A topic that comes up every now and then in social media magic groups is what to do when a kid says, “I know that trick”. Most of the advice given views the kid as a heckler and suggests lines like: “There are thousands of tricks, how could you know” “I checked the script, and you don’t have a speaking part” Lines that try to shut down what the kid says.
This happened at a library show recently, here’s what went down:
The kid wasn’t heckling; it was them simply saying that they want to see the trick! In the video, you can hear how excited the kid was when I said I was going to do the trick.
Try not to look at everything a kid says in your show as a heckle, 95% of the time, it’s not, you’re just hearing it that way. You need to step back and really look at the situation.
I picked up the booklet Card Man Stuff by Al Leech recently and I’m digging it!
The stuff in it is older school card magic, and the clunkiness, I think, can be easily fixed. For example, he used the cut deeper force to have a card selected, and that’s a move that I really dislike. I think the problem with that force is that when the cards aren’t in face up and face down clumps, it kinda gives it away. There are better forces that can be done in its place.
The first trick is the production of a four of a kind, and that naturally flows into the second trick, which is a transposition of the two four of a kind sets of cards. I like things in books that can be routines that flow from one to the next to eliminate set up in the second trick, but still work as stand alone magic tricks if needed.
Despite the clunkiness, the tricks are pretty direct, which I like!
Yesterday I wrote a post about doing a Chop Cup with a film can and “weed nugs”. What I was using for fake weed looked really green. It’s probably been over two decades since I’ve seen what they look like in real life, so I had to consult a friend of mine who partakes in that marijuana. He agreed and sent me some pictures of what they should look like.
The one on the right is the bright green one, and the one on the left is one after I gave it a dusting of a couple of colors of paint.
I think the one on the left looks way better, not perfect, but good enough to sell the premise to an audience. Things like getting the color of a nugget of weed is one of the challenges of magic prop building that magicians don’t normally think about. I don’t want the chopped weed nugs to look so bad that it takes people mentally out of the presentation hook of the routine.
I’m not sure where I’ll ever do this routine. I have an idea for the presentation that I think works. I personally don’t smoke marijuana, and am not involved in that culture. When performing, my persona is more clean cut, so pretending this is mine doesn’t work. I needed to come up with a routine that doesn’t feel fake. I’ll probably write a blog post about how I intend to present this sometime in the future.
Since I released my Film Can Dice Force, I have a ton of film cans kicking around and have been playing on a chop cup with a film can and “weed nugs”.
I’m trying to work out the most efficient way to arrange everything for what I want to do: 1: The magnet is in the film can, and the weed nug has a shim 2: The film can has a shim, and a magnet is in the weed nug 3: The film can and nug both have a magnet
These props are kinda unique, as the fake weed nugs have really no weight to them. So it’s hard to build inertia to dislodge them. The little bit of weight that a traditional ball has really makes a huge difference in how hard you have to set down the film can.
These little challenges make prop building much harder than people think.
On a leap of faith I bought a box of vintage magic tricks for $25 while I was in California. I didn’t really know what was going to be inside of it, but I figured it was worth the gamble. Here’s what was in it:
There wasn’t one thing that totally blew me away. The box was definitely worth more than the $25 I paid for it, but not a crazy score.
I’m lucky that I was able to fit everything into my suitcase. A couple of the things are going to move to my shelf!
The other day, I started playing with Tommy Wonder’s Card in Ring Box. This prop is detailed in Tommy Wonder’s book The Books of Wonder. The effect is pretty straightforward, it’s a signed card to ring box. What makes it cool is that the audience sees the card drop out of the ring box.
Before I give my review of this, I should mention that I didn’t pay for it. I don’t know if that really affects how I feel about this, but figured I should mention that.
I took it out and gave it a try at the fair I’m performing out, here’s a peek at it in action:
The box looks great, and the measurements are what is in the Books of Wonder. I really like it, and I think it works great for doing a card under a box, then ending with the folded card in the ring box.
My only issue with the box is how the card is attached to the box. In the Tommy Wonder Books of Wonder, there’s a loop of thread that you slip the card into. In the JM Craft magic’s version of it, the card is permanently attached to the box.
This doesn’t sound like a big deal…until you are in a situation where you have a blue deck and the gimmick is red!
At the gig I’m at, I took a brick of Bicycle Cards, which are 6 red and 6 blue. I go through a deck each roving set. That means that on my 7th roving set, I couldn’t do the trick.
Not being able to easily change the gimmick is an issue for me. Sure, I can pack only red decks, since I buy my decks by the brick, which means that I can’t do the trick in half of my shows.
If the gimmick color is an issue for you, like all your gimmicks or whatever are one color, make sure the gimmick matches that! Other than the change from how the card attaches to the box being different from what’s in the book, the JM Craft version of Tommy Wonder’s Card in Ring Box works great!
For the Nest of Envelopes, I need to figure out what is going to end up inside the envelopes. I’m thinking that a choice will be made as each envelope is opened. And those choices will narrow it down to a single thing. Then that single thing or representation (i.e., picture of it) will be in the innermost envelope.
While I hate for this to end up being a card trick, it looks like it will be. A deck of cards lends itself to being a group of items that can be grouped in a lot of different ways that are easily remembered. You can give people choices like: color, suit, letter or number, odd or even, male or female, exact value (i.e., four). A performer friend and I sat down and tried to brainstorm different things that could be grouped in different ways, hopefully four or five groups. We didn’t come up with anything that was good or easy for a person to understand.
If the trick is going to end up being a playing card prediction, then the obvious choice is an invisible deck. I travel with Rough Stick, so I quickly made an invisible deck:
I don’t know if this will be the final method, but it’s nice because it’s self-contained. The deck can go into the smallest envelope, and I don’t need to add or alter anything. Just open the envelopes, and when we get to the invisible deck, spread it to reveal the selection.
The School Assembly Tour that I did in April had a running gag in it. It was a bit with Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (smiley face version), and you can see me do it in my School Assembly Set. I really liked how it played, and I’m thinking of adding a running gag to my show.
In the past, I’ve done a thing with the Nest of Boxes, I wrote an article about it over a decade ago called Call Back: My Take on the Nest of Boxes. Basically, I was using the nest of boxes as a running gag throughout the show. I really would like to use them again; however, the reality of how my show travels prohibits me from using a traditional nest of boxes.
The Nest of Envelopes!
The idea is a Nest of Envelopes. The idea is that something is inside a nesting set of 4 or 5 envelopes. The thing inside doesn’t have to be an object that has vanished; it could be a prediction or even some sort of punchline. This opens up a lot more possibilities.
The nice thing about envelopes over a set of boxes is that they pack flat and are much lighter! Also, something that, in an emergency, could be sourced in any city with an office supply store.
