Work It Out…

One of the things I do when I buy a magic book, is that I try to work through everything that’s reasonable to work through.  What I mean by that is that I I’m not going to build an illusion if it’s in the book, but I will build simpler project. I try work through … Continue reading “Work It Out…”

One of the things I do when I buy a magic book, is that I try to work through everything that’s reasonable to work through.  What I mean by that is that I I’m not going to build an illusion if it’s in the book, but I will build simpler project. I try work through every trick that doesn’t require a crazy gimmick I don’t have.


I think this makes me a better magic creator and performer.  It allows me to improvise much better as I’ve already done something a few times, it makes it easier to recreate when the moment occurs.  It also makes you look at props differently.

When I travel, I try to make little videos of magic tricks with things found in my hotel room, or in today’s case my state room as I’m performing on a cruise ship this week.  This morning when I was brushing my teeth, I noticed the cups in the bathroom were big enough to hold a deck of cards.  That then led me to thinking about the trick Everywhere and Nowhere by Hofzinser that uses a glass to isolate a deck of cards.  That led me to wondering if a “flap card” would work in a glass.  Turns out a flap card works great in a glass, and I like the isolation that the glass adds to the change of the card. 




Now it’s got me thinking about how I can use this in a show. In a cabaret show, or a stage show where you have video projection, it would be a great reveal for a tossed out deck.  You start with one card in glass as your prediction.   The three cards are selected and the prediction changes to three different cards.  If they saw their card they sit down.  This moves the flap card from essentially a close up trick to something bigger. 

Maybe I’ll start to write a tossed out deck routine using the flap card as the premise/ending.

An Ending to a Gag…

If you’ve ever seen my magic lecture, there are a couple of main points to it. First is to take what you are doing a step further.  The second is to put endings to things. This blog post covers both of them.  I’ve always liked the Fifty Two on One gag card.   If you don’t … Continue reading “An Ending to a Gag…”

If you’ve ever seen my magic lecture, there are a couple of main points to it. First is to take what you are doing a step further.  The second is to put endings to things. This blog post covers both of them. 

I’ve always liked the Fifty Two on One gag card.   If you don’t know what this is, it’s a card with all the cards on its face.  

How you use it, is you set it face down as your prediction.  You ask someone to say any card, let’s say they name the King of Diamonds.  You say, “your card is right here” as you turn over the card and point to the king of diamonds.  

Funny gag, but it really needs a punch to it.  How can we turn the gag into a trick?   We could glue a king of diamonds onto the back of the card, and put our prediction in an envelope and force the king of diamonds.  Now we get the gag, followed by turning the card over to show you knew their card. 

That’s a good trick.  It’s been done, but still a decent card revelation.   Let’s take it up a notch:

By using a flap card we’ve added a magic trick to the revelation.  Honestly I don’t know if this is better than just turning the card over, but it’s certainly a lot more magical!  

Also by using the flap card for the change, we’ve added an ending to the trick AND taken it a step further.  This is actually something I’ve wanted to make for a long time and just finally making one.  I’ll try it out sometime soon and see how it plays.  



Louie