Britain's brightest independent magic magazine

Issue 26 - May 09

Review

Card College Lighter  

Roberto Giobbi
176pp PDF eBook
Available from www.lybrary.com  

Price: $26 (approx. £20)  

Roberto Giobbi’s five-volume Card College series really is a tour de force of modern conjuring literature. Over 1400 pages, covering the gamut of pasteboard sleights, moves and techniques, taking you all the way from novice magician to expert cardician. It is the one-stop-shop for conjuring with cards, married as it is with a huge selection of effects, and behind it all, Roberto Giobbi’s patient and enlightening counsel.  

Then in 2006, there appeared the English-language version of a sister volume – Card College Light. Foregoing any knuckle-busting, this volume presented a series of sleight-free tricks; graduates of this college received an honorary certificate, as it were, rather than a full degree. The sequel, Card College Lighter, appeared at the end of 2008, and now Chris Wasshuber’s Lybrary.com offers the faithfully digitalised version for instant download.  

Card College Lighter contains 21 effects, helpfully divided into three parts. Part one contains suitable openers, part two effects that can go anywhere and which use unprepared decks, and substantial closers can be found in part three. There is a reasonable range of types of effect to be found, including Monte, Triumph, poker demonstration, mentalism, and story-telling.  

Forsaking sleights, the methods may contain elements which are easy to look down on – counting and stacks, and down-under-deals and Crisscross forces – but don’t let this put you off too much; as Giobbi says in his introduction, “You will find much more here than methods for doing tricks. To transform a card trick into magic, it is necessary to think about logistics, theatrical staging and communication. These concepts have nothing to do with methods, but they can turn a mathematical trick into a rare experience of impressive and stimulating entertainment.” And Giobbi is nothing if not passionate about his thinking and teaching.  

Most of the included effects are not original, but instead culled from others including such luminaries as Ken Krenzel, Karl Fulves, Nick Trost and Max Maven, and then embellished by Giobbi.  

The Spectator Does a Trick naturally uses great spectator involvement and can be played up with the best of them - like Ted Lesley’s Spectator as Mind Reader, or Wayne Dobson’s Teach. Your Fateful Hour would make a fine parlour piece, and contains a nice cunning ruse and quite sophisticated magical thinking. The Cards Knew utilises a devastatingly impenetrable mathematical principle to yield an extraordinary outcome. Don’t worry about the lengthy counting into piles; John Mendoza, a performer with a serious calibre of chops, uses a variation of this.  

That all the English hard copy Card College books have been published by Stephen Minch’s Hermetic Press, and that Roberto Giobbi is one of the most respected and informed teachers and lecturers in card magic, should tell you that this book is probably going to be a decent investment. The wise, paternal tone of Giobbi suffuses the text, and it’s easy to become seduced by the effects which you might otherwise ignore as trivial and undemanding.  

There is a fourth part to the book; an essay on structuring a magic program and other key pieces of beneficial information. Again, it is touched with Giobbi’s distinctive edifying patience, so that although this may well be called Card College Lighter,  it is no Card College Lightweight. DL     

What’s Hot – Well-written; well-illustrated; well-produced; well-done.
What’s Not – Most of the basic material can be found elsewhere in the literature.
Star Rating****  

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