thumb tip – Page 2 – MagicShow.Tips

Match Magic…

A long time ago I wrote an idea in a notebook, and it’s something I’ll never do, but even those ideas are important to write down. It needs a gimmick that I don’t have and have fallen out of fashion. A few weeks ago I was digging through the bins of broken and incomplete magic at Hocus-Pocus and found the needed gimmick to make the gimmick for my idea!

Here’s the trick (my idea is at the end):

I don’t think anyone has really used a match pull for a reproduction of the match after the vanish in a thumb tip. Usually they are used simply for the production of a lit match, then used to light flash paper/string in a stage manipulation act.

Unfortunately I think this trick is 50 years too late as magic with matches is really out of fashion with there being virtually no venues that allow smoking and with fire getting more and more difficult to insure. Had I thought of this in the 1970’s I would have a sure fire hit!

-Louie

Phil Cass Show

The other night I caught Phil Cass’s show. He’s been on my radar since the late 1990’s when Bob Sheets told me about Phil’s shell game VHS. Bob also showed me Phil’s handling of a making water go from one hand to the other.

Phil’s show was a packs small plays big sort of show and he was heavy on use of people from the audience. He does a great job of having multiple effects happening at the same time, so when they all start to wrap it, it feels much bigger and more triumphant and if he did them one at a time.

Phil is also the first person I’ve ever seen do the Electric Chair bit in person. Previously I’d only read about it or see it on video. It was fun to see it actually done and to see how it played for a real audience. It played well and something I’ve thought about incorporating, but had a feeling it’s not for me, and the nuts and bolts of how it actually plays onstage confirms that feeling.

Phil closed with the water that disappears from one hand and reappears in the other. It’s a very small trick, and plays pretty big! I’m glad I got to see the creator do it in person!

-Louie

Cut and Restored Rope

Last week I bought some rope on a whim and started playing with cut and restored rope in my show. I used to do this a long time ago when I was starting out in comedy clubs. Technically my routine was a mix of Steve Bedwell‘s and Michael Finney‘s routines. It worked well at the time and served its purpose, but I really haven’t done cut and restored rope in the show in a 15+ years.

I’m having fun with the trick, and pretty much doing it how I used to do it. However, for me to do it in the show, I need to contribute something to the trick. One thing I did today was start to come up with conditions for the routine. The first condition is that I want all of the cuts to happen with the middle of the rope sticking out of the hand and the ends dangling:

I think this is a much more natural and fairer looking way to hold the rope than the standard method where you switch the end for the middle.

Then with further writing I hit on another idea (from the past!)

Using a circle of rope instead of an extra length of rope will allow me to get two cuts without having to add any rope and both cuts can be done from the desired hand position!

The next challenge is figuring out how to get rid of the circle of rope once it’s been cut twice and is two pieces of rope. Once I solve that, I need to start doing some writing on what to say!

-Louie

PS. You’ll notice I have drawing in my notebook. I’m using drawing more and more. I highly recommend getting the book Sketch Notes, it really helped me learn to add drawings.

First Thumbtips…

The thumb tip began being used by magicians in the late 1800’s and it’s actual creator isn’t exactly know, there are two people that clam it’s use. Recently I was at a museum and they had some Egyptian finger and toe caps:

These are essentially thumb tips, but used for decoration, and not for magic. There’s a lot of stuff that exists in the real world, that magicians notice and start to use for magical purposes. I wonder if these could have been the inspiration for the thumb tip?

We’ll never know for sure, but they sure do look usable!

-Louioe

Magic 3D Printing Tutorial

One thing that’s been life changing for my show is learning to use a 3D printer. Recently I was part of a panel that was talking about 3D printing for performers and I made a quick video tutorial that took you through the entire design process of making a holder for a thumb tip and dollar bill holder.

Here it is:

Hopefully this took some of the mystery out of 3D printing. Honestly I thought it would be much harder, until I got one and learned to do it!

Even More Table Work…

I feel like I’ve put a lot of work into the table I’m using for virtual shows. I think it’s really made a difference in the flow of the show. It’s soo much more efficient use of space than how I was previously doing it.

