close up magic – Page 11

Packet Tricks with Money by Larry West

Recently I’ve been playing with packet trick techniques using money instead of cards. I discovered this set of lecture notes by Larry West that has two trick using bills like cards for a packet trick style effect.

The two tricks is the lecture notes are very similar, in fact they are the same effect, but with different methods. One uses a gaffed bill and the other doesn’t. I think that one of the reasons that money packet trick magic isn’t really a thing is because to make any gaffed bills, like a one dollar bill with a ten on the backside might be crossing the line with what’s legal or not. Also the cost to put them out as you’d have to add the cost of the bills to the trick.

Anyway, here are the two money tricks from Larry West’s lecture notes:

@louiefoxx Cheating the con man! #magictrick #magic #money #conman #counting #math #magiciam #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Hustling the Hustler! #magictrick #money #magic #moneymagic #hustle #con #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I’m not sure which version is better.

-Louie

Working With Cool People!

One of the challenges working as a magician is that it can be a very solitary experience. You travel alone and frequently perform alone. The other night I got to work with Brian Ledbetter, who I’ve known for years. It was great to BS in the green room.

In my off seaon (not summer) I’m usually working by myself, so this was a nice change. Gigs with friends are the best and I look forward to them!

-Louie

Am I a Roving Mentalist?

An upcoming roving gig I have wanted a mentalist, not a magician for their event. The agent who contacted me about it knows what I do in my show very well and asked if I could do it. My stage show has many mentalism things in it that just aren’t really presented as mentalism and my roving is the same.

I said “yes” to the gig, but need to reframe what I do a little bit to put it into the context the client wants. The material that I’m planning on taking out with me:

ACAAN – I published an old version of what I do in a linking ring from 15 or so years ago
Spoon/fork bending – I published this as The Perceptive Bend in Vanish Magazine around April 2019
Paint Swatch Matching – I published this as Pick Our Rooms Paint in Vanish Magazine in I think July 2024
Color Block Prediction – This uses a small block with different colors on it and it uses up to three different methods throughout the routine. One of the methods is original to me, the other two are based on marketed items.
Number prediction – This is basically Acidus Novus for the method and a follow up to the color block trick
Pet’s Name Divination – This is my routine using Peeked by Joel Dickinson. Peeked is a really clever effect/method to gain information on a card in the context of a divination type routine.

That’s the roving set and it’s way more material than I’ll need for two 45 minute sets for 400 people. I think that I’ll do two different sets for each time I’m out. That will solve the problem of people mixing with other groups and having seen something before.

-Louie

More Money Packet Tricks!

A few days ago I posted a video of a packet trick where 4 one dollar bills turned into 4 two dollar bills. It’s essentially a packet card trick with dollar bills. Turning $1’s into $2’s is alright, but I got to playing with a slightly different arrangement that I like more:

@louiefoxx How to make money with bad math! #money #magic #math #magictrick #dollar #hundred #moneymagic #badmath ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

The bills changing into different bills makes the trick feel a little less like the same trick four times. Also the ending with the hundred dollar bill seems like more of a finish to the trick.

-Louie

Packet Tricks by Jerry Mentzer

For fun I’m working through the book Packet Tricks by Jerry Mentzer. This was published in 1982, so kinda when packet tricks as a trend were becoming really popular.

It’s really interesting to see where these tricks and techniques came from. The Phil Goldstein stuff is intesesting as I see the roots of some of his later stuff in the two tricks he has in the Packet Tricks book.

I’ve been posting some of these of TikTok, and you can see them and other vintage magic tricks and routines there. Plus I post some other stuff I think of on there.

If you’re not on TikTok, here’s some of the videos from the book Packet Tricks:

@louiefoxx Vintage packet card trick! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magician #magictrick #packettricks #jerrymentzer #cards #royalflush #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx 40 year old card Trick! #cardtrick #magictrick #1982 ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Classic Ace Card Trick! #cardtrick #magic #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Royal with Cards! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magician #magictrick #packettricks #jerrymentzer #cards #royalflush #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Like oil and water! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #magictrick #twos #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Magic trick from 1982! #cardtrick #magic #cardmagic #cards #magictrick #1982 #vintage #magicbook #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Four-A-change card trick! #cardtrick #magictrick #cardmagic #cards #kings #aces ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Those aces! #cardtrick #magictrick #packettrick #magic #cards #aces #vintagemagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

@louiefoxx Classic card trick from 1982! #cardtrick #magictrick #magic #cards #twist ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

These are fun to learn, and I think it’s important to learn things for fun. It can be a challenge balancing my passion for magic with the job of performing magic.

-Louie

One Dollar Bills to Two Dollar Bills

Yesterday I posted about a thing I was playing with using money instead of playing cards for packet tricks. I’ll give a walkthrough of how to do it, but first here’s the video of the routine:

@louiefoxx Double your money! #money #double #magic #moneymagic #dollar #twodollarbill #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Needed: Three one dollar bills and three two dollar bills. These must be crisp, and the fake movie money works great for this.

Set Up: From the top down: A single one dollar bill, then the 3 two dollar bills and the remaining 2 one dollar bills.

Working: Show the packet of bills face down and then turn them face up. Do an Elmsley Count to show what appears to be the faces of 4 one dollar bills.

For the first change you will do another Elmsley Count to show that one of the one dollar bills has turned into a two dollar bill.

Repeat that, doing another Elmsley Count for the second one dollar bill to change into a two dollar bill, but this time put it the final bill bottom instead of the top of the stack.

