These are a great and professional team, it was a great honour to work with these guys (and girls).

Every time you shuffle a face up packed of cards into a face down packed, or rub a coin at your fingertips for it to change, or have a card turn face up in a face down packet think of Vernon a legend in his own time. But the path to becoming a legend would not be easy.

Born in Ottawa on June 11^th 1894 David Frederick Wingfield Verner. His farther showed him some simple tricks when he was five and from then on his passion grew. His first visit to New York was in 1913 when he worked the summer cutting silhouettes at Coney Island. (http://www.edobarn.demon.co.uk/parlour/p48_vernon.html)

The Name Dai came from a typo in a newspaper when the called him Dai instead of David. Vernon came when in New York, the New Yorkers had difficulty in pronouncing his last name correctly (also a dance team called "Vernon and Irene Castle" were very popular around this time). Thus was born the name all magicians will come to know as Dai Vernon

Dai also saw time in the Military and during the First World War was commissioned as Lieutenant in the Artillery and later in the Canadian Air Force. He returned back to New York in 1917 after demobilised.

During this period he met Kellar and Han Ping Chien to name a few at Clyde Power’s 42^nd Street Magic shop.

In 1919, in Chicago, Vernon was reported to have fooled Houdini with a "Ambitious card" routine, which he performed eight times in a row. Dai said Houdini had no idea how it was done. As a result in the 1920s and 30s, Vernon used the line "He Fooled Houdini" in his advertisement.

It was later that Vernon's friend Garrick Spencer gave him the name 'The Professor'. Vernon didn't care for it, but it stuck with him.

Dai met his wife Jeanne Hayes in New York while she was assisting Horace Goldin in his "sawing a woman in half". They married on March 5th 1924 in New York. At the same time a book called Secrets was on sale, few knew it was Dai Vernon who had compiled these 25 tricks. The book was a best seller but Dai has sold the copyright for only 20 dollars.

In 1925 Dai was cutting silhouettes for a living in New York when he met Cardini and the meeting was the beginning of a life-long friendship. At the end of 1925 Dai toured a professional magic act, some of the effects featured were Al Bakers Cut and Restored Ribbon, Dyeing a Silk in the Hand. Diminishing Cards (with a normal deck) and Cards up the Sleeve.

On 27^th May 1926 with only 3 dollars to his name, their first son was born to the world and Dai went back to cutting profiles. So from 1924 until 1935 he would cut silhouettes in the summer and do magic in winter.

In 1929 he added the mask and ended his act as an old Chinese magician performing the Linking Rings.

In 1933 he was at the world trade fair in Chicago, and 1934 he worked with Faucett Ross, this association let to a publication describing some of Dai’s secrets, which sold for 20 dollars each, however the next one sold for only 3 dollars each.

In the late thirties Dai conceived the idea of his Harlequin Act, this encompassed all the arts with music and dancing to enhance the magic. Dai always the professional took ballet lessons so as the Harlequin he could move gracefully.

Dressed in a satin suit with a white and gold ruff and a black hat, wearing silk stockings (one green and one red). Gloves were removed and changed to a dove, then a rope trick where a white billiard ball would appear, then a leather cone was produced. Dai would then go into his cone and ball act. The ball would change into a salt shaker. Then the salt production trick (but using diamond dust). The linking rings. The act ended with a "Snow in China". The act was an artistic triumph, but like most of Dai’s early projects never a financial one.

In 1941 Dai published "Select Secrets" and worked a Chinese act as Dai Yen (later changed to Dr Chung). The act opened with some bare hand card productions and embodied some of the routines from his Harlequin act.

Dai was making very little money from magic, and he took a job a "tool checker". One day some scaffolding collapsed, Dai fractured both arms, broke eight ribs and was cut badly. Recovery was slow and painful and from that day on his right arm was stiff.

During the Second World War he was doing U.S.O Camp Shows.

