The Magic Memories (218)

Hello everyone!

Today’s topics are: Impressions From FISM 2025; Solution to “A Trick Problem – The Four Question Marks”; Unexpected Agenda… On This Day

These are The Magic Memories 211, gone online Sunday, August 3rd, 2025, at 0:07h sharp.

All The Magic Memories from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 including the Magic Advent Calendar from 2020, can be found HERE.

Impressions From FISM 2025

As you are reading this, almost a fortnight has elapsed since the end of the FISM World Magic Convention 2025 in Torino, Italy.

I have no doubt that all those of you who are interested in this event – and I guess most of you are – have read at least some of the reports that were published in the various socials and that appeared daily or right after the completion of the event.

Therefore, I will simply make a few personal comments on various subjects, and in no particular order.

Reports And Results

You can see the results of the competitions (close-up and stage) by CLICKING HERE.

Accounts can be found in various places online by simply searching for “reports FISM 2025”; the most popular seemed to be by Craig Mitchell on the Genii Forum and by Australia’s Tim Ellis.

If you have the time, you may also listen to Scott Wells’ podcast report. (Generally speaking, I find written reports easier and faster to read, with the essential information being more easily available; podcasts for my taste are just too much unnecessary talk, with too many irrelevant fillers and repetitions – this is just my opinion.)

All three reported on virtually every competitor, but also gave general comments.

If you want to know about most of the negative things of the convention, read Mitchell’s critical comments of “Day One”.

Program & Info

To see the PDF-program of all six days CLICK HERE.

They also had an app that allowed viewing the program on a daily basis with occasional updates that differed from the printed program, but obviously you have to take the phone out of your pocket each time you want to know something, activate the phone, click on the app, find the day, etc., all very unpractical in my opinion.

Much better was the printed sheet which allowed you to cut out a postcard-format day-planner to be inserted at the back of your badge-plastic-case.

Like the beautiful program (a collector’s piece!) all was printed with white characters on a black background, very elegant (and not so environment-friendly…).

However, as my friend Wolfgang Geistert remarked, it would have been a lot better to print the postcard-size program black on white paper so that you could mark – e.g., with a cross – the events you want to visit, and not use a glossy paper that makes it difficult to write on.

Unfortunately, convention organizers will never get this, as little as they will ever understand that the single most important information on the badge is not their own logo (we are at the convention, no need to advertise it), but the name of the conventioneer. That name has to be printed in BIG letters, especially the FIRST NAME, and on both sides of the badge… otherwise in 50% of the time you see the reverse side, an you forgot the guy’s name you have met years ago…

Dealers & Products

I must be a dealer’s nightmare, as I buy only very little, nowadays almost nothing. Most of the time I am given things by friends or people who have read my books and like to give me a gift.

Hernan Maccagno from Buenos Aires gave me a “Deck Switcher” that can be useful in certain situations – see more HERE.

Ondrej Persenicka from Prag gave me his new marked deck he calls “Cardtopia Edition” and you can find it HERE. The idea behind it is definitely brilliant, but as always you have to find out if this is for you. What I mean by this is that I can recommend to you the best Cognac in the world, but if you are a teetotaler, Cognac is not for you…

I only bought two books, a book on Tony Binarelli Binarelli, in arte Tony and Silvan’s magnificent photo biography Silvan – Legend of Magic, both published by my Italian friend and publisher Francesco Mugnai of Florence Art Edizioni, Florence, Italy.

Although the book on Binarelli is only available in Italian, Silvan’s sumptuous coffee table opus is both in Italian and English, and you can get it HERE. If you are a collector or have any interest in the life story of the most important and influential exponents of our art, you must get this book – there are only 350 copies printed, and it is a deep mystery to me why so few, as I predict that this will be sold out very soon, at least in this gorgeous edition.

Other than that there were tons of products, as you can imagine.

A lot of it nowadays is based on some kind of electronics, an app that works over your phone, etc. Many of these items are in my opinion completely useless, as you can obtain a similar effect – sometimes even exactly the same effect – with much simpler and infallible means. The real magic of such items to me is the fact that the dealers can convince someone to buy the product… The problem I see with many (not all, of course) of these products is that they work very much like the method a layperson suspects. This is by no means the “Too Perfect Theory”, rather the “Too Direct and Obvious Method Theory”. I know you would like me to name some of these products, but it has never been my intention to harm other people or to take away the illusion from buyers that they have acquired a beautiful toy 🙂

Still, I am slightly disappointed to see that someone will spend hundreds of Dollars to get what is essentially one single “trick”, instead of buying a book or a DVD that has dozens of miracles, often well-explained, and that teach a lot more beyond the mechanics of a trick. I am not envious, as this is a feeling I do not have, but when I see how certain lecturers do some mediocre magic and then sell out on their wares that most people will never use, well, it makes me a bit sad.

