mentalism – Page 3 – MagicShow.Tips

Vintage Magic Trick – Destiny Deck by Nick Trost

The Destiny Deck by Nick Trost is a fun little routine that has a few effects that happen one after the other. Here’s what the trick looks like:

@louiefoxx Vintage Magic Trick! Destiny Deck by Nick Trost! #magictrick #cardtrick #vintagemagic #cardmagic #nicktrost #louiefoxx #dice #closeupmagic #antiquemagic #antique ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

What I’d probably do to change the trick is eliminate the dice and have people hold up fingers for their number. That frees up some pocket space and the trick will still work. It’s a fun trick to do, the only problem is the reset and because of that it’s something that I really won’t carry with me. However I did have fun doing it for a couple of days!

Also it looks like Abbott’s Magic has a few left in stock: https://abbottmagic.com/shop/ols/products/nick-trost-destiny-deck

-Louie

Best Spoons and Forks for Metal Bending!

Frequently, I see people ask in social media groups “what are the best spoons/forks for metal bending?” The answers are all over the place, from ones specifically being sold at magic shops to Walmart. For me, you can’t the the Costco spoons and forks!

The cheap ones less than 31 cents per fork and less than 27 cents per spoon. They’re soft and ready to go out of the package. The normal Costco doesn’t normally stock these but the Business Costco does! A normal Costco membership will get you into the business Costco and walking around you might find other things you need for your show that the normal Costco doesn’t have.

I don’t know if Costco sells them online, but you should be able to search based on the info in the pictures above.

Happy spoon/fork bending!

-Louie

Mentalism for Kids…

Years ago, when I was a teenager I saw Lee Earle lecture. He did his gumball prediction and then warned that it’s not a kid show trick and that mentalism doesn’t work for kids. Lee said something like, “before you can read someone’s mind, they must first have a mind”. That’s a great quote, but it’s wrong.

You absolutely can do mentalism for kids, but ultimately it comes down to how you frame it. In my library / summer camp show for this year I do three mentalism tricks.

They aren’t framed as “mind reading” and that’s what makes them work, but they are still 100% mentalism. All three are essentially predictions.

One of them I used a Cootie Catcher / Fortune Teller to determine what I’m going to have for lunch or dinner that day.

Another is a card prediction followed by a series of coincidence effects. The third is a strange happening, which is really a multiple revelation of predictions. All three of them are highlights of the show and frequently mentioned when I ask kids in the autograph line what their favorite tricks were.

Don’t be afraid of mentalism for kids, you just need to make it fun and relatable to them.

-Louie

The Magic Shop and More!

Last week I was doing a show in Astoria, OR. Whenever I’m in that area I swing by and visit Seth who owns the shop.

It’s really a pitch shop that sells magic tricks to tourists, however they really well stocked with a lot of magic that’s for non-beginners.

When I was there I picked up a Rainbow Deck and a copy of the reprint of the book Mind Myth & Magick by TA Waters. This book when it first came out in the mid 1990’s sold for $60. When I was a teenager working in the magic shop, we had a couple of copies of this book and they took probably a decade to sell. This book wasn’t a hot item at the time. While it is a giant book, $60 was about double what a magic book sold for at that time. Then over the next few decades this book became harder to find with copies selling for over $300! This reprint at $99.95 is a great deal!

The only thing that I don’t like about the book is that I’m taking it on the road with me, and it’s the size of a phone book and I’ll be lugging it around the country in my backpack!

-Louie

Weather Prediction Mentalism Trick

A while ago I wrote a post about me having Trigger Finger, which is a tendon issue in my knuckle. I noticed that it was bad when it was raining, so that means I have an old man super power, my finger can predict the weather!

What can I do with that?

It got me thinking about doing a weather prediction effect. The idea of the trick will be that someone says the name of a city, and I write down what my finger thinks the weather in that city is.

