Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Awake and Alive by Skillet

Thanks to Bob Neale I'm more Awake and Alive (Thank you Skillet . . . too) than I was 2 hours ago before I'd read this book of beauty. Though I'm Awake and Alive, paradoxically I'm yet asleep and closer to death. This is what happens to your brain when you read a Robert E. Neale book. You start viewing the world just a little bit differently. These nine effects range anywhere from downright silly to downright creepy and every emotion/feeling/etc. in between.

Of particular interest to me was Neale's work on the Frixion pen - y'all know I'm obsessed with that pen. He offers three effects with these sneaky little implements. However, his third offering goes a bit beyond . . . he offers a very clever concept that I've not seen in Frixion work, and in this third piece he offers a half-dozen ways to use this new concept. Brilliant . . . worth the $15 bucks alone.

If you don't find something that moves you in the book, you are neither Awake nor Alive. The big thing you're gaining here is presentation. Anyone who's studied Neale's work knows that he is the Jedi warrior of presentation. There are excellent stories and plots and presentational angles, some of which are very personal to Mr. Neale. He tells us this and then asks the very thought-provoking question, "Where does your magic come from?" Beautiful. Some of the effects in the book are so simple and so minimal that you'll be tempted to not do them. However, please, please, please, at the very least, learn the lesson that Neale is teaching us . . . it's the same message of the book Transformations by Larry Hass (incidentally, the editor of Nine Uneasy Pieces), and that message is "Make Magic Out of Tricks!"

If you can't learn that lesson by reading this book, then you cannot be taught the principle. From this book you learn by example. Beautiful.

Please, if you've got $15 bucks burning a hole in your pocket, or even if you feel like buying something other than milk and bread to feed your family, buy this book. It's worth every penny and then some.

Final Verdict:
5 Stars with a Stone Status of Total GEM!

Available at Theory and Art of Magic

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