Lectures & Talks

Lecture and talks are, as you know, my favorite subject (maybe…), so I could write a book about those alone. I will not. So, just a few impressions:

Richard Wiseman’s lecture, which was more of a talk, on cognitive psychology. One could sense that he had done this hundreds of times already, but it felt fresh, and he had the audience in the palm of his hand from the very first moment. For many who focus on technique and presentation, but less on the psychological construction of magic, this was certainly very informative. Every convention that lasts more than two days should have a talk like this.

Luke Jermay was busy with several presentations. I caught his lecture on close-up, which was extraordinary. A over-talented artist doing a superb lecture.

Paul Wilson is always worth listening to, as he is a very knowledgeable and skilled performer. He got very lucky on his last trick, which then felt like a miracle 🙂

Alain Choquette is certainly a man of many talents, with great credits on stage, TV, etc., and it was a pleasure seeing him again. I had seen his theatre show in Paris before the pandemic and found it excellent. The lecture did not do justice to his greatness; this showed me once again that a lecture needs to be as carefully thought out as a performance, but it is two different professions.

Miguel Muñoz has a great act for stage, and is a Grand Prix winner – his performance on opening night brought him a standing ovation. In his lecture he performed and explained a well thought-out cone & ball routine, which is done to a story. In the lecture he mentioned that some believe that a theatrical story and a trick do not go together, as one weakens the other.

He was alluding, although he did not mention it, to an essay Juan Tamariz has in his book The Magic Rainbow,  where on page 505 he writes: “The dramatic arts and magic are opposites. Comedy and magic destroy each other. Narration and magic interfere with each other.” (Read the whole essay if you have the book, as the issue is of course a bit more complex than that…).

Anyway, Muñoz does tell a story with his cone & ball of a prison guard and keys for a prisoner to get out, and argues that this is a perfect example how theater and magic can complement each other without the story weakening the magic. Well, I found this VERY interesting, because it certainly caused exactly the CONTRARY to me: I did not get the connection of the story and the effect, and neither did half a dozen other people whom I asked, even native speakers of English. I am not arguing, I am simply telling you the facts.

Another thing that I found disturbing is that in a multiple-prediction trick he used a force, saying: “They call it the Kaps Force.” Well, “they” that is me… as far as I know I was the first to describe it in Secret Agenda (to read it CLICK HERE) and to call it “Fred Kaps’s Force”. Secret Agenda was published in Spanish in 2012, from where Gabi Pareras – dear and esteemed friend sadly missed – took it and added the touch of spreading the table packet. Since it was one of his favorite items in the book he showed it to many and even taught it in his courses. Although the technique and its psychology can be detailed in two minutes, Muñoz kept  explaining it over and over again. Like most lectures delivered by the Spanish magicians this one suffered from something Juan Tamariz once called “teoritis”…

I loved the book presentation of Silvan’s book, with emotional talks by Arturo Brachetti and Francesco Mugnai, and Silvan himself; unfortunately there were hardly one hundred people present.

Sos & Victoria gave a lecture on quick change, a subject about which I know almost nothing. I found this very informative, with Sos going into historic details, showing rare footage of the father of transformism, Leopoldo Fregoli – you can watch a few clips HERE. Victoria demonstrated several costume changes, how she makes the costumes, how to prepare, etc. These two people went through a great deal of effort and preparation time, like only very few do. To me this was one of the best lectures I saw at this FISM.

Sos also briefly mentioned a very interesting topic as he tried to explain the difference between the “show-type” quick change he does with Victoria (and others) and the theatre-type done by Brachetti, but did not manage to explain the essential difference, which is this: In Brachetti’s performance each and every costume change is motivated by a story that is told, i.e., there is an understandable reason why the person in view changes costume. I was reminded of a lecture by Brachetti, where he said that the most difficult problem for him is not the construction of the costumes, but to find a reason why the costume is changed. This is of course exactly the problem of any magic trick: Why does the card come to the top (“Ambitious Card”), why does the lady float (Robert-Houdin’s “Ethereal Suspension”, etc.). Whereas the costume change as done by Sos & Victoria and others in the same style does not have an apparent reason. But of course we know that it “works” all the same.

