A few months ago I was performing at an event with Ky Dobson and his Wagon of Whimsy. This is a pedal tractor that pulls a wagon that’s got a buttons that do all sorts of funny things, and he tells jokes and does magic and juggling. Ky is a trained clown, and very personable.
He wanted a something to do with an egg that was dinosaur related. This is what we came up with:
Ky had some dinosaur parts and for me the obvious thing was using the dinosaur head like Bob Farmer’s Little Hand trick. It’s a fun simple little trick that was getting great reactions from the kids!
It’s always a fun day when I get new books in the mail! I got The Bammo Flim Flam Conglomeration and The Comedy Helpline.
I’ve been a fan of Bob Farmer’s ever since his Flim Flam articles in Magic Magazine. The other book was is comedy magic tips from many different magicians. I’ve started the Bammo Flim Flam book and I’ve already got a bar bet I’m going to try out!
It’s fun playing around with magic tricks. A couple days ago I wrote about tweaking the card trick A Case For Premonition by Roberto Giobbi. This is a card trick where someone names a card, it disappears and it’s in your pocket. I jammed the card trick with a buddy and showed him another way … Continue reading “Keep Tweaking…”
It’s fun playing around with magic tricks. A couple days ago I wrote about tweaking the card trick A Case For Premonition by Roberto Giobbi. This is a card trick where someone names a card, it disappears and it’s in your pocket. I jammed the card trick with a buddy and showed him another way of doing it that I had thought of, which I like a bit more.
In the original method you need to count out 51 cards, it’s boring and time consuming. What I’m doing instead is using a deck that’s marked and in a memorized order. They call out a card and you spread the deck to about where the card is, locate it and get a pinkie break under it. I do this as I say, “You could have named any card…” then I square up the deck. I then side jog the card, and ribbon spread the deck face up on the table. This will hide the selection. Be sure to not be selfish and ribbon spread the cards so that they indices aren’t upside down to the audience. I then run my finger across the cards looking for their card, and it’s gone! I finish by doing Bob Farmer’s Bammo Move as I pick up the deck, palm the card and produce it from my pocket.
It’s not a huge change, but I think it really streamlines the process of making the card disappear. It’s also technically a lot easier than Giobbi’s version that uses a Double Deal and a Cull Palm. If you used an edge marked deck, you’d eliminate the need for the estimation and spread, you could just look for the mark and get a break.
When I was a teenager I remember reading Bob Farmer’s column in Genii Magazine (I think it was Genii) on the 10 card poker deal. I would read about it and work through it, but never did it. I played with the 10 card deal again about a decade later when I was learning a … Continue reading “10 Card Deal…”
When I was a teenager I remember reading Bob Farmer’s column in Genii Magazine (I think it was Genii) on the 10 card poker deal. I would read about it and work through it, but never did it. I played with the 10 card deal again about a decade later when I was learning a memorized deck, as the Aronson Stack has one built into it, but never really did it.
For about the last year I’ve been fascinated with the 10 card poker deal. It’s really an amazing trick that’s built on a very simple method. I’ve ready a lot of the modern works on it, however it appears a lot of the best stuff is pretty old. Bob Farmer put out a book called the Bammo Ten Card Deal Dossier.
This book is full of the history of the deal and most of the published works on the 10 card poker deal. Within it there are tons of routines. I’ve put together a three deal routine using parts of other routines that make the whole thing feel super fair, and each step gets more fair.
My three phase routine is something that I don’t think would play for a huge group in a live setting for me. It’s really a head to head “competition” with someone. However I am working on a stage version of this trick, but I think it will feel different from most 10 card deal routines.
There are tricks that come in and out of your life, that you dabble in here or there. They just aren’t right for you, or you aren’t right for them a that time. Then one day at the right time, you rediscover it and the trick finally works for you (or you for it). I think this is why it’s important to constantly be learning things and revisiting old things.
