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Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
I consider Jim Coles a friend, even though I never met him in the classic sense. He’s a fellow blogger and a good guy. You only need to look at his postings like The Geek Factor to realize Jim really thinks about and cares about magic.
Jim asked me to read and give my honest opinion on his latest manuscript Under Cover. Under Cover is a 22 page pdf describing one of Jim’s pet effects – a spectators initialed quarter appears under the cellophane wrapper of a sealed cigarette pack. As with all good tricks, it can be described in a simple sentence, so it has something going for it.
The pdf is carefully photo-illustrated and Jim precisely describes the performance and preparation. To his credit, he also divulges the weaknesses of the effect:
1. It’s not done by real magic.
2. You use a pack of cigarettes. This obviously means your a Communist and child molester. (As a former smoker, I resent the fervor of the anti-smoking crowd, which puts this at the top of the criminal heap. Meanwhile, the CEOs and CFOs are robbing us blind and laughing their asses off – but I digress.)
3. No instant reset – this is not an any time any where impromptu trick. It is primarily for formal shows and those occasions where you really need to impress.
4. It’s not difficult, but the setup requires some patience and precision.
Actually, a short list. Everything has been audience tested over the years and I can’t imagine anyone having questions after reading the manuscript, but I’m sure Jim will be there to help if you need it.
Why you should by this:
1. The effect is off beat and not seen very often.
2. It’s easily understood from a spectator’s viewpoint. You won’t lose their attention and they don’t have to remember anything.
3. This is a fully honed, professional routine and if it is the kind of trick you do, I can’t think of a better alternative.
4. It’s one of the rarest things in magic – a true bargain. It’s available at Library.com for $6.50. The price of a Frappacino and a lot less fattening.
5. You end clean. I can’t stress the importance here. I’ve seen the best in the world finish routines dirty and they all look as if someone has them by the kajonies and are about to squeeze. There’s too much good magic to perform tricks where there’s a stench in the air from finishing dirty.
6. You don’t have to endure terrible, overbearing music in the ads while miracles are performed for a motley collection of street bums and space queens.
In summary – I really liked it. It’s the kind of magic I like - direct, memorable and unfathomable. It requires enough thought and preparation, that you won’t see everyone else doing, but there’s nothing beyond the reach of the average magician.
In the right hands, you could make a serious reputation with this. I doubt you’ll have women tearing off their clothes, but then again……..
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Something Seriously Cool
At my age I seem to suffer from ID (Interest Dysfunction). I seldom see something on the Internet that really makes me sit up and take notice. This is especially true for web services. Maybe I’ve seen so much that I’m very discreet or I just may be too damn old!
Today I ran across a very cool mail site called Wordle. I don’t really know what to call it, except Word Art On Roids. The picture here is what it arbitrarily built when I put in the URL of the i/m blog. I’m not sure of the magic application, but I’ll bet it can be put to good use. I hope you enjoy it.
Take care…….
PS I forgot to mention that I had trouble using it with Firefox. It worked fine with IE – now there’s a switch.
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A little faith restored
I don’t attend many magic lectures any more. Although I came to the conclusion long ago that most professional magicians are pompous, overbearing and over-rated gas bags, I used to be willing to attend 20 or 30 lectures a year hoping to find a few gems. I had the opportunity to see David Williamson, Paul Harris, David Roth, Michael Ammar, Duke Stern and a few others that made the hunt worthwhile – at least I used to think so. As I’ve gotten older and gas has gotten more expensive, I’m going to fewer and fewer. You have to open a lot more oysters to find a pearl it seems.
I recently attended John Lovick’s lecture and was sorely disappointed, as were many others that I spoke to. Here was a lecture that had been advertised for months and Lovick acted liked he just heard about it that afternoon. It was disorganized, uninformative and, in general, just not very good. From my perspective, he wasn’t very gracious to the attendees either. I will admit that I enjoyed getting a glimpse of his Handsome Jack persona, but it certainly wasn’t worth the cost or time invested in attending the lecture.