Why?

Well, because of its intrinsic symbolism, the transformation, one of the strongest desires of the human being: Who would not like to change some things in their lives? And it also works for another much simpler but not less important reason: It is so beautiful and well done!

Speaking of quick change: French quick change artist and magicienne (?) Léa Kyle got first prize in the category General Magic and competed in the final for the Grand Prix with Mind2Mind and Francesco Della Bona, the latter being the winner (as a “passive” FISM judge I agree with this decision).

If you have never seen Kyle before, you can get an idea HERE. Many hail her as the new standard in quick change, some speak about a revolution, etc. There is no doubt that she will go far and her act will be booked at many future conventions, as it is truly innovative, surprising and the lady has great personality. However, I doubt that doing a costume change so visually improves the magic quality of the experience, as there is nothing left to the imagination… and magic is not something for the eye, it is something that is constructed in the mind.

Arthur Benjamin performed and discussed mathematical virtuosities… sorry for that, do not know how to call it. I understood only half of it, but found the performance captivating. I have reported about him in an earlier The Magic Memories. His magic square and how to present it were a lesson in showmanship and communication. I wish I could do it.

Jeki Yoo was a lecture about ideas, many quite original, some better than others, but all in all a lecture that fit into the mix of this convention.

Dani DaOrtiz‘s lecture was of course more of a show than a lecture. However, he did many other functions, so he might have discussed what I missed in this lecture in his other formats.

Anyway, Dani is a dear friend, much admired, and one of the few geniuses we have. Like René Lavand, who was a “miserable” lecturer (he did not like to talk about the “threads of the puppets” as he called it), but a divine performer, Dani taught by example and transmitted a sense of “magic” to the audience, which consisted mostly of devoted fans.

Personally, I was disappointed as I had come to expect a lecture and got “Dani Live” – long live Dani 🙂

Peter Marvey’s lecture was arguably the most professionally presented talk.. yes, talk-lecture. He had prepared an exquisite Power Point Presentation, which he delivered looking into the audience as the visual content played in perfect unison – I think I have never seen a choreography like that. I know Peter since he was a young chap, and I reminded him that at a Swiss Magic Convention his mentor Hansruedi Stoll introduced him to me and asked me to explain to him the back and front palm!

Meanwhile, Peter has become one of the most famous Swiss magicians, if not the most famous, worldwide – what a career!

In his talk he discussed for the first time his back palm production of cards with open fingers, and also detailed a gimmick he had constructed years ago.

Especially and in time for FISM Peter released a very nicely produced book, which you can get HERE, and where the move is explained in great detail with lots of photos. If you are interested in manipulation and want to learn how to produce cards with fingers wide open, this is the book.

Generally speaking I would have liked to know more about the content of the lectures presented. The app gave a lot of info about the person – too much hype for my taste – but said almost nothing about the lectures. In my opinion a lecture needs to be announced in three ways. First, a title that catches the attention, second a sub-title that in one sentence conveys the content, third, in maximum three sentences explains what the lecture is about, at whom it is directed and what its use could be.

Gastronomy

Many praised the “food court” that was located just a moving staircase away from the convention site, and I will not argue with them, as to me a “food court” is as interesting gastronomically as seeing a beginner at a magic club do a basic sponge ball routine and the 21-card trick where at the end the wrong card turns up.

Fortunately there was another food court nearby Eataly, established by the founders of Slow Food. This is still only close to what Torino, the capital of Piedmont and one of the greatest gastronomical centers in the world has to offer, but at least it allowed those among the conventioneers who cared about essentials to conserve their dignity, and Italy to save its face.

The only silver lining of the food court next to the convention center was “Gelati Grom”, an ice-cream booth from a well-known Italian chain operation that serves above-average ice cream. Unfortunately the secret got around and after the second day there were usually long lines that scared me off. I saw Denis Behr several times with a “coppa di gelato Grom”, confirming that the award he got for knowing where to find the correct sources was well-deserved 🙂

And there was an unassuming bar most ignored that served excellent coffee and “panini caldi” (toasts) at unbeatable prices – the price list below with €1.30 for an Espresso and €1.60 for a Cappuccino looks like a price list in New York from the 1920s… (Around the corner from my hotel, every morning, I had a wonderful Cappuccino AND an oven-warm Croissant stuffed with delicious pistachio cream for a total of €2.20, including tip and tax!!! While my new-world-colleagues “enjoyed” a mediocre breakfast buffet at the Marriott Hotel for ca. $20).

