Denny and Lee’s Magic Studio, Baltimore
Where Magic Begins, Stratford-Upon-Avon
Magic Corner, Mirror, Bangladesh
Lincoln Magic Shop, Mt. Vernon, WA
The Magic Apple, Los Angeles
Cooper’s Magic Shop, Sussex
Davenport’s, London
International Magic Shop, London
House of Minalima, London
Magic Shop, somewhere in the desert, NM
Ziggy’s Magic Shop, Lancaster, PA
Magic Shop, Lebannon
Magicland, Tokyo
Manora Magic Shop, Tokyo
UGM, Nagoya
Dragonolia, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Tricks Magic Shop, Auckland, New Zealand
The Wonderfun Shop, Pompton Lakes, NJ
The Magic Shop, Oldwick, NJ
Zauberkönig, Berlin
Houdini’s Temple of Mystery, Atlantic City
Harry Houdini’s Magic Shop, Laguna, Philippines
Java Magic, Semarang, Indonesia
Bernard’s Magic Shop, Melbourne
Tallula, Edinburgh
Aha Ha Ha, Edinburgh
Tam Shepherd’s Trick Shop, Glasgow
Rigas Melnais Balsams, Riga
Vienna Magic, Vienna
Market Magic and Novelty Shop, Seattle
Y.E.S. Magic, Orlando
Old Town Magic, Kissimmee, FL
Misdirections Magic Shop, San Francisco
Houdini’s Magic Shop, San Francisco
The Crystal Magic Shop, Sedona, AZ
Doc’s Magic Shop, Gattlinburg, TN
Clownin Around Magic Shop, Vancouver
The Magic Shop, Las Vegas
Houdini’s Magic Shop, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas
Las Vegas Magic Shop, Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas
Las Vegas Magic Shop, Stratosphere Hotel, Las Vegas
Magic, Brighton
Woodland Magick, Gillingham, UK
Merlin’s Magic Shop, Disneyland, Anaheim
The Magic Joke Shop, Cambridge
Theater Magic Shop, St. Augustine, FL
Jongs Magic Shop, Shanghai
Ang House of Magic, Shanghai
Tannen Magic, NYC
The Magic Shop, NYC
Funny Store, NYC
Abracadabra Superstore, NYC
Eclectica, Rome
Hardy Har Har, Kingston, ONT
The Vanishing Rabbit, Edmonton
Mayette Magie Moderne, Paris
Academie de Magie, Montpellier, FR
Ollivanders Wand Shop, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Orlando
Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Orlando
Magic Shop, Dollywood, Pigeon Forge, TN
The Magic Shop, Tucson
El Rei de la Magia, Barcelona
The Cuckoo’s Nest Magic Shop, Pittsburgh
Ash’s Magic Shop, Chicago
Riley’s Trick Shop, Chicago
Star Magic Shop, Goa
Abracadabra Costume and Magic Shop, Dayton
Big Hearted John’s, Ocean City, NJ
Morley’s Magic Shop, Butler, NJ
Joe Sam’s Fun Shop, Pasadena, TX
B Magic Shop, Arlington, TX
Top Hat Magic and Fun Shop, Tulsa
The Vanishing Rabbit, Niagara Falls
Theater Magic Shop, Universal Studios, Hollywood
St. Pierre’s Hollywood Magic Inc., Hollywood
Owen Magic Supreme, Azusa, CA
Black Fox Magic Shop, Big Bear, CA
Mom Crosewl’s Magic Shop, Crownsville, MD
Magic Shop, Budapest
Bartt Rocket Magic Shop, Eureka Springs, AR
The Magic Shop, Levittown, NY
Tricks Magic Shop, Alberta
Witchcraft and Magic Shop, New Orleans
Magic Shop, Tijuana
Dave’s Killer Magic Shop, Vancouver
Charme et Sortilege, Montreal
Morrissey’s Magic Shop, Toronto
Marty Magic Shop, Half Moon Bay
Barry’s Magic Shop, Rockville, MD
Dynamite Magic Shop, Velden, Holland
The Magic Shop, Stockholm
Pantry Magic, Hong Kong
Abbott’s Magic Shop, Collon, MI
Queen of Hearts Magic Emporium, Polton, NC
The Wunderground Magic Shop, St Clawson, MI
Joke Shop, Blackpool
Manaleak Magic, Birmingham
MagicNevin Shop, Lincoln, UK
Tomfoolery, Rye
Magic Castle, Four Corners, FL
Shuffle’s Magical Ice Cream Shoppe, Canta Clara, CA
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p.s. Hey. My Thursday will be heavily occupied by casting auditions for Zac’s and my new film, so occupied in fact that said auditions will begin early enough in the morning that I won’t be able to do the p.s. tomorrow. As almost always in that situation, you will get a restored post from my murdered blog, and then I will be back here on Friday with a new post and a readiness to catch up with all of the comments that anyone leaves here between now and then. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! While I’m not surprised that your mom’s ceramics would sell like hot cakes, that’s very happy to know. Oh, right, that’s the book by Klebold’s mom. I knew the title sounded familiar. I haven’t read it. Should I? I looked at another apartment yesterday, and it was a real possibility, but there were literally 14 other people looking at it at the same time, so I don’t know how likely getting it could be, probably not very. I’ll check today. Rain and laziness can be such a nice combo. Did you give in to the combo or see your friend? I think we’re almost set with the audition schedule. Yesterday I worked on that, although Zac has to do most of the grunt work because he speaks fluent French like French people do. Looked at that apartment. Talked with Gisele to catch up on the latest about our TV series (still no news) and our opera project (some progress: the world premiere is now pretty set for Fall 2018 in Berlin). Chatted with friends, worked, nothing spectacular. What happened on your Wednesday. Is it still raining? It was here yesterday, but I think the sky is blue today. ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, sir. Nice stuff about H. Berger, thank you. ** Steevee, I trust you take the H. Berger contact and garbled possible dislike as a cool honor because it obviously is. Wow, even. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi, man. Do you know the band Lubricated Goat? I only ask because when I looked at your name, my eyes had some kind of acid flashback or something because for a second I thought, ‘Lubricated Goat commented on my blog?!’ Busy is so preferable to being dead, so that’s a relief. I’m still greedy and open-armed whenever your guest-post becomes the coolest thing to do on your end. Take care, buddy. ** Sypha, Hi, James. ** Grant Maierhofer, Hi, man. I came across the Fanzine thing this morning when I was coffeeing up, and it’s really fantastic, and thank you a lot for the generous things you say therein about the blog and me. Let me … Everyone, Listen up. Grant Maierhofer and Thomas ‘Moronic’ Moore, d.l.s and authors of two of my (and a lot of wise people’s) favorite novels of 2016, recently had a conversation/interview about Thomas’s great novel ‘In Their Arms’, as well as about this very blog, and it’s fascinating and smart and all good things, and you can — and really ought to — read it where it is housed on the wonderful site Fanzine. Please do that. Here. Wow, man, a lot of great stuff on your end that will result in a lot of great stuff on ours. Congrats to us all! All is quite good and very busy with me. Yeah, it goes without saying that having you here as much as your time and interest allow would be a total boon. Hugs and take care, sir. ** Jamie, Gem-y, hi! Still tired? Yeah, tiredness is a greedy mf. Oh, three questions, right. Okay, these are spontaneous, unsecured queries off the very top of my head. If David Bowie’s ghost suddenly materialized in your room and said you could ask him any question you want but only one, what would you ask? Do you wear sweaters? You’ve been forced at gunpoint to sit in a time machine and choose somewhere to to go. Where do you choose? May your Wednesday outstrip every other Wednesday you’ve ever had. Big love, me. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Man, that interview/conversation between you and Grant is really great, enlightening, super smart, you name it. And thank you for your kind words about here and me. So sorry about the hard, grim cases. Hang in there, obviously. Wonderful to see you, man. ** Kier, Hi, K-ster! Oh, the trigger, yes. See if this works. Go to wherever you keep your books. Close your eyes. Remove a book at random. Open your eyes. Open the book and turn to page 27. If it’s a book of writing, choose/look at the first full paragraph. If it’s a book of imagery, choose/look at whatever is on that page. If there’s more than one image on the page, choose the one closest to the left-upper side of the page. Okay? Now, you wrote or drew or photographed or painted (or whatever) the thing you’ve chosen. If it’s writing, why? If it’s an image, how and why did you ‘make’ it? That might be way too complicated, sorry. Did that, by some miracle, trigger anything? So you’re heading home tonight, yes? It must be a short flight. I hope your last day of school for a while was productive. Oh, I think I told Dora up above about my day. It was okay, no great shakes. I did chat with your former trigger John Tuite. He’s working on a big project, and we’re going to Skype about that today or soon. My long time, previously longlost friend, named Lee Ray, and I reconnected because, by a strange coinidence, some musicians I’m working with — Golden Fur: they did the score for the fourth scene of ‘LCTG’ — were students at UCSD in the experimental music department, and, long story short, I found out through them that my friend had worked there for a long time, and they got me his email address. So, it was a lucky break. I’d been hoping to reconnect with him for decades. It’s awesome to reengage our great friendship, and it’s also meaningful for me because he knew and was friends with George Miles as we were all together in a kind of weird teen artists’ gang. Safe trip home if I talk with you before, and, yeah, farm updates would be really sweet. