Over the long President’s Day weekend my family went on a trip to Oregon. One of the places we stopped was Powell’s Books in Portland. Powell’s is one of the largest independent bookstores in the USA and has a nice mix of new and used books.
It took a bit of hunting to find their magic trick section!
They had a bunch of magic books, lots of newer ones and some older ones. I found the Thurston Scrapbook that Phil Temple put out in the 1980’s.
I’ve always been interested in Tommy Wonder’s Cups and Balls routine. I finally plunked down the cash and picked up this set:
Right out the gate, I think the bag is a little bit too small (not long enough) for the cups. You need to be able to tie it shut with the string with the cups in the bag. I really had to force/stretch the bag to get the cups into it and tie it shut. This isn’t a huge deal, as over time I imagine it will stretch and get easier (I hope).
I started by reading the routine in The Books of Wonder Vol 2 and working it out. The routine didn’t feel right, so I then watched some videos of Tommy performing the routine. There’s a lot of flow that’s missing from the book and it really would have benefitted from having a bullet point list of the effects that happen in the routine.
Here’s one of the videos I watched:
One thing that I noticed about the routine is that it’s not a show stopper like when you see Gazzo, Ammar or Bob Read do the cups. At the end of those, there’s a punctuation at the end, a definite end. Tommy’s routine is more of a middle piece than a closer.
In Tommy’s book he mentions that he’s known to magicians for his cups and balls. There’s a clue there, I don’t think he thought it was the best for non-magicians. It’s certainly innovative in how the loads were done, with none from the body/pockets, and resets instantly, but I’m not sure that translates to non magicians as much as it appeals to magicians.
I’m going to learn the routine, and give it a try, hopefully I can get it down in about a month for a week long run of shows I’ll be doing next month.
One of the routines that I really liked that I was doing on the school assembly tour was my tennis ball routine. It opens with a production of a single tennis ball from my Take Out Production Box, then it goes into mulitplying balls style routine and ends with a tennis ball turning into confetti.
Here’s the routine:
At about the 1:50 mark you’ll notice one of the kids in the middle showing the kid next to her that she thinks the balls are coming out of my sleeve. When I reviewed video of the show I noticed that, I added a bit where I show my sleeves empty. It’s a little thing, but it makes the routine stronger.
I really like this routine and would like to use it elsewhere, however the challenge is that I need the book to ditch the final tennis ball. I’ll need to figure out another way to ditch the final palmed ball.
I recently got an email asking questions about the Vanishing Birdcage and I figured it might be helpful to more than just the person who emailed me, so here it is:
I see that you have a lot of knowledge about the vanishing bird cage. My dad used to do a little stage magic and this was my favorite! My son is now an aspiring young magician and I’d like to get him this trick. He’s been working on his technique for several years but is still only 11. I know this trick takes a lot of practice. I do not want to spend the thousands to get him a professional cage, but I also don’t want him to be discouraged (or cut!) by an inexpensive and poorly made cage while he learns. I’ve read through several threads on Magic Cafe and it seems most of the Indian cages can be dangerous, although there might be one or two that are ok. It also looks like I need to avoid any with loops?
I am writing to ask if you can recommend any websites, manufacturers, things to look for, things to avoid- any advice at all?
Let’s start with the safety of cages. Yes, they can cut you, but I honestly don’t think that’s really a huge concern. Anything that can cut you can also snag in your sleeve, so you should be inspecting your cage and finding those spots and eliminating them. I check my cages how Billy McComb did, by running a silk over them to find any thing that would snag in my sleeve. Tommy wonder did something similar with a piece of string. I have a couple of the Indian vanishing cages from various eras in my collection and I never really noticed any of them having any wires sticking out (that doesn’t mean that they don’t have any). The bigger concern with the newer Indian cages is that they are super heavy, and this makes the vanish more difficult. If getting cut is a concern go for an Abbott’s style cage with the red ribbon on it. I don’t think Abbotts is making them right now, but they frequently pop up used and should run about $100ish. There’s one on ebay right now for $275, and I DO NOT recommend paying that much for it. https://www.ebay.com/itm/394381494169
There are some totally usable vanishing cages with the loops on the bars. The Milson Worth Vanishing Birdcages with the brass bars work fine and that’s the cage that the Indian Vanishing Birdcages are modelled after. A Milson Worth cage will run about $100-$150. There’s one on ebay right now for $95 and looks decent: https://www.ebay.com/itm/314214210186
The bigger issue is size. I’m 5’8, so average height, but to pull full size cage like the Owen Vanishing Cage or even a full size Abbott cage up your sleeve may be the biggest challenge for an 11 year old. I’d recommend trying to find a small Abbotts cage or the Milson Worth cage as they’re smaller than the “standard” cages. Personally I used a National Magic and Owen Cage and were a bit too big for me, and about a year ago I switched to a Riser/Summers Baby Lindy Cage which is smaller and it works a lot better for me! However the price tag on the baby lindy cage is a lot, and it’s not really what I would recommend for a first cage.
