Mommy and Poppy

So this is a continuation of an effect I've been working on for a long time now. I've been performing it ever since as well. I changed the ending to the original handling. The Original had two nuts being screwed on the bolt. Which was fine, but you basically had to admit to use two nuts to make it logical. The main reason for the original two nuts on the bolt was the source. I took it from Doc Eason's "All Screwed Up" routine. Doc Eason told me that the originator of the routine was the late Christopher Frings of Birmingham in Alabama. So initial credits go to him.

So let's talk about this version. The main reason I call the nut "Mommy" is simple. In German the technical nut is called "Mutter" which is the same word for "Mother". (What is meant of course we see from the context of the sentence.) So in German the thing is called "mother" so calling the bold "Poppy" kinda makes sense in Germany. And it gets a chuckle, do to the phallic nature that is implied. Sure the routine is kind of immature and still lacks a decent premise. That's why it is still work in progress.

Now the routine is not about how your brain is confused if I show you the same two nuts over and over again; it's about the same nut coming back and back again. So method wise the first one is a standard FT which is fine as it gives you hand a reason to go into the pocket. What follows is a series of either flying shuttle passes (popularised and made up by Jay Sankey) and the Sylvester Pitch by Dan Sylvester the Jester also known as the "Intertia Pass".

What follows after the appearance of the bolt is simple a shuttle pass and David Williamson's Striking Vanish in yet another variation.

The setup is really, really simple. Just reconstruct the routine and you know how simple it is and that it really won't hinder your other magic.

Key Ring Linking

Years ago Jay Sankey released Three Ring Circus. Linking Rings with key rings. And this is a wonderfully golden idea within his pile of not so good ideas he has released over the years. So we got normal objects and you link them. Unfortunately the DVD that came with the props didn't really have a well structured routine. And mine is far from it, but I at least tried to come up with a motivated reason to get into the pocket getting the dupes. So I came up with this one handed unlink which I like and use. The angles are pretty good and it freed the other hand to do the dirty business.

It's not a huge mind blowing routine that will make you the star of the night, but it is one of those tricks that is easy to carry around in the wallet. The Bonus is something that I came up with. So you only need the key key ring and you can link two sets of keys. Trust me when I tell you that this plays big. You do some magic to their property. And just like the cellphone everyone has keys. The extra ring that appears won't even be noticed, as each spectator thinks the extra ring is from the other set of keys that belongs to the other spectator.

Getting in and out of the bonus trick is easy enough and the gimmick is so hilariously ordinary you cannot not like it.

Cast a Shadow

"Cast a Shadow" is the starting point for this routine. The routine is by Eric DeCamps and has been published on page 1648 in the Apocalypse Vol.12, No.6. The click pass is by Sol Stone. I changed the last vanish for the Himber Vanish by Richard Himber because it put me in a position where it is much easier to reload the coin into the clean hand for the first production. The production from the finger palm is by Apollo Robins and he teaches it in the Cultural Exchange DVD. A good looking production I think. The angles on this routine are quite good. It can be done surrounded, but then not everybody would get to see the effects. After the first production two different Shuttle Passes happen. The first one is the classic David Roth version but the second one the "Flying Shuttle Pass" created by Jay Sankey, which if possible should be the preferred method, as it really looks like the coin fly from the "other" hand. The routine itself makes heavy use of the Ramsay subtlety but I think the pace of the routine is fast enough to support the choice.

This is the sort of routine that best works with smaller coins. For the sake of the visibility in the video I chose bigger coins to perform with. But best would be quarter sized coins. That makes the handling of certain shifts of the stack of coins to a needed position much easier. And the chance of talking is minimized a lot. It's impromptu and borrowing the coins will make the coins above suspicion giving the performer the credit.

