Top 10 Most Influential Close-Up Magicians #171

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. What's up guys? Welcome to episode 171 of the Magic Guys, where we take you on the journey of being a professional magician. To my left, we've got Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friend. Down below, we've got Douglas Kahn. What is in your hand? What is that? What are you holding? Yeah, let me give you the four one one. This is a Minecraft pencil with an eraser that has, I guess this is an icon from Minecraft.

I saw it in the store and I was like, I can surely there's a video I can make about with this. Like it's kind of like, it's got a flip stick quality on it.

Cause it's the exact same thing on both sides and you can also plug another eraser on the other end to make it kind of balanced so i'm like surely there's something i haven't i haven't come up with a good idea yet but the idea is to make a video with it because you know minecraft is what if you uh on one of those erased it and then it could appear and then jump up and down sounds like we we need we have to have a future brainstorm what do we We call those skits a spit ball, spit ball.

Wait, am I lagging or are you lagging? One of us is lagging right now. I feel like I'm lagging always lately.

And how are you? How are you feeling, Nick? I feel fine. I think my internet working well and I think it is for everyone else who is in our chat. Let's give it up for Dragotear, Dimaskin, Thomas Conger, Scott Link, Caden H. Is that a new name? Good to see you. Yeah. And Johnny Prentice, good to have you guys here. Thank you all so much for joining us on episode 171. This is going to be an interesting episode because we was having a conversation about the top 10 close-up magicians of all time.

And we were doing some diligence, having a look around, and we found a few blogs and so forth that were stating what they thought would be the top 10 magicians of all time. And it's kind of interesting because Because you don't really have a great definitive answer. And I feel like there's always going to be some kind of bias or disagreement on who that might be. So, for example, some people think that the number one person was a coin guy.

And we're sort of in a disagreement. So, Doug took it upon himself... To make a list. Doug, tell us more. Yeah, so here I am. I got the message from the boys this morning. Hey, fellas, we're going to discuss the top 10 close-up guys. Here's a list we can look at. And wow, these are some great magicians. I'm looking at Dean Dill. I think he was Johnny Carson's favorite magician. Johnny used to take lessons from Dean Dill out in LA.

Max Malini, for sure. This list, there's Di Vernon at number nine, and there's some other greats on here. Johnny Ace Palmer. Love him. All-time top 10. I don't know. So what I suggested, James Brown. All right. And really, when I got to number one, with all due respect to the greatest coin guy we've ever had on the planet, David Roth. But when I saw this, I said, maybe like this list is not the list that we should discuss.

Right? yeah i mean someone's gone to some length and created it but it's not you know it's not 2024 the magic guys like discussion standards you know exactly and i think that we took it upon ourselves rather than you know asking the opinions of many awesome magicians who obviously have other magicians influence themselves we took it upon ourselves to outsource someone who is totally impartial. And that's someone is AI. Artificial intelligence. I thought that I thought, you know what,

I'm just going to make a list. I'll make my own list. That's better than this blog posts, advertisement list. Right. And as I started making lists, I said, wait a minute, I'm going to cloud it up with my viewpoint and it won't be much better than the blog post. You know, I'm going to put Alex Elmsley on the list and you know, now maybe he shouldn't be there. So what I did was I said, hey, let's use the best list-making tool we have.

And we discussed artificial intelligence briefly. I think we're all using it in some capacity. Yeah. And before we jump into the list, you know what else is also worth discussing? Yeah. Is these new shirts that we have? Oh, we have these new shirts. Finally, mine also arrived. So we can actually put them on sale. We can talk about it. We can do all the fun stuff. Now, you sneaky guys in the chat have already started buying these shirts before we could announce this. Supporters!

Yeah. For the preview of this podcast, I put the link. So the link is in the description of where you're watching slash listening this. And you can grab your shirts right now. But Tim, I saw your order come through moments before the podcast started, you cheeky devil. But we're so excited to get these out because these are like, we took a lot of back and forth time with the designer that made this. This is not a Fiverr job. This is a guy that reached out to us because he likes the pod,

but he does. It's a tenner job. It cost us 10. No, I wish it only cost 10. But no, so I'm going to hold up mine. Nick, why don't you tell us a little bit about what we're seeing here? Check it out. For those who are listening to the pod, I've got the Magic Guy logo in the middle, which is obviously the universe you guys are a part of. There is an awesome purple guitar, because if you guys don't know, if you're listening for the first time, I used to play in a band.

And every time we do that, we take a shot, which is shown in the bottom right and left corners of the actual design. I'm drinking now, even though I don't have to. That's so weird.

Now on top of that we also have all the things that influence us we have our rubik's cubes we have our cards you know our dice it is a really awesome design and there's not one person that i haven't shown it to who just want to wear it purely for the sake of fashion like it is just a really kick-ass looking t-shirt friends and we'll have yes we'll put out some more stuff of us doing things wearing the shirts not those kind of things john prentice but you know what i'm saying

i shot I shot a video today with the shirt on. Unfortunately, my sleight of hand was subpar. So no one will see that clip. But know that this is where my mindset is currently. The shirt is great for misdirection. So they probably won't notice the slip-up, Doug, if you're wearing the shirt at the same time. And what the viewers don't know is... Josh, this is the internet. They won't notice the slip-up. Really? This is what you say?

No, that's not true. The internet is so weird. like whenever some of my videos do well it's it and it goes into the world of people who don't know me or don't think i'll read the comments they're the people that start commenting all the little nuances or like yeah sounds in the background that like you just aren't a part of the video but but sometimes those are the things that like make a clip shine more than anything else you know people see that weird quirky bit that starts a little convo

yeah convo that's what what helps but yeah guys go get your shirts tag us with you wearing it you know you're going to see a lot more of them and let's yeah let's rock these i'm a magic guys you'll see us wearing them at the magic live and yeah let's have some fun look nick here dragoteer he goes frame by freaking frame, Man, I couldn't, if he went 10 frames by 10 frames on that video, I shot this afternoon, I would've been out. He'd have been like this swipe.

