Routines Matter
Trevor Lewis with Phil Willmarth
Available from Willmarth Magic, (919) 572-9811, www.willmarthmagic.com.
$40 plus $5 priority mail in the U.S.
It is rare I open a magic book that fights so aggressively against being pigeon-holed. The difficulty in crafting a review for this rarity is more than offset by my delight at discovering its contents. Routines Matter is the perfect-storm combination of a top production team given an outstanding product to produce.
My first encounters with the Welch-born Trevor Lewis were through his wonderful 3-card monte move (from the June 1978 Apocalypse) and then later in his 1981 book, Trevor Lewis Close Up. During his many years as a magician, he has become an expert in close-up, cabaret, kid shows, and stage. (His variety of venues is demonstrated as early as the helpful table of contents where each item is labeled intimate, close-up, children/family, parlor, cabaret, or stage.) Lewis is one of those exceptional individuals who has developed true expertise in these areas while having the wisdom, discipline, and endurance to maintain a full-time career outside of magic.
So we have a talented, creative, and prolific magician with a book full of material. Add to that the retired editor of The Linking Ring (and past president of the IBM) looking to launch a new venture producing products under the masthead Willmarth Magic. Phil used his decades of experience as editor and author to prune, polish, add context to, and enhance the descriptions Lewis had been sending him for years. Then Phil drafted one of the top illustrators in the business, Tony Dunn, to help the already lucid text come to life.
What about the book itself? Physically, it is hardbound, 188 pages with 42 routines and 65 illustrations. The book opens with an introduction by Phil Willmarth and Foreword (cleverly disguised as a "foreward") by Trevor Lewis. After the preliminaries, we leap right into My Magic Life, a 14-page autobiography told in an entertaining and interesting way. This is the perfect opener to the book, helping the reader to get to know a bid about the author.
Before moving to the routines, the editor offers a brief note I would echo here. In essence, the reader is alerted to the fact that he will read the routines exactly as performed by the originator. Lewis, like many of us, re-uses or recycles his lines if they fit in more than one routine. By pulling the routines out of the act and placing them on the printed page, you do not have the same context as the viewing audience. You may read the same line in two consecutive tricks when a viewing audience would never hear the same line in the same show. (Knowing this, the reader receives an extra, unheralded lesson in how to milk the most from your lines.)
Without further ado, you are now authorized to delve into the meat of the book - the routines themselves. In addition to Lewis' original effects, you'll read his take on several classics: the egg bag, eleven bill routine, cards across, Brainwave deck, Himber ring, and the Professor's Nightmare (to name just half a dozen). Each routine receives the Trevor Treatment, chocked full of lines and humorous segues. As Lewis points out early in the book, these routines are designed for his voice and I can vouch for their effectiveness having seen him work.
While you won't lift the routines in whole, you will find yourself collecting bits, pieces, tricks, and tweaks throughout the entire journey. The book is chocked full of all kinds of usable material and everyone will take something different from it than others in their neighborhood. During the process, you'll receive a crash course in how to customize your magic to fit you.
At the end of the book, you will get the author's advice on serving as a master of ceremonies. These 24 pages form a booklet within a book. In addition to advice, you'll find gags, lines, prop bits, and then of course, more lines.
In magic, it's not just what you do but how you do it. In this volume, you see how Lewis does it and has been doing it successfully for decades. Lewis is a working pro, FISM winner, president of the British IBM, successful lecturer, television star, author, inventor, and performer.
This leads one to the obvious conclusion: Routines Matter. Highly Recommended.
Steve Beam