What is Five Times Five? This volume, the first in a projected series, is an attempt to bring to the world of magic a sense of the changes in the world at large--the notion of a "global village." Ideally, in such a situation, a worldwide cross-cultural intimacy of thought and technique in our art would be available with ease to anyone who wished to study it. In the United States, we have had minimal exposure to the great close-up magicians who have such an impact and achieve such renown in their own countries. Our tendency is to dismiss a magician with a foreign name we don't recognize, and this unfortunate habit is proven over and over out by the sales of books and video tapes which feature their magic. They always sell in fewer numbers, which thereafter discourage most publishers from undertaking such ventures in the future.

I have been routinely astounded by the close-up magic from other countries, and hope to bring some of that sense, and some of those wonderful routines, to you in this series. The country I have chosen to initiate the project is one whose magic is widely appreciated around the world: Japan. The five men in this volume offered me a choice selection of their best material, and it was not an easy task to narrow it down to the twenty-five items which fill these pages. They reflect Japan's sense of "preciousness" about close-up magic, and the desire to build effects and routines around short and unusual plots. I have tried to balance this with some Western-style card and coin routines, at whose construction the Japanese excel. There is to all of them, however, a unique flavor that makes each seem fresh and different from our perspective.

I must thank Hiro Sakai for his invaluable help in the preparation of this book. He was extremely helpful in suggesting to the other four contributors which material might be apropos, and was also a wonderful host for several days on one of my visits to Tokyo. I am very fortunate in having Ton Onosaka as the illustrator in this first volume. Not only is he one of the finest artists working in the field of magic today, he is also almost single-handedly responsible for the great cross-culturalization in magic between America and Japan that is just now beginning and will continue to bloom into the next century. He is a unique individual whose gracious generosity has meant the world to many magicians, and to him we bow in gratitude.

Richard Kaufman Washington, DC