Bloody hell. He's like this nice shirt. See ya. It's so funny when people are like, oh, this is the lamest trick. Cause you can see it two minutes and one second. His thumbs open when it should be close. And I'm like, you, that's not how people enjoy magic.

You idiot. it like go back to your go back to your cell and turn the lights off and there's all kinds of ways to enjoy magic josh you shouldn't cast dispersions the puzzle solver they can do that true i guess if we choose to put it up on the internet but alas we have a list i wonder how i wonder how this list would have gone if people watching these performances frame by frame at the time of you I hazard a guess every single person on this list hates everything about magic on the internet,

but I'm just guessing. I made this slideshow. I put this together today. It was kind of my day when I could have been making a better dinner or something, and we did this instead. A lot of it was easy because I just said, hey, chat GPT. I went over there to chat GPT-4, which is a great tool. I use it professionally all the time. And I said, can you make a list of the top 10 most influential close-up magicians? In hindsight, I don't know if that was the best query.

And that's the one I use. That's what we got. I think it's a pretty good list. Let's find out. Number 10 is David Blaine. What's that? Number 10. Okay. I think right off the bat, I said, David Blaine could have been higher on the list probably, but he's on the list and he wasn't on the other list, right? Like where was David Blaine on the other list? Well, okay, so starting at 10, friends, is David Blaine. And it says here that David Blaine is famous for enduring stunts and street magic.

He has redefined modern magic with these daring performances and TV specials, pushing the limits of what is possible in magic. Now, there's not much we can disagree about that, firstly. Okay? Yeah. There is few people who have been very pivotal when it comes to magic. Like Houdini is one of them. He was just so pivotal in this world-renowned way. And Blaine certainly is responsible for that too. He redefined magic for television and let people know what close-up magic was

in the 20th century. That's what David Blaine did. He should be higher than 10, but he's on the list.

And that's a good thing, right? Yeah. So with the list being top 10 close-up performers, performers no well no no we are not there it's most influential and i said maybe that's wrong inquiry but yeah yep yeah what was the other list the other list was i'll let me look at the name of it it was close up close up magicians but yeah okay best best close-up magicians of all time oh yeah that's kind of subjective i think influential narrows down a little bit so look Look, I think that being said,

you know, he created a medium that didn't quite exist prior. I mean, there was that guy from the UK who was prior to Blaine. What was his name? It'll come to me later, but we're going to get to him, I think. And I don't think he was prior. I think Blaine came first. Oh, you did. Okay. Let me tell you what, man, I remember working at the mall. I'm doing pitch joints at the mall when this special airs.

So I got to interact with the legality the day after. they freaking loved it they thought he was real couldn't get enough of my mom my mom was like is he real what no are you serious are you kidding me is he real, yeah well i mean nick makes a good point here dragoteer says that i think blaine at 10 is okay i think a layman would recognize him as a stunt guy before a magic guy and i kind of feel that's pretty true i'm now

now but not then his first special was magic yeah magic is a little closer first two magics and not just magic but simple magic magicians hated that i could i could do Do that trick. You're like, really? Well, I wonder if you could be smart enough to turn the camera off your face and put it on the audience's face. And that's what he figured out. Who was it? One of the EMC collections. Someone's talking about when he was coming up. I feel like it might've been Williamson.

And he's like, when we first heard he got a special, he's like, ah, you should give that TV special spot to someone else like Michael Amar or so-and-so that's, you know, earned their stripes. Rather than some random, some rando kid who's going to do packet tricks. Like there was someone saying that, and then it wasn't. And now obviously he's evolved into this, his own beast. But back in the day, they were like, oh, you're going to do it.

No, no, no, no. Someone else should be doing that TV special. All right. We can't do 20 minutes on everybody. We love David Blaine. Thank you for what you did. Yeah. More please. He's going to be in Vegas in August, fellas. It's possible we go see him live there.

Air he's doing residency at the win and august 21st 22nd and the end of august probably because magic live so that's a possibility it's on my bucket list let's go yeah number nine we have slidini tony slidini who's i personally love and it says here that tony slidini was an italian american magician renowned for his mastery of misdirection and sleight of hand he mentored many famous magicians and his techniques remain highly regarded and there is so much truth in that you know

slidini taught rocco who is one of my personal heroes yeah he taught tony clark who for a long time you know let me speak on this guy he taught cellini he taught cellini every single thing he did and at one point with slidini's blessing cellini lectured on slidini's material. Much of this has been captured on video with Cosmo and Real Magic Magazine. Chalini brings Slidini to life in these videos, and if you're a member there, go check those videos out.

There's one, like, I think it's As I Recall, and it might be several Slidini students doing his work. Yeah, he mentored many famous magicians. Rocco was interesting because he brought the lapping to the sleeves, so he took it off the table.

Yeah. So, you know, the beauty of what watching Slidini for me is that it was the very first time that I saw somebody's body language and mannerisms coincide with an economy of movement in order to be able to achieve effects. And it was that sort of thinking that really influenced me and anyone else who applies that principle.

I think the economy of movement, when done the correct way, you can achieve the most fooling magic pieces, as opposed to people who just genuinely brute force methods who just, oh, just when no one's looking, put your hand in your pocket. Like, well, why don't you make an excuse to put your hand in your pocket? I'll tell you, I was recently writing my essay for LearnSlideofHand.com on misdirection.

