Welcome to the Lyons Den Collection.
This is a compendium of thirty-six product reviews, along with additional essays, written by Jamy Ian Swiss between 2016 and 2020. The essays take on a more personal journey as Jamy reflects on magic, how it is presented to the public, and what impact that has on the general view of magic today. The product reviews are more direct: they are deep analytical dives by the author, and surface as fully-explored breakdowns, offering readers insightful consideration.
If you're looking for a particular topic, you may wish to search By Title or By Author.
It’s a big one! If you have any interest in card magic, then you must read this double review by Jamy Ian Swiss of Denis Behr’s recent book Handcrafted Card Magic Vol. 3 and four-disc DVD set Magic on Tap. In a word, it’s all about… taste.
To change or to top change... is that the question? Either way, if you have any interest in sleight-of-hand card technique, you will want to read Jamy Ian Swiss’s review of “the first book dedicated entirely to a study of the Top Change, its variants and their proper execution.”
Authors Jim Steinmeyer and Peter Lamont take on The Secret History of Magic exploring and dispelling myths long associated with magic and its history. Is this book for you? Jamy Ian Swiss shares his thoughts in the latest Lyons Den review.
Sorry to dash your hopes, but despite the title, this is not Steve Spill’s personal update of the Kama Sutra. But it is a book about relationships: about a magician’s relationship with his art...
I daresay the majority of close-up magicians will readily improve their standard of work by adopting just one selection from Mr. Wind’s professional repertoire; adopt two or three such pieces and you will drive yourself toward matching standards that might well serve to raise the caliber of your work for the rest of your life.
Louis Tannen, the founder and original proprietor of Tannen’s Magic in Manhattan, was the first person to teach me sleight of hand. He taught me sponge balls when I was about ten or eleven years old, and later dice stacking, and the Chop Cup. By the time I was about 13 I was performing the Chop Cup for my parents’ friends at home cocktail parties, behind our four-stool home bar....
Why get The Paradigm Shift Vol. 1 & 2? Because they are “filled to the brim with theory, technique, effects, history, perspective, experience, and a distinctive creator’s voice. What more do you want...?”
Spending time with Luis, I quickly became aware of his intelligence, passion, knowledge of magic, and what I can only describe as a deeply artistic spirit. He is very much a product of the influence of Tamariz and the Spanish School, but also, like Juan, he has tremendous experience as both a stage and television performer.
"When it comes to card magic at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it’s the Spaniards’ world, and we just live in it. ... Woody Aragón is an innovative thinker about card magic, deeply influenced by his mentor Tamariz, but like a number of these creative acolytes, he has developed a substantial body of original work, and is an accomplished performer in live venues and on television in his native Spain."