Highlights

Here is list of things that pleased me a lot and that I hope I will remember for a long time, in no particular order of relevance:

1. Obviously, meeting friends I had not seen in many years, due to the pandemic, but also due to the fact that I did not attend the last two FISMs. I will not name them, as I will certainly forget to name a few, and if they read this blog they might be offended 🙂
2. Meeting a lot of people I did not know. 99% of these encounters are most pleasing, as they are readers of my books and viewers of my videos, and it is so rewarding to know that I am apparently making a little difference in their lives. This certainly has to be a part of the meaning of life.
3. Otto Wessely and Christa doing their show at opening night – to me this is the single best magic comedy act, and it is as world-class today as it was back in 1982 when they followed Lance Burton at the FISM competition in Lausanne, Switzerland, and won first prize in Comedy Magic. I have written about Otto and Christa in past blogs (see The Magic Memories 207 – to find any older The Magic Memories simply go to www.robertogiobbi.com and click on the “Magic Memories” on the left side of the page if viewing it on a computer).
4. Grand Prix going to an Italian, Francesco Della Bona; this is only the second time an Italian gets it, the first having been Denis Moroso in 1952 at FISM in Geneva, Switzerland.
5. The meals with my friends Claudio Viotto, Joe Gallant, Marco Aimone at Scannabue and Eataly.
6. The Silvan book and its presentation, followed by a short conversation with Silvan, where he said to me: “I am proud of being your friend.” What can I say… he was the first magician I saw on TV as a young boy.
7. The high level of the close-up competition.
8. The excellent galas – thanks to my friend Joe Gallant, who had a VIP pass and almost always two empty seats next to him in the “tent”, my friend Claudio and I were able to see the stage events from good seats.
9. The very good camera work in both theaters inside the convention center. Plus excellent viewing conditions from practically every seat in both theaters. Among other things they had a side-camera for close-up and half-total shots that was miraculous – I find it hard to understand why this is not a standard at magic conventions. Some conventions still put up a scaffold with two cameras and still do not get the important visual information across.
10. Some lectures that were very well presented, some about topics I knew only little about, and some others I know a lot about, but which were so well presented (see above “Lectures”).
11. The reception the Swiss Magic Circle (MRS) gave on Friday and which brought together about 60 people who had come from Switzerland, to celebrate the participants of the competition, all of whom performed successfully, with my very good friend Tino Plaz, a former student of mine who has meanwhile far surpassed me 🙂 and who became vice-world champion in Card Magic. Kevin Stieger and Lorenz Schär, the co-presidents of the MRS, had this idea that had never before been done at a convention. I recommend you do this with your club at the next magic convention, as it greatly enhances and encourages the sense of community, a most important factor for the advancement of the magic in your area.
12. No other convention in the world brings together so much talent like a FISM-convention, and this one was no exception.
13. The good weather, and in spite a bit too hot for me, the hotel as well as the convention site were nicely air-conditioned.
14. The effortless checkin at the convention counter on Sunday afternoon: In less than five minutes I had my badge and all the essentials for the convention.
15. The on-time start of almost every event, incredible… in Italy! This is really a very good way of doing it, provided the audience understands and respects it. Unfortunately some people did not get it even after the first two days… I think the organizers should have mentioned this explicitly in the program and at the opening ceremony. Another feature I had never seen before – not just in Italy – was that every performer had a monitor that displayed the exact time to stop the lecture, talk, etc. What a great idea! And lo and behold… almost all performers respected the limit. Chapeau!
16. Seeing Mac King again, with whom I share an interest in magic and gastronomy, although his show done in Las Vegas in his theatre goes over even better than it did here.
17. A lot more…

Gleanings After FISM

I mentioned in one of my earlier The Magic Memories that meeting up with your magic pals after a lecture to exchange notes and impressions would be an excellent way to learn.

I expanded this idea to the members of our club, the Zauberring Basel (ZRB): We are thirty members , of which nine came to the FISM convention – that is a 30% rate and probably one of the highest of all clubs worldwide… do you know how many of your club members attended FISM?

