metal bending – MagicShow.Tips

Let Them Touch the Magic

One thing that I like is having magic that people can touch after the trick has happened! I’m not talking about giving out a signed card after the trick, but when something is altered, them getting to touch and potentially keep the trick in its altered state.

Giving out a signed card isn’t magically altered. This is where something like metal bending is great, they can touch it, keep it and show it to other people and the item is interesting.

For example the end of my card routine I peel the front off the card and hand it to the person. This is way more interesting than simply handing them a signed card. Also 90% of the people then stick that card on their shirt! That gets people at the event talking about me, or at least aware that there’s a roving magician there.

Another example is my Out For Beers trick. This trick starts as a gag with card with a picture of a full pitcher of beer. Then the pitcher magically empties itself. This is something that they keep in its altered state and gets them talking about me to other people at the event I’m at.

Unfortunately in magic there’s not a lot of options for tricks where the item is altered and they can handle it in the altered condition…and even less where they can keep the item!

-Louie

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Spoons

I’m glad I started doing spoon/fork bending again, it’s a lot of fun, but it also makes really great pictures!

A lot of magic tricks can’t really tell a story, but a bent fork or spoon definitely does! I’m having a blast doing this in my show! If you’re interested in spoon/fork bending, look into Ben Harris’s book Bend it Like Geller!

-Louie

Vanishing Line

I really liked Ben Harris‘s book Bend it Like Geller! One little note is that my copy is missing a whole line!

There’s a spot for the line, however it looks like somehow it got deleted/removed during the printing process.

Vanishing Inc’s books recently have had some quality control issues like that. I think I’d care less if it was a self published book, and not something put out by one of the bigger magic companies. The JP Vallerino book also had some issues (http://www.magicshow.tips/magic-show-tips/hard-to-read/)

Aside from the missing line, Bend it Like Geller is still a fantastic book!

-Louie

Straight Up Fork Bending…

A couple of years ago I created a original (as far as I know) method for making a fork bend. The cool thing about it is I never touch the fork that bends. This came about when I was chatting with a mentalist about metal bending and asked a stupid question, “does anyone do a spoon straightening routine?” He said that a lot of the optical illusion parts of the method probably wouldn’t work as well with the bend going backwards.

That conversation put the thought in my head, and I ended up creating a method and publishing it in Vanish Magazine called The Perceptive Bend.

In the picture above you see the lady confirming the two forks are exactly the same before one of the forks bends in her hand. I think the method should be pretty obvious if you reread the first paragraph of this post, or you can track down Vanish Magazine issue 57 (I think it’s that issue).

I don’t normally do metal bending in my roving show, however I had a bunch of forks leftover from doing it virtual shows, I took them to the fair to use them up. After doing it live this week, I’m thinking of adding it to my roving at fairs. It gets a really good reaction, and I think I’ve finally figured out how it fits in with how I perform.

Doing A Trick I Don’t Like…

Earlier this week I was cleaning up and found a bunch of forks that I had bought for a fork bending idea that I had. I had gone to Costco and bought a ton of these forks to work out the routine. I’m trying to use up stuff that that’s just taking up space in … Continue reading “Doing A Trick I Don’t Like…”

Earlier this week I was cleaning up and found a bunch of forks that I had bought for a fork bending idea that I had. I had gone to Costco and bought a ton of these forks to work out the routine. I’m trying to use up stuff that that’s just taking up space in my office, so I took the pack of 48 forks to the fair that I’m working this week.

The fork bend that I created and was working out is the first on on this video:

I published it in Vanish Magazine earlier this year. If you’re interested in learning about it, you can find it there.

What I’ve been doing this week at the fair that I’m performing at is simply putting about 10 forks in my pocket when I go out to do my roving set. Personally I’m not a huge fan of the fork bending, it doesn’t really fit my style of performing, but people really like it.

I think people relate to it because they know what a fork is and how durable it is. When it starts bending they immediately know what’s happening is “magic”. I’m getting great reactions from it, but just because people like it doesn’t mean it’s right for me or my vision for what I do.

Do It Backwards!

When I was about 15 years old, I saw John Carney lecture in Minneapolis. One of the things he talked about was doing the pass. He said the best way to create a new pass was to do an existing one backwards. For example a Herman Pass is essentially a Classic Pass Backwards.

Occasionally when I’m jamming with magicians I’ll start to play with a move or an idea backwards and it will yield interesting results. Recently I was talking to a mentalist and the subject of spoon bending came up. I asked him if anyone had done it backwards. What I mean by that is bending the spoon towards the bowl, instead of away from it.

He mentioned that a lot of the optical illusion parts of bends may not work. He then demonstrated the spoon bends that he does, and he was right about them not working with the bend going the opposite direction. However, this playing around with flipping the bend backwards led me to come up with what I think is a new spoon bend!

TLDR: Try doing it backwards!