close up magic – Page 30

Another Shell Game Set!

I remember a long time ago chatting with Dr. Lloyd Cripe who was a brain doctor and now retired and he said, “everyone collects something” and at the time I didn’t realize it, but I was starting to collect Three Shell Game sets. Currently I have a giant collection of shells, and it getting harder to find shell sets that I don’t already have.

I found this lot at a magic auction site:

I don’t have the upper set of gold shells. I can’t tell what they are made from, it could be plastic or metal, I won’t know until they show up. It looks like I was the only bidder, so I got them for the opening bid price, which is nice!

I’ve had the Dr. Beaumont Shell Game book in the past, and it’s been a while since I’ve read it. I’ll give it a reread when it arrives with the shells and probably sell it with the Vernet Shells which come with this lot.

If you’ve got a unique or uncommon set of shells, send me a note, I’d love to see a pic of them!

-Louie

A Better 21 Card Trick!

I’m a huge fan of letting people show me tricks. I’ve written about it many times on this blog. Not only does it let the spectator shine, it encourages them to keep doing magic tricks!

Every now and then I get surprised and this kid showed me a great trick! It was like a way better version of the 21 card trick. It used three reverse faro shuffles and only 8 cards, so it was very fast when compared to the 21 card trick.

The ending was nice, as it wasn’t just a “Here’s your card”, it was a three phase reveal.

Full disclosure, I’m not the biggest fan of this type of reveal for what I do in my work, but the kid did it well and got a good reaction. I can’t argue with that!

-Louie

Some Close Up Magic…

The fair I’m performing at this week has me doing street shows. On the mornings of the slower days I’m doing some more close up style magic for people. Here’s a sample of what I’m doing:

You can see part of the Horizontal Ambitious Card that I recently started doing. It currently has three phases, ending with the card inside the card box. I’m really having a lot of fun with the routine, as it gives me a lot more room to play with the audience within the trick.

This is why it’s important to keep playing with a trick, even when you it’s a solid trick and your “A” material. If you keep playing you can find new bits or ways to do it. I’m of the mindset that a trick is never finished!

-Louie

Watching Audience Magic…

I don’t get it when magicians are annoyed when people in the audience want to show them a magic trick. If I was guessing it comes down to an ego thing. When I’m doing roving close up magic, I always let them show me their trick. Sometimes you’ll be surprised at what they show you…usually it’s just the 21 card trick.

Occasionally I get to see this two card change:

However sometimes you get to see an amazing trick, this is probably what I’d consider the greatest trick I’ve ever had someone in the audience show me!

Letting someone from the audience have their moment makes you a generous performer. Now there are times where it’s inappropriate to have them do a trick, but in 95% of times when they offer there’s really no reason for you not to let them show you the trick aside from you being worried that someone will steal your spotlight.

-Louie

Ending to a Card Set…

I’m trying to decide which is a better ending for a routine with a deck of cards:

1: Ending with the deck back in new deck order
2: Ending with all the backs in the deck of cards different (rainbow deck)

They are similar in effect in a very broad sense, visually all the cards are not how they should be. However the effects are different. When the backs are different it’s a transformation and the when they’re in order it’s a transposition.

The other question is whether to do both effects or just one? It’d be easy to get the second effect after the first one with a deck switch. That would make the color changing backs the kicker effect to the cards in order. I think I’ll just have to try it each way and figure out what I like…

-Louie

Horizontal Ambitious Card – 3rd Phase

A few weeks ago I posted about how I’ve started doing the ambitious card effect with the cards spread across the table (read it here). I’ve added a third phase:

The ending with it in the card box is a great third phase.

I have changed the second phase a little bit since I made the video above. I’m putting the selected card second from the top of the deck. What I noticed was happening most of the time was at the second phase, people would very quickly point to the top card. When they do that, I show it’s not there and remove that card. Then I proceed as in the video and it’s getting a great reaction. If the don’t immediately point to the top card, I do the reveal with a double lift and that sets me up for the third phase.

