So, you like your magic strange, spooky and weird? You think David Blaine is strange? My friend, you aint seen nuthin yet.
Meet Christian Chelman, the wierdest, spookiest magician ever. Sorcery, Tribal, Voodoo, Witchcraft...You name it and you'll learn to simulate it in this very unusual text.
Click below to read the introduction by T.A. Waters.
The following is an excerpt by T.A. Waters from the introduction to Capricornian Tales
Christian Chelman is strange. How strange, you ask? VERY strange.
Christian is strange, however, not simply for the peculiar notions he gets for effects; not for the weird presentations he creates; and not for the odd and intriguing props he finds or builds for these routines. No. All that is true, in varying degrees, of many of my friends (but then, I do have strange friends).
What sets Christian Chelman apart is that he actually does this stuff; he performs it. Were not talking about magic conventions or magic dubs here - were talking about the real world. Christian does the material you are about to read for laypersons, and in his hands these pieces play - brilliantly.
So what, you say? Isnt magic intended to be performed for laypersons?
Theoretically, yes, but in practice it doesnt work out that way. Most readers of magic books are armchair magicians; they enjoy reading about how an effect is done, and sometimes imagine themselves performing it, but it rarely goes further than that. In mentalism this is even more true; since usually it calls for few technically demanding sleights, it is easy for even the most inept tyro to fantasize performing for an awed audience. And when we get into the field of Bizarre Magickforget it! If it turned out that more than a very tiny percentage of such material is ever done for laypersons at all, I would be very surprised.
You may well disagree with this cynical assessment, but before you object too loudly, take a look in some magic books and ask yourself how many people would watch some of this stuff unless they were being held at gunpoint.
When Christian Chelman performs, however, his audience is fascinated and appreciative. Why? Because he makes what he does matter; he makes it relevant and interesting on a far higher level than that of the puzzle.
To take just one example: Premonition is a classic specimen of the puzzle effect. As Stephen Minch has pointed out, no one but a magician would prove a prediction of one item of fifty-two by showing you the fifty-one items you didnt choose. In Chelmans hands, however, this effect ceases to be just a puzzle and becomes intensely personal - quite literally a matter of life and death.
I could go on at some length about my admiration for the man whose work you are about to read, and how he has managed to link the two worlds of magic in ways both relevant and theatrically valid.. .but I wont, because his words and thoughts await you.... Instead I will make explicit what has been implicit in my observations about Christian Chelman; he has created uniquely practical material of a very special kind, and every moment you spend in learning it will be well rewarded.
T A. Waters
Hollywood, California
August, 1992
