Video du Jour - From the Archives

Streaming Link Click Here

Thursday

Yesterday I spent several hours in the front yard manicuring my bushes, raking leaves and laying fresh mulch. Then I woke up. I was relieved that it was not I who had been out in the chill of the morning doing yard work. I curled back up under my blanket. After an evening at the Owl and Thistle, I was in no hurry to start the day.

Although The Vinyl Avengers where not there for the second week in a row, It's always a good time, and if I'm lucky, I get in a few dances. Danced a few times with Tracy. She is a doll, has a teenage son, and she's one heck of a dancer. Spoke briefly with Mark McPhee's son (His name escapes me at the moment). Said he peeks into my life via the blog. Found that very flattering. . . or curious.

The front yard looks great. Lately my landlord has been doing some routine maintenance on her property. I really like where I live. Last night before turning in (into what? into a rabbit dumb-ass), I decided to take a late night cigar walk on the water. Well, not "ON" the water. . . you dig what I saying? Along the beach.

Sometimes I feel like such a moron.

Linking smoke rings

Expanded Clean Indoor Air Act Takes Effect

On December 8, 2005, Washington will become the 10th state to implement a comprehensive statewide law prohibiting smoking in all indoor public places including restaurants, bars, taverns, bowling alleys, skating rinks, and non-tribal casinos. All Washington residents have the right to breathe clean air. The comprehensive smoking law protects families, children, workers, and the elderly from secondhand smoke.

Got a call from Jeff Hutchinson

The week before Christmas I got a call from an old buddy from my Atlanta days. His name is Jeff Hutchinson and I worked for him for a brief time in the restaurant industry as a 19 year old. I asked for a few weeks off for Mardi-Gras and stayed in New Orleans in excess of 9-12 months. The whole New Orleans Cellini Daze adventure and experience is still a little hazy in my memory banks.

Jeff is gifted with being a real people person and someone who can visualize the process of progress and how to get things done the right way. As a Trainer in the Ruby Tuesday's organization, Jeff was unparalleled. The stand up comedian in Jeff knew how to work the crowd, tell the story, make the point.

I was touched and flattered that he thought to google me and give me a call out of the blue. Jeff now lives in Maryville, Tennessee. with his wife. They own a run a restaurant are very involved in their Church. I think Jeff said that he had been sober 14 years now. Good for him, he sounded great.

Guardroom with Soldiers Playing Cards

by Jacob Duck
Oil on canvas, 42,5 x 36,3 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest


"OK, now mentally select one of the three playing cards, anyone you want"

Dutch painter and etcher. He was long confused with Jan le Ducq (1629/30–76). In 1621 he was listed as an apprentice portrait painter in the records of the Utrecht Guild of St Luke. His teacher was probably Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot (1586–1666). The St Job's Hospital in Utrecht acquired a Musical Company by him in 1629. By 1630–32 he was a master in the guild. Like Pieter Codde, he painted guardroom scenes, in which the figures and their interactions are apparently full of underlying symbolic meaning. He also painted merry companies (e.g. c. 1630; Nîmes, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and domestic activities, such as Woman Ironing (Utrecht, Central Museum), employing motifs perhaps symbolic of domestic virtue. He placed his figures in high, bare interiors in which the deep local colours of the foreground stand out well against the cool, greyish-brown background. Only a few of his etchings are known, depicting figures in contemporary dress. Between 1631 and 1649 Duck's presence is documented in Utrecht, Haarlem and Wijk bij Duurstede. Afterwards, and probably by 1656, he was living in The Hague. He was buried at the monastery of St Mary Magdalene in Utrecht.

Pic du Jour - From the archives 7/12/02

Heavy Thinking

Today was a beautiful sunny day in the 50's. The water, the market, the mountains and the quality of the written word on the page and on my computer screen. . . . staggering.

At last weeks session Professor Gizmo gave me Jay Sankey's book "Beyond Secrets" and later in the week Jim Sisti gave me a couple of Richard Osterlind's e-books. I started reading Osterlind's, "The Principles of Magic" today. As with both books, all I can say is wow.

Creating a deeper sense of meaning and enhancing and clarifying the role of magician as we have seen it and created it for ourselves. This journey takes many off road, side trips to the heart of the beast, to peer into a reflective pool of deception and dive in submerging every atom of my being into the beautiful light of illusion where anything is possible and everything might happen. The art of modeling childlike wonder with the wave of a hand and the vanish of a coin.

