I've just seen the first copies of the second volume of Seventeen Secrets. The booklet was produced by the Sid Lorraine Hat & Rabbit Club in Toronto. It was intended as a way to create something unique for our members by leveraging the talent of the amazing magicians that the club brings to the city. Editing Volume 1 was a tremendous experience. It was a collaboration with eight other people from three different countries. It was also a valuable growth experience for me as I was working with other people's material covering a wide range of fields from close up magic to stage magic to mentalism to gambling demonstrations.
The format was inspired by an earlier Toronto publication, Ibidem, which was a magazine published irregularly by P. Howard Lyons from 1955-1979. I never met Howard Lyons, so I suppose it is more accurate to say I was inspired by his legend. The cover of Seventeen Secrets was an image that reminded me of the artwork of Pat Lyons, which filled the original Ibidems inside and out. It struck me as suitably unusual for this project.
That volume was very well received and the executive asked me if I would work on another so here we are. I am even more impressed with the final product this time than I was with Volume 1. We were able to obtain more contributions (probably because the first book turned out so well). We were also able to do some rather unusual things. Chris Mayhew contributed his flourish, "Trinado" which took a huge amount of work to describe in print. Denis Behr, from Germany, contributed a card trick that comes with its own smartphone app and is so intricately constructed, I'm not even sure Denis himself knows how it works. The only one we missed as Shane Cobalt who lectured for the club in November, but I suspect thad had something to do with our print deadlines conflicting with his wedding... next time perhaps.
The new booklet is available from the Hat & Rabbit Club here. I believe there are also a handful of copies of Volume 1 left if you act quickly.