For the third change you will do another Elmsley Count, however this time when you get to the single one dollar bill outjog it about an inch. Set the final bill (two dollar) on top of the stack.

Strip out the one dollar bill with your right hand and show it on both sides. As that his happening your left hand buckles the bottom bill creating a gap between it and the rest of the bills above it. Your right hand puts the one dollar bill into this gap above the lowermost bill in your left hand.

For the final bill to change, simply do a modified Elmsley Count to show four two dollar bills on both sides. Do the first two counts Elmsley Count, leaving you with the block of bills in your right hand and 2 two dollar bills in your left hand. Your left hand spreads its two bills and turns over to show both sides. The left hand then puts the two bills UNDER the bills in your right hand. The whole packet of bills is then flipped face down and Elmsley Counted to show four backs.

That’s it, a change of 4 one dollar bills to 4 two dollar bills. Nothing really ground breaking there, but I think this will be a stepping stone for something better…I hope!

-Louie

Inject 2 is Denied by Google!

Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised that this has happened with Inject 2. Here’s the latest from Greg Rostami about Inject 2:

Greg is going a good job of spinning the issue with Google on a competitor reporting him, when the bigger issue is how fake Google page will work going forward. Blaming a competitor on something he was doing that technically he shouldn’t have been doing is like getting made at someone turning you in for a crime you committed. The fake Google page was always not “legit” and the very least (in my opinion) it infringed on Google’s trademark.

Supposedly Greg has this backup plan that he says he hasn’t implemented because it would take a month to put up. If he had implemented it at the first time that Google pulled Inject 2 over a month ago, we’d be up and running. However running it on another server or whatever doesn’t solve the problem with the fake Google page infringing (in my opinion) on their trademark and still open to being shut down by Google even if it’s not on their server.

Inject 2 can do a lot more than just peek what someone Google searches, however those take a bit of work to get set up (or at least they used to), where the Google Peek was a plug and play thing and probably what most were bought for as it’s easy.

I’m very curious what the future holds for Inject 2. I find this whole thing very fascinating and it highlights the HUGE problems with internet based apps, which is you can’t control if they work or not. Apps that live on your phone are a bit more reliable, but still have some issues that are out of your control, like your phone’s OS auto updating and your app is not longer compatible or has a lot of glitches.

If you use apps, you need to figure out your backup plan for what to do if the app stops working, or worse yet stops working mid trick!

-Louie

False Shuffle Sequence

A couple of weeks ago I started playing with a shuffle sequence. Essentially it’s a few zarrow shuffles:

@louiefoxx Every day I’m shufflin’#cardtrick #magictrick #cardmagic #shuffle #cards ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

What I think it fun about this is that in the middle there’s a display of the deck mixed before they end up back in order. In my stage show when there’s video projection I do a shuffle sequence where the deck stays in order, however I’m currently not doing the mixed display. I think that this is interesting for magicians, I don’t know if non-magicians appreciate the it.

I’ll give it a try…

-Louie

Inject 2 – Down for the 3rd Time This Year!

Another day, another Inject 2 outage! We’re just over 3 weeks into 2025 and this is the 3rd time that Inject 2 has stopped working. The first two times it was down about a week each.

Once again, this highlights the problems with internet based apps and sort of apps in general. If a magic app stops working, there’s not much you can do. It’s also hard to run a backup method with an app. You can’t have someone type into Google AND write it on a piece of paper at the same time.

The now frequent outages can affect performances:

I’m appalled that Greg doesn’t immediately let the major magic shops know when Inject 2 is down so they can pause sales. It’s still available at Penguin and Vanishing Inc AND Greg is at MagiFest, where both companies are right now!

Finally, Greg Rostami has talked about this “back up plan” for Inject 2 for almost a month now, but hasn’t started to implement it. He says it will take a month to do, well guess what, if he started it the first time, it’d almost be up and running.

Here’s my theory: If Greg switches Inject 2 to another server or whatever the backup plan is, he’ll have to relist it as a new app. That means current users will have to rebuy it, and he’ll have to deal with refunds from people who just bought it.

I hope that the app does get back up and reliably running as many magicians like it, but it teaches magicians that you can’t rely on technology that’s out of your control.

– Louie

Inject 2 Still Not Working

We’re 22 days into the year and Inject 2 has only been working for about a week. Greg Rostami’s last update was two days ago:

While hindsight it 20/20, if Greg had started to move Inject 2 during the first outage almost a month ago, it’d almost be done and up and running. He keeps claiming there are back up plans, but we have yet to see any of them implemented. There’s no reason he couldn’t start working on the backup plan while still trying to resolve the current issue. Sure it takes time, but it appears he’s just in a holding pattern with Google.

App’s are interesting, but if they’re internet based, they aren’t reliable. This is for many reasons, and this is just one of them. There’s plenty others, like I work a lot of GIANT events where there are just soo many people the internet works at a snails pace. There there are times with magic apps where the server that the app lives on gets overwhelmed because there are a ton of magicians using the app at the same time. This happened to an app (I don’t remember which one) on New Years Eve a few years ago.

Then there are times when your phone that the app is on updates overnight and now there are compatibility issues with the app and your phone that weren’t there the day before.

Before you buy an app you need to consider how you’re planning on using it and how it can fail you. If the app goes out mid trick, what are you going to do? If the app glitches and all of the sudden the spectator’s screen shows something they’re not supposed to, what would you do?

Plan for failure!

-Louie