And of course, I was looking at Slidini's work. And I I think the way you go learn this stuff is Carl Foltz, Magical World of Slidini. There's dozens of essays on Slidini's techniques for, you know, keeping attention and misdirecting the audience and just, you know, the gaze, the way to stand. I remember Cellini told me the first lesson he had with Slidini was on how to walk onto the stage. Lesson number one, how do you walk on into the room?

That's what we're going to learn first. You know, it's like thinking on that deep of a level is what you get with Slidini and Carl Fulves captured it in those books. So you want to learn more about this guy. I see the chat's a little, they think maybe number nine, maybe Slidini shouldn't be at number nine. You know, I think what Slidini did, he did well. I think this is not a bad spot for Slidini. Like we're talking about like the thousands of magicians out there. Like to make number nine.

Let's go on. Shall we? Shall we see what's number eight? I don't even remember what the list is. I made this hastily. Just I didn't write anything. This is all artificial intelligence. So this is not me. I just copy pasted. All right. Okay. Okay, friends, at number eight, we have Rene LaVaughn. Despite losing his right hand in a childhood accident, Rene LaVaughn became a master of one-handed card magic. His storytelling and unique style captivated audiences around the world.

This is a really interesting one because the ethos of Rene LaVaughn was, I cannot do it any slower.

Slower and there's nothing more wonderful than that because how many times have you done something that doesn't require speed at all but you're but your people who are receiving your magic watching it your audience go he's so fast he did it so fast his hands are so fast and i just think it's something that's like superhuman and the fact that that's something that kind of takes away from the magic or renee lavan look at that that that sort of mindset and said i can't do it any

slower and he would say it slowly let me talk on this like about the same time blaine was on tv renee levon shows up on the world's greatest magicians they used to showcase like 12 magicians every thanksgiving and renee levon shows up with his one arm and his cards and i can't do it any slower and same mall i'm still pitching it and i see these laymen all day long and they could have talked about any magician they wanted to and they were talking

about this guy with one hand who You did oil and freaking water. And I'm like, are you kidding me? This is the trick people are talking about oil and water. Yeah, man. I think for me, the most iconic routine of his is the one that he does with the crumbs, the breadcrumbs and the cup. And it is an unbelievable piece of magic. Oh, yeah. The teacup with the sun and the moon. Oh, my God. I had the pleasure of watching all of this live at the Society of American Magicians in the late 90s.

And, oh, I think half the room was crying. I am. Yeah. But if I could add to this, I had a conversation with Louis DeMatos who does the EMC box sets where people put their life's work on these like four DVD box sets. He did one, right? Yeah. Now, Rene Lavon passed away in 2015 and it wasn't, he basically made this DVD set before he passed. And I remember sitting opposite Louis DeMatos and I shook his hand and I said, like, I just want to say thank you so much for doing these box sets.

They're so beneficial in every And I'm really thankful that you got Rene LaVon's stuff and got all that beautiful knowledge he had before he passed away to pass it on to the next generation. And he said to me, it is the worst selling box set that I have. And it's got the best magic on there. And I think it's because we disregard Renee for having these techniques that only have one hand. It's like, hey, you can still achieve Renee LeVon level magic. It's there for the taking.

And you got twice the chance of getting it done because you have two hands. But people aren't sort of taking advantage of that little tidbit. You know, that's somewhat understandable. Magicians, for the most part, like to collect the secrets. And they're going to collect secrets they can't use theoretically.

Theoretically although i've studied renee levon's work in the printed form and i know his constructions are diabolical and when you study his work you also get his storytelling with it you know and learn how to do really really good magic which is why people remember it's not the effect or the method and i mean technically if you think about it his work is made perfectly for doing selfie magic when you're on a instagram live and you're holding the phone on you now you can do

the best True story, true story. Maybe the only oil and water out there possible with one hand. I mean, he was just generations ahead of, uh, where we're all heading. But that said, I probably would have put him at number nine or 10. I don't know. Yeah. He's on the list. We love Verne LaVon. Let's move on. Like you could do, like I could see in a show, an entire, you know, one segment of your show being like, all right, now let me show what happens when you don't use both your hands.

Ends or whatever, you know, I've seen like Eric DeCamps does a tribute to Rene LaVon and recreates the breadcrumb act in his shows and he does exactly that. And I think like, that's a great premise in a show go one-handed. All right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So here he is, this is dynamo, which I think is who you were talking about earlier. And I think he showed up on the scene after day. He was definitely after. Yeah.

I was referring to someone else. I've got one of his books, but it says here Dynamo or Steve Frayn is known for his street magic and television show Magic Impossible. His innovation style and daring feats have made him a household name in contemporary magic. Now, here's the thing about something like this. And I'm asking. This is not a judgment call. I'm just asking because I'm genuinely curious.

It's Dynamo got a TV special, right? And I think that it's not too dissimilar from what we spoke about earlier, where it was like, we're just giving this young guy some stuff. When you have TV specials, I kind of feel like you become, or you can become the kind of Britney Spears of magic. And what I mean by that is that people write your songs for you and go do this. So you have a team of songwriters and a team of muses, and they write your stuff.

Love this. Is Dynamo in the same realm in which he has an awesome team who just creates stuff for him and then go, oh, I like that. I'll go put that in the telly. That's the beautiful thing. When Dynamo's getting the thumbs up here, so is Danny Garcia, Marcus Eddy, and Blake Voigt and all the brilliance that are bringing Dynamo to life. I'm not sure who worked on his stuff, but I think that's the crew. Yeah, but let me be clear. I'm not saying with any judgment.

I'm just sort of curious. Like, I think the differentiation is that Blaine goes, I want to do a thing. And everyone in the room goes, you're nuts for trying to like, do this thing that you have. I wonder if Dynamo says that I want to walk the river Thames. If he said that I want to stick my hand to the side of the bus. I want to know if he said that, or if everyone else was just like, Hey, Garcia has got a cool idea. Or so does Voight. Oh, you know what else?