We met at my home, and for five hours each gave a short 20-minute talk about what he had seen, learned, experienced, etc. Each one had seen things the others had not, and some of the events we all saw, so this was a most interesting way of reviewing the happenings.

In spite of all the (constructive) criticisms we had, we all agreed that it was an excellent convention worth attending, and that we would return if we had to go there again.

Below you can see those of us who stayed after 11pm, when it occurred to Fabian to make a photo of us (some had already left).

As you can also see from the left-overs on the table, we had a “little snack” in-between the talks (various aperitifs, Salmorejo soup, Vitello tonnato as main course, a cheese platter with six Swiss cheese as a pre-dessert, and various desserts to finish – all of this accompanied by various wines, espresso, Cognac, etc. This simply represented the complexity and depth contained in magic, which is also reflected in gastronomy 🙂 The group also agreed that our snack” was by far better than what was served Wednesday evening at the Venaria Reale called “un-forgettable dinner”… the prefix “un” should be dropped…

Solution to “A Trick Problem – The Four Question Marks”

In The Magic Memories 217 I proposed the following trick-problem:

Effect: The performer displays four cards with a question mark on their back, and sets them aside. From a shuffled deck a card is selected and signed on its face, e.g., the 8C. The cards with he question mark on the back are turned over one by one: the first says «black», the second «Clubs», the third «8», and the last… is actually the previously selected card, including the signature! This card is given to the spectator as a souvenir.

Following are various solutions:

Display the four cards with a question mark on their back face down. The bottom card of the packet is (as an example) the 8C. Cop it into your left hand as the right hand sets the packet face down on the table.

Add the copped 8C to the bottom of the deck, and then force it on a spectator, e.g., by using the Hindu Shuffle Force, or any other Force that does not display the card’s back, e.g., “The Criss-cross Force” – see my preferred method “The Arete Criss-cross Force”, entry for DEC 10 in Unexpected Agenda, or “The Fan Force” from Ganson’s Dai Vernon’s More Inner Secrets of Card Magic.

Realize that forcing a card without showing its back is a sub-category of Forces, and if you are serious about the study of card magic, you should have a list of this type of Forces… if you haven’t, start one right now – my list in Evernote titled “Face up Forces Not Exposing the Back” has fifteen entries. Can you make one that is longer?

Back to the trick.

All of the forcing methods mentioned above allow you to have the card signed by the spectator by simply holding the packet with the Force-card at its bottom in a vertical position, the bottom card facing the audience, and asking the spectator to put his initials in big letters on the face of the card; as he does that you turn your head away.

Apparently lose the chosen card in the deck by shuffling and cutting, in reality bring it back to the bottom of the deck, from where it is secretly transferred to the top of the table packet (see “The Transfer Move” in Card College Volume 3 or “Lesson 24” in the video course Card College 3&4 – Personal Instruction), supposed to consist of four cards, really three.

Reverse count the four cards to the table, reminding the audience that these were initially taken from the wallet. It only remains to turn up one card after the other and reveal the signed selection as the fourth and last card: “The question mark on the back of each of these cards answer the question of what your card is. This tells me that your card was black, this one that it was a Club, and this one that it was an eight – so your card was the Eight of Clubs, correct? But what does the last card tell us? Well, it tells us that it is… YOUR CARD!”

PS: The four cards could be housed in a transparent plastic wallet and kept there after having been initially shown (and the 8C stolen into the deck), and then later the selection could be added to underneath the wallet (see Walt Lees, Four Professional Card Tricks, a gem of a booklet…): “In this wallet I have a few cards that will answer an important question in the near future.”

And here is a method you can do without the question mark, directly with any normal deck, impromptu: Take shuffled deck, turn with faces toward yourself, look at bottom card (e.g., KH), which is going to be the force card,  and then put three cards, one after the other on the face of the deck: First, a Diamond card (“your card is a red card”), second, a Heart (“… and it is a Heart card”), third, a King (“… and it is a King – your card is the King of Hearts!”).

Say that you will place a few cards aside: Still holding the deck with the faces toward yourself, apparently count off four cards from the face of the deck into your right hand, in reality take only three. Put face down to the left on the table in a packet, at 11 o’clock, this being a Morphological Position (Sharing Secrets, p. 80).

False shuffle balance to retain bottom card. Force the bottom card with the Hindu Shuffle Force, using all subtleties, then slap right hand packet with selection on bottom on top of the packet in your left hand, retaining a break between the two packets. Do the Erdnase-Vernon “Post-peek Overhand Shuffle Control” to bring the selection to the bottom, and follow up with the Combination Shuffle and Cut Control.

