Inside Magic

There are two emails we look forward to each month:

1) Sweet Luvin: Hot Dates from Kiev; and

2) Smoke & Mirrors.

Both bring us the latest news on magic from people who know how to play mind games. Let’s talk about Smoke &  Mirrors here and leave Sweet Luvin for our sister site, Inside the Magic of Russian Brides.

Angelo Stagnaro is the editor and publisher of Smoke & Mirrors and if you do not already receive it, you should. You would join magicians all around the world who rely on it for magic articles, news, updates, history and just great writing.

We asked Mr. Stagnaro to give us a rundown on the demographics, mission and successes of Smoke & Mirrors for Inside Magic readers. He was kind enough to take time out of his writing and editing schedule to author the following. We are also very proud to announce Mr. Stagnaro has agreed to support Inside Magic as a regular advertiser. Please let him know that you read about his journal here; that way, he’ll like us and like advertising with us.

SMOKE & MIRRORS is the Web’s largest international professional monthly e-zine for magicians.

Each monthly issue contains at least two original effects and several articles written by top performers in the field.

SMOKE & MIRRORS is a resource e-zine for close-up, platform and stage magicians of all ages and ability levels.

Most people who subscribe to SMOKE & MIRRORS are professional magicians or semi-professionals.

Every month, each issue contains original magic articles, magic happenings updates, magic history, trivia and new magic links.

Each issue is approximately seventy-pages long and takes up approximately 200K in terms of e-mail space. SMOKE & MIRRORS e-zine is published on or about the first day of every month and weekly magic announcements are sent on an as-needed basis.

So far, many luminaries of magic have submitted effects and articles to SMOKE & MIRRORS including Alain Nu, Jarle Leirpoll, Scott F. Guinn, Aaron Smith, Guillaume Singer, Carl Andrews, Aldo Columbini, Doug Edwards, Paul Gordon, Gene Poinc, Carl Andrews, Mike Bornstein, Dondrake, Jim Keplinger, Bob Lusthaus, Peter Marucci, Eugene Poinc, Daniel Shutters, Aaron Smith, Ed Solomon and Larry White among many, many others.

Subscribers come from the following 63 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay and Venezuela. SMOKE & MIRRORS is sent out to 43 American states and eight Canadian provinces.

I started SMOKE & MIRRORS mostly because I hated being the last magician in the world to find out about magic events. I was continually searching the Net and asking friends for information about what was going on and inevitably, the news are more often than not, old news. I would have attended by far more conventions, performances and lectures had I known they had existed. In frustration and because of the prompting of friends and colleagues who similarly hoped for a comprehensive source of international magic information, SMOKE & MIRRORS was born. So, instead of hunting for information on magic, now, magicians and magic organizations now supply me with their information and my subscribers are kept appraised of magic events going on around the world.

I am now in monthly contact with thousands of other magicians worldwide which gives me the opportunity to publish my own ideas on different magic issues. Growth was slow at first, but the current subscription list has over 3000magicians reading SMOKE & MIRRORS. I look forward to increasing the number of subscriptions in the near future.

The more magicians who subscribe, the more magic events and information and ideas can be accessed and shared. Personally, I think it’s wonderful to be in contact with so many magicians around the world. I enjoy sharing ideas with them and learning about the magic scene in different countries and regions. In this world, that is becoming increasingly and dangerously isolated and nationalistic, I hope that SMOKE & MIRRORS will be, in its minor way, a means of reminding people in 63 different countries that our art unites us and that the world is a much smaller place than any of us can imagine. My personal interest in each issue of SMOKE & MIRRORS is performance and magic as art.

Tricks are fine and clearly extremely important for us as magicians. But, as artists, I feel we need to concentrate on other things also. In many ways, I would prefer witnessing a self-working effect which allows magicians to concentrate on his performance than watching a complex manipulation effect preformed by a virtuoso without a shred of stage presence.

Half of each edition is devoted to magic event announcements divided into geographical areas. Magic announcement are always placed in the first half of each issue to deter non-magicians who think they are getting the low down on magic secrets. Magicians, on the other hand, will realize that the information is pertinent and interesting.

Articles, original effects and my editorials start at the halfway mark. SMOKE & MIRRORS is constantly looking for original magic trick submissions, articles, book and trick reviews, event announcements and magic history notes. If you would like to have your articles and original effects examined and reviewed by some of the top names in the business, feel free to submit them to the editor at: KismetMagic@hotmail.com.