Like, I want to know, how that went down. I love this combo. I mean, but in saying that, you know, we just had Blake Voigt on and he was saying that him and Garcia lived in David Blaine's apartment for a year, right? And they're not there for a year listening to David Blaine go, I want to do this. Like they're, they're creating magic also. But the other point is a year. Yeah. He said, yeah. Yeah. Take that ride for as long as you can get it.

You're like, we're not done yet, David. and we got to drag it out. Best life. Someone employed me for a year to live on their couch. Like, please. That was the weird part for me that Blaine didn't have the guest room. Yeah, we had a guest room, but Garcia was on it. Oh, yeah. Oh, you should have three. Dynamo. The models. Yeah. Dynamo's manager. Nick, do you remember his name? I don't know. I have him on Instagram and I can't remember.

Is he a magician? No, not a magician. Full-time manager at the time. I'm touring with him. I freaking met him and not remembering his name because we're on a podcast. Well, you're off the list. That's a probably good manager to know. I mean, you got a gig. I remember Jimmy talks a lot. Listen, my buddy, Dan Albion. Dan Alvian before anyone has to tell me, I just, it just clicked back in my head.

Dan Alvian. So Dan Alvian was a nightclub promoter. He ran a company promoting nightclub and VIP events back in the day. And the story goes, he saw this kid Dynamo doing some magic in a nightclub and was like, this guy is insane. And he did like a muscle pass and Dan was just like sold on this kid. Right.

So what Dan started doing was at all the VIP events where there were celebrities, he would bring dynamo and dynamo with no consultants at the time would freaking fry their brains yeah and then and then that's how there's that famous clip of him at one of the awards doing the through neck dance berries you know what i'm saying yeah they're called through neck with the third the candy through the throat yeah and will smith

gets up and it just talks about how magic is like magic just gets me sometimes and like so that's what then sparked him getting a tv special.

And then from there mark the beginnings were the street street right jimmy talks a lot met him out there he came back to the states he's like you wouldn't believe this kid he calls himself dynamo he just stands there and does flourishes and quick card tricks he doesn't even do a show he just keeps his head out and he's telling me about this kid before the show happens i remember on on the the podcast actually that clip is one of the best performing clips of ours on he mentioned he says

that in garden whatever the section is in the uk right so he he talks about how they would all do magic there and then once he got picked up he did well and then when he came back to that place to like get some magicians involved in his stuff no one wanted anything to do with him because he'd done well and he's like what the hell i did everything he told me to do, and now no one wants to be friends with me.

Go figure. You know, I was going to say, you know, what I think, to bring it full circle, exactly, is that I think that... Deep down, we're all dynamo. And what I mean by that is that if we were given the chance and the budget and the freedom, we would all produce magic like that. That's what I think. And I don't think that that takes away from what I mentioned earlier, having this open dialogue. The guy was out there driven by passion. And I think that you can never manufacture

passion. When you have it, you have it and you love it. Talent you can build, talent you can work on, skills you can work on, ideas, tricks, so forth. But that guy obviously had a passion to the point where he was flying all around the planet just to do his magic. And I hope people would notice. And I hope that people would donate to him with some sort of, you know, whatever else. But I, I think, I think he's been good for magic.

And I think the, as far as influence goes, the very fact that he's put himself out there and influenced so many other kids. And not only that influence people to hire people like us on the podcast.

Oh, I love dynamite. like people like the guy just like people like blaine the only people boohoo and they're magicians who don't know any better and yeah and you can't like argue with john q public it's your job to appease them as the entertainer i mean you could go against the grain it's going to be a hard life if you do that the last thing i'll say about dynamo because you probably did too nick but i got to hang out with him for like two nights

when he did his tour in cool is the first thing I noticed is, and I saw him do this on his TV special. You know what? That's how I met him. Yeah. So one thing that this freak can do that I've never seen any other magician do is he can, this is just a weird thing, but he can do a muscle pass by starting their coin flat on his hand. And then he can just go bang and do it. He doesn't, he's not doing, he's not doing any of this stuff. Wow. That's awesome.

He does it in his, no fingers though. No fingers. Wow. And it's on his special. You see someone put a coin in his hand and he can just go, bang. So that is a freaking freak of nature. So that's one thing that I found super natural about him. And then the other thing was, number one, he's just like he is on TV. His persona is the same. We took him out to play putt-putt golf at Holy Moly. And he...

Some you some people from the uk recognized him and he just started doing magic for them he's like to me he's like oh can i borrow your deck like he had freaking fast cash on him like the five bills to the 500s and uh he's doing double cross at the time was still like revolutionary how cool is that like he could just say how y'all doing thing 100 and then when we took him to get pancakes afterwards he's showing me like very difficult magic from mnemonica like he's doing

things where you're flipping over cards and you're like, you can remember where the four of a kind or the tens are or something. And he's doing these techniques. So for the sake of time, as we're almost at the halfway mark, I'm only up to seven. This is a five hour. Are we all in agreement? He belongs on the list. Say I. I, I would have flipped him with Blaine. Like Dynamo is on the list, but Blaine's more important at number seven.

But what line? All right. so let's see okay oh friends oh strap in everyone drop in friends at number six we have darren brown darren brown specializes in psychological illusions in mind games his tv shows and stage performances explore the boundaries of the human mind earning him international acclaim to this i I say, hell yeah. I think that if it's anyone in the modern day who's reinvented magic more than Houdini, it's this cat, straight up.

Yeah. Even talking about close-up, like his DVD, Devil's Picture Book, his book and DVD, just is so insane. I'm just going to allow you to talk like that. We'll talk about absolute magic. One of his, or the Devil's, was it the Devil's Picture Book?

