trick
-
A Hot Rod in My Drunken Fist
Category: trickRead more: A Hot Rod in My Drunken FistEditor’s note: Switching to posting Friday instead of Sunday. Psychological research shows that small amounts of alcohol can lower inhibitions enough to improve certain kinds of creativity. But those papers frequently qualify that with “however, getting completely shit-faced has never helped anyone’s bottom line.” Or, you know, something equivalent in dry academic language. On the…
-
Read more: Justifying the Vanishing Deck’s Leftover Joker
We all know and love Paul Harris’s Vanishing Deck. A true modern classic. I’m a big fan of it because it’s cheap and easy to set up, and once you know how to make one, you have a very versatile and powerful gimmick for life. I’ve been fooling around with it again lately and I…
-
Read more: Tips for a Bigger Clock
Editor’s note: Damn, that last post set a new record for reader mail in the first 24 hours! Don’t be afraid to email us; even if we enabled comments, we always appreciate emails. We’ll be featuring two in a long overdue Reader Mail followup if they agree to it. Anyway, now you should enjoy this…
-
Air Remixed
Category: trickRead more: Air RemixedWith the help of my fellow Ovalites, I came up with a variation on a very old Daniel Madison trick. Before I get into that, I thought it’d be fun to share what led up to the conception of the effect. If you don’t care, skip along to “The New Method” below. The other day,…
-
The Transport Peek
Category: trickRead more: The Transport PeekThis is a way to ascertain the identity of a freely chosen playing card. What separates the Transport Peek from other methods is that the selection procedure is done entirely in the participant’s hands, and you do not need to look at the deck before, during, or after the procedure. That’s right. You never look…
-
Read more: How We Generate The Best Anagrams Around
You may have noticed a bit of a gap in “Anagram Month”…to the extent that it no longer fits in a month. We have been waiting on Jerry to post an intro to our new anagram generator. Nothing much, just a few lines. The Editor should have known better than to trust Jerry with even…
-
Read more: Making Your Anagrams Commute
UPDATE: Check out the dedicated Anagram page on our site for the best anagram generator ever, among other things. Editor’s note: After introducing frontloaded progressive anagrams, which give your typical progressive anagram a couple of the perks of a perfect progressive anagram, Franklin announces the definition of a new category of branching anagram based off…
-
21 Savant (Degaffing Petty and Barnes)
Category: trickRead more: 21 Savant (Degaffing Petty and Barnes)So, yeah, the Savant Deck. Murphy’s is now hawking a gaff deck from Craig and Lloyd whose core purpose is to make you look like a mathematical genius or a Grandmaster of Memory (as they call them in the competitive memory sports arena). And, you know what? I don’t mind it. It’s a plot that…
-
Bits and Bobs #2: The SUMS Out
Category: trickRead more: Bits and Bobs #2: The SUMS OutThis post is written by both the editor and Drew, but there is no way to indicate that on WordPress. Hello, my friends. It’s been quite a while, I know. I wish I could say that I had a good reason for my absence, but in truth I was overseas enjoying myself at a [redacted]…
Search
Categories
- commentary (20)
- essay (31)
- fluff (22)
- interview (1)
- mail (6)
- oval news (32)
- presentation (17)
- recommendation (4)
- review (8)
- story (9)
- tips (43)
- trick (27)
Recent Posts
- A Hot Rod in My Drunken Fist
- Shuffling for Virtual Audiences: Free, Fair, and Fully Fraudulent
- The Theatre Behind the Fold
- On Weight and Touch
- Chicken Soup for the Socially Inept: Narrative Ease
- Justifying the Vanishing Deck’s Leftover Joker
- I Hate “In & Of Itself”
- Rich Man’s Which Hand
- Hanging for Later
- Stop Shtooping Steve Sheraton (or, A Joyful $1)
- Hey, Doxxing Isn’t Cool, Actually
- Get Rid of the Get-Ready
- An Actual Hello From the New Girl
- The “Creativity” Discourse
- Commenting Works Again!
