Many, many moons ago The Great Ballantine appeared to be breaking out of his magic buffoon act and performed a beautiful floating ball effect – complete with music, hoop and graceful movements. He received genuine and appreciative applause from the audience. Towards the end of the routine, he reached in his pocket – pulled out a pair of scissors and cut the string. Of course, the ball fell to the ground. Ballantine’s statement? How else!
You can read all about James Cheung’s ripoff of Richard Osterlind’s Psychic Control in a number of magic blogs. There seems to be little doubt that he was aware of Osterlind’s creation prior to the release of Moveo.
In all honesty, “how else” was exactly the reaction I had when I saw it performed on Mind Mysteries Too – Volume 5. It was no great mystery. At least I didn’t think so. Of course Osterlind managed to wring every bit of entertainment possible out of the routine and – SURPRISE – the L&L audience went into orgasmic palpatations.
My point? If Cheung wanted to rip something off, Osterlind has better stuff than this.
If you’re gonna pilfer, man, make it worth your time. All you got out of this was a bad reputation and a copy of a lame trick!
Take care………
Drivel & Drool 
Software time:
I’m on the computer many hours a day and there are a few pieces of software that I find indispensable. One of these is Evernote. A random access note pad. I can’t imagine going to forums, participating in news groups and general browsing without having Evernote available. It sits quietly in the background and is ready to capture anything you like. Just right click and you send it there. Later you can classify the note in one or many ways. It’s a little hard to describe.
Drop by the site and check it out. It’s truly free. You won’t be disappointed.
Gee, I was taken to task for referring to Mr. Osterlind as “Dick” and this made me look like a nobody, since no one that really knows “Richard” EVER refers to him that way.
Big fucking whoop. It was just a name. There was no intention of pretending I had ever taken off my shows and made a pilgrimage to Mt. Osterlind. To make it clear – I don’t know MR. OSTERLIND.
I was also called to task for dissing the original trick, because “laymen love it”, which is the mantra of MANY, MANY crummy tricks. (“Don’t worry, it just flies past laymen”).
really? By who?
Euan,
Actually, I do know, but it was an anonymous post, so I’ll honor that.
I was actually rather disappointed, as he supposed to be one of the “nice guys” and I have tried over the months to support his efforts.
You never know – do you?
i/m