I read some heavy shit today, and then with these ideas fresh on my mind I went to Pike Place Market to street perform. To create good art, build relationships and communities and look into the hearts and souls of my audiences and tell by the smile on their faces, the sporadic bursts of enthusiasm, and the immediate satisfaction of knowing that today my performances where under the microscope of my own value system.

I was pleased with the inspiration. Thanks to all my friends who fuel the fire and let my love for my art begin to take on new challenges and directions.

Pretty Christmas Colors

Video du Jour

Magic Video Click Here

The EMP Click Here

Werner asked about this structure. This is the Experience Music Project (EMP) an interactive music museum. It really is a striking building!

In my "In Box"

Hey Tommy,

A friend sent me this recipe and I thought maybe you might like to try it out...
Hope you are having good holidays and talk with you soon.

Ciao,

Shawn

Best Christmas Cookie Recipe

1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Crown Royal Reserve (Rye) or Bailey's (Irish Cream)

Sample the Crown (Rye) to check quality.

Take a large bowl, check the Crown again, to be sure it is of the
highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Turn on the electric mixer...Beat one cup of butter in a large
fluffy bowl.

Add one teaspoon of sugar...Beat again.

At this point it's best to make sure the Crown is still OK, try
another cup.. just in case.

Turn off the mixer thingy.

Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit

Pick the frigging fruit off floor...

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose
with a dewscriver.

Sample the Crown to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something.

Who giveshz a sheet.

Check the Crown Royal.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table.

Add a spoon of ar, or somefink.

Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don't forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window,

Finish the bottle of Crown Royal

Make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

CHERRY MISTMAS

If you missed it the first time

FSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT

Here's your basic SWE Shift. Back in the day I could perform this shift 80-90 times per minute. Just for kicks, I just timed my self and I logged in 61 SWE Shifts in a minute. I'll try once omore and see If I can pick up the pace a bit. 68 in that minute. Who says I don't have a life?! One of the tricks to doing this shift well is making it silent. You end up having to hop the packet just a tad farther to help the packets transpose without actually touching each other. I have never really seen it done well and I've seen some of the best do it. It's a stupid move, ill conceived by a shadow of a man thinly desguised as a gambler.

Don't get me wrong, "Expert at the Card Table" is "THE Classic". We all grew up with it, we all suffered through it. It made better people out of us as we struggled to find our way through this courious journey into card magic.

As we learned to run up poker hands with his overhand jog shuffle systems, we had to figure out who we were as people and how far we were willing to take it.

In my "In Box"

Hi Tom, I read your latest blog and noticed the reference to this effect. I've never heard of it specifically but I would assume it's in print since Zingone was active in the 1930's. Any chance you could tell me where it is written up? Is it buried in ECT somehere?

Thanks for any info you can provide & I hope your holiday season is a good one. Keep up the blog'n ......it's always interesting to read about the curves life throws in your direction...we all have 'em in varying degrees

Cheers,

John

My lame ass Response

Yo John!

As I'm a bit protective of this routine. (handed down to me by one of my mentors Paul Swinford. . . who learned it from Stuart Judah) I'll be brief in the information about the routine. I don't know if it was ever published. It might have appeared in the "Judah Notes". Some people compare it to a similar Vernon 9 card mental thing, but I don't know that one.

All I can say is it seems to fool magicians and layman alike! Why, I'm not so sure, but I do like to lay it on a bit thick while performing the experiment in intuition! I recently performed a mental sequence. . . 3 card, 12 card & Exploding Light-bulb for a few hundred people as part of a 45 min . show. Went great. LIke to think Zingone or Juduh might have been looking over my shoulder and grinning. with a cigar in one hand and a deck f cards in the other.

Magically,

Tom Frank

Just getting through the holidays. . . .

Doing the best that I can. Wish I had more gigs to take my mind off my loneliness. I have 3 gigs on the 31st! A Bar Mitzvah in the afternoon, A New Years Eve Party around 8 and another later in the evening. I love working New Years Eve, I think it's a great way to bring in the New Year. . . working. . . . making money.



Spent a couple of days visiting my Dad & Step Mom. My pops and I hung out on Wednesday, I took him with me to the Owl and Thistle. I think he had a good time. I went out to Maple Valley and visited for a few hours Christmas Afternoon. It was nice seeing my Step Mom, Fulke, Steph, Wincel and their 2 kids Nathan & Rachel. I have to get a grip and stop this shit I torment myself with. Things will either get better or not. . . I need to fix my head. Maybe someday my kids will know the truth. All I wanted to do was spend time with them. By the time I had the time, it was too late and now . . . well. . . . you know the score.



A get a little better every day. I'm learning the real meaning of letting go.