Three Coin Routine

So there is a whole bunch of stuff in there. Spliced together from various sources, which have already been freakish "frankensteinian" creatures on there own. We got the production of three coins. The first one from the elbow, the second one from behind the ear. Whenever I do that routine with children in the room I produce the coin from their ear. Depending on the angle I either use the production from back palm or the production from Downs palm. Both can be found in Modern Coin Magic. (page 3 and 5) The first vanish of the third coin is nothing but a clever bluff that works as the spectators make wrong assumptions about the amount of coins. (Bluff Vanish page 59) The whole reason for the vanish is the next phase, which is Three Fly.

Troy Hooser has reworked the classic Three Fly into a routine he calls Redirection Coins Across. You find that routine in Destroyers (page 37 et seq.) written by Joshua Jay. Basically it changes the "travel" of the coins from the side to side aspect to a front and back aspect. So the whole bit becomes much more three dimensional. Clever thinking by Troy Hooser. In the video it doesn't show up that well, therefore the hands seem awfully close to each other in the sequence. The last coin uses a subtlety by German magician/mentalist Marc Gettmann who is an awesome coin worker. The standard vanish of the last coin starts from French Drop position and ends up in Ramsay Subtlety position. Marc changed it, so don't have to turn your wrist. Leading into the third part is a simple repeated coins phase. That serves the purpose of getting rid of "extras" by adding more effects and length to the routine.

The starting point for this part was ExTROYdinary also by Troy Hooser. (page 29) But his version uses a shell. I got rid of that, not because it wasn't freaking brilliant, but because I'm so lazy to take care of my props, so I rather modify the routine, so I can be rough with my props or even lose them. It also makes use of the "Flying Shuttle Pass" which is a really, really good addition by Jay Sankey on the classic Shuttle Pass.

There are a few reasons I didn't do Three Fly as the last phase. First: It's not that strong, compared to three vanish and reproductions in a row. What, what, what I hear you say. Try it, and you know what I mean. Second: The thought of perhaps more than three coins in play will come up. So I wanted to end this by just using three coins allowing for maximum exposure of the empty hands. This would not be the case if I would do Three Fly to close the routine. Third: I end clean. Fourth: Reset.

Also the routine is modular, which almost always is a good thing. I can close it very quickly and if I want to I can even make it longer by adding a one coin routine, an exposé routine (you'll see what that is, when it comes up in my schedule) or a spell bound routine. (See last week.)

Coin And String

This is a routine I strung together using the best methods I could find for this type of magic. Let's mention the basics first: There are two ways of doing this. One is using just one object, like most ring and string routines and the second way of doing this is using a dupe. The drawback to the first one is, that you have to go through rather goofy phases of linking and unlinking, while the later version has the drawback of being to obvious. The second problem can be solved by attacking the issue with "cleanliness". And what better way to hide the second coin, by not using a second coin, but a familiar and common coin gimmick.

So going from there I went through my pile of books and read. The basic routines that I took "phases" from are by Sol Stone, Troy Hooser and Jay Sankey.

If you check out Vol.1 No.3 of the Apocalypse at page 30 you'll find the routine called "Stung Coin" by Sol Stone. Which is a nice prototype but gets needlessly lost in methods in my humble opinion. But there is a nice way to use the Downs Palm to hide the second coin. This routine was my starting point to get to the routine you see in the video. The next influence and I'd say the major influence is the "Charming Chinese Challenge" by Troy Hooser. You can find the routine in the wonderful book Destroyers by Joshua Jay. It starts at page 21. My little video doesn't do it justice, but the "Spell Bound Unlink" looks a lot better if you use a felt ribbon instead of the big string I used in the video. The ribbon seems to fall right through the coin. Another phase I took from Hooser's routine is the "Mid-Air Link" which is hard to do on camera but is so great in real life. It seems like there is no way trickery could take place. Especially if you do it with a certain level of nonchalance. And finally Jay Sankey has a wonderful routine called Leaving Home. It is published on his "The Very Best of Jay Sankey" DVD (Volume 3) He uses the Strinking Vanish by David Williamson ("Williamson Wonder" by Richard Kaufman) in a nice offbeat way to create the illusion of a link. That is the last phase I did in the video. It is the most challenging move in my routine, but worth the effort of learning it. The very first link is mine, I have not found that in any books I own, but I like it.