Match Trick Patter

A couple of days ago I wrote a couple of posts about a vanishing and reappearing match trick idea and method. It’s a decent idea for 20 or more years ago when matches were common. Bars don’t give away matches anymore and most smokers have lighters now and not matches, so it’s a trick that missed it’s time.

I wrote out a little script for the trick to try to make it relevant for our current time.

Here’s the routine:

Start with match box in left hand under cover of a handkerchief

“This is the most dangerous trick that I’ve ever done. It’s soo dangerous, I was kicked out of my third grade talent show for doing it when I was 13 years old!

More dangerous than running with scissors or putting honey on my chest to try to breast feed murder hornets…it’s playing with matches!”


Pull the handkerchief off your hand to show the matches.

“I thought I’d be the hottest act”

Strike match and put it into handkerchief covered fist (and into thumb tip)

“but my show went up in smoke”

Squeeze the tip to make a puff of smoke come out.

“Luckily the trick didn’t leave a mark on my permanent record”

Open handkerchief to show the match is gone and not damaged

“The crowd was fired up”

Reproduce the match from the handkerchief

“To this day I can still taste the excitement”

Put the match out on your tongue.

It’s got a little bit of a presentational hook and a couple of chuckles and justifies using the match. I don’t know if I’ll ever do it, but it was fun making the routine.

-Louie

Reappearing match gimmick

Yesterday I posted a video of my vanishing and reappearing lit match. There’s not too much to the gimmick, you just need a thumb tip, match pull and some glue.

thumb tip and match pull

I used Yigal Mesika’s Perfect Lite match pull, but I’m going to assume that pretty much any one would work.

Perfect Lite by yigal mesika match pull


Glue the match pull to the back of the thumb tip and the rest should be self explanatory.

Enjoy
-Louie

Match Magic…

A long time ago I wrote an idea in a notebook, and it’s something I’ll never do, but even those ideas are important to write down. It needs a gimmick that I don’t have and have fallen out of fashion. A few weeks ago I was digging through the bins of broken and incomplete magic at Hocus-Pocus and found the needed gimmick to make the gimmick for my idea!

Here’s the trick (my idea is at the end):

I don’t think anyone has really used a match pull for a reproduction of the match after the vanish in a thumb tip. Usually they are used simply for the production of a lit match, then used to light flash paper/string in a stage manipulation act.

Unfortunately I think this trick is 50 years too late as magic with matches is really out of fashion with there being virtually no venues that allow smoking and with fire getting more and more difficult to insure. Had I thought of this in the 1970’s I would have a sure fire hit!

-Louie

Fire Magic!

Many years ago I decided to not use fire in my show. The decision was based on not wanting to deal with regulations that vary from state to state or venue to venue. It was just too much of a challenge to do it in a legal way. I didn’t wan to have an anchor routine in my show that uses fire, then have to cut it because a venue tells me I can’t have fire.

With the shift to virtual shows, I’ve been playing with using fire a little bit. For example I created a “flaming bill change” where you light a one dollar bill on fire, and it changes into a twenty dollar bill. I think this is a great use of fire to enhance the magic moment of the bill change.

I’ve been using my “flaming jalapeno” for a lot of virtual content, and then this week I’ve finally started to use the “fire breather” for my flea circus. I’m having fun using a little bit of fire, however I don’t expect any of it to make it into my live, in person show.

I guess one of the silver linings to doing virtual shows is that I get to explore using fire!

Spicy Magic!

Currently I’m working on making a bunch of video content for a group and I got to make a fun prop. In the video I’m talking about nachos, and needed a sight gag, so I made this:

I probably put way too much effort in to this 15 second video. Enjoy!

Posted by Louie Foxx- Magic and comedy on Thursday, September 3, 2020

For the gag which lasts less than 10 seconds, I probably spent too much time building it, however it was fun and it’s a fun prop!

The actual build is pretty simple:

flaming jalapeno magic trick

The hardest part was driving around town to find the striker. There’s a specific type of lighter that has a striker that can be removed. Once I had source that, I had to figure out how to attach it to either my hand or the jalapeno. I was going to 3d print something, but then tried stabbing it into the pepper and it worked perfectly! Sometimes the simplest way to do things is the best.

Adding Some Heat to a Bill Change

Not too long ago someone sent me a video of a magician doing a visual bill change. The trick in the video wasn’t very good as you only saw a small portion of the bill and didn’t see the whole bill until after the change. I sent a quick video back of how I would improve the trick, however personally I wouldn’t do the trick as I don’t think it’s a bill switch is good if you can’t show the most of the bill before it changes. If you only show me fraction of it, it’s not as impressive.

Later that night I was playing around with the gimmick I had made and added some lighter fluid to add some razzle dazzle to the bill change. I was kinda amazed that it worked, and made a new gimmicked bill where I could show the whole face of the bill. Here’s what I came up with:

The fire justified the shaking of the action for the bill, which is necessary for this gimmick to work. It adds a “magic moment” to the trick. It’s not just a visual change that happens with a shake. It also makes the trick longer than a 2 second trick, which is nice.