Since this blog is just getting started, and I just spent some time answering a question from someone just getting into this bizarre little world of magic, I’ll combine the two into this post.

Getting started in magic — whether close-up, stage, or anything in between — is best begun in the same manner as any other endeavor: with the fundamentals. A good grounding in the fundamental principles that make up magic is like learning the alphabet in school; it’s what words are made of. There aren’t many cogent sentences that can be made up without the fundamentals. The same can be said of magic tricks.

Conversely, there’s nothing precluding anyone from learning words before letters. The same can be said for magic: there’s no law that stops someone from learning any trick they can get their hands on. But it’s a lot like our dearly departed beautiful and very active Blue Front Amazon parrot named Sam. To others, it sounded like Sam could speak, but he was only mimicking what he heard and learned. There was no substance to his “parroting”.

Someone just getting a start in the world of magic can easily find himself in the same situation as Sam. You can get hold of the latest, greatest magic trick setting Internet web sites on fire, learn it and perform it, without having any clue where in the fabric of magic it belongs. Essentially, there’s no context. And to someone serious about learning the craft of magic, that’s a problem.

The solution is to become grounded in the fundamentals of magic, upon which most all magic is based. Learn the fundamentals and you have an opportunity to apply what you know to any trick you get your hands on.

This all came up recently when someone asked about where to obtain details of a Marlo trick (actually, it was a move, but he was told it was a trick). The bottom line was, he visited one of the popular “extreme street magic” retailer web sites and saw a $50 DVD that included the same sort of magic David Blaine performed on one of his television specials. He didn’t want to spend the $50 for the DVD (no argument from me), but the reason was he only wanted to know how to do that trick.

A couple of things became obvious very quickly. The first was that this fellow was brand new to the world of magic and his very first stop, evidently, was the one of the “extreme street magic” web retailers.

I don’t think it’s a terrible thing that television shows like Blaine’s specials, or T.H.E.M. are bringing new people into the wonderful world of magic. The issue is they don’t have any frame of reference for the ocean into which they just dipped their big toe, and retailers like the aforementioned web site are not educating them. That’s helpful if your goal is selling as many $50 DVDs as you can, which obviates the likelihood you’d mention that $6 booklets contain the precious secrets you rename and package in video.

My suggestion was for him to obtain a copy of Henry Hay’s “Amateur Magicians Handbook.” I don’t believe there’s a better, more accessible entry into the world of magic and mentalism. It, and Mark Wilson’s “Course in Magic” represent an incredible amount of fundamental information on magic, magic principles, and plain great tricks. From there, I’d suggest the Tarbell Course in Magic, a compendium of eight volumes covering what makes magic great.

There’s very little in the world of magic that can’t find its roots in what’s found in the pages of those ten books.

Karl Fulves, through Dover Publications, has released a series of books titled, “Self-Working…” and cover cards, coins, mental magic, rope, and other aspects of magic. At around $6 a volume, they represent a fantastic bargain.

There is an important place for DVDs in the world of magic learning. That place is as an adjunct to, and dependant upon the written word.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Michael Close at the MAGIC Live! convention in Las Vegas at the end of August 2004 and this subject came up. Close makes the point that reading magic books forces the mind to think in three dimensions, and I wholeheartedly agree with him that reading is an acquired skill. (He even suggests to people that it is helpful to pick up a book on origami to learn the skills required to translate into physical movements the magic tricks described in text.)

Without a grounding in the fundamentals of magic — both tricks and theory — DVDs, largely, fail to convey the context of the set of tricks they teach. That’s such a shame. And it’s a terribly hard concept to convey to someone new in the world of magic whose initial entry point is a web site retailing “extreme street magic” sold on $50 DVDs containing up-close shots of busty chicks showing more leg than Patty Anne Brown on FOXNews.

How do magic necessities like Vernon texts compete with that?