Intimate Miracles: The Magic of Dean Dill by Tim Trono
Dai Vernon made the pilgrimage to see him. Larry Jennings came. Michael Skinner came. Michael Weber, Mike Caveney, and John Carney all found their way to a tiny California barbershop to sit across from Dean Dill and experience something they could not explain.
Now, for the first time in nearly thirty years, you can find out what drew them there.
Originally published in the early 1990s and long out of print, Intimate Miracles returns in a completely redesigned hardcover edition, featuring four additional routines, improved explanations, newly commissioned illustrations crafted to match the style of those drawn by Dean’s father for the original, and the original foreword by Johnny Carson. This is not a reprint. It is the definitive edition of one of close-up magic’s most quietly essential books.
Dean Dill was not simply a magician who fooled other magicians, although he certainly did that. He was a working performer who spent decades in front of real audiences, refining everything he touched until it was exactly right. The magic in this book was trusted when it mattered most, including on national television. His creations, Dean’s Box, Explosion, Blizzard, X-Plosion, and more, became benchmarks. They fooled everyone who saw them. And they represent only a fraction of what this book contains.
The Tonight Show: Dean’s entire Tonight Show act is here, beat for beat. A stand-up silk routine where one silk is absorbed into another before reappearing inside a spectator’s sleeve. The exceptionally clean coin matrix he performed on live television. And his closer: a card-to-orange routine featuring a hands-off vanish and an ingenious orange production that stopped the audience cold.
Sponge Ball Magic: A supremely practical strolling routine that can be performed under near-test conditions, and his flashlight routine, in which a sponge ball is produced from and vanished into a beam of light. The original props are no longer available, but Dean’s thinking and technique apply to virtually any sponge ball routine and will make familiar material feel completely new.
Matrix Magic: Dean was one of the world’s foremost authorities on matrix work, and this section represents some of his finest. A completely impromptu matrix using nothing but ordinary coins and a table napkin. The formal matrix he performed for Johnny Carson. And X-Plosion, his legendary matrix finale.
Card Magic: One of Dean’s favourite strolling routines, in which any named playing card is produced using an ordinary 52-on-1 gag card as the perfect, disarming lead-in.
Close-Up Miracles: Dean’s bill-to-sugar-packet routine, widely considered the best handling of this effect ever created. And his showstopping handling of John Cornelius’s Pen Through Anything, an effect Dean considered one of the greatest close-up effects in existence, presented in a version that works with any current version of this classic.
The Linking Ropes: Two ordinary ropes pass momentarily behind your head and emerge impossibly linked at their centres. This impromptu miracle plays equally well for a handful of spectators or an audience of hundreds. It was this very routine that first inspired Dean to create Dean’s Box.
This is a book about powerful, practical magic from a performer who understood the difference between fooling someone and creating an unforgettable experience. David Copperfield preserves Dean’s barber chair in his museum. Criss Angel featured Dean’s Explosion in his Las Vegas show. Cyril calls this book a celebration of a truly remarkable human being. Allan Ackerman says Dean’s magic has been in his repertoire for nearly forty years. Meir Yedid, Jesse Dee, Tony Clark, Kozmo, and John Carney all say the same thing in their own way: Dean was the best.
“Dean was the best.” John Carney
Format: Redesigned hardcover edition with original foreword by Johnny Carson, four additional routines, improved explanations, and newly commissioned illustrations
Difficulty: Intermediate
Best for: Close-up, strolling, parlour, stage, and serious students of the art
