Book Update

For those of you who have chosen to support Season 3 at the Gotta Have It level, I wanted to give you an update on the book. Yesterday I put a first hyper-rough-draft together of the ideas and effects that will make up Magic for Young Lovers to get a sense of how much material I had... and it was almost 200 pages longer than I intend the final project to be. So now it's just a matter of deciding what stuff I think works best for this book and what I'm going to cut.

If you're waiting for a detailed description of what's going to be in the book before you order, no such list is forthcoming. I don't want to have to talk someone into buying a $260 book. It is what it's meant to be: a reward for the people who like this site enough to support it. If a year of this site, four issues of the X-Comm magazine, a limited edition deck of cards and a limited edition book isn't worth that cost to you, then me describing some of the tricks isn't going to push you over the edge, I'm sure. 

The big focus in this book is magic that creates more enduring amazement by utilizing strong emotional hooks. Presentations that would be interesting even without a trick accompanying them, and props that the average human can connect to with greater ease than they can just a deck of cards or some Chinese coins. (In Magic For Young Lovers you will find tricks with pictures of your ex-girlfriend, licorice, a re-cut version of Star Wars, buried treasure, dreams, incense, a prototype version of a new word game your friend created, origami, pictures of your genitals, sign language, and an infant child.) 

There's no big hurry to purchase the book now, I will give a "final call" later in the year before it's sent off to the printers. I should say though, unlike JV1 where there were some extras printed for my retirement plan, with this book there won't be any extras printed (other than any overage created by the printer). So to guarantee a copy you'll have to get in an order before I place my order with the publisher. But, as I said, there's no rush. I'll keep you updated.

On the agenda for the coming months, in addition to writing and editing the book, I'll be working with the photographer and choosing the models for the cover shoot, taking the reference photos for the illustrations (once again to be done by the brilliant Stasia Burrington), designing and finding a printer for a couple small props that will come with the book, putting the Jerx Deck #2 together, and writing this site and the magazine and testing out a couple of dozen ideas every month or so. If you're ever like, "Why doesn't he write me back long emails?" This is why.

I'm not complaining though. This is all crazy time-consuming, but it's also intellectually and creatively stimulating stuff. So it's generally pretty enjoyable. Definitely better than the alternative.