I have to admit the Cups and Balls month burned me out somewhat when it came to blogging, so sorry about the lack of activity lately. Anyways, I’m starting a new project. I’m going to be going through Jean Hugard’s and Frederick Braue’s Royal Road to Card Magic chapter-by-chapter and annotating it with some additional thoughts. Please note, I’m a nobody in the magic world, so it would be irresponsible of you to simply take my word on any of the opinions that I’ll be offering.

That said, I really liked the idea Darwin Ortiz and others had of taking Erdnase and annotating it, and I think that more classics of magics could benefit from this sort of treatment. While of course there is a significant benefit to focusing one’s study on the primary text, I’ve always found it helpful to listen to the advice of other magicians based on specific, published issues. If there’s one thing I can’t stand about some of the recommendations you’ll get from other magicians is when they list a text or a resource to study from, and when you ask them why, they won’t tell you in anything other than generalities. Now, if anybody who was just starting out in card magic asked me which text to get, I’d send them here, before Erdnase, before Vernon, before Lorayne, before Marlo… and of course I’d then tell them what I’d personally change to the text. I’ve done this often enough that I’ve decided to actually codify some of the advice I’ve given, and why.

So, for the next little while, I’ll be focusing on this book. Hope it’s helpful.