Reviews of products by Marc Paul

The Fleetwood Notes

reviewed by Christian Fisanick (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Friday 10 June, 2016)

Marc Paul is one of the world's finest mentalists. He is in that high pantheon with illustrious colleagues like Derren Brown, Max Maven, Richard Osterlind, and Bob Cassidy. But unfortunately, he doesn't write or put out much in the way of instructional material. (His sole DVD, not counting the brilliant live lecture that he did for Penguin, is long out-of-print. If you find it, don't let it go.) So when you see something by him, it's a no-brainer. You get it. Period. No hesitation. No worries about whether it is going to be good or how much it costs. There is always something in any of his writings that will make you stop, sit up in your chair, and say to yourself, "That's freaking great. I've never seen anything like it." Case in point: In The Fleetwood Notes, he explains his take on an old, but brilliant, Jack London effect called "An Almost Perfect Prediction." Now before looking at Marc's stuff, I had completely ignored mentalism effects that relied on mathematics, "mathemagic" effects, if you will. I thought that they were too tansparent, long-winded, and boring. Not any more. London's effect is brilliant but requires either gimmickry or an ability to not screw up mental math when the pressure is on. Marc eliminates both problems because if there's one thing I've seen from Marc is that he will always figure out the simplest, most foolproof way of doing something. (If I could summarize the Marc Paul philosophy, it would be something like, "Why worry about doing a tricky sleight to control a card, a sleight that will require long hours of practice and a lot of praying that you don't get burned in the moment? Just mark the card." And for a pro, there's nothing wrong with that mentality. It's not lazy. It's effective. In fact, that's one of the reasons why he's fantastic.) And the results are stunning in his updated routine called "Summing Up." I'm using it. It's terrific. But there's also a drawing duplication that's great. And more. For the advanced mentalist looking from new stuff, you can't beat The Fleetwood Notes.