Magic Of Australia

Are Ellis and Webster Evil?

Tim Ellis and Sue-Anne Webster We have met and come to know many people in magic and find no discernable correlation between skill and personality.

There are good people with no skill, bad people with great skills, mediocre people with mediocre skills and vice-a-versa, respectively.

Given the broad spectrum of personality types and skill level, we welcome any encounter with anyone professing to enjoy magic. We make no assumptions about their ability or inherent goodness and cannot formulate an opinion about either quality from a single encounter.

Tim Ellis’ first impression is wholly positive. But of course, that could be just first impressions. Maybe he has a deep, dark side we have yet to see. If he does, it must be very, very deep and in a very, very dark place because we have yet to sense even a whiff of its existence.

Additionally, his wife and full-partner Sue-Anne Webster makes a very good first impression without a hint of evil intentions brewing in a dark caldron of her black soul, heated by the unquenchable fires of hell fanned by Lucifer himself. But, then again, it may take more than one meeting to crack the veneer separating the unwholesome, bubbling goo of sin and inhumanity from her public appearance.

But we have met Mr. Ellis and Ms. Webster on several occasions and, as of yet, caught even the slightest aroma of brimstone-fueled depravity or seen the glint of evil in their clear, smiling eyes. In fact, our contemporaneously written records of those meetings indicate they smelled “pleasant” or “nice” 95 percent of the time.

While we agree with the philosophical axiom “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” odds are we should have perceived some indicia of evil, badness, or even not-goodness after a while.

Mr. Ellis is both incredibly talented and a down-right decent person who deeply cares about our craft and has world-class skills and creativity. He is a past winner of national awards in Australia for close-up and stage work and a two-time winner at FISM.

Ms. Webster one of the very few female invitees to the F.F.F.F. Convention, is an Australian National Convention of Magicians Silver and Gold Medalist, and performs with style, grace, and charm.

Our recent periodic check of the INTERPOL database reveals no outstanding wants or warrants for either Mr. Ellis or Ms. Webster for any offense involving firearms or explosives.

Australian Magician Faces Child Sex Charges

“Renowned magician and escapologist Franky Houdini” has been charged with 19 counts of “sexual offences against teenage girls” The Queensland Times reports

The magistrate court took evidence related to Mr. Houdini’s alleged indecent actions involving a 15-year-old.

Mr. Houdini is 35-years-old.

According to the Queensland Times, Mr. Houdini was previously charged with another 19 charges including: “12 of indecent treatment of a child under 16, two of carnal knowledge and one each of possessing child pornography, making child pornography, procuring a child for sexual acts by false pretence and common assault.”

Mr. Houdini will face these other charges in a separate trial.

Roberto Giobbi’s Five Volumes of Great Stuff!

Magic Student Resting on Card College Books

We were first exposed to Roberto Giobbi’s Card College back when we ran a small magic business.

We considered carrying the entire series for sale but even at wholesale, the investment was more than we could swing.

Since we were working on a cash-only basis, we could not afford having expensive inventory on hand.

We bought three of copies of Card College Volume One and sold every one within five days.

The quick sale and high demand actually caused us to think.

We decided to read Card College Volume One. That mean we had to take it off the shelf and buy it. We are cheap but apparently more curious than cheap.

We were amazed by Mr. Giobbi’s attention to detail and his innovative epistemological approach. His method of teaching was so effective that we even learned from the book. Our ability to learn totally new sleights ended at around 18 years of age.

(Sure, maybe you kept learning new knuckle-busting moves throughout life, but we didn’t. Agreed, that makes us terrible and not worthy of writing a Magic News Site so sue us).