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!
I have a knack for creating magic tricks with a prop that is an everyday object, but the specific version of that everyday object that I need is the least common version of it!
My Film Can Dice Force is a good example of this. It uses a normal film can, it’s the one with a black can and a grey lid. This one is the minority of film cans that are out there right now.
I needed more of them, and it took a lot of work to find enough of them locally to fill orders! I do have a bunch coming from eBay, but that shipment got delayed, and I didn’t want people to wait for their orders.
All orders for this trick have shipped thanks to a couple of vintage camera repair shops that also still develop film in-house!
One thing I really believe in is developing relationships with the places that I source the components for my tricks. When they know me and know what I’m using the stuff for, it makes them much more willing to help me with weird requests than a website where I’m just a number.
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**
I will be out of town performing at the San Mateo County Fair in San Mateo, CA from June 5 -15, 2026. That means no orders of physical items will ship until I return on June 16th, 2026.
Digital items will still be emailed during this time!
A while ago, I was booked to perform at a festival, doing short spots after bands. The booker wanted the variety acts to be a surprise, and we were… to everyone, including the MC, backstage crew, and sound techs!
This is never good.
The booker had us send in intros, and tech needs, but none of that made it to the people who would need that stuff. That made it a struggle to get basic things like a microphone that wasn’t in use.
It also made show flow really rough, as the MC didn’t know what to do.
If you know in advance that your act will be a surprise, in my experience 95% of the time that surprise will end up making your job as a performer harder and not raise the audience’s enjoyment.
Yesterday and today I was performing up near the USA/Canadian border and I saw that Nathan Coe Marsh was doing a lecture at Hidden Wonders (Shawn Farquhar‘s magic theater) in New Westminster, BC. That was only about 40 minutes from my hotel, so I dusted off my NEXUS card and drove across the border to see the lecture.
The first surprise came when I was doing some work at a coffee shop before the lecture and I happened to look up right as Paul Romhany walked by!
That turned my working a little bit on my laptop into chatting with Paul, who is also the editor of Vanish Magazine, where I publish a monthly magic trick.
It was great to briefly say “hi” to all the Vancouver BC area magicians!
Nathan’s lecture is great and I highly recommend it!
In the lecture Nathan did a great job of showing all the work that goes into creating a routine, not just how to do the routines. He talked about his vision for the pieces he shared and how many of his routines are collaborations with other performers. This is something that I think is important and most magicians don’t do, that’s work with other people.
If Nathan is doing a lecture in your area, go see it!
