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At the Table Live Lecture - Mark Calabrese 10/29/2014

Mark Calabrese

Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.

(Based on 2 reviews)
Mark Calabrese: Mark is a real worker. He has made his living performing magic for a number of years. He also was a Creative Consultant for the one and only Criss Angel. You also may have seen him on the hit SyFy show Wizard Wars, where Penn praised him for his performance style. His effects have fooled some of the top names in all of magic, and he will be sharing some of those effects with you, At the Table.

DVS - Mark will be talking about this technique in great detail and cover new ideas and routines that never made it on to the DVD!

Quincy - A signed card vanishes from the deck under impossible conditions and reappears anywhere the magician so desires!

M.O.P. - An open prediction so clean, you might...just might think it's your destiny!

BCLB - The spectator peeks a playing card with the magician in the other room. The magician can come back and tell the spectator EXACTLY which card he/she chose! The magician can even deal down to the selection! Oh, by the way, this is done with a BORROWED deck!

Grab - Mark will be tipping the work to his pet effect along with some updated routines and ideas that were not published in the original release!

Traction - Mark's ace cutting routine with a twist! ANY four of a kind is cut to, card by card and in the end, changes into the four aces! This can be done with a BORROWED deck! This is a real fooler!

IF*$@%ed - Reveal a text sent to your phone without ever looking at the text! Repeat, the magician NEVER looks at their phone!

Placebo - The spectator names any card and then takes the deck behind his/her back and reverses one card at random. When the deck is spread, ONE card is seen to be reversed and it is their NAMED card. The magician NEVER touches the deck after the spectator has the cards!

Center Tear - Mark will share with you his work on this classic move.

NOTE: Due to the nature of live events, the trick list may change.

Reviews

Dr. J. M. Ayala De Cedoz

Official Reviewer

Jun 17, 2015

This was a lecture with a bit of a different tempo to it and most of it was based around a marketed item that Mark released a while back. He spent over an hour teaching effects with this principle (the marketed item is based on a principle).

Mark teaches you everything about this product, including where to find the necessary "stuff" and exactly which type to get. There are some very clever and powerful things you can do with this stuff and using this principle.

He also teaches some sleight of hand effects not related to the marketed item and one of them is a demonstration of an actual skill. In this case, it is something you have to train yourself to do (with just a tad bit of help from a gimmick) but it looks quite impossible to laypeople and other magicians.

Mark does a great job with explaining everything in detail and does a great job at providing reference material for the things that he talks about, including the inspirations for his effects and the sleights that he teaches.

He also teaches some of his work on magic with electronics, namely iPhones and some which will work with Android phones as well. If you like performing magic from this genre or if you already perform anything with a cell phone, you will like the ideas that Mark provides. Some of you may even already be familiar with some of his ideas.

If you are a card worker you will likely find something in this lecture that you will use. If you like magic with electronic gadgets, this may or may not be worth it to purchase just for that because that section of the lecture is not that long in comparison with the rest of it, but the stuff is good. I cannot say whether you will find value in it because only you can decide.

As usual, Mike Hankins did a great job with hosting and moderating. All in all, this was a good lecture with good and commercial material in it.

4 stars.
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Josh Burch

Nov 25, 2014

Mark Calabrese is a clever dude. His magic is on a different level than most. Everything he teaches on this lecture fooled me, badly. Even when I know what he was doing there was still enough grey area for me to be completely befuzzled. That said I don’t know if I will be performing any of the magic he taught. It is not difficult to do, it is all practical, and it is all powerful but they types of gimmicks he used will not suit my style. That said it may suit yours.

DVS: Mark tips the secret of his DVD produced and released by Criss Angel. He shows you where to purchase the gimmicks and goes through painstaking detail explaining how to use it both at a table and in walk around. These are all card tricks and they all use borrowed decks of cards. The DVS gimmick is brilliant and practical, it just weirds me out a bit and I wont be using it.

DVS Peek: The deck is shuffled, a card is peeked and the deck is shuffled again. The magician then deals through the cards using his intuition finds the selected card. This is an outstanding effect that you could perform blindfolded if you’d like. It is straightforward and to the point.
Copy Cat: The magician shows a prediction cards. The participant takes the deck reverses one card under the table and upon spreading the magician shows that his prediction matches. It’s that easy, you will end a little dirty at the end but he shows an easy way to clean up using a Dani Daortiz effect that you will need to learn separately.
Open Prediction: A prediction is made on the table. The spectator takes the deck and they begin dealing the cards face up. They deal one face down and the rest are dealt face up. The card they deal face down is cleanly shown to match the prediction. I can’t see a way to be closer to the holy grail of open prediction effects. I know there must be something out there but this one is very good. It is almost self working and the illusion is so clean it is almost worth sacrificing my comfort and using the DVS device. It does require some set up before hand.
The Hindu Card Trick Revisited: The spectator cuts to a card, cuts it into the deck a couple times and shuffles it away. Just by dealing through the magician can find the card selected. This involves a lot of dealing and cutting. Mark suggests only performing this for magicians and I have to agree. It is very dry, cancels out common methods as you go and is very deceptive.
Quincy: A signed card vanishes from the deck and appears in the magician's pocket. It is then lost in the deck again and manages its way back into the magicians pocket. This is bold and difficult. It combines some tough sleight of hand with the DVS device and you are left with a strong piece of magic.
DVS Wash Control: Through multiple shuffles and a wash, spreading the cards all over the table in a haphazard way, you are able to control the selected card. This is very fair. No real routine is taught but you can reveal the selection how ever you’d like.
DVS Dead Cut: Using DVS you can dead cut any predetermined card including a selected card. You can also use this as a card stab if you’d like.

Grab: A spectator names a card and the magician reaches into a dribble and pulls out the named card. You do need a gimmick to perform this and a lot of practice. He doesn’t really explain how to do it with any named card but you can use this for a selected card, a predetermined card or even a force. Even with the gimmick there is room for error and you need a lot of practice.

Traction: Under the guise of Shuffle tracking the magician cuts to a named four of a kind, finds the aces and they switch spots. This is a solid ace cutting routine with a nice kicker. Even if you don’t like the whole routine you may still like pieces of this. It’s almost like a repeat ace cutting routine if you perform it exactly as Mark it has some tough parts. You can get rid of most of the work if you set up the deck before hand.

iF@$#: A spectator takes the magicians phone. The magician is texted a word and the magician is able to divine it. The magician can then very cleanly reveal the spectators passcode. This is going to take a lot of commitment on the performers behalf. It will fry people with crazy direct mentalism and it’s easy to do. What you need to use to pull it off though is out of reach for many magicians. Those who are able to use it will fry their audiences. He gives a couple tips on the center tear as well.

His methods are not for everyone, but for a select few this lecture will give magicians reputation making material that is extremely powerful.
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