From here proceed as per above. You my avoid the control phase by side-jogging the selection to the right, and then directly side-stealing-transfer-moving it on top of the tabled packet.

Unexpected Agenda… On This Day

There is so much more I would have liked to say in the Agendas, especially in the latest, Unexpected Agenda. But I was as strict as ever with myself and stuck to one entry per page, and one page only…

Still, to give to those who are interested some extra information, which did not fit into the page, I plan to install the feature “Unexpected Agenda… On This Day” in the upcoming The Magic Memories. The idea is to take the entry of the day the blog goes online – in today’s case AUGUST 3 – and expand on it.

Here is the first comment pertaining to the entry “The Red Cross by Stanley Jaks” of August 3rd (Unexpected Agenda, p. 227).

As a courtesy to those who do not have the book, and to save those who have it from having to search for the book (I hope it is on your bedside, in your kitchen, or in your bathroom, ideal places to read one page a day), to read the entry CLICK HERE (ideally print the page and number the lines from 1 to 35, not including the title for easier reference).

This trick packs a wallop: Not only is it an excellent trick in and by itself, the concepts contained in the description are some of the great ones. Once understood and instilled they will make every other piece you apply them to more solid in their technical, psychological and dramatic construction.

Line 1: The first problem that this entry encourages you to tackle, is how to get into the initial situation required by the trick, i.e., do you start with the preparation (maybe not, as the trick is too strong to begin), do you have the set-up on top and delay it with one or two other tricks that do not disturb the arrangement (open a new note and make a list of tricks that would allow this!), or do you add the necessary card(s) sometime during the performance (open a new note with a list of methods to do so).

Line 5: Take a marker… What kind of marker? What color? How thick? Do you know Sherpa, which is an elegant way to present a Sharpie (see HERE – or c heck your favorite magic dealer)?

Lines 8 & 9: How do you convince the spectators that you are using an ungimmecked deck without explicitly mentioning it? Or how do you explicitly mention it, so that it makes sense?

Line 10: What methods do you know of obtaining a little finger break under the top two cards? Open a note and make a list with short explanations, or scan the page from the respective book and insert it into the note.

Line 12: Try to really understand the concept of “In-transit Actions”. Find other examples in your other tricks where “In-transit Actions” are used to really instill the concept. Check Sharing Secrets (p. 58 – if you do not have this book, for Christ’s sake get it, as it is one of the best books to have been published in the past ten years. If you really cannot afford it, you will find pirated PDFs of it online. Buy it later from me when you have money to spare).

Line 15: This is an excellent method to switch a card for another, to be remembered. Since it uses a double-backer, you could make a study of how to use double-backers to solve other technical problems.

Line 21: Check Daley’s “Card to Envelope Wrinkle” and try this once – it considerably enhances any trick of this type. You can see me use this ploy in my video course Card College 3&4 – Personal Instruction, “Lesson 35: Forces – Part 3, in the trick called “The Card in Wallet”, which can be found at timecode 00:46:05.

Line 22: What do you use to open the envelope? How about a penknife, which you let the spectator handle, and afterwards you switch it for a color-changing penknife, with which you perform a good routine? Generally speaking: Whenever you resort to a piece of accessories besides the main instrument, think about how you could do a trick with it (provided it fits, of course).

Line 23: Instead of palming the cards, can you come up with other methods to get rid of the gimmicked card? Open a note and make a list of all the methods you know or come up with. Ask friends… ask AI…

Line 32: Another “No Switch Deck Switch”, oh my… an open door…

As you can see, entries in Unexpected Agenda, or all Agendas (Secret Agenda, Hidden Agenda, Secret Twitter) for that matter, are a treasure-mine of lateral thoughts, each item containing up to a dozen other problems to be studied. This is great fun, and it is one of the best exercises I know to stimulate your creativeness.

You’re welcome 🙂

Disclaimer

The Magic Memories are not proofread and may contain errors and typos of all sorts. Please report serious mistakes through the “contact” form on the webshop.

See you again in The Magic Memories 219, which will go online on the first Sunday of the month of September 2025, i.e., Sunday 7th September, at exactly 0:07 o’clock – make a note in your agenda as you will not receive this automatically!

All the best!

Roberto Giobbi