I wanted the prediction to be bigger that something that could be accomplished with a nail writer. After some writing of different ideas, I hit upon using weather icons:

The flow of the effect is:

A city is chosen
The prediction is written down
The weather is the city is determined
The correct icon matching the weather is removed
The written prediction is shown to match the icon

That’s the flow.

I originally had a step earlier in the process that had me showing all the different possible icons. I decided that’s really dead time, and not needed, because we’re going to go through them later to find the correct one.

The method is really simple, I spent a lot of time writing more complex methods, but this was the most simple and direct method that I came up with.

I tried it for the first time a couple of days ago and it worked! Now to do it more and create a more complete routine.

-Louie

Flux vs Espionage

About a month or so ago I had a gig where I was booked specifically as a mentalist. I only added one new thing to what I already do and that was ProMystic’s Flux. I really liked what I could do with it, however the problem is coming up with an out if it fails. The solution that I came to was to have two of them.

Instead of buying a second Flux, I picked up Espionage by Iarvel Magic which is about $50 cheaper than flux. Now having used both of them I decided that Flux is the better of the two and worth the extra money.

First of all both do the exact same thing, they detect a magnet. What I dislike about Espionage is that it’s hard to tell if you turned it on while its in your pocket, where Flux will vibrate when you turn it on. Also the range on Espionage was a little bit shorter than with Flux. Those two things are a big deal when you’re out there performing and to me with the extra money.

-Louie

ReaList by Greg Rostami was Down!

If you weren’t aware Inject 2 by Greg Rostami was down for most of January and when it came back up their marquee trick “the Google Peek” wasn’t and still isn’t functioning. One of the workarounds that Greg was pitching was to buy another one of his apps called ReaList and use it with Inject 2.

Well guess what, ReaList was down for a while!

This really highlights why I don’t use magic apps that need the internet. There’s so much out of your control and according to Greg’s statement so much out of the app developer’s control that make apps like ReaList and Inject 2 unreliable (in my opinion). These are all things that there’s really no back up for. Sure you can have an alternate method, but it’s hard to run them at the same time. It won’t work to say, “type this into Google on your phone AND write it on the back of my business card“.

Before using an app, think about is having someone type something into Google really better than writing on the back of your business card? The effect is the same, and one of these methods leaves them with your business card.

-Louie

Magic Trick Request

At a recent gig they requested I do a trick with a donor’s check. I decided to do a Bank Nite type of trick where the check was put into an envelope and mixed with other envelopes. One envelope was selected and the rest were shredded and the selected envelope had the check.

Pretty standard in effect, but I didn’t want to deal with an electric shredder, so I used a manual shredder.

The shredder above says is has a capacity of 2 sheets, however it worked just fine with and envelope with a check sized piece of paper in it. It played fine, and the manual shredder is a great prop to have around. I think this premise is an easy way to customize a trick for an event.

-Louie

Roving Mentalist Gig

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I had an upcoming gig where I was booked as a roving mentalist. The gig went well, the thing I struggled with was how to introduce myself, as they specifically wanted “Mentalists” as their roving acts. I figured it out pretty quickly, but it took a few tries to come up with an opening line that made sense.

Here’s what the audience saw for props.

Obviously they didn’t see them laid out like this, they were in my pockets.

Here’s what the full set of props looked like:

The new thing that I added for this gig was ProMystic’s Flux. I really like it, however in trying to come up with an “out” for it when it fails, there’s not a lot to do to get yourself out of it. The easy solution is to simply have two of them, if one fails, I simply get the other one.

I have some ideas for how I’d like to use this onstage…

-Louie

Mentalist: Uri Gator!

Never pass up an interesting photo! Last week I was doing roving magic at an event and they had an reptile attraction at it. In my roving set I was doing spoon bending and did it for the people running the reptile exhibit.

I had them put the spoon in the alligator’s foot like it was the mentalist and it ended up being a fun picture!

Stuff like this is good social media content, but also something that the event loved and they used the picture!

Always be on the lookout for things like this!

-Louie