Simon Aronson - Sessions With Simon (1-3)

I (Joshua Jay) was fortunate to be present for the recordings of this trilogy, and having recorded footage of Simon performing these tricks is a great resource for the serious fan.

The DVDs are packed with great magic, and it’s wonderful that Simon presents us with a mixture of his greatest effects from all previous books and magazines. It’s a terrific overview.

That said, these DVDs are not a substitute for his books. Aronson’s magic is worthy of careful study, and I think these DVDs work best in conjunction with his four books.

Some highlights:

On Volume 1, “Among the Discards” is my favorite routine, and I have performed this routine to great responses all over the world. Learning this routine alone is worth the price of the DVD (to me, anyway). Ringleader is a beautiful penetration of a ring through a rubberband, and it’s a surprising example of Simon’s output of visual, non-card material.

On Volume 2 he includes “Random Sample Shuffle-Bored,” which remains one of the most popular tricks from my column inMAGIC, Red-See Passover—in my mind the best two-deck trick ever devised, Quadruple Spellbound—a fabulous and visual coin routine in which a coin changes into FOUR different denominations, and much more.

Volume 3 is the DVD equivalent to Bound to Please, and more (and less in some ways). If books are not your thing, or you learn better from personal instruction and want an introduction to memorized deck magic, start here. This volume is a curriculum on how to memorize a deck, what a memorized deck is, and lots and lots of terrific tricks. Simon has designed the tricks he included with a purpose: each trick demonstrates a different feature or principle of memorized deck magic. This gives you a great variety.

But…it also makes me sigh, because it just SCRATCHES THE SURFACE of what’s possible with a memorized deck. It would be a shame if you learned the stack from this volume, enjoyed these tricks, and never explored his books. His books are full of great magic, and although this DVD contains most of my favorites, there are still some gems hidden throughout his books. So for best results, use this DVD as a supplement, not a replacement.