Vanishing Bottle Routine

A few months ago I picked up Henry Harrius’s Refilled vanishing bottle (Corona version). It’s sat on my desk for a while and recently I read Wayne Dobson‘s vanishing bottle routine and kinda liked the idea. So I sat down and wrote out a routine for it.

The effect is: You have a bag and two bottle caps. One is selected and you remove the matching bottle from the bag! You tell the audience you’ll show them how you did the trick, you have two bottles. You take out the second bottle, then put it back into the bag and you crumple up the bag.

Here’s what I wrote:

Two bottle caps, a red coke one and a blue corona one. You’re going to pick one like this is a low budget remake of the matrix

The red cap, everything is revealed, the blue cap and I and you’ll learn nothing, just like high school.

Hold them in your hands and shake them like you’re playing craps, or the baby won’t stop crying. …clearly you don’t have a baby

Now blow on them for luck like you’re in vegas or a kid in the 1980’s who just wants to play super mario brothers

Toss me one.

Red, the coke bottle cap. Inside the bag I have a Coke BOTTLE!

Since you picked the red cap, that means you get to see inside the illusion. you can never go back, your life will be forever changed like going thru puberty or committing murder.

That turned dark

inside the bag I have a second bottle, so it doesn’t matter which you picked, just like voting.

However if you picked the other cap and we needed to keep the illusion, then we would have done it with only one bottle!

Magic show notes

It’s not the best script ever, but it’s something to get it onstage and in front of an audience.

One thing I noticed is that I think the trick will play better if the vanishing bottle is the Coke bottle. It makes more sense to have that one disappear in the context of explaining the routine. So I just ordered one of those.

I think this routine could be a good lead into my Signed Coin in Bottle. This was published in Vanish Magazine a few years ago.

-Louie

Strange Vanishing Birdcage Proportions

I found a Vanishing Birdcage on eBay that I don’t have in my collection. I don’t know who made it.

aluminum Vanishing Birdcage

This one is interesting because of its dimensions. Its 5 x 5 x 5 inches, so a square. For perspective, my Owen Vanishing Birdcage is 5 3/4 x 5 x 5, so a rectangle.

Riser / Summers baby lindy vanishing birdcage, owens challenge cage, and maker  unknown vanishing birdcage
Left to Right: Baby Lindy – Unknown Maker – Owens Challenge Cage

What I find strange is the square dimensions make cage look smaller and not really give you any advantage as the cage collapsed is virtually the same size as the Owen cage.

Riser / Summers baby lindy vanishing birdcage, owens challenge cage, and maker  unknown vanishing birdcage
Left to Right: Baby Lindy – Unknown Maker – Owens Challenge Cage

The amount of bulk reduced in your sleeve after the vanish is negligible, and it’s only one bar shorter than an Owen Challenge Cage.

What is interesting is the weight of the cage. I compared it to my Baby Lindy and Owen cage and this cage is 20% lighter than the Riser/Summers Baby Lindy Vanishing Birdcage and about 2/3’s the weight of the Owens Challenge Cage.

The lighter weight is the only advantage for this cage, however I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have made it a bit wider or shorten it’s depth to give it that rectangle shape to reduce bulk.

I’m glad to have it in my vanishing birdcage collection!
-Louie

Secret Cabaret….

When I was a kid someone let me borrow a VHS tape of a recording of Simon Drake’s Secret Cabaret. This was a TV series from the UK in the early 1990’s (I think) and it was soo far ahead of it’s time. It’s the show that got me into being a David Berglas fan before I knew anything about him.

Here’s one of his routines:

He had two main characters, one was dressed in a top had and tails and the other was dressed in a “mad max” style. Everything that he did on the show was done in a very unique way.

One trick he did was he had two tables and a box on each table. How I remember it was he put something into the box on one table and one the other table, a hand came out of the box holding the item. It was a really cool visual!

It’s something that’s been in my head for a long time. I like the idea of the “instant” transposition. I’ve been kicking around an idea of having two paperbags and thing that go into one, pop out of the second bag. I was thinking of somehow anchoring the second bag upside down, so when I put things into the first (right side up) they fall out of the second bag and onto the floor or table.

The final one would be a coke bottle, and when it goes into your bag you crush it up (latex bottle) and it comes out of the second one and clunks down on the table or shatters on the floor.

Logistically, there’s a lot that would need to be figured out for the trick to work. It’s a “back burner” project for me, but one that I would really like to eventually do!

Bottle Vanish…

Last night I was cleaning out my phone and found a video of an idea. It’s an interesting idea, however one that I’d probably never use, but might be good for an instagram video.

I’d have to play with it a little bit more to get the ditch cleaned up…but honestly it doesn’t really fascinate me enough to put the time in for a 20 second video.

Norm Nielsen…

Recently word started going around that Norm Nielsen had passed. I wonder how much about him younger magicians know, aside from wrongfully assuming he invented the latex bottle. Here’s him doing the act:

I remember Tina Lenert telling us about how much work it took to make the violin bow at the end of the act, then about a year later seeing the act in person. The little details make a huge difference. If the violin just came out, it’s good. When it comes out and bows, it’s great!

Over the years I got to chat with Norm a couple of times one the phone, but never really knew him. He was always generous with his time and I’m thankful of that. I think at that what makes people miss him when he’s gone is not that he was an amazing act, but a cool person. What are you doing to be a cool person?