THIS LISTING IS FOR BOTH VOLUMES OF THE IMPORTANT L&L REPRINTS OF JIM SISTI'S "THE MAGIC MENU" -- even if you never plan on doing restaurant or strolling magic, these two books are filled with practical close-up material and magic "business" tips and advice. If you read a single issue of Sisti's wonderful periodical, you will want to read them all, so this is your chance to get all TEN YEARS of "The Magic Menu", beautifully bound in hardcover, (and only one shipping cost, too!)
VOLUME ONE -- covering issues 1-30, 1990 to 1995
THE MAGIC MENU, YEARS ONE THROUGH FIVE by Jim Sisti (hardcover, published by L&L) -- 370 pages
(2nd edition, 2nd printing -- dated 1995, but printed in 2001 in new format to match Volume Two which came out in 2001)
From its humble beginnings, The Magic Menu quickly grew into an important, sought-after periodical, and the material and production quality improved to meet the demand. In this compilation of the "First Five Years", the original format/layout of the periodical is retained. So you can see how the dot-matrix printed first issue of 1990 morphed into much higher quality layouts by issue 30 in 1995. It's like a historical montage of the early years of desktop publishing, which old magi like myself will find nostalgic, and the young guns will just wonder why the early issues looked so rough! That is, of course, assuming those young guns actually read books. :-)
Although the early issues are a bit hard to read (due to the layout), they contain good advice columns and a few practical, solid close-up routines, as well as the other element that would become Magic Menu "staples": reviews of books and commercially available tricks, and conversations with working pro's. By the third issue, the formatting has stepped up to where your eyes don't hurt after reading :-)
Throughout the 30 issues in this Volume, you will find contributions from all the big close-up names of the 1990's: Acer, Ammar, Burger, Charles, Close... (that's just a few of the A, B, C's in the index!) I could keep going with DeCamps, Eason, Lorayne, Lovell, Malone, Maven, Osterlind, Prete, Swiss, York, etc etc These pro's contribute strong routines and Sisti maintains high standards for the material.
This book is in new unused condition, hard cover with jacket, tight clean and unmarked. -- from "new-old" dealer inventory, so never previously owned.
VOLUME TWO -- covering issues 31-60, 1996 to 2000
THE MAGIC MENU, YEARS SIX THROUGH TEN by Jim Sisti (hardcover, published by L&L) -- 360 pages
(FIRST EDITION, 2001)
Like the first collected Volume One of "The Magic Menu", this second collected Volume Two retains the original look and layout of the periodical. Unlike the early issues collected in the other volume, you do not have to deal with the rudimentary formats of early desktop publishing. By 1996, Magic Menu had a state-of-the-art layout, including clear photographs for many of the illustration.
Most of the "big name" contributors found in Volume One ("The First Five Years" volume) are still contributing great advice and routines to this "Second Five Years" tome. Some of the additional top close-up pro's who joined the list of Magic Menu contributors include: Archer, Colombini, Harkey, Jay, Lovell, Racherbaumer, Sanders, Sankey, Skinner, Tyler, Wilson, and Wonder. That's just a few of the names I cherry-picked from the index, but much of the material I found most valuable came from lesser known magicians.
As would be expected over the course of five more years, some changes to line up of columnist have occurred, which serves to widen the scope of Magic Menu's content -- for example, Mark Strivings' column on close-up mentalism, or Larry Moss' column on Balloons.
Jim Sisti continued to maintain high standards for all the material -- in fact, in one of the later issues, he has an editorial that explains why The Magic Menu was falling behind on its bi-monthly publication schedule. He states that he refused to lessen the quality of the material ev en if it would have made getting out more issues faster and easier. (I believe him -- the stuff is consistently good!)
THIS TWO BOOK BUNDLE OF "THE MAGIC MENU" IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Typical selling price for EACH single volume is about $45-$50. And these big heavy books require at least $6 shipping to US addresses for each book! But you can get the books for a better price here, have a matching set, and save a little shipping too!
Non-USA addresses: sorry, this book when packed for shipment is over THREE kilos, so shipping to your country is not cheap. But it is a great set of books that every serious student close-up magic should have -- it is worth it! THE WEBSITE CHECKOUT WILL NOT CALCULATE SUFFICIENT POSTAGE TO SHIP THESE OUTSIDE THE USA -- EMAIL ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED AND I WILL INVOICE YOU CORRECTLY. SHIPPING OUTSIDE THE USA WILL BE ABOUT $70 (slightly less to Canada)
