been if they used Flash wipes before chucking my hideous food in the microwave. The starter of nachos on the first night was just a bag of Doritos with some cheese dumped on top and one of those jars of Doritos salsa emptied over it. Ack. And the main of beef and ale stew was weird - sweet & vile. I can’t believe I actually ate there the second night; what I had then was unimportant, it was fucking rank.
Put it this way, the bog standard pub attached to the Premier Inn around the corner was positively luscious by comparison…until I got inside, even though obtaining entrance to the fucking place without walking completely around the damned building was some sort of fucking puzzle. I elected to jump over the fence, what a bunch of fucking fascists.
After eating there for three nights in a row (I had no other choice, please forgive me), I have come to some conclusions about this kind of business traveller fare (because, if you weren’t eating there because you had to, you wouldn’t):
Thankfully, I accidentally found something amazing: The Plough Inn in Burnopfield. Perched at the top of a hill with desolate, godforsaken views all around, right next to a road that was made for getting the fuck out of there, this little gem is ace. I found it while driving frantically around the area trying to find a cashpoint (ha, it’s the country, good cunting luck with that) and a bite for lunch…Christ I hate the countryside. Sebastian Horsley said it best:
Nature is only a good place to worship the city
But this place is wonderful - welcoming staff, pleasant country pub interior, and very tasty roast of the day sandwiches with unevenly cut chips. Yes! All I can say is, if on the off chance you’re passing by, call in. They even have an open mike blues night once a week, music to my cynical ears.
Once again, the Wizard Product Review drools its brains onto a plate and offers the result up as sage opinion (along with one of Petty’s characteristic idiot hick faces). I’m talking about Lewis Le Val’s Paint the Roses Red, which has unsurprisingly attracted praise from Daniel Madison, seeing as they both lack any hint of charisma and show a startingly pretentious propensity towards calling tricks ‘art.’ Sigh.
The performances from this DVD are firstly very dull, and secondly not very inspiring. There’s a massive case of wooden arm syndrome just prior to the utility switch in the Curiosity trick, which apparently knocked Petty’s socks off. To which I say, Petty - you’re a coin guy, so you must be an outright fucking liar that is just reviewing stuff to sell it. Or a moron. Jury’s out.
Then there’s the Harmony routine, which is supposedly spectacular, but which just made me remember that I really should read Mnemonica more. Not that Tamariz’s stack is used, just that the principle is quite, quite old.
The faux gambling expose Off with his Head was just shit. Starting with keeping the replacement out of shot at the start of the routine (it’s from a shuffled deck!), then onto the very average deals and pass, and onto an unconvincing climax. I feel that Ricky Jay should be hunting Lewis down as we speak.
The Wardrobe Change? I have an alternative title. It’s the “Ripping off Looy Simonoff Change” - how’s that? It’s a cover at best, not a new fucking change. Same goes for the Caterpillar Control - it’s just another cover for a Cardini move, and definitely not something that could be claimed as original. At least Oliver Macia’s Wow Control has a more natural cover.
My main problem isn’t that the magic is crap, it’s that it’s not worthy of selling. Very little originality displayed here, and it seems that it’s just other people’s tricks or moves sold to an audience that doesn’t know what came before. Tyler Wilson has a very good point to make on a podcast about material that is fit to publish versus material that is fit to perform. In brief, it’s okay to cover other people’s material in performance, but published stuff (which includes DVDs) needs to have originality to it.
Shit, shit and shit again. Do not buy.
I certainly use tricks to express my point of view and I have a very critical filter for stuff for which I just can’t find a justifiable plot, but I recently realised that my day-to-day personality is quite a distance from my performing persona. In real life I’m mischievous, I tell massive, outrageous lies that are intended to be seen as such, and I display ridiculous levels of egotism and elitism that allow people to poke fun at me. In short, I’m a cheeky sonofabitch, but I don’t transmit this to my tricks.
So, I’ve been working on Calen Morelli’s Loaded 1.0 and doing the usual - twisting it here & there, changing the moves, the pacing, the actual magic effects and providing justification for the actions, that kind of shit. Judging on the initial reactions, I now have what I think is a great little trick that will be added to my working sets, but I have discovered that the plot is fairly dull. There’s just no ‘me’ in it at all, so I have decided to try to fit the piece to my personality.
So far I have a very dim outline idea of what to do, but this will develop in the next few months. If I come up with something good & I don’t abandon the trick I’ll let you know what I started with, and how it ended up. A mental challenge if nothing else.
I don’t really care about the Wayne Dobson debacle, but this man is such a fucking hack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgmHhCVz9Vk&feature=player_embedded
He frequently looks like a fucking simpleton in his review show. Jesus, grow up man.
I like tunes, card tricks & food. Some of these may appear here.
Thematic Stuff...