His printed material was groundbreaking like oh my god who is this guy when he showed up on the magic scene and was kind enough to let us learn some of his lessons oh insane absolute magic and it was just pure pure yeah the pure effect there you go and then he had a book for the for the public or more maybe more than one now but what is that last what are those last ones The happy book, be happy or something. Oh, it's one of these books. Yeah. What's that? This is the book. Book of secrets.

Confessions of a Chondra. Tricks of the mind. And I got a bunch more, but then the other side of the bookshelf. Yeah. We're unable to get an arm. Yeah. All of those for the public. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Brilliant. And you, what's the one with the balloons, Nick? Did you have another one there? Is how to be more happy or something like that? I forget the name. I've got the audio book of that in advance. It's so rare for a magician to publish a book that is important to the general public. Hmm.

Oh yeah fellow traveler i have not read any of those books do you like them absolutely i mean you can't say no but yeah i'll ask you the truth after the podcast because no look i i think that you know his his framing and presentation style is far beyond what anyone's done before and it's influenced so many other people it's breathed it's really given mentalism new life i mean as amazing as all my mentalist heroes can be like the max mavens of the world the eugene

burgers etc like darren took it to a level that hasn't really been surpassed i mean i'm a the biggest fan probably peter turner would be my number one guy as well as like the luke james and so forth of the world but man when you watch any one of those specials that he's done in those theaters you like a couple of these have been on netflix i assume they're still there i haven't looked for them a second time but yeah i care very little

i care very little for the tv specials more so than sitting in the theater personally when i watch that theater special i'm just like this is happening for real yeah like he's one of the only guys that can put his entire show on TV and like, you want to watch the whole goddamn thing.

Like there aren't that many performers that I would look forward to watching a video of their entire show. Yeah. He's also broken the mold of a magician and done other projects beyond magic. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. One of the most important number six is a good spot.

Maybe if there were a throne in heaven someday where like the greatest control the magic world like there's a seat for darren there's a seat for darren he's not done he keeps coming up with new ideas and productions and shows and yeah and now he's producing he's producing a show of magicians that he's not in imagine what that's going to be like i love that magicians of notoriety are doing that like pen and teller do are doing this yeah have

you seen his paintings as well like he's got this beautiful painting he did of teller like it's just now i'm Now I'm just starting to hate the guy. He's just like staggeringly, staggeringly talented in so many facets. And like, there's no wonder why he's brilliant at magic. He's brilliant at almost everything he does. So yeah. Thank you, Darren. Goodbye. Oh man. Speaking of guys I hate. Oh geez. Here we go. Okay. So speaking of guys that Doug dislikes, hates a strong word.

In number five, we have, we have Shin Lim.

Known for his exceptional card manipulation, Shin Lim gained fame by winning America's Got Talent in 2018 and its Champions Edition. His acts are a blend of sleight of hand and visual artistry, making him a modern sensation. Okay, friends, we can't deny he's done some brilliant, brilliant stuff. I do like that we knew about him before the public did like he won FISM. He, you know, won, or I don't know, he won FISM, but he had the FISM video.

He had the other competition, right. That was controversial because one was like method based and one was performance based and he won the performance based comp. Here's a thought. Here's a thought. Shin Lim is a great competition act. He's proven this with magicians, magic conventions, TV shows. He didn't fool us, I'm sure. Probably fooled us. Actually, we spoke about this last week, that there are certain types of magicians and competition magicians in one of them.

That's a great point. I got to say, Shin Lim, watching him do his act with the music and the hair and the magic, insane. But my opinion, his strong suit is not performing to people in person when he's speaking. I'm curious. I know he paired up with Colin McLeod at the Mirage. And I'm also curious what's going to happen because the Mirage just closed.

So shin's going to be looking for a new theater he started to pop up on social media again that's probably why because he's like dilly what am i gonna do so i'm killing it of course okay for the sake of time let's break down what makes shin lim really great number one he's super creative okay wait number one is the hair and then oh yeah okay number one that beautiful head of hair When he runs those fingers through it, super jello.

So he's got amazing slider hand. I know he's released products in the past that have really gotten some slack because they've not been great. But another thing that's been really good with him is that he's actually musically trained. I don't know if he used to be in a band or not, but he's phenomenal. And as a result, he composes music alongside his magic.

Magic and i think that's what he does exceptionally well and i want to kind of commend him for that so cheers oh and we can't forget the cheekbones winston is reminding us of as well pretty good cheekbones yeah number should it be a number five i don't know but he definitely has a place he's very current right now the world a lot of the world all this nice magic your hair is great yeah a lot of the western world knows who he is so we have to give him that

spot and uh let's move We agree, right? We all agree? Yeah. Oh, boy. Here's a surprise appearance, and one that I was pretty happy with, actually. Michael Vinson. Okay.

A lot of my learning... Back in the day was his volumes of magic. So I can't deny he's had a big influence on me learning and I got to watch him at the magic castle, perform live, talk to him a little bit. Michael Vincent. Who is he? Nick K do what you did before and tell the listeners. Well, in number four, Michael Vincent is a British magician celebrated for his elegant sliding hand magic or card magic. He has won the magic circles close up magician of the year award three times.

Earning respect for his classical approach and technical prowess. So that really can't be denied. And I know that a lot of people have biases towards him because he. His greatness is a little self-proclaimed from what I get told by others. And I have to admit, like, I place no judgment because I don't know the cat or met him or follow a lot of his work, if I'm being honest.

