Dear Reader --
Happy Thanksgiving! Be thankful to your pursuits today, and finish something you've been putting off, then start something new. Also, hug a magician.
Cheers,
The 4SM Team.
Dear Reader --
Last weekend we hit up the Art of Play warehouse party / Buck twins birthday, and it almost felt like a small scale magic convention with all the familiar faces that were there. It was lovely to see old friends and meet new ones, if you met us there and are reading this now, cheers. Some thoughts that keep sticking in my mind after I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience: Cards. Puzzles. Quality. These three words describe Art of Play to me.
Puzzles: The puzzle element I was very surprised by, in regards to how compelling these puzzles were. I suppose it’s the magician side of us that sees something hidden or obscured and wants to find out the secret. If you have any sort of puzzle itch yourself, I highly suggest you check out their inventory, they stock a number of really fascinating and unique puzzles from creators all over the world.
Quality: The quality of their products is insane. From everything to their goods, to the mechanics of the space (hello hidden-bookshelf door, private poker/whisky room, etc.), to their ideology, everything was done so thoughtfully. I had a brief conversation with Dan, and it was very clear that this result was not by happenstance, he has a very focused vision of what this company is and what they do.
Cards: H.A., who was scouring the card racks in the warehouse, had an insightful comment on how she primarily felt drawn to the decks that we had some personal connection to, such as knowing the creators or designers. Personally designed playing cards represent a manifestation of your own aesthetics, and I think it’s absolutely remarkable that we’re able to go from idea to completion with a deck of cards, easier than we were ever able to in history. Now, more than ever, a deck of cards has become a statement of personality and identity. From Jeremy Griffith’s Vitreous playing cards, Omar Renfro’s Red Stripe, the cards, themselves, tell their story. And when placed into your hands, tell yours.
What's your magic story?
-- J.R.
Dear Reader,
Do you know how, in movies, whenever the entire human race is threatened by some cataclysmic world-ending event, everyone puts aside their own ego, politic, and self, in order for the greater good?
At the risk of appearing overly sappy or optimistic, this is exactly how I feel about the magic community as a whole. Here we are, all strangers, that met one day in the pursuit of creating something that, ostensibly, exists only in our heads. We create weird plots and effects, craft gimmicks that could pass as some otherworldly artifact, play dress up to unending degrees of strange, spend hours staring at our hands in a mirror, all for the purpose of creating a fleeting magical moment in an as-yet-undetermined person’s thoughts. Sometimes our ideas don’t even leave our living rooms: we’re in love with the process as well.
I think we, those who take a vested interest in magic, belong to an increasingly special, supportive community. Rarely do practitioners of such great disparity in experience or skill share their literal secrets, their life’s work, careful tradecraft, all for the simple goal of sharing what they know to benefit others. This is why I find the magic community to be such a special place, and why I wax poetic about it today. We’ve been around for thousands of years, all for us to arrive at this very moment, and continue to create new, fun, and mesmerizing experiences for those around us. Thank you for being here.
-- J.R.
Blogging means writing. Writing means using my hands. Fractured my finger this week, so no post this time around.
-- J.R.
Dear Reader,
We take today to shamelessly plug our own production: The Woman Illusion which premieres in a handful of days at Theater for the New City, an Off-Off-Broadway space on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NYC. We hope that if you're in town, you'll catch it!
Brief description:
"The Woman Illusion is a playful, wicked gallery of ways to be a woman. Our small cast uses the magic of theatre, and sleight-of-hand art by Magic Castle magician Jackson "Jax" Ridd to unravel spellbinding everyday acts of femininity from the podium to the bedroom. The result is revolution."
Tickets/Info.:
The Woman Illusion Website
Sincerely,
-- J.R. & P.R.
Dear Reader --
As we recuperate from the festivities at Magic Live 2017, and just Vegas in general, we share with you a list of interesting works you should take a look at:
Film:
The Fall (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791)
Following (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154506)
The Sting (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735)
Catch Me If You Can (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464)
Vogue / Magic Diner (https://vimeo.com/149129821)
Literature:
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Murakami
The Monkey’s Paw - W.W. Jacobs
Dear Reader --
Apologies for being out of the office last Thursday, we were radio silent on assignment.
Starting back up with your regularly scheduled posts today.
Dear Reader --
Welcome to the public face of the Four Suits Magic creative body. On this portion of the site we will discuss ideas related to magic, deception, bending the reality in grand and subtle ways, the duality of belief, and more.
While we won’t be revealing any deep magical secrets in these posts, many will assume some knowledge of different magical methods. Where possible we will point to public resources on these topics, but frequently that search will be left to the you, the reader.
Most of the thoughts here, then, will be about the entertaining, strange, and situational elements of magic, and effects that necessitate extreme or specific circumstance. We hope that our discussion will inspire, or at least entertain, and will help you find your way to stronger, more enjoyable magic, for both you and your participants.