Ken Krenzel's Ingenuities, written by Stephen Minch. Published by Hermetic Press, Inc. Illustrated by Kelly Lyles, cover art by Greg Webb, foreword by Jon Racherbaumer. 224 pp. $37 postage free. Add $12 for overseas airmail. From Hermetic Press, 1500 S.W. Trenton St., Seattle WA 98106-2468. Fax: (206) 768-1688. I have this image of Stephen Minch, basking on some Caribbean beach, peering through his Foster Grants at bikini-clad Melinda clones as he sips margaritas and listens to Linda Ronstadt through his Walkman headphones, all courtesy of the loot he raked in from his wildly successful books of summer, The Books of Wonder. Hey, wait a minute! That's my beach fantasy, not Stephen's! Fortunately, and despite the loot he raked in, etc., Stephen put his time to better use over the past few months, basking instead in the glow of a Seattle-based computer screen, where he wrote yet another first-rate book, Ken Krenzel's Ingenuities. The book follows seven years on the heels of the previous Minch-Krenzel collaboration, Ken Krenzel's Close-up Impact!, and 18 years after Ken's first large book, Harry Lorayne's The Card Classics of Ken Krenzel. The dustwrapper for Ingenuities mentions that Ken began contributing to magic journals with a submission to Bruce Elliott's The Phoenix in January 1949. My lightning math skills tell me that that's, um, borrow a one, an astonishing 48 years of creativity! I looked up that first submission, an item called "Miracle," written in cahoots with Don Costello under the byline "Kren-Zel and Costello." (I'm not certain whether Ken's surname here is drawn from such hyphenated spook show workers as El-Wyn and Ray-Mond, or whether it's modeled on the various citizens of the planet Krypton, who came into vogue in 1938.) Other contributors to that issue included Bill Simon and Rusduk; Kren-Zel and Costello would return two issues later and share billing with Art Lyle among others. "The bird" in those days was 20 cents an issue. I mention that first Krenzel effect (it was a method for doing "Brainwave" with an ordinary deck) because it nicely foreshadows things to come, relying both on nontrivial sleight of hand and on a simple gaff. Those who cowered at the thought of a new book of formidable finger flinging no doubt rejoiced last month when Minch promised a "kinder, gentler" Krenzel, with "sleightless or near sleightless tricks guaranteed to perplex and astonish the most discriminating audience." The results are as promised, and might have even been titled Krenzel Without Tears except that a few items requiring digital calesthentics did creep in. (I wept through the description of the "Top-cover Dribble Pass.") But take heart: most of the sleights involved are not only within range of most but actually a joy to execute, while there are plenty of other miracles requiring only such aids as a gaffed card case, double-faced cards, equivoques, gravity, stripper decks, and grammar school mathematics. Following an introduction by Jon Racherbaumer and a seven-page essay, "Primordia Rerum: Magical Magic," by Krenzel, the 34 titled items of the book play out over five chapters. They play larger than 34 items, by the way, because there are numerous controls, forces, finesses, plots, and psychological ploys within those items that promise a life of their own in other applications. Chapter One, "Out of Hand" presents seven effects that seem to transpire with the magician taking a rigorously hands off approach. Much of Krenzel's essay on magical magic concerns itself with the impact of magic taking place without the magician touching anything, and preferably taking place in the spectator's hands. Chapter Two, "Things Change," considers five items in which changes occur, usually quite visually. Five items with coins (and sometimes cards) and one with a pencil make up Chapter Three, "Leaving Cardville." Chapter Four, "New Tools," was easily my favorite of the sections, with a half-dozen items that offer a wide range of potential to enhance your existing repertoire. Finally, Chapter Five, "Tall Tales and Short Cons," offers the remaining ten effects, in this case more complete performance pieces with full patter presentations. A few favorites from the above sections -- "Box Top" will allow you to achieve the impact of Daryl's "Ultimate Ambitous" but with an ungimmicked deck. The signed ambitious card is clearly placed in the center of the deck, while the deck is already in its case, and yet the same card rises to the top. "Simulacrum Mirabundum" will be considered by many to be the "effect worth the price of the book." It's an any card at any number effect, based on Krenzel's separately marketed "It Can't Be." It's dead easy and no skill is required other than that to convey the seeming impossibility that this method allows. In "Around the World in Several Ways" you insert a card face up (half-way) into a face-down deck. You spin the card clockwise around the deck. On the second "spin," the card changes to another card. This is a very pretty color change. "Pocket Passport" is an in-the-spectator's-hands coin trick in which he place a copper and silver coin into his pocket. He removes one, later holding it in his closed fist and tapping it against his pocket. In this instant the coins change places. An excellent patter line highlights the transposition. "The Million Penny Mystery" (the title here is a considerable stretch!) creates a rather amazing sequence of