Of the hundreds of packets tricks I’ve learned and tried, last week I took out an old one that I really haven’t done since I was a teenager, and was amazed at how much people loved it! That packet trick is COLOR MONTE!
While it’s not my style to do, I also can’t deny how great it is! It’s really the sponge balls of packet tricks!
There’s so much action in it; you get a lot of magic effects in a short amount of time. Plus it has a story that’s easy to follow and makes sense. Not some wacky story about bigfoot or splitting breakfast with a football team.
This post is just a shout out to an amazing routine!
Right now I’m on an airplane writing this post, and watching a movie about a plane disaster probably isn’t the best choice for a movie. The movie is about Pan Am 103, and at one point an FBI agent goes into a door and “center” was spelled “centre” which took me out of the story when I saw it. Clearly that sign was made by someone who is a UK based English speaker, and not one from the USA.
Why does that matter? It’s a prop that’s pretending to be something and while I have to suspend disbelief for the movie, it’s a moment that took me out of that suspension of disbelief.
When I watch magic shows, one thing that takes me out of the moment with the performer is when they take out a prop and say it’s something, let’s say a bucket. However, that bucket looks nothing like a bucket I’ve ever seen in my life. Sure, it has the elements of a bucket, but it’s not a bucket. It takes me out of the world the magician has created.
This is why I prefer tricks that use props where the method is created around a real-life item, instead of a trick where the item is created around the gimmick. A good example is my Take Out Box, the gimmick is built into a real take out box.
Take a look at your props, what pretend to be a real life item, but isn’t? Can you rebuild it so that it actually uses what it pretends to be?
One of the things that I hate when performing at fairs is the vendors that sell bubble guns. People will give them to a toddler, and the kid will just sit there and shoot bubbles the whole show. This is a HUGE distraction.
Not only is it a distraction, but the bubbles can also get on my glasses and smudge them (which is super annoying) or my props.
How Do I Politely Get Them To Stop?
Here’s what I started doing when there’s a kid with a bubble gun at my show: I say (on mic), “No bubbles during the show, I’m allergic to the detergent in them”
That’s it, super direct and simple. Sure, it’s a lie; however, it tells them that not everyone wants bubbles blown into their face. It also gives a reason they might not have thought of for why they’re being inconsiderate by letting their kid spray bubbles everywhere.
Give them a reason for the request and they’ll (usually) follow it.
It’s no secret that while I have used phone based app magic, I’m not a huge fan of them. They are frequently abandoned by the creator once sales slow down or are affected by a lack of internet connectivity. Recently, I posted about a trick with my phone that doesn’t go the traditional magic app route. Here’s what the first version of the trick looked like:
The first version needed some double lifts, which is fine, but I learned they are totally unnecessary. There’s no reason to have them, and they could be eliminated with a slight adjustment. Taking them out, really streamlined the trick, and the adjustment allows me to do it with a borrowed deck!
This is a good example of looking at a trick and trying to improve it past the “it works” phase to make it work better!
Not too long ago, a magician I was hanging out with said he didn’t think that younger people understood or knew what the shell game is. I disagree; I think young people know what the three shell game is, and my reasoning is that every ballpark in the USA plays a version of it on the jumbotron. Here’s the shell game at a Cincinnati Reds game:
It’s a simple concept of a game, and younger people definitely know what it is, or it wouldn’t be played in stadiums! This is one of the things that I like about it, it IS RELATABLE because people have played it before!
Modern magic, especially close up magic has moved to very visual effects. Things that look like AI or if you’re old school, then trick photography. Magicians rarely look to the past, there are some amazing tricks that look like a modern AI fake magic trick.
One example is the Joseph Silk Gun. Another is the Jumbo Card Restoration Frame which was invented by Theo Bamberg in 1909. I’m sharing a greenroom with a magician who has one of these and it looks amazing!
Personally, I don’t like using my cellphone for magic tricks. It’s too easy for an audience to say something is an app or AI. The other reason is that so many magic specific apps get abandoned by their creators, and they just stop working.
Here’s a little magic trick that I came up with that uses a cell phone:
The video above was the test of the trick, I’ve tightened it up and removed all the double lifts from it.
Honestly Evaluating The Magic Trick
What I like about this is that it doesn’t use any magic apps, so I’m not relying on some magician in their basement in Alabama to keep it updated!
What I don’t like about it, is that the effect is fairly slow. Removing the double lifts speeds it up a lot and takes out a lot of unnecessary process.
One last thing, I found the trick is stronger when it’s repeated a second time!
When creating magic tricks, I think it’s important to evaluate what’s going one. Figure out what you like and don’t like and what makes it hit harder for the audience. Try things, take risks. .
In the summer, I frequently work with Jeremey the Juggler, who is a juggler, but also an origami master (I’m not sure if that’s an official title). One day he mentioned that he made an origami box that just happened to kinda do a magic trick.
There’s really not much to do the trick. A false transfer and use your arm to cover you loading the object on top of the box. Then use the box to do the second vanish.
It’s a quick, fun little sequence that appeals to magicians and origami people.
This summer, I’ve really been trying to speak Spanish more when performing close up magic for groups where that is their native language. I perform in California a lot, so I encounter groups that don’t really speak English frequently. I’ve been working on my Spanish for the last few years using Duolingo, and I can safely say that I’m not conversational; however, I can communicate!
When I approach a group, I can tell them why I’m talking to them, what I do, and I can tell them what I need them to do during the trick. In close up magic, I don’t really have any jokes in Spanish, I do have a couple in my stage show.
With things like Duolingo, or whatever, you really don’t have an excuse not to know a bit of a second language. Even when you don’t speak it well, it shows that you’re trying and I think audiences really appreciate that!
Sometimes an idea becomes a reality when you just notice something. Recently, I was on a flight having a Bloody Mary, and the cap was sitting on the tray table.
The idea that popped into my head was to use it for the three shell game. In the shell game, there are a lot of phases where you put something on top of the shell to create the illusion that you can’t get at the pea. There’s very few where you put things under the shell to make it more difficult.
Here’s one with a finger ring that I came up with a long time ago:
The idea with the tiny bottle cap is to cover the pea with that, then put a shell on top of it.
The first thing I had to do to make it work was file off the little metal nubs at the bottom of the bottle cap. Once it was smooth, it worked perfectly!
This is an easy to carry thing, and could be used in conjunction with a shot glass to have three things over the pea!
