6/13/2023 0 Comments Completely booked![]() Now, I would say that almost all (if not all) the items in the book are self-working. His creative process (which involves talking to imaginary friends) is also intriguing, to say the least. He seemed to have also lived the life of a hermit, only finding pleasure in inventing new magic tricks while caring for his ailing mother. It shocked me that he had a pretty sad upbringing, with what I would consider an abusive family lacking in love and family bonding. Interspersed throughout the book are short little essays and articles written about Stewart’s life, his upbringing and his creative process. I love that the book gives a card magician like myself a chance to explore other genres of magic, and the tricks inside using these miscellaneous props are just fantastic. While quite a number of the tricks in here are card tricks, there is a wide variety of items in the book that uses many different types of props – balls, boxes, cups, slates, slips of paper, ropes, rings and even silks. This book is really every creator’s dream book – it is a goldmine for interesting methods and concepts that you can take and apply to your own creations. I was very impressed with how ingenious every item was! Almost every item in this book is based on some clever principle that I’ve never encountered. For example, I learnt The Knot of Enchantment and A Match For Gravity first from a random kids’ magic book many years ago, without knowing that these were Stewart’s idea. There were a lot of self-working magic tricks in these magic books (obviously written for kids), and reading through Stewart’s material made me realise that a lot of these self-working tricks are actually Stewart’s creations that were included in these kids’ magic books, uncredited. ![]() ![]() When I was young, I used to go to the local library and borrowed any magic book I could find. I was surprised by how many tricks I recognised, but never knew that it belonged to Stewart. These were selected by various well-known magicians ( Max Maven, Bill Goodwin and Stephen Minch, just to name a few) from an impressive collection of over a thousand original tricks by Stewart himself.Īs I looked through the tricks in this book, there were a few things that made a big impression on me: The book I’d like to shine a spotlight on today is called The Essential Stewart James, which is a book containing of over fifty of Stewart James’ best creations. There are many other creators who have published only a fraction of his work (and often with a fraction of the originality and quality as well) but have somehow become known as creative geniuses, when in reality, Stewart James is one of Canada’s best magic exports in history (besides Dai Vernon, of course). I find him to be one of magic’s most enigmatic characters and creators, because despite the sheer volume of work credited to him, I don’t think he is as well-known as he should be. He truly is someone I am intrigued by, and his unparalleled ingenuity with magic is something I highly admire and respect. Whenever people ask me to name my favourite magic creator, Stewart James' name inevitably comes up. Fully Booked - The Essential Stewart Jamesīy Harapan Ong - Sunday, February 17, 2019
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