Here’s one view of the shelf:

And here’s the shelf rotated 180 degrees:

The nice thing with having holders is that I can look down and immediately know if something isn’t there as it’s holder will be empty. There are two wild cards as far as set up goes, the rest of the props can stay set up all the time. Those are the Gypsy Yarn and the silk in apple/peach. Both of those routines I set up on the day of the show.

You’ll also notice some redundancies, like each trick that uses a pen has it’s own pen. This is because I don’t want to be searching around for a pen, and it makes sure I have a back up pen if one dries out.

Adapting Gimmicks…

What are you doing to stay creative right now? I’ve got several outlets for creativity, however on of them is new to me. During the self quarantine, my brothers and our families have a virtual dinner once a week. Last week they asked me to do a cooking show, so I’ve been working on that for fun.

One of the things that I came up with was to turn a garlic clove into chopped garlic. The simple solution is to use a thumb tip. I didn’t really want my hands covered in garlic, so I thought about wearing gloves and a then this I covered a thumbtip with the end of glove and it worked great!

Forcing yourself outside of your comfort zone is a great way to get yourself thinking creatively! If the cooking show turns out watchable, I’ll share it here.

Let it Die…

One of the hardest groups to work for is middle school aged kids. They don’t have the life experience that someone a bit older has, but are too old for the reference that elementary school aged kids would get. I work for them like I would for a group of adults, I’m just aware that … Continue reading “Let it Die…”

One of the hardest groups to work for is middle school aged kids. They don’t have the life experience that someone a bit older has, but are too old for the reference that elementary school aged kids would get. I work for them like I would for a group of adults, I’m just aware that some of my material will fall flat.

I do my best to cut material that won’t work for that age range, however there’s some stuff I need to leave in. For example I need to move something from one thumb tip to another in my show. I cover this by reaching into the bin on my table and taking out a W-9 Tax Form and there’s a joke about it. This bit has to be there, otherwise I’m just reaching the bin, shuffling around and coming back out with my hands empty. This makes the trick a lot less deceptive.

In the show that I did for the middle school group, I did the bit and had to let it die in front of the audience. I had no choice. I did present the bit with much less emphasis than I normally would. This played more like a throwaway gag for the few adults in the room. The trick otherwise played well. Being aware of what will work for an audience and what won’t puts you way ahead of the game!

As You Wish…

One of the most common joke questions people ask is if you can turn a one dollar bill into a hundred dollar bill. When people ask things like this they think they are the first person to every ask you that. There are three ways to deal with it. First you can laugh with them, next you can try to one up them with a joke, and finally you can do what they ask.

Of the three reactions to the joke, the only one I don’t recommend is the second one. Let the person have their moment, they are going to allow you many more. Now as for the first and third option, I prefer being able to comply, but that’s not always possible with the “make my wife disappear” jokes, so then you have to laugh it off with them.

For something like turn my dollar bill into a hundred dollar bill, you can comply. You can keep a hundred dollar bill in a thumb tip and do a bill switch, however if you do this you have to give them the hundred dollar bill. It’ll cost you ninety nine bucks, but you’ll have created a miracle that they’ll talk about forever.

Another way would to be to take their dollar and switch it for a bill that has the serial number altered. The serial number reads “A 00000100 S”, so it’s a hundred dollar bill. You could also have the serial number read “1 HUNDRED”. Either way you’ve turned their bill into a hundred. Changing the serial number takes a bit of work, but it’s a lot cheaper than spending $99!!!

Little Things…

With a magic trick, all of the little things matter and they matter a lot! There’s a trick that I do in the show that when I started doing it, it used three thumb thumb tips. At one point I had to remove something from one of them, and put it into a different thumb tip!

After really thinking about how the trick flowed, I managed to figure out a way to do it with only two thumb tips. One of the tips is a XXL thumb tip, and that solved the the problem of having to move something from one thumb tip to another, and it also meant one less time that I need to go to the bin on my table.

The next problem was prop management. On my table, there’s a bin. In that bin are my props, and the thumb tips used to just lay on the bottom of the bin. The problem is that they roll around, especially if my table is carried out, and not preset. I solved this by 3D printing this holder:

The foot on the holder is to provide a more steady base, so that it can’t tip over. Hopefully the thumb tips will stay upright!