Maybe we missed an important career field in our recent post about which careers mesh with magic perfectly: Lawyer. That’s the sense we get after reading a report about a Las Vegas attorney’s new book.

When Rick Lax wrote his first book about his law school adventures, it got a lot of favorable, glowing reviews from magicians, writes Ellen Sterling of the Huffington Post. Including Las Vegas magician Penn Jillette. His second book continues the theme by living the dream in Las Vegas and diving into hoodwinks, headtrips and other more hedonistic hustles.

“Fool Me Once: Hustlers, Hookers, Headliners, and how NOT to Get Screwed in Vegas” is a study of magic’s mecca and its seedy underbelly. He dives into the parts that don’t exactly get shown on CSI — the parts that include, well, we’ll say the non-magical uses of our art. For his research, he went to those who praised him so floridly for book No. 1.

“Lax sought out the community of magicians, sharply aware of the irony of the fact that as a magician he’s ‘learned how to deceive people in the context of magic and I like writing stories that have a deceptive angle, that have hypocrisy.’”

Catch that part about how he used to be a magician?

Part of his first book, “Lawyer Boy: A Case Study on Growing Up,” reveals that he entered law school after giving up his dream of becoming a magician. In case you don’t exactly see the correlation, we’ll let Jillette spell it out in his review of that book:

“Rick Lax is really funny and uses his background in magic to see through the bull**** and hypocrisy that make up the law school experience. I’m really glad he’s getting the law degree so he has a job other than magic — we don’t need this kind of competition.”

The book is available virtually everywhere, including many of your favorite online retailers. Looks like this one is getting added to an already large must-read pile.

Ponta the Smith, creator of the ultra-smooth coin magic in Sick, will make his first U.S. appearance at a new magic convention scheduled for May 23-25, 2011, in Las Vegas. Also on the lineup are Wayne Houchin, Pit Hartling, Michael Ammar, Shoot Ogawa, Richard Sanders and Banachek.

We love magic conventions, but we sometimes also get frustrated with them. There’s so much knowledge available at them, but when a certain session doesn’t really speak to us, or apply to us, we start to feel like we’re just sating curiosity about how a magic trick is done, and not really learning anything.

So count us fans of IMX2011. The International Magic Convention is going to feature all of the above and more, but in smaller, customizable sessions with more detailed instruction. Don’t get us wrong: Banachek is awesome, but if you’re not a mentalist, you’d probably rather listen to Hartling or Houchin, right?

So how does that work, exactly?

“There will be multiple repeat sessions happening simultaneously, so at any one time you will have multiple sessions taking place,” said organizer Craig Mitchell. “Delegates will be able to log onto the Website, select their sessions and create their own custom convention experience based on their particular interests.”

Class sizes and frequency will be determined by attendees’ preferences, which will be filed before the event, Mitchell said. The lineup is packed with worldwide professionals, including some of the top names in magic today, and those who register early will get priority for sessions and seating.

You know how we are when we think something is a great idea: We get involved. Ellusionist is joining forces with IMX2011. Currently, registration for the entire three-day conference is $149. If you register early, you’ll also get a free $30 download of one of our videos, and an invite to an E-only event with conference artists.

Check out the early registration deal (including VIP treatment and what a Pro Pass will get you) and find out how you can stay at the convention for free, including your flight, hotel stay and registration. You’ll have to fund your own test of your absolutely iron-clad blackjack system, though. They won’t cover that.

As promised: Jeff McBride is bringing back the Wonderground to Vegas.

The club offered a unique magic nightlife experience after McBride’s Vegas show, but he put it on hiatus and took it with him through an Asian tour. It featured magic, dancing, a live DJ, performance art and much more.

Wonderground will be held at 8 p.m. every third Thursday at The Olive (McBride’s favorite Mediterranean restaurant and hookah bar). It will include magic, variety, performance art, DJ Master Diaz, the Mojo A Go-Go Girls and close-up magic performed by students of McBride’s magic school. If you can’t make it, you can always watch it.

Bullets, bullets, bullets! Whoo-hah!

• Our upcoming Next Level with Sean Fields has us thinking about one of his influences: Penn and Teller. Um, two influences. ANYWAY: P&T are venturing off the Las Vegas strip for the first time in, like, forEVER. iTricks has the scoop.
• Speaking of Vegas: Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review Journal has a great column about mentalism and what makes it so compelling. After reading it, does it make you wanna set the cards aside and brush up on your NLP skills? Us too.
• Speaking of great mentalists: Derren Brown has announced what his next venture will be. The master mentalist will star in several documentaries with people who believe they have psychic or paranormal abilities.
• Speaking of wondering where is my mind: Did you know that Pixies drummer David Lovering was a magician? And good enough to be featured at the Magic Castle? We didn’t, either. Wanna see? Here comes your man:

Because the home base of the Ellusionist blog is so close to the world’s largest sporting goods store, that means we have an abundance of bullets:

• Congratulations to Dover magician BJ Hickman, who will be performing at the Cocheco Arts Festival, in Dover, Del. for the 35th consecutive year. The Magic Castle regular calls the event his “favorite gig.”
• Can’t blame this disappearance on America’s Got Talent’s suspected hatred of magicians: Nathan Burton has disappeared from the show. Dodd Vickers at the Magic Newswire tells the reason why: Dude signed a sweet contract extension at The Flamingo in Vegas. Good on ya!
• iTricks, always a solid source of information on everything mind-freaky, has a breakdown of the five ways Criss Angel will die during season five of Mindfreak. We were really hoping for something that involved fire ants. Or sponge bunnies.
• TLP, official wife of the Ellusionist blog’s chief wordmonkey, found the below video of a future card sharp. We suspect this kid is a distant relative of De’vo. Our favorite moment happens at about :14.