Some Manipulation

Here we go with some basic manipulation. A similar routine is my opener for one of my shows. The angles are not bad but best would be a palor setting. As some of you know by now, I have got my own little theater now. A close up theater. And some of the routines I do there will eventually end up here. For those I have decided not to go into detail so much, on where to find all the sources. Bread and butter after all. I hope you forgive me for that decision.

So why is the above routine a good opener? Well it has some good speed, pacing, effects and sets the tone for the rest. In my case "Sleight of Hand"-guy. My theory behind this: If I show a whole lot within a few seconds, it buys me some time to slow down later on. People expect a magician. They expect magic. I better deliver on that expectation. People paid for that. If I would start with a trick that takes ages to get to the magic, I lost my "magic cred" even if the result of the wait is a brilliant magic trick. I have to built up some credit before such longer routine. That is why a series of manipulations seems like a good, solid opener.

Also, it is one of the more hard things to do. If I manage that routine I will have no trouble during the rest of the act.

The Marble in the Box

You do recognize the box, do you? Usually it is used to load something into the box. But you can see it can be used to steal something out of the box as well. The preparation is done right in front of the audience. The angles are a litte issue. Basically the eyeline of the audience needs to be below the upper edge of the box. But otherwise you are fine. The transposition idea is just there to illustrated what can be done, besides just stealing.

The Ball, the Glass and the Cloth

The Tarbell Course in Magic. What a vast resource it really is. In lesson 28 (page 389 if you have the hardbound copy) there is a little overlooked routine. Simply called "the egg, the glass and the handkerchief". I did very little changes to the handling. But if you had to write it up like a dealers ad it would read something like this. Impromptu! No extras! Easy! Yes, the signed cloth really ends up in the glass! No switching! A real worker! Audience tested!

This is simply a rare gem that nobody does. I mean nobody! If you feel like you are that "nobody" explain yourself in the comments. The originator of this trick seems to have been lost in the ages. In fact Tarbell writes: "This is another effect which has been handed down throughout the magical fraternity for many years."

I really like idea of using a ping pong ball. They are cheap, you can have them signed and you can give it away in the end. In fact if you substitute the cloth for a napkin it really goes into the realm of true impromptu magic.

Check this one out. It needs to be done more often. And if you really fear the one bold moment in the routine, you can use a familiar gimmick to make everything good.

Balls and Beer

This came out of a session while brainstorming. The production of a liquid almost always is met with a sure fire awe of the audience. And one of the good old ways to close a open glass with a liquid used to be the rubber ball. So I've been playing around with both props for quite a while. I also have a silk and ball routine... never imagined putting both together.

In most bottle productions the bottle is loaded under a silk moments before the production. The beer can be underneath the for much longer, giving you more of the good old time misdirection. Cellini used to have a pretty sweet but ballsy wine glass vanish with the use of a cloth. It's called the T-Bar Glass Vanish and it's from "The Royal Touch" book. Reversing the process makes it a great production.

In terms of angles it is actually pretty good, if you have the beer inside a bag or something that you can drape the cloth over for a brief time. Once it is ready for production the whole routine is angle proof. Sponge balls are actually even better as you can hide them much better. If this was done for kids.... a production of cookies and milk would spring to mind immediately.

So if you need a practical production of a liquid.... there you go.

PS: if you go for a bottle instead of a glass, you can even hand everything out for examination at the end.

The Thing

Bill Abbott released "The Thing" a few year ago. Technically a variation on the zombie ball. The levitation of "nothing" was something I liked, as it motivated the cloth. Without it there would be no effect. So I bought it. Then after experimenting with it became apparent to me that there needed to be "something" that that is levitated. The "nothing" was just not enough.

So I wondered what object could be "something" and "nothing" at the same time. So the soap bubble was the logical outcome of this. Soap bubbles float, which is a nice thematic link to the levitation.

So things fell together. And the presentation I used to do was way too kitschy for my character, so I changed it more and more and it became this script of our brain refusing magic. This version you hear in the video is much abbreviated and the original German version is a lot more fine tuned.

Also adding the glass ball enabled me to draw attention away from the cloth near the end. In fact I have a spectator take out the ball from the hat. The popping of the "Soap bubble" is a rather recent addition... I don't know why I didn't think of this before as it logically ends everything nicely.

let's talk about the handling of the thing. Most moves are taken straight from the DVD that Bill Abbott supplies with the routine. But two finesses are my own. First the twirl of the cloth. It may seem like a minor point, but it adds to the deception a little. Holding a cloth from the diagonal corners and twirling it like a rope sells the idea that the cloth is normal. The gimmick is unseen and even to those magicians knowing the secret this struck them as nice. The other thing is the starting position of the levitation. I don't hold on to two corners that are next to each other. I hold on to diagonal corners. And then I make the ball jump. Once. Somehow this really resonates with regular audiences. When the ball jumps, they jump. I like that. It's just a small touch, but I proud of it.

The music used in this video is by Darkmaster603 and is used by the Licensing Terms of Newgrounds.com. That means Attribution: "You must give credit to the artist." Check! And Noncommercial: "You may not use this work for commercial purposes unless you make specific arrangements with the artist." Check!

Ball, Wand and Coin

It's a weird routine I guess. But it is rather satisfying to do. Not that this matters to any audience, but the routine is short enough to be squeezed into any manipulation act. It's rather practical, the angles are not that bad and it has the potential to be enhanced drastically. The piece of silk in the end could be vanished transforming back into the coin. That coin could change into a jumbo coin, the wand could grow and all of that shit. In terms of move there is nothing new to add. The Flip Stick vanish by Flip Hallema, a Bobo Switch and Spell Bound moves. But the main thing is this new background. You like it? Was expensive as golden shit. Now I got it.

