Read | Chris Aldrich

👓 Most valuable book ever. | The Magic Cafe Forums

jamessmith (The Magic Cafe Forums - themagiccafe.com)

This is a very old thread that Delimbeau has re-opened and I think that the answer is extremely subjective. It depends how you define "value"; whether it be in respect of content or monetary worth. If the former, there are probably as many answers as there are books but if - as I think was the original ask - it is purely monetary there are only a few candidates, most of which have already been mentioned. First let's ditch Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft". Whilst the second issue of the third edition is likely the scarcest, the first edition will almost always be more valuable. Aside the magic content, this is a very desirable book in many fields and therefore always commands high prices. It is not, however, rare. As an update on price, copies of the first edition in the last couple of years have reached up to c. $70,000. Compare this with the aforementioned third edition, a copy of which a couple of weeks ago sold for "only" $14,000 + commission (in itself a high price). The Guyot, Dean and Pinetti mentioned in the thread we can also discount, as "comparatively" they are of little value (in any edition). Of known books on magic, likely "The Art of Jugling" (1st ed. 1612, 2nd ed. 1614) or "Hocus Pocus Junior" (1st ed. 1634, 2nd. ed 1635) would be the most valuable. "The Art of Jugling" was the first book solely devoted to magic in the English language (albeit plagiarised from Scot) and only one copy has been offered for sale in the lifetime of most people who will read this. The six-figure dollar asking price would exceed any copies of Scot's work I know of. Of course, "asking" and "sale" price will not necessarily be the same. Recent (i.e. last 10 years or so) copies of "Hocus Pocus Junior" have "only" reached the c. $36,000-$60,000 price range. These have been later editions. That said, a first edition certainly would achieve a price well above that, if one were to emerge - unlikely since none has been seen since the 1930s. In the event that it did, it may well exceed those prices recently realised by Scot first editions. Probably the most valuable book on magic is one that we do not yet know exists, or suspect that it does but a copy has never been seen. For example, some may be aware of Prevost's "La Premiere partie des subtiles et plaisantes inventions". It is a French illustrated book devoted solely to magic that predates Scot (by only a few months). As it is not in English it doesn't get as much attention but is arguably much more exciting from a purely magical context. For those French readers, you will note that Prevost's book was the "first part" (i.e. premiere partie). If a second part were to emerge, I would warrant it very valuable indeed. The potential "second part" of Prevost is but one example. Lost manuscripts or other early works (most likely in Italian) may also compete. The fact is, though, that regardless of content the majority of the market is English speaking, so early English works are likely to continue to command the highest prices, regardless of their rarity or importance. We must also remember that our field of interest is very niche. Another book with magic in it but with much wider appeal would attract more attention and - potentially - command a higher price; i.e. the high prices seen recently for first edition Scot's are predominantly NOT due to magic collectors but collectors with other fields of interest.

👓 Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets | The New Yorker

Read Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets (The New Yorker)

Jay’s deft illusions flout reality, and he rejects the notion that his magic is a suitable entertainment for children.

A great set of stories about Ricky Jay.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

I once asked Mamet whether Jay had ever shared with him details of his childhood.Mamet replied, “I can’t remember.”I said, “You can’t remember whether you discussed it or you can’t remember the details?”He said, “I can’t remember whether or not I know a better way to dissuade you from your reiteration of that question without seeming impolite.” ❧

November 29, 2018 at 12:44PM

Magic is about working hard to discover a secret and making something out of it. You start with some small principle and you build a theatrical presentation out of it. You do something that’s technically artistic that creates a small drama. ❧

November 29, 2018 at 12:48PM

Jean Prévost’s “La Première Partie des Subtiles et Plaisantes Inventions,” the earliest known important conjuring book, printed in Lyons in 1584. ❧

November 29, 2018 at 01:15PM

The main thing that dissuaded him, he says, is that “I wouldn’t want to sell a book to a philistine, which is what every bookseller has to do.” ❧

November 29, 2018 at 01:18PM

Two automatons stood on the table. One, called “The Singing Lesson,” was the creation of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the nineteenth-century watchmaker-turned-conjurer, who is considered the father of modern magic. The other was a Chinese cups-and-balls conjurer built by Robert-Houdin’s father-in-law, Jacques Houdin. ❧

November 29, 2018 at 01:34PM

Two automatons stood on the table. One, called “The Singing Lesson,” was the creation of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the nineteenth-century watchmaker-turned-conjurer, who is considered the father of modern magic. The other was a Chinese cups-and-balls conjurer built by Robert-Houdin’s father-in-law, Jacques Houdin. ❧

November 29, 2018 at 01:34PM

👓 The Sound of Silence | Numbers Were Burning

Read The Sound of Silence by

Ron Chester (numbers-were-burning.blogspot.com)

I just got back from the SF Symphony performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. It was a most amazing experience, in a most unexpected way. I'm writing this partly as my way of reliving and duplicating what occurred, and partly to keep myself from being stuck in the win of it for the rest of time.