But does that sound about right that he kind of puts badges on himself for being this almighty all brilliant and everyone's like bro slow your roll well i think i think watching some of the posts he makes online i can see where you're coming from i think that he this guy has spent his entire life just specializing in close-up magic so you know he definitely has a place to say i wonder this is how you do this effects this is how you know i've studied every version of

this let me share the screen here all on the list on this list at number four on the list that we're not using is michael jensen at number oh i'm wondering if ai artificial intelligence you know what i think it is i think that this influence is indigenous and what i mean by that is that i think that people who are in the uk will have this thought process and have a bit more love for the guy because seeing james brown on there who's also a uk magician and for reference james brown is the reason i

do magic he was my like he's a killer he is great and have you ever been on television or like influenced the general public no no he just does magic circles close-up magician of the year. Well warranted. And yeah, his instructionals are, you know, when they talk about like meeting your heroes, I never want to meet James Brown. Okay. I get it. Like that guy's my hero. Like he's my, like, he's the reason it started doing magic.

And if he's a dick, if James Brown is a dick, I'm going to, I'm going to be devastated. I'm so surprised that he moved into, uh, hypnosis in, instead of doubling down on. Is magic. If you're good, if you're a good entertainer and you're a closeup magician and you're really good at it, and then you figure out you want to make money, you're going to lean towards doing other work. I think, you know, optimal bucks or mentalism. And I guess it knows this could be it. He was always doing that though.

He was doing this in his closeup work. Right. But Mike, Mike back to Michael Vincent. Yeah. If, if you study his DVDs, I forget what they're called now.

They have like the Vincent collection. lecture you study anything he's released you're gonna get the primo it seriously is so fucking good yeah it's well thought out immaculate construction michael doesn't miss a beat yes but influential is the key word because for me i think that like if i if i had to push michael out of this realm i would put nicholas lawrence in because i think he's more influential at the moment look i'm gonna say yeah i agree we love mike is he a top 10 maybe you

know i did this because and i'm not saying mike is the reason but there's a few guys not on the list i made some honorable mentions before we see number one we'll see about five guys who could have been on this list from my point of view we're almost there okay go ahead and say good on you mike see you next time yeah so mike's maybe number 11 ah there is no one gonna push back on this one that's at At number three, we have Ricky J.

A master of card tricks and sleight of hand. Ricky J, also known for his work as a consultant on magic-related films. His book, Cards as Weapons and Performances, have left a lasting legacy on the world of magic. Let's just say yes and move on. Seriously. Like, is this even up for discussion? Is this even up for discussion? Who's going to push back? Like, I'll fight you. Yeah, I guess everyone knows Ricky Jay. He's in the top three.

We don't need to talk about this anymore, do we? He's 52 assistants. I mean, the book, what's it called? If I was going to talk about anything, it'd be that performance where he brought close-up magic to an intimate stage in high-class New York City.

And we were embraced by celebrities in the elite that show was captured on video and shared on hbo and i've i it's number one for me number one best magic show ever so damn yeah okay that's my thought thanks ricky here's number two eugene berger in number two renowned for his deep voice.

And for the esophageal approach to magic eugene berger combined magic with storytelling creating a profound experience for his audiences he was also notably a teacher and theorist in the magic community so here's this is interesting because i feel that there's a younger generation of people who are being influenced by eugene berger's work without even knowing it that's what i think oh no doubt that's right because if you if you're learning from doug

khan you're learning from eugene because i sat at the foot footsteps you know yeah i was i was in in the classroom i saw him in the 90s yeah it's kind of like if you're a kid and you're listening to like blink-182 of the offspring but you don't know who the ramones are it's like you don't know the ramones are you might as do their work but you need to know that's where those things came from So I kind of feel that if you were in the

game long enough and gave it some true passion and some true seeking. Seeking true knowledge, you eventually would stumble upon Eugene Berger. So when people ask me about studying the performance of magic, I direct them to his writings. I think the performance of close up magic is one of the all time great on how to be a better close up magician.

Well here's the thing his books aren't the easiest thing to digest either when you're reading them that they're not for the beginner let's let me let me disagree just a little bit because if you enjoy reading books i think they're wonderful books to read and you'll feel like okay all right sorry i i agree what you're saying i think i'll i'll retort or rebut my my point by saying that you can read it and you can go, oh, that was a nice read, but whether or not it hits...

Where it's supposed to hit in your brain and influence what it's supposed to, The trouble is that most people aren't interested in reading this subject matter. You know, they don't want to read five pages on, you know, how to set by managing your audience. Correct. Or whatever. There was a question here from Tigger teen. He says, wasn't he a mentalist guy? And yes, yes. That was mainly what he was renowned for.

He inspired me to put 18 sponge balls in someone's hand, you know, And I could have made a living doing that trick alone on the streets of Chicago. He also was more of the things in the spiritualist realm and all the things of that nature.

Wasn't he in charge of that whole thing where it's like, if you can prove the psychics are real, I'll pay X amount of dollars? Wasn't that? That was his doppelganger, the amazing Randy. That's what I was thinking. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. They look quite the same. But no. Yeah. Yep. But I guess Eugene should be renowned for his teachings, in my opinion. Certainly, his performance style was outstanding. I mean, he was a wonderful magician.

But he mainly just performed restaurants for the laity. That was his gig. He did restaurant magic, and then he taught magicians how to make their magic better. Yeah. So the takeaway is that he influenced so many facets of magic. And it's remarkable because he only passed away in 2017. So he's been around for quite a while. So it's, does he belong on the list? Has he had an influence?

Maybe not in every single person listening to the podcast, but I feel that inadvertently he's like the Ramones of the punk rock world where not everyone knows Ramones or listens to their albums. But if it wasn't for Eugene Berger, we wouldn't have the Darren Browns.

We wouldn't have the peter turners we wouldn't have right like we have now that's what i think and that's why i i'm gonna say yes he deserves to be on the list yes yes buddy that's the stuff all right here's the other five that if we were gonna bump eugene off one of these guys might take the take the whole one man any one of these could be number one too oh can we just Can we discuss the honorable mentions now? We're doing it. We're going to screen. Yeah.