In the mid-forties he released some secrets to the Stars of Magic publications, taught some sleight of hand to a few selected pupils and cut silhouettes. In the Fifties he performed on cruise ships and lecturing on magic between cruises.

1955 he came to Europe on a lecture tour, on the 1^st of May two hundred magicians assembled at London’s Victoria Hall for one of his lectures. Harry Stanley said of the lecture " his ideas and sincerity will have a tremendous influence on British magic in the future" as so right he was.

In 1963 Dai came to see Jay Ose, visiting the magic Castle for the first time. Many magicians came from all over the world to the Magic Castle to learn from Dai Vernon. Many of today's great magicians (Michael Ammar, Bruce Cervon, John Carney, Larry Jennings, Ricky Jay, David Roth just to name a few) came to learn from Dai Vernon. Dai proved he was best suited at close-up magic in which field he had no equal.

In October 1965, Richard Buffum recorded a series of interviews with Vernon. This amounted to seven miles of tape. An edited transcript of these interviews appeared in the book, The Vernon Chronicles - Dai Vernon a Magical Life, published in 1992.

Sadly ‘The Professor’ passed over shortly after the publication of the book. He died at the age of 98, in Hollywood, California in 1992. My biggest regret was I never saw him perform live.

Many modern classics have the Vernon touch. His thinking elevated magic and no one can doubt the positive affect he had on magic, and even today he still has a presence in most of our thinking.

His quotes are still used today. "Be natural" and "use your Head" are just a few.

One interesting fact was everyone who met him would write how much of a gentleman he was, and he always had a kind word to say about other magicians. However the only conjuror that Dai would speak negatively about was Harry Houdini. Who in December 1999 beat Venorn as Magic Magazine "The person who Most affected the art in America" Not sure about America but in Britain he rates my Number one.

I would recommend anyone to read "the Dai Vernon Book of Magic" and reads and digest Chapter two "The Vernon Touch". I hope this chapter has the same effect on your magic has it had on mine.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about Dai Vernon, my wish is that I have created some new fans and enlighten some old ones.

Let’s take a moment to talk about "The Moment" (and I do not mean the song from her from Eastenders). Many a rain forests have been dug up to provide enough paper and many magicians have spend much a lecture talking about "The Moment" but what does it all mean. Well let’s see if I can shed any light onto this subject.

The Moment is not the time when the move is done (the more time between the two the better) but when the spectator thinks the magic has happened.

Many a time have I seen a magician spoil a great trick because he has spend so much time on the Move and no time on constructing the most important part of any trick that is the Moment.

While in London a while ago I was discussing the pros and cons of making magic difficult by using more finger flinging moves. The other Magicians (who I must say was very good) said spectators where impressed by fancy moves, to which I said "but should the spectator not see the move, to them nothing but magic should have happened".

I do not agree with doing flourishes in front of laymen (save it for the card table and watch people fold). This just gives the spectator an excuse to use the old "he’s just good with his hand". Which will help him explain the entire trick you then do.

The best Magic is when you hear them afterwards saying things like "he never touched that card", "all I did was think of a card", my ring was in that box that he never even touched", "that was impossible", "he cut that rope clean in half". All of which are lies, but that is what they believe. This is only made possible with the correct management of the moment. If we just made a ring disappear, then put our hand in our pockets and produce the ring from a box, there be no magic.

Aldo talks about the rule of three on many of his tapes and lectures. This is where you confirm three points of the trick i.e., "You just select a card freely, the card was then lost in the pack and shuffled, I have no way of knowing what your card was?" The answer to all of the questions will be yes even though they are all lies (its to hope all magicians still go to heaven for all the lying we do). Yet they believe it to be true because with our acting skills and all the other skill we have learned on top of our magic ones have, they see what we want to them to see (and if they have not then we tell them that they have).

Take your time with a effect it must be entertaining, if you enjoy doing it the people will enjoy watching, don’t rush a move because you don’t feel confident with it (if the move is not prefect then don’t do that trick), and never rush the moment.

Remember with good use of the Moment we create the magic, the method is just there to assist