Meir Yedid's Magic Wish by Stephen Hobbs

Reviewed by Jamy Ian Swiss (originally published in Genii January, 2005)

Renown finger-flinger Meir Yedid has produced his first book since 1987. While the promotional claim often years in the making" seems doubtful, nevertheless this volume offers good value with its compendium of eight card tricks, five card techniques, two coin routines (one by Buffalo coin master Mike Gallo), a bill and business card effect with two methods, a color-changing knife item, and an odd-ball finger stunt.

Items of interest include a practical in-the-hand Triumph routine; a commercial, multi- phase mental routine using Zener ESP cards and a matchbook; a double-waterfall faro flourish that while not original (I believe this is identified with Frank Thompson, and Mike Skinner uses a similar approach to obtain a triple waterfall sequence) is also applied here to a false shuffle concept; a memory stunt which, it is shockingly revealed, Harry Lorayne used as a cheat on a memory infomercial; a fine subtlety for a color- changing knife routine, a handling for Marlo's Quick 3-Way that avoids the dreaded Vernon Alignment Move (although the claim is made that three cards are seen individually, when in fact it is the first and third cards that are essentially isolated, the same result, albeit achieved by different means, as in the original Marlo handling); a routine which claims to synthesize the Quick 3-Way with the Six Card Repeat, but in fact bears a closer resemblance to the Homing Card than to the Repeat routine (and the corner grip for the Flushtration Count is not credited); and the Gallo contribution is an elaborate coin box routine in which three half dollars transform into copper coins, then with the addition of a Chinese coin the three coppers are transformed to match, and finally three giant Chinese coins are apparently produced from the box. Those who like to practice will enjoy this one.

Stephen Hobbs' prose is capable here, if perhaps not quite as careful as in his previous works. The artwork is similarly workmanlike and serviceable. Essentially, the book comes across as an expanded set of lecture notes bound in hardcover, but the price is very reasonable for the resulting package.