I know very little about Don Allen. Could you say in Doug? So I think Don Allen is most notable for bringing close up magic to television. He was the first to do so. And the first to host a syndicated series where not only himself, but other magicians perform close up magic for the television. vision. He also invented the invisible deck presentation. That alone is worth being an honorable mention. You know, I'm going to do some research and perhaps do a history lesson on him.

Have at it, you'll find lots of interesting things. John Rockerbomber wrote a book on him called Head of the Class. That's a great place to get some, although that's mostly presentations. That's mostly his presentations.

So really, even though Nick and I didn't really know who he was, he's influenced like every magician who start like again these are doug's honorable mentions so like if doug made a top pin list don allen gets because i think it's an important pivotal moment for bringing an entertainment form to the black mirror it's not and to do it with close-up magic like you know there's our first david blaine that's what i'm kind of saying okay all right love that that's lovely so

tell us about your honorable mention well we we know ed marlow king of cards right like no one's been more prolific maybe max maven another name that could be on this list phil goldstein max maven he might have published more material probably not though than ed marlowe and that most of it is card magic is just crazy and then right next to him is the other number one the ed marlowe of coin magic david roth yeah who he changed my life like i studied his work right out of the gate i

was lucky enough to have access to the stars of magic series he did in the vhs with tannins tannins magic the uh the magic shop i used to.

Visit when i was a teenager would let me rent these tapes for five bucks yeah watch david roth and then yeah that book expert here let me get this off what are you looking at there yeah so this is roth's expert coin magic i'm trying to get the reflection off but that bible part two after you've read bobos this is not a bad place to go yeah absolutely like it's about eight thousand pages of revolutionizing coin technique as far as doing table work you know sitting at a table and doing stuff this

is the one of the penultimate books that you need to start with most definitely so who's next on the list.

Number one he was on the other list somewhere and I said for sure he's getting on this list because this performer we've ever had, Hmm. Yeah. How about that statement? Yeah. Name a better closeup performer than Tom Mullica. There he is. And his penguin live lecture. Very interesting as well. If, if you're wanting to see like something you did recently, like recently before he passed, he did a penguin live.

Like within the same year that he unfortunately passed, but, uh, I didn't even know that existed. He teaches like a, uh, a cards across that I hadn't seen that particular method for before.

For and that's just the one that's popping in my head but he talks about a whole bunch of things and like how he was he like the fact that he has concave cheeks like helped him with cheeking items because like people would think he would swallow the cigarettes for example because of how his cheeks would just naturally have that sort of going in sucked in look and it talks about a whole bunch of things i'll tell you if you haven't seen showtime at the tomfoolery where

he does the full performance behind the bar captured in atlanta go out of your way to find this and watch this master entertain a bar with close-up magic for over an hour theatrical experience close-up who was doing that at that level and it's like this with tom mullica you cry the whole time because you can't quit laughing it's so funny wow maybe just a tiny dated i think he might be just a bit.

Taboo for today's kind of performance standard maybe a little bit so we have one more honorable mention to talk about and we've also got a bunch of messages from the guys as well who are mentioning who they think belong on the list as well so let's do this let's get back to number one and then talk about yeah we can get some the crowd can voice who do we miss but the last one on this honorable mention

yeah y'all we need to we need to hear who we missed but max bellini max bellini really like Like, if there's a father of modern close-up magic, it's this guy. Oh, yeah. He was the one that brought close-up to the limelight. Oh, Josh has got, Nick's got another crazy book. What do you do? You just get everything? This is the Steve Cohen volume, huh? This is the Steve Cohen volume. It is the length of a Bible. But there is just so many beautiful things to learn from.

And the stories in themselves are pretty wonderful. this guy it's it's like larger than life the existence he had the things that he did he performed for kings and and sultans and and it was just otherworldly he's doing coin magic he's doing card tricks and cups and balls there's no boxes and ladies sawing in half and any of this he shows up at the gig and the agent says where's the show and malini says i am the show exactly you know.

And I mean, I mean, just look at the cat he's, he's not too dissimilar from, from Nick K. I mean, if he had a beard, you would think of it the same person.

If I, Steve Cohen is keeping his GM alive out in, he's doing millennia-esque shows in the, in the hotel, like high end shows, right? Like Steve Cohen, have you guys, are you familiar with what he's doing? Absolutely. Oh yeah. Seen his show. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering if chat can guess number one before we get there. Like we've had some other names. Maybe now's a good time to guess who we've missed so far. The one person that no one has mentioned, not even in the chat yet.

Okay. So we've got someone's, oh, Winston has mentioned Michael Amar, which is a very good choice. Man, I almost put him in the, here's what I did. No one's living in the honorable mentions. And if there were living people, Mike Amar would have been in the list. But I said, I'm going to keep this list simple. What about Bill Malone? Where do you think he's sitting? Okay. So, yeah. So there's Bill Malone. We've got Brian Gillis, who's also been suggested. Not so.

Did anyone do this one yet, Daryl? And know that this list was crafted to be somewhat influential. Yeah. Daryl probably should be on this list. Well, people are guessing the Copperfield did Doug make Copperfield number one. That's interesting that he hasn't come up in this list. Close up magic. The whole time. Oh yeah. Of course. Oh, we're talking influential magicians. So top 10 influential closeup magicians.

Okay. Oh, Gary Davis makes a good point, which is Paul Harris and who was on the other list. He's on the other list and yeah, also. Also right next to Mike Amar would have been Paul Harris. I probably would have got, uh, Ernest Bolero? He likes number 24. I don't even know. His rings are awesome. Daryl is a goat for sure. Damn. You've got to put us out of our misery. How did no one say Diverman? How did no one say Diverman?

