Holy Crap I've done it twice!

I just realized that yesterdays Rope Routine #2 I've already covered in May. Gee! My brain!

Updates?

The blog will be put on a hiatus for a short while. The reason: I am in the process of opening up my own little magic theater. It will be a close up theater and that has taken most of my time lately. It will open in Lübeck in the beginning of April. Here is the website, so you see that I haven't been a lazy bastard. I also got a Facebook page running. It's all in German, so don't freak out!

On the plus side: Because it is a close up theater, I've been working on more close up material than ever. This doesn't matter to you now, but it will.

There's a Poll to the Right

I'm trying to figure out what kind of magic you want to see me covering most.

Do you want Close Up Stuff with no cards, do you want cards, more on stand up magic or imprompu stuff you can do with little effort? Or are you more interested in variations on existing plots or premises? Either poll or comments.

Let's go retro!

My camera is still broken. So I decided to give you a bunch of retro videos, that I made for the Magic Video Depot many years ago. The beard was much shorter back then.

Lack of updates!

You may have notices the lack of updates... I got a good reason: my camera is broken... I will work on that. Meanwhile. A crowd...

Sorry about this week!

There will be no video this week. I got too much stuff going on. Couldn't learn a new thing and didn't feel like rehashing old stuff either.

Update on my Hand

I think part of my genetic information must be based in some super hero universe. My flesh has healed so quickly. The cut with the knife actually went down to the bone of the first joint of the left middle finger. As you can see in the video in the post below I can do self working card magic. My middle finger is still a bit stiff and bending it hurts but I'm fine. In a few days from now I will be back to the usual.

The Daily Card Trick needs your help!

Email address: Zaubererroland@gmail.com

Here are the details: Make a video of you doing card magic. It needs to be published card magic. It can even be your own creations. Upload the video to a free fileserver like megaupload or yousendit. Then send me the link to the video and I will download it. Be sure to add a source and your personal comment to the email. Also make it very clear if you want your name attached to that.

I will upload the video to my YouTube account and set it to "unlisted".

I actually got one more video... coming up tomorrow, but then, that's it for a while.

Looking Back at Focus

The last few month I have been faced with packet tricks. I didn't do all the tricks in the book. Here are the once I left out. All tricks involving gimmicked cards. Be it double backers or double facers. Not that I do not approve of the use of gimmicked cards, but one of the goals of this blog is to showcase the vast possibilities and creativity without resorting to gimmicks.

I also left out four other tricks. One is called "Vicinity", which I didn't include because I cannot do it properly. It involves doing a "milk shuffle" that I have a really hard time doing. I felt that I couldn't do the effect justice, so I left it out. The second effect I left out is Phil's oil and water routine called "More Oil, More Water". The reason for that: I hate Oil and Water. Trust me, I tried to warm myself up for this kind of effect. To me any oil and water seems like a weak triumph. I am aware that triumph is a different effect, but the main idea (cards righting themselves) remains the same.

The other two effects I left out are "Chromated" and "Chromatose" which just combined "Chromavator" and "Chromatwist" It would have been redundant as hell to include those.

To sum up my short review: Focus is a great book that one needs to study if you are interested in packet tricks. It will probably introduce you to new plots as well. And guess what, once you have gone through the book, you will know so much about false counting cards, that you will not need to learn one more false count in your life. I promise.

Max, thank you very much!

Contest #1

Again:

a card is picked
the card is torn in to four pieces
the four pieces are displayed
three of the pieces go in the spectator's hand
the remaining piece "grows" another quarter
the spectator only holds two pieces
the two pieces are displayed
the two pieces are put back into the spectator's hand
another quarter "grows" on the card held by the magician
the spectator only has one piece left
the spectator is instructed to hold on to the last piece
the magician tries to "grow" the fouth quarter but fails
the magician then vanishes the three quarter card
the spectator now holds the fully restored card

Solutions go to: zaubererroland@gmail.com
Add "basic method" and the name you want to go by!
Be sure to say if you are ok, with me mentioning your name.

The contest is open for submission until I decide to close it. The is the very first contest I do in my life, so have mery with me, if things are not as smooth.

Have Fun

Happy New Year, no video today, as I intend to "paaaarteeee"