I find it interesting that someone else has brought this up. DM is still putting out magic effects. His e-book Psycho, and his latest set of lecture notes, 4, are full of magic effects.
Though dropping the pursuit of magic in favour of gambling effects might be good for his soul, i suspect it's not nearly as good for his wallet, as Jason England has kind of cornered the market on producing quality instructional videos on the classic gambling sleights.
Frankly i fail to see why one should choose to be loyal to one or the other. How many of you have gambling effects built into your routines? Or have dallied with the idea from time to time? The man i mentioned, Jason England, is the man for gambling demonstrations yet he often talks about magic tricks and i suspect he can perform them very well indeed.
I appreciate DM's restrictions are self applied, but he's clearly a unique and individual thinker in the school of magic with playing cards. By rejecting the performance of magic in favour of gambling/deception/whatever, you serve only to bog yourself down in a certain style.
To then continue producing e-books on the subject of magic, you could also be in danger of being labelled a hypocrite.
If magic is not for you anymore, you walk away from it. Despite DM's claims that he can't take magic any further, he clearly is doing, as the list of effects from 4 sound splendid and i look forward to ordering it.
I notice from his blog that he recently came under fire for not displaying any of the gambling sleights he has moved his allegiance to.
Though i am an admirer of DM and his presentational style, i do wonder where he's going with all this, and how many more times he'll be stepping back into magic whilst apparently trying to move forward with the gambling sleights.