optical illusions with the production, vanish, and reproduction of a pencil. "Peak Decks" is one of my favorite sections, detailing alternative constructions of and uses for the Franklin Taylor peek deck. You should all skip this chapter and leave any reputations to be made with peek decks to me. "Mr. Fingers Goes to the Bottom" is a terrific way to get a card inserted into a fan into a full left-hand bottom palm. "Opti-Stack" vies with "Simulacrum Mirabundum," in my mind, for the choicest item in the book. Four aces are placed together in the center of a fanned deck. The cards are then ribbon spread or dribbled -- there is no control over the centered aces. Following one riffle shuffle, you deal a round of poker. You get the aces, and you haven't broken a sweat as the method is oh so easy. I've seen Geno Munari devastate folks with a similar use of this principle. The method is later used in a longer and more challenging routine that tips one of Lennart Green's most cherished methods (see "The Lost Aces of Louie the Loser"). "Cloning Queens" allows you to duplicate the basic action of Paul Harris's "Las Vegas Split" but with a considerably more visual split. A queen of hearts keeps cloning into more queens of hearts in this completely plotted routine. Overall, this is a handsome 224-page book made all the more palatable by Stephen Minch's civilized prose, by 213 Kelly Lyles drawings, and by a striking Greg Webb cover that toys with the Ingenuities theme via a clockwork coin and card fantasy world. Whatever your skill level, you should find something to thrill you among these items Dr. Krenzel has concocted over the past seven years. It was a pleasant surprise, over the course of writing this issue, to learn that Stephen Minch had won the Magic Castle's Literary Fellowship. For any of you who don't know Stephen and wonder why he won this award, the following list of books and monographs written by Stephen is offered in evidence. As you will note, some of the hallmark books in magic are contained here. The Book of Thoth (1974) Ever So Sleightly: The Professional Card Technique of Martin A. Nash (1975) Mind & Matter (1975) Any Second Now: The Professional Card Technique of Martin A. Nash (1977) Creations of a Magical Madman (1977) Sleight Unseen: The Professional Card Technique of Martin A. Nash (1979) Jacks or Better: Martin A. Nash lecture notes (1979) Lovecraftian Ceremonies (1979) Secrets of a "Puerto Rican Gambler": The Conditionally Guaranteed Magic of Daryl (1980) Mind Novas (1980) Ovation: Martin A. Nash lecture notes (1980) For Your Entertainment Pleasure: Magic by Daryl (1982) The Robinhood Caper (1982) Eyeless in Gaza (1984) Mind Melds (1984) The New York Magic Symposium, Collection Three (with Adam Fleischer) (1984) Seven Deadly Miracles: Further Card Magic of Bro. John Hamman, S.M. (1984) The New York Magic Symposium: The Collection Four (1985) Colors on the March: Martin A. Nash lecture notes (1985) The New York Magic Symposium Collection Five (1986) Larry Jennings' Neoclassics (1987) Kings Incognito: Martin A. Nash lecture notes (1987) The Three Faces of Steve: lecture notes (1987) Daryl's Ambitious Card Omnibus (1987) The Vernon Chronicles, Vol. 1: The Lost Inner Secrets (1987) The Vernon Chronicles, Vol. 2: Most Lost Inner Secrets (1988) The Vernon Chronicles, Vol. 3: Further Lost Inner Secrets (1989) Ken Krenzel's Close-up Impact! (1990) Spectacle (1990) History of Western Close-up Magic (published in Japanese) (1990) Ultra Cervon (1990) The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley, Vol. I (1991) John Carney's Carneycopia (1991) From Witchcraft to Card Tricks (1991) A Life Among Secrets: The Life and Adventures of Eddie Fields (1992) By Forces Unseen: The Innovative Card Magic of Ernest Earick (1993) The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley, Vol. II (1994) The Books of Wonder, Volumes I & II (with Tommy Wonder) (1996) Ken Krenzel's Ingenuities (1997) In addition to being one of magic's most prolific and respected authors, Stephen Minch is the major domo of Hermetic Press, Inc. in Seattle, purveyors of "a select, very special universe of magic literature" and one card trick! The following items are currently available from Hermetic Press: Card College, Volume 1 by Roberto Giobbi $30 Card College, Volume 2 by Roberto Giobbi $35 Pasteboard Presentations by Whiting and LaGerould $22 Modus Operandi: The Card Magic of Jack Carpenter by Stephen Hobbs $27 The Books of Wonder, Volume I by Tommy Wonder and Stephen Minch $45 The Books of Wonder, Volume II by Tommy Wonder and Stephen Minch $45 Mind, Myth $ Magic by T.A. Waters $60 Paramiracles by Ted Lesley $35 Tricks of the Imagination by Robert E. Neale $30 Magic & Meaning by Eugene Burger and Robert E. Neale $30 and the card trick of course is "B'Wave" by Phil Goldstein $10 pp Place your orders with Stephen at Hermetic Press, Inc., 1500 S.W. Trenton St., Seattle WA 98106-2468. Fax: (206) 768-2468. E-mail: hermeticpress@worldnet.att.net As to postage, I'll mention what Stephen is currently advertising in April 1997, but do check with him of course as this issue becomes dated. For one book, add $3. For two books, add $5. For three books and over, postage is free. For overseas air, add 40 percent of the value of the books. Postage is free for "B'Wave," and Washington residents of course add 8.2 percent sales tax. Return to The Little Egypt Gazette. Copyright© 1997 by Steve Bryant