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. How’s stuff? ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. Thanks, man. You know, I think you’re probably very right that I should write something explanatory about that work. I think that’s really what I should do. I kind of hate writing about my work for whatever reason. I always turn down offers to give lectures about it. It’s much easier for me to converse/answer questions about my work than to generate a introductory or behind-the-scenes text. But I think, yeah, in this case, it would be very valuable and maybe even necessary. I’ll start taking notes and see if I can come up with something. Yeah, that’s a very good idea. Thank you a lot for suggesting that. I think you’re very right. I really had hoped to be able to go to AWP this year, as I continue to wish heavily for an opportunity to meet all the writers whose work I’m so excited by and partake of the atmosphere of the new American writing renassiance, etc, but this year I just can’t, sadly. I hope you have a great and inspiring time. And I would love to hear anything you have to say about it when the time comes. ** Chris dankland, Hi, Chris. Thank you, man. Yeah, people have mentioned Stein about the GIF work, which is interesting because I’m not at all well versed in her work or her thing for some odd reason. I’ve read her, but I’ve never been so captured as to really investigate the work overall or what she was doing. Obviously, I should, will. The assembly of the GIF works is really complicated and happens in this kind of weird hybrid of extreme control and an attempt to embrace the intuitive and accidental at the same time, so it’s very hard for me to describe the actual process, as determined and thought-out as it is. The closest thing I can compare it to is writing poetry, but the use of moving, unalterable imagery rather than static, alterable text makes the process seem very non-verbal even though the process for me is entirely connected to the process I use writing text fiction. It’s weird. And the process of making those works is very gradual and obsessive and time-consuming and also brain consuming. Like Jeff said up above, I really do think I need to sit down and try hard to articulate the process and how the works work, which will take a lot concentration on my part. Ha, cool, you’re investigating the GIF sources. That’s, like, their most hidden and subtle layer, and the one I basically suspect no one gets into unless someone ends up writing a thesis about them or something. That’s cool you did that. Thank you, sir. I so really apprecate it and am very honored. I hope your today is excellence incarnate. ** Misanthrope, Georgey! I think it went pretty well, don’t you? Thanks a ton again. Good, good then let it be the first step for sure. That would be the most spectacular outcome absolutely. Nice backstory. It’s true that the post had a quality of total generosity about it. It’s interesting how you managed to do that. That quality is not inherent in such a thing, obviously. Gold star for Zicam. ** Armando, Hi, man. I’m doing pretty well, yeah, and of course I hope you are too. Oh, I don’t care about my birthday, no problem. It just marks off another year less to go at this point. Michael and Bene are, as you can imagine, very consumed by the arrival of young Milo, and they seem to be doing very well both because of that and despite that too, ha ha. We start shooting the film probably around April 10th or so, and then we will be shooting for two, two-and-a-half weeks. More if we can somehow be allowed more. The film was financed mainly via a private grant and a grant from a film commission based in the Bas Normandie region that is funded by the French government. The budget approximately is +/- 180,000 euros. I think anything that any of us can do to stop that beyond piece of beyond shit is very valuable. Goes withot saying that any time you want to contribute a post to the blog, I would be very happy to be able to house it. Have a sweet day. Good to see you, pal. ** Okay. I got this strange idea that collecting photos of the facades of as many magic shops as I could find and making them b&w and organizing them into a stack would be an interestingly wrong thing to do and would result in a curious, drably melancholy effect. That’s your explanation. The blog will see you tomorrow, and I’ll see you freshly again on Friday.
Now available in North America 
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Love that little roadside Magic Store in the middle of nothing.
