April 26, 2006
DAYTONA MAGIC
Just came back from shooting the segment at Daytona Magic shop.  Harry Allen is quite a
character.  And an amazing salesman.  I almost bought my own watch off him.  Being in the
central Florida area myself, I get a chance to go over there on occasion and he always has what I'm looking for.  Or he'll get it.  He doesn't want to lose a customer.  But I'm not going
anywhere.  He and Irv have made a great place over there in Daytona and I'm happy I'm so close to it.  Harry was pushing the Daytona Magic festival and, having been there before, I actually bought my ticket when we finished shooting.  He never fails to put on a great weekend.

April 30, 2006
THE MAGIC OF SARASOTA
Yesterday my son, Chris, and I spent the evening in Sarasota at Vince Carmen's magic dinner show.  Vince runs it with his wife and daughter but you'd never believe it was a three person show.  So much is always going on.  The place had a full house last night and they enjoyed every trick and every joke.  Live audiences are wonderful.  The show reminded me of all those magic shows I watched growing up and later Vince told me of his great respect for the magicians who had preceded him.  He and his wife Yvonne sat down with me after the show to give an interview even though they had just performed for two hours.  Talk about troopers!  They have a Halloween show they'll be presenting in October that's reminiscent of the old spook shows and I've already told them to save me a seat.  If it's as good as this show was, I'll have to make the trek to Sarasota more often.

May 1, 2006
DAN STAPLETON
Earlier today my son, Chris, and I videotaped an interview with Dan and followed it with another by Steve Hart.  We were in a rush because we leave in the morning for Canton, Ohio to cover the Battle of Magicians.  When Dan came in he put us all at ease.  He has a warm personality which is why he was a entertainment director on cruise lines as well as a magician on them.  I had read the article in Linking Ring but talking with him really gave me a sense of where he's been and what he's done.  We talked about the pros and cons of working on a cruise ship, all the "worlds" he's worked at in Florida (Circus World, Disney World, Wally World, etc...), how magic has changed and what's he's up to now.  Chris had decided we were going to take this opportunity to try out his new "virtual sets" and so Dan and I did the whole conversation against a green screen.  I have to say, what Chris showed us on the laptop looked pretty darn good.  Now I can't wait to see what it's like when it's finished.

STEVE HART
Whew!  This morning we shot Dan Stapleton and immediately followed it up with Steve Hart.  Dan's went so well I hoped Steve brought his A-game with him.  And he did.  We had told him to only give us ten minutes of his lecture but he went through it, page by page, so that when he was done Chris said we had almost used forty minutes of tape!  I didn't even have a chance to look at the clock.  Steve started talking and immediately hooked me with ways to inspire by thinking about magic.  And then he showed me a few items he had modified and others he had invented outright and, damn it, he got me thinking so much I started taking notes, even though I knew we were videotaping him.  I don't know what Chris is going to cut into the "teaser" segment, but if it keeps the energy Steve was putting out when he spoke, this segment is going to get Steve a lot of lectures.


May 8, 2006
BATTLE OF MAGICIANS
Yesterday was the fifteen hour trek back from Canton, Ohio where we attended the Battle of
Magicians convention.  I'll admit I had seen the ad for it in Magic magazine before but Ohio had always seemed, well, way up north.  This is one of the reasons I'm glad we started ENIGMA.  I went with no expectations and was completely blown away!  Where to start?  All right, the talent that Tim Demerer got for the lectures and the gala was amazing.  George Schindler, Michael
Ammar, Tom Craven.  Even the magicians I didn't know kept me glued.  I asked around and found that many of the people who attend have been doing so for quite a few years.  And the
convention seems to always be at this level.  It was a different kind of con in that the dealers worked out of their hotel rooms, but I liked that because it gave me some one-on-one time with each of the dealers to find out what they had to offer.  Another thing: there were only about 250 people there.  Tim always says he's looking for 400, but if anyone has been to one of the Battles, they need to tell everyone else how great it is.  I'm going to try and get my son to go to Cedar Point again next year so that I can tag along and hit the Battle again.  It's just that much fun.