So….. when I was invited to attend a lecture by David Regal, my initial impulse was no way, but I remembered how much I had enjoyed his DVDs and he certainly seemed like a nice guy and the magic was clever and doable. I decided 
to go and boy am I glad I did! Regal is a nice guy and his lecture was fun and informative. He was well prepared even though it was the first time he had done this particular lecture.
In all fairness, this is probably more of a book tour than a lecture. Regal has produced a huge and expensive book called Approaching Magic. It is pregnant with every type of material imaginable and it was a real pleasure seeing some of the things performed that I had recently read. As expected, some looked better and a couple actual looked worse than I envisioned. He sold a bunch of books!
Two things struck me as I thought about the lecture. David Regal structures his magic to fool his audience. Even though he does some story stuff, he’s a magician and the trick comes first. Thanks for remembering that!
The other thing I’ve been formulating in my mind all day and I’m still not sure I can state it as succinctly as I would like. Entertaining magicians like Regal don’t spend their time talking about entertainment – they truly teach by example. It seems that only the dullards keep beating their audience constantly with the entertainment stick.
See him if you get a chance – it’s worth the effort I assure you.
Take care……
Final Drivel – Regal did a lot of stuff with magnets – well hidden stuff. It may be time to drag out the old pendulum principal and combine that with these modern magnets. It could be a powerful combination. I kind of wish I hadn’t sold my Upside Down Topit books now.
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It wasn’t always like this…..
My friend Scot over at Scot’s Magical Mystery Tour takes a break to recall Ronald Reagan on the 4th anniversary of his death. I invite you to read it. With optimism such a rare emotion these days, I trust Scot won’t mind be posting his quote from President Reagan:
And whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way. My fondest hope for each one of you — and especially for young people — is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here. May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism. And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.” –Ronald Reagan (1992)
Can you imagine these sentiments coming from those maroons running our country now? We are paying an enormous price for politics of fear as they have been practiced for the past seven years. Bush - Cheney - Rove - take your pick. I hope they all rot in Hell. I know that may sound harsh, but the hubris of their malfeasance will be borne by our children for generations.
…..I’ve never know it to be such a challenge to get people to lighten up and little and have some fun. They stand there, watch, pay or don’t pay, but it’s pulling teeth to get a large part of the audience to show even trace amounts of delight.
Actually, I genuinely think things WILL get better. All of us are like the guys with the shovel after a circus parade. There’s a serious load of elephant shit to pickup, but eventually we will and the stench of recent years will eventually fade.
Take care…..
i/m
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Maybe they’re right
The ESPN morning radio host is Colin Cowherd. Colin’s an opinionated blowhard and Colin Cowherd’s biggest fan. He, like Rush Limbaugh, speaks with an infectious energy that’s hard to ignore.
Anyway, last week he was talking about attending a social function of some sort and the hosts had hired a magician - dare I say a profession magician - to perform. Colin’s recollection of the performance was:
Here’s a coin.
Now it’s gone.
You’re a jerk!
It doesn’t really matter whether his assessment was correct or not. It appears that we are saddled with a public perception that is damn difficult to remove. The really sad thing is the vast majority of magicians, especially hobbyists and amateurs, are genuinely nice people just trying to have a little fun and spread a little happiness.
There are exceptions…….
A friend of mine recently attended a local magic contest, put on by one of the better clubs. There were 10 participants and, as usual, the club made an effort to have lay-type people there so the contestants could work to non-magicians. So, they had women, children, men etc. in the audience.
One act began with the classic sponge balls from mouth - actually performing the critical pass very well. He then proceeds to end the routine by producing a Goshman Ding Dong from his mouth. Now remember there are small children here - what the Hell was he thinking. Even if he was performing in the Red Wings locker room this would be inappropriate. Who wants to see a routine ending with a soggy sponge Johnson?
To compound the crime he said it was a canon, because the rest of his act was a big bang or something lame like that.
Do you think any of those layman recalled the other nine acts?
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Counterpoint
Back in March I wrote a review of the Winter Carnival of Magic and I was very critical of a young man that performed and competed as a blind magician.