Latest FaBlog: Letter From A Well-Known Woman
Dennis! I’m writing this from my new laptop. I’m quite excited about it. I can watch videos and films! It’s been a while. I can see your gif pieces properly – like with the gifs moving and things scrolling. It’s a brave new world for me.
Loving the magic shops. So pleased to see Tam Sheperd’s in there. I used to work for his daughter’s husband. I’m a sucker for that kind of imagery – it is a little shabby and grim, but also beautiful, in a funny way. That Brighton one is my favourite, with the big dummy’s face. Thanks! I used to work alongside a guy who was really into magic and I was continually picking his brains about magic tricks and the psychology of the whole thing.
And thanks for my questions…..I’m afraid I have to ask for time on the David Bowie one, because I think there’s a very good answer hanging around somewhere and it’ll come to me walking down the street or something – I will get back to you on that. As for the other two, of course I wear sweaters. I wish I had more, actually, and thinking about the question has made me hanker after a red V-neck. As for time travel, I’d go see the Velvet Underground play live. On their 90s reform tour, of course. Joking! No, I’d want to see the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. God, that’s quite a dull and unimaginative answer, eh? But it’s true. Actually, I have to get back to you on that one too.
Hope you’re well and the film prep’s going smoothly. Man, I’m going to go watch some pop videos on Youtube, which may seem rather unremarkable, but is something that I’ve not been able to do for ages.
You got Thursday plans? I have not only the dentist, but also the dental hospital. Wow.
Lots of love to you!
Jamie
It is an honor to know that Helmut Berger read my essay, which touches upon him, but at the same time, I have to cringe at the thought of him reading things like “Berger could have inspired David Bowie’s ‘Cracked Actor.’ ” The documentary HELMUT BERGER, ACTOR gives the impression he’s a pretty mean, grumpy guy in the best of circumstances, so the ESL barrier that garbled his prose probably didn’t make much of a difference.
Yeah, desaturated magic shop facades are eerie. And any dl anywhere near Cooper’s Magic Shop in Sussex should make it their duty to snap a selfie and share on this blog.
Today I sat on the Dundee Visual Artists Award panel for the final time, as they require panelists to serve for 2 years before they look for new blood. Which is fine, and it’s taught me a bunch about how best to apply for funding. The DVAA thing was especially useful for me as it made the ART101 adventure happen, after all.
Armando, I saw your comment today. Thank you, my friend.
Dennis, Yes, I’m very happy with it. Our friends here are great people. Thank God.
RE: your GIF work. Please don’t ever feel that it’s not respected or appreciated. Quite the opposite. I will say this: it’s very new and not something anyone’s ever done before. I think the newness of using them this way takes one aback, so to speak. We have this pre-set notion of a GIF and what it is and what it’s supposed to be and do, and it’s quite difficult sometimes to wrap one’s head around something so totally new.
Also, because of this newness, it’s hard to actually see the labor that goes into it behind the scenes, as opposed to something like your writing, which we’re all very familiar with. Most of us know what it’s like to write, we understand that labor, and it’s palpable when we read a sentence.
But the GIF work…I have no idea what it’s like to work with them…and certainly have never even associated working with them as possibly being akin to a process like writing.
I think it’s good that you’ve described that process now. It makes sense, and I think, going forward, it will allow me -and others, I would assume- to be able to get into them more than just on a superficial level, which is all we’ve ever really known of GIFs.
If any of that makes sense.
Knock ’em dead, Thursday. And try to cast Harry Styles, if you can. 😉
Actually, I’d love to see Harry Styles give a Bressonian performance in an avant-garde art film. Wonder if he’s ever seen THE DEVIL, PROBABLY on the One Direction tour bus?
I remember the Funny Store in Times Square. I loved it as a kid. More of a novelty store, as I recall.
Did you hear Professor Irwin Corey died? Age 102!
Hi!
So far I can recommend the Klebold book, yes. It’s really heavy, obviously, but it doesn’t sound like… an excuse of any sort. I find it very interesting and heartbreaking.
Oh. I really hope you have a chance to get the apartment! When will you know?
Awesome news about the opera project!!
I had some errands to run yesterday and I have a meeting with the head of the research today. I’ve already done half of the interviews but some of the other interviewees who said okay disappeared right after so now I’m kind of stuck. We’ll have to talk about our options and some new ways to go, I guess.
How did the audition go? I hope you found some promising actors!! I keep my fingers very crossed!
This day is Easter, Christmas and Halloween. It’s everything good ever.