May 9, 2006
GEORGE SCHINDLER
The World's Greatest Magician!  And one hell of a great storyteller, too.  My son, Chris, is
editing George's segment and I have to continually stop what I'm doing so I can listen to the
interview again.  This is one magician I wish we had gotten to talk with for hours.  Every
anecdote was filled with growing up with magic, knowing some of the world's best magicians or hindsight into what makes magic great.  I'll be seeing him again when we go up to Louisville to cover the S.A.M. convention and hopefully will have a chance to sit down and talk again.  Maybe it's because I spent so much time in New York City, but his whole demeanor when he tells stories made me feel welcome.  And seeing Chris edit, George seems to have that same effect on the tv screen, too.

May 25, 2006
ED ELLIS
Here's how we got Ed for the DVD.  We had been at the Battle of Magicians in Ohio and he had seen us videotaping but never got the chance to talk with us about what we were doing.  By the way, while he was at the Con he won the close up contest.  Yes, he's THAT good.  Anyway, he called us once we were back in Florida just to see what the magazine was all about and we told him that we were looking for someone to be featured each issue as our card instructor.  He said he would love to give it a try and, on the basis of what we saw at the Con, we drove back to Ohio to shoot a teaching segment with him.  If you've never seen Ed in action, you're in for a surprise.  I've never seen anyone handle cards the way he does.  My son and I had to remind him that we needed remedial tricks as well as some full blown effects, because he made it all seem so easy.  Once we came home and Chris had cut together Ed's segment, I took it around to some of our card manipulators for their opinions.  They all agreed we were lucky to find someone of Ed's
caliber to work with us, because he should be making his own DVDs.  Geez, I hope he doesn't read this.  He'll want a raise.

HAINES HOUSE OF CARDS
Well, I can cross another wish off my list.  I've finally gotten to Haines House of Cards.  I
remember reading about them when I was young and wondering what it would be like to go to the place where all the trick decks are made.  And now, #$%$# years later, I've finally been there.  And the funny part is, everyone working there is the same age as me!  The "girls" who work there took over for Mr. Haines when he died and still do everything by hand.  I was amazed at not only the quality they put out, but the quantity.  Betty told me they once filled an order for 100,000 Svengali decks!  If you want to see real magic, watch Haines HOC at work. 

June 7, 2006
BRANDON THOMAS
I've known Brandon for a while, so when it came time to do this DVD, I asked if he wanted to be part of it.  He was thrilled to be in the first issue of something that he thinks will last for years, and so I got to sit down with him and let him show me a couple of his favorite effects, a book test and a newspaper prediction.  Now, I've been in the business for #$%#$ years and he still got me both times.  And when he revealed how to do it he really blew me away.  I think the people who put these effects to good use will really enjoy them.  They fit into a lot of different routines.  I asked him to come back in a later issue and show us some more and he agreed.  But he's placed the bar pretty high for himself.


June 14, 2006
THE ROUNDTABLE
I had been waiting for this for about a month.  My son and I had pushed back shooting the
segment to accommodate the schedules of Bev, Dennis and Fred.  And it was worth it.  We talked for a full hour and my son, Chris, now has the dubious task of trying to trim it down to fit on the DVD.  I don't envy him.  I can't think of one thing that was said that I would pull from the
discussion.  If the rest of the roundtables go as well as this, I'm going to ask Chris if we can put out a second DVD sometime that has the full discussions from all the issues.  That's how much I love what we did.

July 12-15, 2006
S.A.M. CONVENTION
This has been a great for us here is Louisville, KY.  We arrived on Wednesday and met with Phil Milstead, who helped us greatly in getting to know everyone at the convention.  George Schindler was everywhere, constantly wanting to know if we were getting good footage.  We assured him everything was going beautifully.  We worked in conjunction with SAM to interview Terry
Seabrook, Gene Anderson, Mac King, Steve Bargatze, Kent Cummins and Lee Grabel.  We will use seconds of those interviews in our recap of the SAM con but if you would like to see the full interviews they are available in the SAM archives.
We were able to put together a roundtable of female magicians to talk about magic frm a female's point of view.  It was very interesting and gave us a look "beneath the skirt" of women's magic.  The roundtable included Arian Black, Joan Dukore, Debbie Leifer, Kayla Drescher and Jessica Peterson. 
Ali Bongo caught up with us on Friday evening after the gala and I got a chance to sit down in a detailed one on one with him on growing up in magic abroad.  Ali has the ability to talk forever without the listener ever getting bored to what he has to say.  Both my son and I sat listening in wonder to the stories unfolded for us. An incredible interview and one I can't wait for us to share with you.

CONTINUE TO PAGE 2