silverware magic – MagicShow.Tips

Every Day Carry…For MC’s

There’s a term going around magic which is called “every day carry” and it refers to what you always have in your pockets. Typically this means whenever you leave the house, it’s in your pockets or on your person. This refers to props that you would use for spontaneous performances. I’m intentionally not using the word impromptu because that usually refers to magic using things you find around you at that moment.

When I host shows, have planned material for known stage delays, like when an act has props or rigging that needs to be set up and I’m aware that I’ll need to kill time.

Then there are unplanned stage delays. These are when a performer isn’t ready, rigging is taking longer than expected, or whatever. For these situations, on my person I always have a a bunch of material on me that I can instantly perform. this is my MC EDC:

I have material of varying lengths and most of the longer routines, like the color changing silks can be broken up into two shorter routines if needed.

If you are thinking of doing any stage hosting, you really should consider having at least a couple of tricks in your pocket that you can use for unplanned stage delays!

-Louie

Fork Force Routine…

A couple of days ago I wrote a blog post about a way to force a fork. I’ve gotten a chance to try it out as a triple prediction (most of the time).

I start with the spoon, knife and fork laid out in position for the force. On the back of the fork I secretly drew an X with a sharpie and I have a folded up piece of paper in my hand (but don’t call attention to it) and a second piece of paper hidden.

They touch one and if they touch the fork, the trick is over, have them flip the fork and you reveal the X. If they touch the knife or spoon, you do the procedure to force the fork. For the reveal you open the paper in your hand to show it predicts the first and second objects they picked as well as the third item they didn’t pick.

For the papers you need two, and simply switch the visible paper for the hidden one if necessary to have the correct reveal.

The first challenge I had when doing the force was getting people to move properly. There was too much going on, and people would get going really fast and do a double jump. What I started doing was having me call out the letters slowly and not doing the next letter until the jump was complete. It’s a simple solution to an unforeseen problem.

-Louie

Always One More Step…

One of the things I’ve always said about creating magic is that it’s about problem solving. One trick where this is especially true is the spoon and fork transposition that I do. This particular trick has been an engineer nightmare the whole time I’ve really been working on it. It’s a series of challenges to get me to the next step.

One of the recent challenges I’ve had with this trick is that at the end there’s a good chance the spoon and fork will clink in my pocket. While it’s not loud and it only happens once during the routine, I want to eliminate it.

The first attempt was putting a felt covered magnet on my pocket and all that did was change the “clink” to a “clunk”. That took me to the next and final solution, I simply put a piece of felt in my pocket to act as a divider. That solved the problem and it was an easy simply solution! Also if I try to avoid having magnets on my body, as it’s amazing how often you’ll get stuck to things. I’m not against using magnets, I just try to not have them attached to me.