Saturday Afternoons at the Magic Art Studio, part 2
Marty July 20th, 2009
A year later and I’m still going to Ray Goulet’s Magic Art Studio. If there is a similar shop in your area, frequent the shop and buy a few things every now and them to keep them going. Shops like this are slowly closing around the world.
Recap, on Saturdays Ray hosts lunch and a general get together. Around noon food is ordered from a local place that delivers, sometimes Chinese, often sub/pizza shops. Before and after the food there is discussion about anything and everything, with a high probability that magic will come up. There is no format, just friends getting together. This doesn’t happen often enough in general, people are all so busy and doing all sorts of things. I find it great to set aside Saturday afternoons just to hang out. It’s relaxing, entertaining, and often highly educational.
One thing that I sometimes do (and others do this too) is to just bring something out and practice. This will invariably get the attention of someone, they’ll ask what you are doing, I’ll explain and talk about some bit that needs work, and then I will often get some help. I was playing with Sponge Balls one day, just doing basic retention vanishes and such, and General Grant asked me to hand the balls over, and showed me a couple of things that I had never seen before. Another time I was playing around with the classic palm (I’ll be working on this for my entire life, I think) and Ray Goulet showed me his classic palm, which is pretty good, and gave me a mini-lesson on palming with discussion of other coin workers and few fun stories.
Recently General Grant brought someone new to the shop, a younger guy who is just starting out. He got a mini-lesson which started on using the breather-crimp, controlling cards, a bit on cutting cards on a table and in hand, and progressed to a (brief) demonstration and discussion of the classic force, I asked Ray to show him the rising card that he does that uses no gimmicks and no extras. I really asked so that I could see it again.
But that’s only the beginning, and maybe the least part of things. I’ve made several good friends and met a lot of interesting people. That’s the reason that I join clubs. That’s the major benefit. I’m generally pretty shy, so don’t just walk up to people and talk to them, this gives me someplace to go where I can talk about something that I know we have in common which leads to general talk about anything and everything.