Number one. Not a single person. The professor. In number one, Diverman. Known as the Professor, Di Vernon is one of the most respected teachers in the world of magic. He specialized in card magic and sleight of hand, influencing generations of magicians with his meticulous techniques and teachings. Yeah. Like, okay. Yeah, I mean, look, that very same picture is on my wall. Like, that guy lives in my home. Really? Yeah, he's right over there. Where do you get a picture like that?

It's actually that same picture, but it's colorized, and it's just over there. In my in my like when you first walk in my my let me have a look you were the nerdiest of nerds great guy nice well i got these guys here and i got vernon over there and i got you know it's a magic house and so look yes that's flashing back to chip romero's bathroom where he has melinda the first lady of magic over his bathtub the poster is the one where she's like this.

Oh doug you did that pretty well just then that's yeah i get it right yeah so okay so so vernon has been responsible for so much he's been i mean like if it wasn't for vernon we wouldn't have folks like michael amar we wouldn't have a lot of the people mentioned in the honorable mention i think the one thing that i think i was most spun out that tommy wonder wasn't on that list yeah Yeah, right?

There's Tommy Wonder on this list. Yeah, yeah. Or for all the Spanish magicians out there, Juan Tamariz is not on there. Juan is another one that I had pinned in the honorable mentions, and I decided to go with dead guys. But Juan was actually on the list for a few minutes, and then he got bumped. I also, I'm not the biggest one fan. So it's like, if Doug's making the list, that's like, you know, fair enough is great. Obviously one is in most of my card work these days. No doubt.

You eat, sleep, breathe that Alex sounds like I said, he would have been on my list for sure. Yeah. Do you think Fred, oh, another guy that I considered. Yeah. There's Harry Potter. This is also why I went to artificial intelligence. So I didn't have to think about all these guys. I can't handle the pressure. Professor Snape, Ron Weasley. Hermione Granger. Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's the reality. Oh, geez. Fred Capps. How did we forget about Fred Capps as well? God damn.

So many, so many. But, you know, we had to pick and we made a list. And Doug, thank you for making that list.

Well, thank you for clicking the button that made that list. we really i really just want to dig on divernon but let's do that another day we don't have time for me to start digging on the professor number one if we were to wrap up the list as a whole friends i think we can all agree that there wasn't anyone in particular who didn't belong on the list at all in truth every single person out there is been responsible and for influencing

magic and i think because deep down this is going to sound like a kevin costner speech but i believe it's because we're all kind of responsible for influencing magic i guarantee that whether we know it or not there's probably every chance that we've been performing somewhere, at a birthday at a corporate at a restaurant and we've possibly put somebody on the path of magic ourselves so i think that deep down we're all kind of responsible for influencing magic.

Well, that was a separate way to end the podcast. Basically, guys, buy the shirt, all right? TheMagicGuysShow.com. Jimmy, Jimmy Farris, I just bought one as well. I just saw the order come in. You guys are great. The fact that some are already on their way out there to you guys is great. Tag us and stuff. Thank you. We're going to be back with more goodness. We have a guest.

We have, well, I got to just double confirm because it was booked a little while ago, but we have a double guest episode next week.

And we'll talk more on that. leading up but it's we have a double guest yeah we're talking about their new release coming out soon and coming up this week nick has 52 residencies doug is working on his learn slide of hand.com which is obviously not stressful at all building that and what and i'll be at the theater of magic yeah now in truth i will be lecturing in new zealand next month.

Boosting the details for that i believe it where what's the date oh it's the end of june end of june so that's fine i will post more information about that next week i've just been asked to like make a couple of promo bits for it as well so i'll make sure that you guys are across it and if you are in new zealand by all means pop around or drop me a line on my social so we can catch up and set up a friendship i think that'll be super fun to hang out and jam

magic you're gonna have notes you're making notes oh man every time i make notes there's always one person buys them and then prints them for everybody so i'm sort of just thinking i might just be doing that you know what it's like man is always like oh gavin works at a printing company we'll just chip in and buy one and then he'll make ems like yeah thanks is this is this through the society of magicians things never change that was that like the

first well the first magic lectures i went out as a kid i got the elders or i'm hearing this bullshit in the back like if you guys want i'll just buy the notes everyone pitches in five bucks and i'll copy them everyone i'm like but i will say with new zealand like is this in auckland nick yes sir so with the auckland society magicians yes sir, And why am I forgetting his name? I, he sometimes calls me, what's his name? That runs. Oh, I'll be right back. His pizzas are here.

No, I didn't order him pizzas this time. What I was going to say, Nick, and you can just watch this back later, but I, eight, seven years ago, I did a lecture at the Auckland Society of Magicians and they were, they were a very, very supportive group and they all, whether they wanted to learn my material or or not all bought my lecture notes because they knew i'd come from australia today i think that a good portion of the society does that a good portion of it

and then the broke yahoos do what we just said because that still happens like i swear to god i was like i go downstairs because the bell rang and i was like hey and it's like washing machine i'm like what the fuck are you you guys doing that's funny not me not imagine that we bought you a washing machine just to just to message you but what i was saying nick was alan watson who arranged for me to lecture like ages ago

seven years ago for the auckland side magicians very supportive group they all bought my lecture notes whether they thought they were good or not just to support the fact that i come from australia over there to hear so i reckon print them up man print them up make them up stamp Stamp him, you know. And if you watch the pod and you're going to go see his lecture, make sure you introduce yourself by saying, did you used to be in a band?

And that's how we'll know. You know what I'm saying? So that's awesome. We'll keep up to date in the Discord and love you guys. And let's rep some of these shirts. And we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear. Disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.