Friday, August 17, 2012

Please help the guy out!



Harry Lorayne needs money. Right now he's selling a whole lot of stuff at the green meanie.
Among the many items:
Entire Xerox of Wm. Miesel’s Moe and His Miracles - $12.00
Entire Xerox of Simon Aronson’s Shuffle-bored - $11.00
So it's okay to sell xeroxed copies now?




Edit: Okay, after a few of the usual suspects complained to Harry he had all of the follow up posts removed as well as the suspect entries in his list. So does he understand the general problem now? I doubt it!

16 comments:

Unknown said...

pathetic

Unknown said...

Apparently he tried to sell at the Genii forum and got spanked for it, then removed the offending titles. He is also getting spanked at the Cafe. People just don't appreciate someone (who should know better) trying to sell pirated material. Someone at the Cafe asked him if it was ok for them to make photo copies of his books and try to sell them. No response yet from His Holiness...

Anonymous said...

Hey Roland! You know how many tricks you've posted from Apocalypse? There's even one there attributed to Harry Lorayne. If you really think he's such an unethical bastard, why do you use his products? I think that's like complaining about how much a company pollutes and then STILL using their products. You are a fucking hypocrite.

Chris said...
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Chris said...

You CAN dislike someone and think them unethical but still like their work. You can sling a lot of criticisms towards Lorayne, but the guy has put out a ton of work and some of it will be worthwhile. And if you're talking about Apocalypse as a whole, there has been so many contributions to those publications from so many workers. Just having a quick glance at Denis Behr's directory, that's 2200 sleights/routines just because of some dislike to the editor of that publication. Selling photocopied versions of other people's stuff is a terrible thing to do, but to say that means we have to decry all his work as sullen and unworthy to be used is ridiculous. There is ZERO correlation there. Paul McCartney could be caught selling bootleg Monkees albums, I'm still going to listen to Abbey Road.

Anonymous said...

Ah bless -- on one of his recent arguments on the Cafe Mr L posted a quote that compared him to Einstein -- he posted it 5 times. The mans hubris knows no bounds -- either that or he's incredibly insecure.

Its very easy for folk to get into arguments with him and I'm torn between extreme annoyance at the guys ego and thinking "he's just a crotchety old man, let him be."

He does try ones patience though.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

It's not about disliking them, you stupid fuck. He's stating that the person is unethical and a criminal. Now personally, I don't care about anything here with the exception of hypocrisy.

If you believe someone is a criminal, then supporting them by using their products means you contribute to their ability to repeat the same behavior.

It's not surprising that you don't recognize hypocristy though-- netiher does Roland.

He started this blog because he was tired of certain people "badmouthing others" and "treating people poorly".

Yet... he uses those same exact tactics. He humiliates people until they conform to his views.

He's a hypocritical fuckhead and those who support him are fucking bloodthirsty jackals

石榮狼 said...

I don't see how buying and using Harry Lorayne's material - some of which is excellent - "contributes to his ability to repeat [his unethical] behaviour". How does purchasing his books affect his ability to photocopy copyrighted material? Are you suggesting Harry was waiting for Roland's hard-earned cash so he could finally buy that nice Xerox printer he had been eyeing for weeks, dreaming of all the nice books he could shamelessly bootleg with it?

Your desire to fight what your perceive as unfair attacks on HL clouds your logic.

Let me put it another way: I find the cinematographic genius that was Charlie Chaplin utterly unpleasant as a human being. Yet I watch his movies, and would still do so (and pay for that) if the man were still alive. Regardless of how Charlie Chaplin may have behaved, I do consider that "Modern Times" deserves my money. It's as simple as that. Now if I dislike a certain author to the point of boycotting him despite enjoying his work, thus denying myself the benefit of some worthy material, that would be nothing more than a personal choice; and choosing not to do so by no means constitutes hypocrisy.

Personally, I would still have bought EATCT or the Tarbell even if they'd been written by Osama Bin Laden and Charles Manson respectively.

The Bloodthirsty Jackal
(I hope you'll forgive me for omitting "fucking", since that isn't my current activity as I type.)

Anonymous said...

"Personally, I would still have bought EATCT or the Tarbell even if they'd been written by Osama Bin Laden and Charles Manson respectively."

First, I didn't bring this example up, you did. So I'll deal with it. If you WOULD do what you said you'd do, then that's pretty sad. What you're saying there is that you care more about magic tricks than you do human lives. So you're either mentally ill or a liar.

Second-- I really don't give a shit about HL. I think what he did was wrong. My point is that Roland is a hypocrite. In more ways than one. You can look at my blog if you care for an explanation.

P.S. Charlie Chaplain is dead. I seriously doubt he makes money from your purchases.

Chris said...

Jerry, can we do this without the insults and ad hominem? I didn't insult you, I'd like the same respect paid back in kind. Besides, I'm not a stupid fuck, I'm an AWESOME fuck. ^_^
Second, we're talking magic here, a very small subset of stuff, with a very small group of skills,tricks and information. As stated before, to excise such things because you don't agree with one of the messengers is just ridiculous. Also, does this have to work retroactively? If Paul Harris today starts saying homophobic things, should I stop buying his stuff going forward? Should I not get any of his Paul Harris presents line, no matter how good it is? Do I have to burn my already bought copies of the Art of Astonishment, and never perform reset again? Or can I decry the artist but not the art?
Life isn't black and white.