With all of that information, I would lean towards the $95 one that’s on ebay if it was a purchase that you wanted to make now. If you are willing to wait an hunt around a bit, then a small Abbotts vanishing cage.
I just wrapped up building a custom prop for another magician. I don’t know if people know what goes into creating props. Below are the first three attempts at making part of the prop, I forgot to take a picture of the forth and final version.
The first version which is on the left, was kinda my “proof of concept” version and it let me know that the idea was solid.
The middle version was a slight tweak, where the slot is bigger, but that brought me to a second challenge, the top needed to taper in. I also realized I has a little more room to play with with the prop, so I extended the gimmick.
The third version on the right, fit great, but internally I discovered there was a “pinch point”, so I had to go back and to a quick redesign, which led me to the fourth and final version (not pictured).
Looking back, the second version was clunky, but functional. The third version didn’t really work, but the final version worked soo much better than second version. I’m glad I pushed forward to get it to the final version!
If you’ve got a custom prop you are looking to get made, contact me and we can chat about it!
A while ago I bought a money paddle that was made from wood that was reclaimed from Houdini’s house in New York. I really don’t like the money paddle, but having one got me to play with it a little bit and I came up with a couple of ideas that weren’t standard.
the first uses money on the paddle, but the effect is slightly different:
The Moisture Festival is proud to introduce Paul Draper to the Moisture Festival family! This will be Paul’s first year with us and we’re excited to have him!
In this episode we learn what a house magician is, the ins and outs of hosting a séance and even touch on Paul hanging out with cannibals! This is an enlightening and fun episode!
Last night I was trying to come up with some ideas for a Valentine’s Day magic trick for social media. I had some ideas, one was a touch the screen type trick, another was a rose pedal to confetti as well as a couple of other pretty generic ideas.
The one idea that I liked enough to actually record was this:
There’s not much to it, it’s my Take Out Production Box made from a box of Valentine’s Day candy. The shape of the candy box had a couple of challenges to covert to a production box, but it was fun little challenge!
I frequently say that holidays or national days are great days to be creative and try to come up with new tricks around that theme. Some days you’ll simply put new clothes on something old, and other times you’ll come up with something completely new!
On Saturday night I headlined a bar gig with a few comedians. The feature act was Morgan Colis and she had written a whole chunk of material about magicians because she was working with me. She went as far as to borrow a coat from her grandma for one of the jokes.
Things like that remind me that I’m not working as hard as I used to. Years ago when I was younger, I’d research all of the other acts I was working with, write venue, city, act specific jokes or bits for the gig. I don’t do that very often anymore, especially for a one off gig.
Working with younger acts (by younger I mean performers who are newer) reminds me that I need to work harder to keep up with the “kids”. There are many performers that phone it in the back half of their career, and it’s passable, then there are acts that keep working on their show.
I want to be one that keeps working on their show…
When I was on vacation in Australia in November, we visited Sydney’s Chinatown. There was a guy there cutting silhouette portraits, and I had mine done. In the past and still occasionally I’ve cut portraits at gigs, it’s a great little skill to have, but to be totally honest, I have no idea how to sell it.
OK, back to the guy in Sydney, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of his sign, but it was $2 Australian dollars for a portrait, or just about $1.10 US.
He cut it quick, and his display looked nice and he did it really quick.
The silhouette doesn’t really look like me, but it was fun to get it done and totally worth about a dollar!
I’ve always said you can learn a lot from simply watching people who do what do, no matter their skill level or what you view as their skill level. Here’s what I learned from him:
1: He had a great display that clearly said what he did, how much it cost and how long it would take.
2: He cut on a vinyl with and adhesive back and stuck it to the card at the end.
The adhesive backed vinyl is very smart, it eliminates the need for glue, which then eliminates the need for a table. It also saves times. If I ever try to sell the silhouette portraits again, I’ll probably experiment with using something with an adhesive back.
