After playing with the Hypnotic Rumba Count yesterday from the book Vallarino yesterday, and coming up with simple Jokers to Kings effect, I found a natural extension of that trick. I took it a step further (backwards?) and the trick has four kings that turn to jokers, then back to kings.
Like jokers to kings from yesterday, I should say that this routine is super obvious with the move and I’d be shocked if it hasn’t been done before. The important thing about creating is that you play with every idea. For me it’s about flexing my brain’s creativity muscles, not necessarily creating something that’s never been done before.
I just stared reading the JP Vallarino book that was put out by Vanishing Inc. It’s all cards, which I’m not opposed to, as I enjoy playing with deck of cards.
The first thing in the book is the Rumba Count. This is a way to show four cards as the same card. The second thing in the book is the Hypnotic Rumba Count, which is a variation of the Rumba count and something that I don’t think I had ever learned in the past.
When I learn a new move, I try to figure out what I can do with that move before I explore what other people have done with it. It’s just a fun creative exercise. Sometimes it leads to new things, but usually I end up recreating the obvious thing with it.
The first thing I came up with is a change of 4 jokers to 4 kings
Play is important! You should play with magic as a creative exercise. Learning from a book is good, but sometimes just fiddling around with a deck of cards or whatever with no purpose will lead to some fun things.
There’s not much to it. I discovered I could drop an outjogged, double card from the deck into my hand below it. Once I kinda figured out the technique, I needed to figure out what to do with it. That ended up my a slightly flourishy card change.
Will I ever seriously use this? No. Was it fun to figure out? Yes
One of the comments I got was someone trying to explain the trick:
This tells me that going off screen isn’t an unknown technique to people anymore. However it’s now more like a “it went up your sleeve” kinda comment, where it’s an explanation that’s wrong 99% of the time.
What I love about the comment in this particular trick is how far off they person was with guessing. The two pins are super gimmicked, the only thing that’s ungimmicked is the RING!
One night, last week after my show a kid came up to me as asked if I could do a trick with his pretzel stick. I took it and did a quick little routine:
Of course this wasn’t planned, but I’ve done things like a coin flurry in the past, so the structure of what I was going to do I was familiar with. The part I was worried about was the sleeving and I was kinda amazed that I got the pretzel into my sleeve! Sleeving is something that I can do, but never really have done it in a show, so it was fun to do.
Personally I love “playing” with magic, it’s what keeps me in love with it. I think if I did the same thing the exact same way every time, I would have burnt out a long time ago!
One of the things I’m playing with in my Tik Tik videos is not bumping the edge of the screen to ditch things. Here’s an example of a ditch where my hands are in full view the whole time:
I’m essentially using my forearm to block the drop of the fork. It’s a good clean up, that honestly I think only magicians will notice or appreciate that I didn’t take the lazy route of just dipping my hand to the edge of the screen. It’s not always possible to do it this way, but I think whenever possible using slightly more creative ditches are better.
I’ve always been interested in Tommy Wonder’s Cups and Balls routine. I finally plunked down the cash and picked up this set:
Right out the gate, I think the bag is a little bit too small (not long enough) for the cups. You need to be able to tie it shut with the string with the cups in the bag. I really had to force/stretch the bag to get the cups into it and tie it shut. This isn’t a huge deal, as over time I imagine it will stretch and get easier (I hope).
I started by reading the routine in The Books of Wonder Vol 2 and working it out. The routine didn’t feel right, so I then watched some videos of Tommy performing the routine. There’s a lot of flow that’s missing from the book and it really would have benefitted from having a bullet point list of the effects that happen in the routine.
Here’s one of the videos I watched:
One thing that I noticed about the routine is that it’s not a show stopper like when you see Gazzo, Ammar or Bob Read do the cups. At the end of those, there’s a punctuation at the end, a definite end. Tommy’s routine is more of a middle piece than a closer.
In Tommy’s book he mentions that he’s known to magicians for his cups and balls. There’s a clue there, I don’t think he thought it was the best for non-magicians. It’s certainly innovative in how the loads were done, with none from the body/pockets, and resets instantly, but I’m not sure that translates to non magicians as much as it appeals to magicians.
I’m going to learn the routine, and give it a try, hopefully I can get it down in about a month for a week long run of shows I’ll be doing next month.
I’ve always thought Charlie Frye‘s trick Frye’s Chips was a great little flourishy thing. I didn’t like that I was made as a poker chip and not a coin. A little while ago I found a coin that I could do the flourish with and finally put together the gimmick:
The trick “Stirring Silver” by Jay Sankey has always fascinated me. I can do the trick, but really only do it in impromptu situations when I need to bang out something quick. I’m not sure what I don’t like about it, I think that ring spends way too much time on the handle of the spoon in the first phase. I do understand that it needs to be there for how the trick works.
Here’s a version of it that I came up with and I posted a video of it on Tik Tok a bit ago:
The method is different from Jay’s routine, but the effect is visually the same. The challenge with a key is with the shaft soo much shorter than a spoon you have less room to hide things, which is why I had to go in a different direction with the method.
I think the trick came out well, but it’s something I’ll probably never do in my actual work. -Louie
One of the things that I really like is using confetti in my show. I think it’s something that makes a lot of tricks “pop”. It’s an interesting challenge to frequently use in a show. It’s not easy to steal as a pack, unless you’re using a snowstorm packet, which is a lot more than I want to use for most tricks.
It’s got some limitations, and I don’t like that the gimmick ends up on the floor after the trick. While it sorta blends in with the confetti, if it’s in the performing area, you will need to pick it up, or kick it out of the way.
Yesterday I hit another solution. A while ago I picked up one of Jay Scott Berry’s FS2 gimmicks from a junk magic bin. I just happened to see it the other day and realized that it would be a perfect confetti holder!
Here’s the trial run:
I don’t know if Jay Scott Berry has used confetti in it or not, but it’s looking like the solution I need for the confetti production I was trying to add to the end of my ball routine!
This discovery for me is a classic case of having routines never being finished AND having your vision of what the trick will look like and constantly trying to achieve that. Sometimes you won’t get there, other times you figure it out quickly and usually for me it’s a years long journey to hit the solution. The key is sticking with it!