I’ve also made a change to the third phase. I’m setting the card on the table (after the switch) and having them put it into the deck.

-Louie

Still My Favorite Magic Trick…

The Linking Safety Pins has been one of my favorite tricks for years. One of things that I do are two phases where the pins are totally out of my hands and someone from the audience links or unlinks them. However my favorite part is the final unlink where I pull the pin through the pin that they are holding.

What draws me to this trick is the simplicity of it. It uses two large safety pins. Everyone knows what they are, they can be examined before and after the trick. Also they take up virtually no space in my pocket.

The downside is that the good oversized linking pins haven’t been made for a long time, so they have to be found on the used magic market. There were soo many sold, they frequently pop up and I’m always buying them whenever I find them. If you’ve never done the linking pins, the trick Shrapnel which is currently available is a good routine and it uses more standard size safety pins and worth looking into.

-Louie

Verbal Card Magic…

There’s a lot I don’t like about how a lot of card magic is presented. A lot of them are “magiciany” things that we think everyone knows. Let’s start with the fact that there’s a chunk of people that don’t know what the spade and club suits are called. We assume they know that, they don’t.

The one that gets me is that magicians expect people to know what the “mate” of a card is and they use the word “mate” which really is an industry term. It’s not a hard concept to grasp, but when we use industry terms it doesn’t really help. Recently I watched someone do a card trick, they showed the seven of spades and they asked, “what’s the mate to the seven of spades?” The person didn’t know what they were talking about. It would be easier to say, “that’s a black 7, so we’re looking for the other black 7, which would be the seven of clubs…” There’s really nothing gained by asking them what the mate is, and not telling them.

I think “mate cards” are the card magic version of calling scarves “silks”. It still works to convey the idea, but it doesn’t work really well.

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Jamy Ian Swiss

The Moisture Festival Podcast records on location at Hale’s Ales and welcomes in magician and historian Jamy Ian Swiss. Jamy discusses how he made the switch from selling animal products to performing magic around the world.

Also, we discuss his contributions to the magic world that include the creation of Monday Night Magic in New York City and some of his literary contributions. We hear some great stories from a prolific career that has spanned 40 years. A great conversation that we know you are going to love.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Avocado Magic!

One of the things that I wanted to do when I was in Las Vegas to hang out at Magic Live was to go to Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart. Omega Mart is a huge immersive art installation that’s a strange grocery store and you can actually buy the things there. If you explore there are hidden doors that take you to the crazy places!

It’s totally worth a stop in you’re in one of the cities where they have locations. While we were in the store portion of the Omega mart, I saw an avocado purse, this is a realistic avocado that is made of rubber, but is hollow and has a zipper on it.

The magician in me got thinking about what I could do with it. The obvious trick would be to take something out of it, then at the end of the routine it becomes a real avocado! The addition would be to have a zipper on the reel avocado that you peel off at the end then cut open the avocado.

For a routine you open the purse and take out an avocado pit. Do a trick with it, like a one coin routine, with the pit continually reappearing in the avocado purse. Then the finale is it’s a real avocado.

Another idea is you could cut it in half and now you have an avocado shell. You could do multiplying avocados, or use the shell to steal something else.

Hmm…what if you have a paper cup, an plastic knife and an avocado pit. You do a cup and ball routine, ending with the avocado purse. You get the surprise of the avocado appearing, but then you blow it off by revealing it’s a purse and the pit is inside it. Use that moment of surprise to steal the real avocado and switch the purse for the real one. Do another phase, and steal the avocado like a in Tommy Wonder’s cups and balls and produce it again. This time ask them to open it, and they can’t. Offer the plastic knife you’ve been using as a wand to them to cut it open!

I hope this inspires you when you see things that would be good for magic tricks to think of things you can actually do with them and not just that you could do things with them.

-Louie