Stacy said...

http://goo.gl/VvBmM

-Stacy

Anonymous said...

"If Paul Harris today starts saying homophobic things, should I stop buying his stuff going forward?"

Well that depends on just how much you care about Gay Rights. I'd say that if you had a blog in which you constantly posted about how much you're against bigotry and then purchased his stuff, then yeah-- you're a hypocrite because you're willing to support someone you've said has values you find reprehensible.

If you have a blog in which you're contantly harping about bad magic and treating people badly, then you're a hypocrite if you can't do "good magic" and contantly attempt to humiliate people.

Hypocrisy is the state of promoting or administering virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have or is guilty of violating.(Wikidpedia)

Roland started this blog specifically because ONE person was "bad mouthing" people. (HIS words, not mine.)

Now what is HE doing? Bad mouthing people.

By almost any definition of the word, that makes him a hypocrite.

Chris said...

I chose a point of reference that I would find reprehensible and an area I've had to deal with before in my purchases. I've bought things made by people whose views don't match my own. I've got films made by Roman Polanski kicking around my place somewhere, but I'm pretty sure I don't agree with him and don't support him.

As I stated prior, in my opinion it's perfectly acceptable to separate the art from the artist. And if I buy something of someone who acts in a bad way, there's not a direct one to one correlation there. Using your own definition of hypocrisy, buying HL's work isn't promoting his principles, it's supporting his creative and artistic endeavours. If Roland was selling photocopies of manuscripts, that would be an hypocrisy.

Also, as I said before, does this work retroactively? There's a strong chance that all his Lorayne stuff was bought many many moons ago, Wasn't his last release of new stuff in like 2001? The money is already there, the effects learned, the methodology practiced and studied. If all the items were bought before and have been applied for years, should one stop using it just because we later find out that a person is doing things that are somewhat questionable, or just act in a way that is undesired? And it's not like he is dealing in slave trading or something, just acting in a personal way that is undesired. A quick search on this site shows that the author's views reflect this.

"Over the year he has published so many books on magic that it seems crazy. And not just his own stuff, but what others have contributed. And that is something we all need to be thankful for.
Straight from Wikipedia:

(list of 19 books of his own and others work, excised for brevity)

Dude, that is a lot. He's been busy over the years. If it weren't for him, we might have never heard of certain great magicians. How can I not make him a winner?"
Until this most recent post the only issue that has been with Lorayne seems to be a dislike of his lack of grace and humility and his actions on the magic cafe. I don't think that constitutes enough to not appreciate the art that he has created or that he has helped to see a wide audience.

(I apologise if the spelling or syntax is off in this, I've got to go to work so no time for giving it a once over)

石榮狼 said...

"If you WOULD do what you said you'd do, then that's pretty sad. What you're saying there is that you care more about magic tricks than you do human lives. So you're either mentally ill or a liar."

Nope, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that, unlike you apparently, I don't consider people as monolithic entities and have the ability to distinguish between the good and the bad things they do. I never judge people, only deeds. Bad deeds beget my disapproval and possibly my attacks, good deeds beget my appreciation and possibly my money. If you consider the former to forbid the latter when dealing with any single individual lest it make one a hypocrite, then I'm affraid you'll have to stop performing any material at all since it is unlikely any author matches your value system 100% and never did anything you disapprove of.

On a side note, even if I DID value artistic quality more than human life, that wouldn't make me "mentally ill", thank you very much. That would simply mean that my value system is different from yours. Considering that other people's failure to adhere to one's ideology constitutes mental illness, is a typically sovietic method. I'd be thankful if you could reffrain from using it.

"Charlie Chaplain is dead. I seriously doubt he makes money from your purchases."

Which is why I specified "even if the man was still alive", duh.
Funny you should say that, though. Charlie Chaplin may be dead, but the rights to his work are not, and currently lie in the hands of a man who shares many of his characteristics - namely, huge artistic talent coupled with grave shortcomings as a human being. That man, whom I shall not name, did some very evil things to people who had done nothing to deserve it. Every new screening of a Chaplin film, every DVD sold, every sale of a Chaplin-themed product makes him a bit richer. According to your way of thinking, we should therefore boycott Chaplin's heritage and stop watching anything Chaplin made. Sorry, I refuse to.

Anonymous said...

"On a side note, even if I DID value artistic quality more than human life, that wouldn't make me "mentally ill", thank you very much. That would simply mean that my value system is different from yours. Considering that other people's failure to adhere to one's ideology constitutes mental illness, is a typically sovietic method. I'd be thankful if you could reffrain from using it."



It's not "sovietic method"-- it's science. Having a total lack of regard for human life or putting human life secondary to an artistic pursuit is a symptom of mental illness. Being an Atheist is a belief system. Being a Catholic is a belief system. Willing to denigrate and humiliate a human being because they don't feel the same way you do about something is mentally ill.

However, it's funny that you should mention that, because Roland uses what you call the "sovietic method". He continuously humiliates people in an attempt to get them to conform to his beliefs on how magic should be performed. Heck, he even has a list of things you can do to NOT be as WMF. Translation: Do it this way or you could be my next target.

Quite frankley, if you folks want to continue to support someone who makes it his hobby to use such tactics, good luck to you.

I'm sure you'll continue to enjoy reading a blog dedicated to hurting people.