I’m still going through the JP Vallarino book and I hit this description of a card move. The only part I’m talking about is the paragraph that mentions fig 1 and fig 2 along with those pics:
Figure one doesn’t show the set up that’s mentioned in fig 1. Those aces shouldn’t be visible, as they should be on the bottom of the deck and it doesn’t show the indifferent cards. Figure two should show a pinkie break, not a thumb break.
Things like this make learning from the book difficult. I’m really surprised that no one noticed that there were wrong. If this book was a self published thing I’d expect small errors, but from a big magic company like Vanishing Inc, I’m amazed that got by them.
Now I’ll say something positive about the book. I just started the Ace Assemblies section of the book. The first one is called Ultimate MacDonald’s Aces and is pretty good! It’s very heavily gimmicked, but not really in the tradition sense for the MacDonald’s Aces.
I personally don’t really do ace assemblies, however if I did, I would probably do this one!
It doesn’t take much to create an “original” magic trick…well it depends on your definition of original. My goal for at trick to be original is 60% unique. How I came up with this number is there are really three parts to a magic trick. You have the method, prop and routine. If I can get two of the three, then it fits my criteria as original, however the goal is all three.
At it’s core, it’s a thumb tip production from a bill and this part isn’t original. However the presentation and props are unique to me. I honestly don’t think there’s anyone producing syrup out of Canadian money…but there could someone that I’m not aware of.
Having metrics makes things easy. Without the rules and the goal, it’s really hard to create.
Let’s talk a bit more about protecting your marketed magic creations. I’m amazed at how many creators and magic companies don’t take the most basic step of copyrighting the art and ad copy for the magic tricks that they release.
Before we go any further, let me say that I do understand that technically you have the copyright to whatever art/ad copy as soon as it’s created, but you can’t enforce that without registering it with the copyright office. It costs about $65 to register a copyright, so it’s not a huge hurdle.
Once you have that copyright registration number, you can actually enforce it.
It’s been a while since I’ve gone onto AliExpress to have knock off products removed. I did a search and there were five knock off products.
There’s one listing that was blatantly using my copyright protected Evaporation artwork, so I filed a claim and that was taken down the next day. That left these four knock offs of my Evaporation trick.
All four of them use “Louie Foxx” and I own the trademark to that. Trademarks are like copyrights in that you technically have a trademark when you start using it in business, however you can’t really enforce it until you have it registered with the government. This cost about $300 and took some time to be approved, but it wasn’t difficult for me to do by myself without a lawyer.
My next step was to file a trademark violation with AliExpress and they immediately took down three of the four listings, and a new one popped up.
The new one that used my Evaporation artwork was pulled the next day, but there was still one listing left.
I’m not sure why this one wasn’t taken down by AliExpress with the rest of them as it’s a clear cut infringement on my trademark. I took a peek at the listing and noticed that in the listing they show my copyright protected instruction sheet.
That let me file a copyright claim as well as the trademark claim on the listing. The next day that listing was taken down and as of this morning there were no more products on AliExpress that I could find that used my trademark or copyrights!
It’s an easy process, I had probably 30 minutes total put into getting the listings pulled. It’s not hard to do, and I’m really surprised more magicians don’t take the very basic step of copyrighting their artwork. Sure you shouldn’t have to do this, but actually doing something is better than just whining about it!
I’m a little bit late on this thinking as it’s May and Easter was weeks ago, but I’m surprised that no one is making Easter Peeps as sponges for the sponge ball/bunny trick. The make total sense and the marshmallow has a sponge like visual texture.
If you didn’t want to do a traditional “in their hands” style vanish and productions, you could use them more like multiplying bananas. They’re topical, visual and really wouldn’t take any additional skill to learn if you already do the bananas.
They really wouldn’t be hard to make a mold of, assuming the ingredients in the Peeps don’t have a bad reaction with the mold material. For me this is a deep back burner project, maybe I’ll get to it by next easter…
I don’t know why, but I’ve been fascinated by the Phoenix Ace move. I don’t know the official name of the move but this is the one where you have a multiple cards held as one and you palm off the stack leaving one card visible. I think it’s really more of a stage more, but I’m trying to come up with uses for it where you’re palming off of the deck.
One I’m playing with uses an outjogged double card that’s in the middle of the deck. Another one is this one below:
I don’t think this is something I’d ever really do, but it’s fun to play with. I think that maybe if I keep playing, something useful will happen with the move.
I’m currently finishing up making a few Applause Please V2. These will be completely remote control, so you don’t need to plug them into a wall outlet.
I had the boxes made by Brian Cook Magic Crafter and they look great!
Originally I was against going full remote control as the parts can be hard to replace if something breaks when you’re travelling. However, after enough people had been asking me about it over the years and me finally starting to make some for friends and one for me I’m convinced this is the way to go.
I’ve been using the fully remote controlled one I made for myself since late 2019 and it’s still working great!
I’m still working through the JP Vallarino book. It’s all card magic, which I’m fine with. The book for me had an early hit with his Hypnotic Rumba Count, which I really liked, but then the next few things were pretty redundant and just variations on things. For example his take on the Elmsley Count was basically a style thing and while style is important and important to how he performs, it’s not really actionable information for me.
In the book, the Optical Center Steal is something I’ve done since I was a teenager, and while I came up with it on my own, it’s something that I just assumed was common knowledge. I guess it’s not.
The Revolutionary Control I think gets its name from the rolling action the cards make, and not that it’s a “game changer”. This is another example of a variation, I think Harry Lorayne had a control that was very similar to this.
I’m just wrapping up the section on card sleights, and getting into the tricks. I’m hoping that there will be some more stuff that interests me in it!
The other day I popped into my social media and it suggested I be friends with this guy. He’s rocking the “Yellowface” to do the linking rings. This a super lazy presentation approach, and definitely not a modern one. He puts on the outfit to do the Linking Rings.
Let’s take a step back and look at him trying to honor Asian culture. He didn’t do any research on it. There’s no evidence that the lining rings came from china (source: Genii online). So aside from the rings being from China, why is he wearing the clothes? Based on this article which reviews him doing the rings, I can’t find any reason why he’s wearing that robe in his presentation. I hope he wasn’t using any of the “I learned this from a great Chinsese magician…Fu Ling Yu” lines.
We as magicians need to move past this sort of stuff. You can do the Linking Rings without putting on robes.
I will say that I do have an out of context view of what’s happening as I’m just seeing a facebook picture, however the article I read seems to confirm what I’m thinking. In my heart, I hope he’s doing a thought out presentation that’s respectful…
Sometimes the universe hands you something fun. I was cleaning the office and found a set of Gary Freed’s NFW card trick. This is a great trick where four jokers turn into four aces. The provided routine is alright, and when I was younger and working at Market Magic Shop in Seattle I developed a better handling for it that was much better looking than what was in the instructions.
When I found the NFW set last night I immediately recognized that JP Vallarino’s Hypnotic Rumba Count would work really well with the NFW card set!
Using the rumba count makes this a very direct change of four jokers to four aces! I think this would make a great trick for a preshow video as it’s simple, direct and a good trick!
After playing with the Hypnotic Rumba Count yesterday from the book Vallarino yesterday, and coming up with simple Jokers to Kings effect, I found a natural extension of that trick. I took it a step further (backwards?) and the trick has four kings that turn to jokers, then back to kings.
Like jokers to kings from yesterday, I should say that this routine is super obvious with the move and I’d be shocked if it hasn’t been done before. The important thing about creating is that you play with every idea. For me it’s about flexing my brain’s creativity muscles, not necessarily creating something that’s never been done before.