- The Glossary, or ‘We cannot eliminate the root causes of codes by magicians, but Oval can.’
- Support the Heck Out of Craig Petty
- Tips for a Bigger Clock
- Clockwork Apple
- Odds and Ends #10: The Perfect 10/10 Trick
- Air Remixed
- Odds and Ends #9… …#9… …#9…
- A Magifest 2026 Retrospective
- The Day The Pedophile (Un)subscribed
- The Transport Peek
- Reader Mail Number Four: Can You Believe There’s Even More?
- I Spent 25 Dollars, and All We Got Was This Lousy Comment
- The Extreme Workout Universal Presentation
- New Year’s Comments and 2026 Plans
- Franklin Assumes Dominion Over All (Things Oval) In 2026
- A Color Coded, Tailor Fitted Effect
- Let’s Move False Shuffles Out of the Grey
- The Berglas Effect That Got Away
- The Loaded Lightning Principle
- How We Generate The Best Anagrams Around
- Making Your Anagrams Commute
- Toward Better Progressive Anagrams
- Announcing Anagram August (And Presenting A Trainer)
- 21 Savant (Degaffing Petty and Barnes)
- Bits and Bobs #2: The SUMS Out
- Let’s Talk to Invisible People
- In Defense of Lecture Patter
- My Cheap Uncle: A Bank Night Presentation
- Further Notes on Halal Magic
- Phantom at the Magic Festival
- Halal Magic
- Bits and Bobs #1: On Realism and Reality
- Spaced Out Tarot
- Reassembling the Woman Sawed in Half
- Last Minute Thoughts on Blackpool
- How To Spend Your Time At A Magic Convention
- Odds and Ends #8: The Burgle Ass Effect
- Notes on the Number Forcing Stack
- New Year, New E-Mail
- The James Hydrick Presentation, or Amateur Telekinesis
- Bricking Around with Drew Perry’s “Bricked”
- Holiday Hiatus and Schedule Scuttling
- Conducting Trains and Bones
- Excessive Errata, Non-Jerry Edition
- Zen and the Art of EmotiPsychic Maintenance
- Constructing Your Own Matrix Force
- Cut Your Nails
- Decoding the Matrix Multi-Force
- The Magic Oval 101
- The Annual Company Picnic (In Lieu of Bonuses) Part 1
- Odds and Ends #7: The One About Asian Competitions
- The Poor Man’s WikiTest Approach
- A Review of Michael Kras’s Synthesis & Secrets
- Meeting of the Masterminds
- To Put Too Fine a Point on It
- The Zen of Magic: Avoiding Method Overloading
- Double Blind Control, or Move Them With Your Mouth
- Memorability: A Misguided Proxy Metric
- I Was Wrong About Memorability in Card Magic
- Mnemonic Possession: The Arc of History Bends Towards Oblivion
- Spectators as Mirrors
- No One Is Keeping Your Souvenirs
- Odds and Ends #6: Electric Boogie Licks
- History in Flames: Why Magic Needs Public Museums Now
- Reader Mail #4: The Benefits of Not Using the Same Decks
- The Stripper Fakes A Breather
- Prisoners Passing the Pat Downs
- Banachek’s Salad: Eggplant Is the New Broccoli
- Taking a Peek to the Cinemas
- In Memoriam of Katakura Yuichi, a Japanese Underground Legend
- Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 2
- Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 1
- Oops, Private Post Fixed, and An Unscheduled Update
- “Sorry, I Have To Ditch This”
- Why Do People Hate Crazy Sam’s Mind?
- Magic Mirror on the Wall, Who Has the Fairest Dribble of All?
- Curse You, Andy
- Easter Errata, and a Schedule Shift
- The Forbidden Library: A Prelude
- The Chinese Knockoff: A Presentation For Obvious Gimmicks and Other Things
- Sharing A Thank You
- Monkey Business
- Odds and Ends #5: Hate Mail
- Stop Using the Same Damn Decks
- Dr. Strangelike or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Like Dariel Fitzkee