VVOORRTTEEXXMagic Club of PJs Trick Shop

April 2012

Schedule

Wed. Apr. 11th

Jon Armstrong

Lecture

Tue. May 15th

3rd Annual Contest

Tue June 19th

Workshop T.B.A.

Tue. July 17th

Lecture T.B.A.

Tue. Aug. 21st

Workshop / Elections

Tue Sept. 18th

Show / Lecture T.B.A.

Meetings Info

All dates and events

are subject to

change.

Meetings are

normally held on the 3rd Tuesday monthly.

Dues

$80.00 / Year +

Benefits

Workshops

Anyone interested in

teaching a table at

the next workshop

meeting please ask

us how to get your own table.

PJs Trick Shop Has Moved

Please stop by and see our new home. Our new location is located on

Milwaukee Ave just north of where River and Milwaukee meet, just south of

Palatine road. The new address and phone number are:

652 N. Milwaukee Ave Prospect Heights, IL 60070

847.353.8797

We look forward to seeing you at our new location.

Its that time again for our annual magic contest / show.

This year we are shaking things up a bit. This year we will

feature a close up contest. Please contact Fred Paul

Bailey if interested in performing a close-up set. There will

be twelve performers so contact Fred and grab your spot.

New Meeting Location

Please make note of our new location for the magic club. Rocky Vanders 698 N. Milwaukee in Prospect Heights

ACEs McBride Experience

By Kevin Kapinos, Bill Cook, Andrew Michals and Fred Paul Bailey - Photos by Brian Carter

It was such a treat for ACEs Magic Club to host The Jeff McBride Experience. It was amazing to see all the people come out from far and wide to enjoy Mr. McBrides performance and lecture. The place was packed In fact it was standing room only! One of the best shows we have ever seen was followed by one of the best lectures we have ever seen. We were impressed by the length of the McBride show and the variety of magic he went through (in both the show and the lecture). It goes to show that you can be a master manipulator but you can't do an entire show doing manipulations with playing cards. You've got to have a variety of material that can last the length of a full evening show.

Jeff's experience and wisdom in magic really showed during the lecture.One of the first and most important ideas that he showed was that great magic can be easy to do. Twice, after he taught a trick, he allowed someone who had never performed magic to step up in front of everyone and perform the trick. Both tricks were featured in his show prior to the lecture proving his point about the lack of correlation between quality and difficulty. He also taught easy card manipulation techniques. McBride's experience helped him teach the most important lessons of the lecture:He shared how to fill a larger room with small tricks through the use of confetti and a mouth squeaker. These two props take up less room than many popular stage tricks but McBride showed how they can make a simple spongeball routine or silk production play on a large stage for a large crowd.

Another highlight of the show was also part of his Pack Small, Play Big philosophy. He showed how if he ever loses his props, he can still perform his stage show. While opening an eyeglass case, he revealed what props he keeps in it so that he can always be prepared to perform most of his 90 minute show with just those props. McBride also taught close-up tricks that weren't in his show that followed some of his other philosophies about magic. For preparedness, he taught the Kundalini Rising - A borrowed deck rising card in the spectators hands. Another close-up trick he taught was the string through a spectators finger, which demonstrated gift magic. The performance was poetic and inspiring, using a string with a bead on each end to convince the spectator that an obstacle in her life was just an illusion and the string was given to her as a bracelet to remind her of the magic (and the magician!). The explanation was comical with a large rope with tennis balls on the ends to teach everyone in the room how to do the trick! Everything McBride taught had practical applications to the performance of magic. Each trick was technically easy and each trick demonstrated part of McBride's philosophies about magic. The lessons learned from the lecture span from simple tricks to entire performance concepts

all of which can easily be implemented into all of our magic performances weather youre a professional or hobbyist!

Everything is better with confetti!

The McBride Super Session is a condensed version of his week long Magic and Mystery School class.

Jeff covered a wide range of subjects including magic, theory, and philosophy.

For many of the attendees

The Jeff McBride Super Session was a unique, once in a lifetime experience!

How many times in our lives can we say weve learned first hand from a Las Vegas headliner?

Jeff covered everything from close up magic, stage and mentalism sharing his 20+ years experience teaching magic. He started the evening with an example of how most people feel that their status is diminished when shown a magic trick. Jeff taught us how to move our audience from darkness to enlightenment. He explained that Good magicians wrap their magic in theatrical presentations to give their audience mare than just a puzzle to solve (as most people feel put-down with puzzle magic). He reviewed four presentation strategies with the small group: Storytelling, The Magician in Trouble, Conspiracy and Gift Magic. To illustrate his point he performed varied routines incorporating many different styles and characters along with providing amazing on-line and in-print references. To break-up the immense amount of knowledge he was imparting on the group he would pause from time-to-time for multiple Q&A sessions. The diverse group, as you might have guessed, took full advantage of the time with Mr. McBride and asked several excellent varied questions: The best way to approach a table for restaurant workers, How to handle a rude audience, How to handle Grabbers, What can we ad to our magic to make it more memorable, Advise for performing in magic competitions, Where to place what effects, How to turn an objective

THE

SUPER

SESSION

"I promise to tell all the big lecturers about your fantastic club and you should expect to

hear from some of magic's best."

- Jeff McBride

I've been fortunate enough to sit through several McBride super sessions and I've experienced McBrides Masterclass and residency. I must admit though, each super session is better than the last But this one was his best by far!

Bill Cook

witness into a subjective participant and how to re-frame stage freight. He also gave advise on the best rehearsal methods and practices, how and where to find training groups and the best books to learn mentalism. He gave the group some very useful card handling/forcing tools that were very easy to learn in an instant! He also advised that when you are trying out new pieces to keep them short and hammock them in between two strong pieces. Jeff also announced that the material from his column in past issues of MAGIC is being expanded and turned into a book! All in all everyone in attendance agreed that it was an amazing four hours well-spent and that they were walking away with performance-ready material and tips & tricks for real world performing situations. ACEs Magic Club thanks you Jeff McBride!

VVOORRTTEEXXChicagos Premier Magic Club

April 2012

See Magic Live -- Where do YOU perform?

Pete Kovacevich - Wednesdays IHOP Buffalo Grove

Mark Presley - Fridays Barnabys Arlington Heights

Bill Cook - Saturdays Paisanos Richmond

Dan Neilson - Sundays Glenview Hackneys

Steve Belliveau - Sundays LaVilla in Chicago Your Name - Day Where

Support Your Sponsors

Rocky Vanders Caf & Bar www.PJsTrickShop.com

For more information on ACEs Magic Club visit us online

www.ACEsMagicClub.com

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President

Bill Cook

VP

Steve Lindstrom

Secretary

Andrew Michals

Treasurer

Brian Johnson

Officer At Large

Kevin Kapinos

PR

Fred Paul Bailey

Its a Mystery To Me

Barry Sonenthal

There was this sales clerk at a gift shop who hated magic. This is sadly not

an isolated instance. Protecting the secrets of magic is part of what we are about, and sadly the art of magic is the only creative science that is

contingent on a secret. Reveal the secret and the magic loses its depth.

In the book Shattering Illusions by Jamy Ian Swiss, Mr. Swiss spoke of sharing color vision with a young girl. She then insisted on knowing how".

Reluctantly Mr. Swiss shared the secret, only to have the girl express disappointment. We want to believe that magic can be real. The

sales girl has the right to like, resent, or even hate magic. Her only

experience with magic is from a brother who cherished the secrets

enough to alienate his family or at least his sister. The answer to this issue is

not simple. Its very individual. Respect magic but respect those aro