Ball And Vase

Talk about an overexposed trick. Almost ever magic set has this trick. So using the usual method will not work on an average audience. That's how this routine came into being. Does it play well... well... no! Magicians love it though.

Transformer

This is by Richard Robinson. A quick and easy routine. It uses the familiar gimmicks and is fairly good on the angles, if you hold it by the seam (if you know hat I mean). Richard Robinson released this for free years ago on the allmagicguide website. This was my start in magic.

The 9 Rules of Magic

I removed this routine from my repertoire. It was way too layered and nobody understood it as it required way too much inside baseball. That being said, I loved it. Magicians might get a kick out of it. But that's about it. In terms of handling. No gimmicks and all just sleight of hand.

The Ugly Prop

When thinking about how to present magic you inevitably run into the "when I walked into the magic store" story. Magic stores are a great cheese fest. So much ugly stuff. So much glitter. So this is my take on it. I was interested in the "tube changes". So I worked my ass off to come up with a logical sequence of the balls changing when passed through the tube. If I succeeded is more than debatable. But I always liked the routine, as it embodies my disdain for prop magic. So not producing the feather flower would have been futile. The routine has evolved of course. And the way it is now is not comparable. No I use a wand, a coin and a ball. No more tube or table. It's constant changes of the three objects into one another. In the end the coin changes into a silk. You see, completely different. But the above routine was the starting point.

Ball and Cookie

This is a the combination of a great Harry Riser routine leading into the classic "Repeated Balls from the Mouth" production aka the human chicken (as this used to be done with eggs) What Harry Riser has done is to make the Multiplying Balls angle proof. That way it can be done close up. You can find the fine points of his handling the "The Feints and Temps of Harry Riser", published by Ed Brown. It's a fine routine and strong magic. So I needed a break in order to continue with the human chicken bit. The cookie proved to be perfect. Well, almost perfect. When eating the cookie it left something in you mouth and that something could stick to the ball, creating a horrible situation. So I changed it. Now I use a big marsh mellow. Quicker to eat, doesn't break in your pocket, no mess. Here is a live version.

Impro Chop Cup

There is nothing special about the loading sequences or about the sleights in use. But more interesting stuff happens to the ball in this version. It was rather improvised, as I was sitting there and thinking about possible stuff happening to the ball. Usually the ball is placed into the pocket and reappears under the cup. Lame! So how about the ball going through the cup, from the top, the side and the bottom. That adds variety.

The little bit, where the ball is actually dropped inside the cup and comes out fall through the cup actually is by Tommy Cooper who used that in his Chop Cup routine. It become much easier using the standard Chop Cup with the gimmick and all, but you can see that without a gaffed cup/ball it also works.

Also the little bit of the ball going up the nose and later into the mouth really changes things a bit. Making the ball go up the nose, is a sure fire hit if children are there. They love it. (no matter what age).

Then we got the usual final load. Making an "assistant" appear under the cup is not only funny, the plush mouse actually makes women go all "Awwwwwww!" Creating a nice additional emotional reaction to the impossibility.

I got a new camera. HD. Expect better videos!

Three Balls in the Hat

So we gotta thank Slydini for the basic effect idea. He used to do it with paper balls that went into a box. And what a long sequence this was. Lot's of hand washing and all of that. So I changed it. I have this hat anyway, so I substituted the box for the hat. Slydinis version is one behind, mine one ahead.

A while ago I saw the great Dani DaOrtiz doing a similar routine using sponge balls. And it was a great routine if you work close up. A nice little convincer was the use of a different colored ball. It really makes it harder to follow the one ahead nature of the routine. So my mind started spinning of using three different colored balls. It doesn't make the routine any harder or less practical, yet it makes it harder to imagine the basic concept, ergo it make the routine more deceptive.

So what have we got? A simple vanish and a natural hold out. So the lapping or the need to sit was eliminated. Of course is makes the routine much less angle proof. So this is a routine for the stage. Hell yeah I just realized that the Slydini version actually is a close up routine. This version can be done, and should be done on stage. On the street I would substitute the hold out that is being used here for the pouch and I would use smaller balls... no wait I would use nuts and bolts. They're funnier.

Here is what I think makes the routine work. It is a nice combination of surprise and suspense. The audiences see the balls vanishing, but not arriving in the hat. This is merely implied. So there is this growing suspense if the balls really are in the hat. I like that.

Oh the music.... It's free to use, if I mention the creator. So credits go to "Panacea4" and you can find his Newgrounds profile right here.

Ball and Silk

I did that routine for years, in my humble days of busking. I can tell you at least one thing. It plays well. The fact that it is not a card trick may play a big part in this. The bit using the Gozinta Box, the Para Box, the Inner Outer Box or the Lubor Fiedler Box is not part of the original routine. I included this to offer yet another magic way to introduce the ball. The gag that nicely foreshadows the effect of the inner box becoming the outer box is by Tom Mullica.

The actual routine consists of three parts. The first one is the penetration of the ball through the silk, which ends with the vanish of the ball. There a tons of methods out there. The most practical I found was in Jochen Zmeck's Handbuch der Magie, the German magic bible. At page 173 it starts. Following that is a pretty classic repeated appearance of the ball. The basic handling for that you'll find in Frank Garcias sponge ball book. That phase finishes with the appearance of the mandarin. Fruit always plays well. In the past I used one of the lemons I would use anyway for the Cups and Ball. So I got less props and you have a nice little element that strings the show together.

The third phase is a reprise of the first one. But this time the premise is extended to the part where the penetration can be seen half way. This is what got people. And it is necessary to have a spectator take out the ball. The thought of MAGNET is just there. You must not ignore that and need to prove that magnets are not the modus operandi. The method here... well Tarbell what do you expect?