A stunning story here. I love the concept of not only silence being a part of the performance, but the way in which the music and the conductor come together to create the space to make it happen. Storytellers should be aware of this type of direction.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

The speaker made the point that Mahler gives the second violins their own voice, rather than merely having them give depth or support to the first violins. Because of this, he said the conductor (Herbert Blomstedt) had decided to use a placement of the performers that was becoming common in Europe for the Ninth.
Instead of having all the violins on the left of the conductor, with the 1st violins on the outside and the 2nd violins on the inside, he was placing the 1st violins in their usual position, but the second violins would be on the right side of the conductor. This would have the effect of separating the voices so they could be more easily heard. ❧

November 29, 2018 at 11:11AM

The conductor became frozen, with his arms in the air, just as when he was conducting.
And he was still conducting! Only now he was conducting the silence! No one moved, the concert hall was completely enveloped in peace. With the conductor’s arms still up, and the violin bows still poised above the strings, no one dared to applaud. If they were wrong and it was not the end, their clapping would be a rude interruption of the music. And I’m sure that was exactly what the conductor intended! ❧

November 29, 2018 at 11:15AM

Hat tip: Turning Points by Ron Chester

👓 Turning Points | Ron Chester

Read Turning Points by

Ron Chester (ronchester.org)

I’ve noticed a good thing about growing older. You begin to get some interesting perspectives about one’s own life. For me, turning points in my life began to stand out. When you’re young, you may not have had many turning points yet, or you haven’t yet recognized they were turning points, and you’re mostly looking forward, toward the future. Now I can look back over MANY decades and I recognize important turning points.

👓 Key | The Independent Variable

Read Key (The Independent Variable)

I like how the author creates a key to their posts here. Most are obvious based on the emojis, but if they’re not more obvious are they really as broadly useful from a UI perspective? I do wish they all had links to archives of each type however.

👓 Exploring Mastodon | Bryan Alexander

Read Exploring Mastodon by Bryan Alexander (Bryan Alexander)

I decided to explore the Mastodon social network after a great deal of suggestions and gentle prodding from many people. That’s Mastodon the software, not the very fine metal band. In this post I’ll share my experiences of getting to know the thing.

I joined Mastodon about two years ago this week. I’d written a bit about it as well as bookmarked several interesting early articles that help to explain it, what it is, and what it does, which can be found here and scrolling back a few pages: https://boffosocko.com/tag/mastodon/

While Mastodon is working to remedy some of the issues that large corporate and advertising supported social sites like Facebook and Twitter have, one ought to be careful jumping into just any instance as there is little, if any, guarantee that the instance you choose will still be around tomorrow.

indieweb movement. ❧

hooray!
November 28, 2018 at 08:02PM

What was that about crowdfunding instances? How much of an instance’s conversation was visible to the outside? How much of this is Google-spidered? What are those anti-abuse tools? Why can’t governments “completely block” Mastodon (as a whole, or just instances?)? Can one join more than a single instance? ❧

Managing an instance can come with a lot of work and maintenance, so some instances are crowdfunded to help defray the costs of full time management of a particular instance.

Anti-abuse tools give users the ability to better block people as well as instances have the ability to block incoming messages from entire instances. Thus an instance that serves as a haven for Nazis could be completely blocked by one or more other instances which prevent their users from seeing any content from all users on an instance that is a “bad actor.” One of the common anti-abuse tools is the CW or content warning functionality, which some instances mandate, which can be used to hide spoilers or controversial content. (As an example, some instances require content warnings on political related posts.)

Governments could block instances based on their IP addresses, but would have to do some work to block all instances (primarily by knowing where they all are).

One can join as many instances as they’d like, but it would likely become confusing after a while. Ideally one should be able to join just one instance and be able to follow or be followed by anyone from any other instance. Some communities have particular sets of rules they expect their users to abide by. Some may be centered on particular topics of discussion as well. Some instances are individually run and have only one user.
November 28, 2018 at 08:11PM

Is stability a problem in the Fediverse? ❧

Stability is typically an issue based on who is running the instance and what sort of server they’re doing it on. Is it fast or slow? Does it have 3 people or 300,000? Naturally the larger the instance, the more resources it requires. Some instances have popped up and shut themselves down because the maintainer was doing it as a hobby and just got tired of it. Often there isn’t much information about who is running the server and how long it may or may not be around or how well it’s maintained.
November 28, 2018 at 08:16PM

No other options presented themselves on the page ❧

This website has some reasonable set up for helping one determine an appropriate instance:
https://instances.social/
November 28, 2018 at 08:19PM

other routes in. ❧

http://www.unmung.com/mastoview will show content from random instances to give one an idea about the content within a particular instance before joining.

Most instances will have some general information about themselves. Usually the more thought out they are, the more likely they will be around for a while. Here’s an example of the instance maintained by the creator of the original platform, which is also one of the largest and most popular instances out there: https://mastodon.social/about/more
November 28, 2018 at 08:24PM

Any pointers or experiences to share? ❧

There are a couple of WordPress plugins for Mastodon that allow you to syndicate your content from your own website into your instance. You might find that somewhat useful.

The IndieWeb wiki has some generally useful information as well as some criticisms and related articles which might be helpful: https://indieweb.org/Mastodon

Mastodon runs on the Activity Pub specification for sending messages back and forth. As a result some people are looking into having their personal websites support these protocols so that people on Mastodon (or other parts of the Fediverse) can subscribe to one’s primary website. If you can do this then you don’t necessarily need “yet another social platform” for interacting with those online. The two biggest of these efforts within the WordPress community are Fed Bridgy and the Activity Pub plugin
November 28, 2018 at 08:50PM