Ellipses (...) PERSONAL PET PEEVES IN MAGIC: "Volunteers" who are obvious stooges.
Seeing the same effect three times during one magic show. Magicians who aren't - trying to be funny. People who see or read an effect, change one immaterial action - and call the effect their own. Gaffed cards that are a different shade than the rest of the cards. Magazines, magic or otherwise, that continue an effect or article anywhere "but on the following page.
A layman who says, "Oh, I've seen that one" when all you've done is ask him to take a card. The fact that resort hotels, etc., will book a singer, dancer, comedian after having booked a bad performer in those areas - but after having booked one bad magician will usually not book another magician. Magicians with a "look how much smarter I am than you" attitude. Magicians who tell you of the great feats they've done but don't do them. Effects in magic books that don't work.
Politics, instead of magic, at magic meetings. Contemporary magic writers who use words like "unbeknownst" and "whilst." Most productions from the mouth.
Tricks with brassieres. Close-up performers who do sleights as if they want the audience to see how cleverly they do them. (Sleights are SECRET maneuvers.)
Bright orange or red dragons painted on black magical equipment. Most packet card routines that have to be taken out of a separate envelope. Magic dealers who tell you how great their credit rating is and then never pay you. I'm fortunate - it's only happened to me once; a man who is, or was, a magic dealer in Sweden.
The way most television directors photograph magic acts. Doing magic for drunks. Parents who allow their children to run back and forth in front of the stage during a magic show. Magic "writers" who steal other peoples' ideas and "cover up" by continually acting as if everyone steals from them, or writing about everyone stealing from everybody else. Being asked to "do a trick" for someone who has just a minute to spare. Anonymous letters or phone calls.
Stage performers who leave the stage to walk into the audience (so that most of the audience can't see what's happening). Magic book reviewers who say a book is great when it's really lousy - or a re-hash or badly written^ The bad grammar, incorrect punctuation, in most magic books. The fact that most magicians who bill themselves as the "World's best - or Greatest" are usually the "world's worst," or simply not very good.
Readers of magic who scream that a particular sleight or effect doesn't work when what they mean is that THEY can't make it work. Plastic-coated playing cards. Cheap mimeographed (and usually poorly written) instructions with expensive commercial items in magic. People who list their personal pet peeves!
Most non-magical newspaper or magazine articles about magic and magicians. Magicians (or hypnotists) who make fools of, and/or embarrass, audience volunteers.
NEXT MONTH Berkeley Davis' Five-One Transposition FaBuLouS - Finnell-Bonfeld-Lorayne Terry LaGerould's Pseudometry Ring Opening - Roland Hurley plus, Joel Siegel's "Capping" The Deck Flipped - Bernard Bilis Tommy Ellison's A Case Of Black Jack
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