Chris Baldwin, the magician in question, has taken the time to respond and I think it is only fair that he be given the appropriate forum to do so, so I am posting it as a feature, rather than burying it as a comment to an old article.
So here, without comment, is Chris’ response to my criticism of his act:
Hello. I am the magician in question and I would like to take this chance to explain my actions so that everybody will know why I did what I did; whether you find it ethically correct or not.
I did this for three reasons so please hear me out.
Reason one: To better relate with people that are really blind.
One of my close friends is blind in one eye and his dad is completely blind in both. My friend attend a school for the blind until going to college. I had many talks with him about whether this was indeed ethical or not. He told me to do it because he has never met anybody else that made themselves blind for any period of time to see what it was like and to be able to understand him a little better. When I was at the convention the contacts that I wore completely took away my vision, I was blind at the convention the whole time except during the last day when I finally decided to tell a group of people the truth; until that time the only thing I saw was the inside of my hotel room. I have a new great respect for people that are blind because of what I did. I had to learn how to use the cane and I will never forget the first time I opened my eyes and could not see. My body took a long time to adapt because my mind knew my eyes were opened but yet I saw nothing. I will never forget that feeling.
Reason two: To see if I could pick a persona and play it to the “T” so that when people saw me they saw a blind magician and not a magician that had a character that was only evident on the stage. I wanted to pick a character and never break from that character the entire weekend.
Reason three: There are too many people that call themselves a magician and never try to step outside of the box and do something that takes more work then just mere practice. This was indeed something that took more then mere practice. This was something that involved me stepping out of my comfort zone in order to accomplish what I wanted to do.
Let me also take this time to shine some light on some other questions that people are asking themselves. I entered the close up contest and stage contest for the sole purpose of getting myself on the stage so that I knew that every magician had a chance to see me at one time. If I were to win any of the competitions I would have declined the award because me winning would not be ethical: I do not accept sympathy votes. Let me repeat that: I DO NOT ACCEPT SYMPATHY VOTES.
Now everybody knows the reason behind my actions. If anyone has any questions then please feel free to ask.
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516 and Counting
Without a doubt, Patrick Page’s Easy Money is one of the most reinvented and revised tricks in magic. In all fairness, it was a, somewhat, obscure trick until it was repopularized by Greg Wilson as Hundy 500. Since then we’ve had a number of variations offered. One of the most popular was Heiny 500 by Karl Hein - a beautiful trick, but the DVD was a joke. The production of the gimmick was VERY poorly explained and Karl Hein proved himself to be less than standup about the whole situation. Unless these guys are selling the secret to immortality I don’t plan to buy anything from them ever again.
Richard Sanders’ effort with Jay Sankey called, I believe, a couple of guys screwing around in front of a video camera and selling their shit for an absurd price, received a less than favorable review here. He’s gone a long way towards redeeming himself with Extreme Burn. Here’s the official blurb:
Effect
Count out five bills, one at a time. Show them front and back and lay them flat on your hand.
With NO folding, NO cover, NO nothing…THE BILLS VISIBLY CHANGE!
That’s it. You are now holding five completely differnet bills.
Count them out. Show them on both sides. They are real bills.
If Harry Potter could do a bill change, this is what it would look like!
Extreme Burn is not just a variation, it is an evolutionary leap forward in technique and effect.
Besides misspelling different (come on fellers - spring for a spell checker and use it!), this is a reasonably accurate description and if you want to do a bill change, this is as good, if not better, than any.
After the terrible, half-assed explanations on the Heiny DVD, Sanders careful and precise descriptions are a delight. This is a trick I’ll be using and I recommend that you consider adding it to your everyday repertoire.
I’m not going to do a full review, as there are 515 messages - yep 515 - on the Cafe about this. If you’re having trouble getting to sleep, a few pages of that should send you straight to happy land.
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i/m in Bug Tussle
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Back At Ya!
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Where art thou Jay Silverheels?
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What are we doing wrong?
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Alternatives to the T & R Newspaper
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Are we afraid to work?
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AND…. My pants have disappeared
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