Idiosyncratic legerdemain blog. Posts weekly-ish.

  • History in Flames: Why Magic Needs Public Museums Now

    Gaha McViolate
    Category:

    The magic community recently suffered a significant blow with the devastating fire at Vanishing Inc.’s warehouse. As many of you know, Vanishing Inc. is not just a magic shop; it’s a cornerstone of our community, providing magicians worldwide with the tools and resources they need to create wonder and astonishment. The fire resulted in the total loss of everything stored in the warehouse, including some irreplaceable artifacts from the history of magic. This tragedy is a stark reminder of the vulnerability of our shared heritage.

    First and foremost, our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies go out to Vanishing Inc. and everyone affected by this disaster. We hope for a swift recovery and are confident that Vanishing Inc. will rise from the ashes, stronger and more resilient. The magic community is nothing if not supportive, and we stand ready to assist in any way we can during this difficult time.

    It's clear that there is a real need for one or more museums of magic, owned and operated by charitable trusts rather than private entities.
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  • Reader Mail #4: The Benefits of Not Using the Same Decks

    Jerry
    Category:

    We ran out of crows, so if you were hoping for a picture of four crows you’ll have to resort to Google Images. Sorry.

    Someone chimed in to let us know about credits for a subtlety described in the post The Stripper Fakes A Breather.

    I’m a fan of planned spontaneity, and I like this post! It’s something I didn’t know about so I’ll be sure to try it in my hands. Strategically placing the deck against the box for them to cut a specific way is a subtlety from Barrie Richardson’s Theater of the Mind. Worth mentioning! -DJ

    It’s absolutely worth mentioning, and I can’t thank you enough for bringing it to my attention! It’s very possible that my usage originated from that book. I’ve certainly never read it, but I can’t remember if I learned that subtlety from someone else or if it was an independent creation, so it’s definitely plausible that I picked it up from someone who picked it up from Theater of the Mind.

    If you ever read something here that seems like it could use some crediting, please don’t hesitate to let us know. It’s never intentional that we write about something that someone else has previously written up, but it’s unavoidable that it will happen. The post has been updated accordingly.

    Definitely try it out in your hands plenty and get a feel for how reliable it might be if you’re going to try this with a participant. This is pretty experimental, it’s just something I’ve been doing.

    Next, we have an email about Stop Using the Same Damn Decks.

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  • The Stripper Fakes A Breather

    Jerry
    Category:

    “Pick a card, any card.”

    She does just that. I move the deck from one hand to the other, rotating it 180 degrees as I do so.

    “Put it back, and give these a shuffle.”

    She does, and gives the deck an overhand shuffle like she always does.

    “Set the cards down now, and give them a cut. Alright, so let me give them a shuffle, and… shit. Did I leave an ad card in?”

    “Yeah, I saw it,” she says. “I thought it was on purpose.”

    “Ok, hang on. Or actually, should I take it out with magic? How impressive would it be if I could find the ad card right away?”

    “I mean… it has ads on both sides…”

    “You’re right. Here,” I say, and set the deck down on the countertop. “Cut off about half the deck.”

    She picks up half the deck.

    “Turn it over?”

    She does, and screams in delight. There’s the ad card, staring her right in the face.

    “Thanks for getting rid of that for me,” I say, and pluck the ad card away before continuing with my effect.

    (more…)

  • Prisoners Passing the Pat Downs

    Drew
    Category: ,

    The vanishing red silk is a classic effect in magic. We’ve all been giddy after getting away with using that ugly plastic thumb for the first time. (Try reading that sentence out loud and out of context.)

    This presentation gets rid of the silk and justifies the vanish of the item, the item itself, and its reappearance. If you have the thumb tip on you, you can get into this practically anywhere and anytime without also carrying around a silk. The times that I’ve performed this presentation, I’ve received pretty great reactions. I also found it easy to get into.

    Let’s imagine that while fiddling with a small Post-it note (keep in mind, this could be a tissue, piece of paper, or anything you could write a note on) you start to tell your friend some bullshit.

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  • Banachek’s Salad: Eggplant Is the New Broccoli

    Drew
    Category: ,

    I’ve always enjoyed the psychological force of a carrot over the other forces Banachek has written about. The carrot force in its basic form is described in his Psychological Subtleties 1. What I’ve always liked about it in particular is that a carrot does not appear to be the classic archetype of a vegetable. 

    What I mean by this is that even in hindsight a carrot doesn’t seem to be the obvious choice for a vegetable. For instance, a rose for “name a long-stemmed flower” is obvious. As for vegetables, they are heavily associated with the color green, and most people would probably imagine lettuce or spinach being the primary choices. Yet when asked to think of a vegetable, carrot pops up over and over again. It’s extremely psychologically potent. 

    The reason why the carrot force is so potent? I’m not too sure. I tried to do some digging on the subject.

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  • Taking a Peek to the Cinemas

    Drew
    Category: , ,

    I want to tell you a handy ruse that will get you a key card under intense heat. It’s motivated, and seems to serve the purpose of making the demonstration even more fair. I came up with it on the spot when I was under pressure. Before we get into the ruse itself, here’s the background.

    Within the last couple years, I was brought on a trip to Las Vegas by a longtime family friend. I’d known this family friend throughout my entire childhood, he was like a father to me. Our families would have weekly dinners where we would play cards. Those dinners took place before I started magic. When I became a magician, I took advantage of those card nights and tried to show him something every single week. It got to the point where he would look forward more to the card trick than the actual dinner. He wasn’t just a nice spectator, though. He would call you out the moment he caught something. If he said he was fooled, he was truly fooled.

    Let’s call this family friend Selleck. Selleck loved card tricks. He would appreciate all the traditionally “boring” card trick plots that we would avoid. For example, during an ACAAN performance, he would stare intently as each card was dealt. For math tricks that would typically make you forget why you even exist he would play along wholeheartedly. He’s the type of guy that would lose sleep over a card trick you’d show him. He’d shrug off his wife attempting to continue the evening with words like “but the fucker didn’t touch the cards…”

    He promised he’d take me to Vegas to see Penn and Teller on my 19th birthday. When that birthday finally rolled around, he never mentioned anything, and I didn’t bring it up. Fast forward to my 25th birthday. He came up to me and says “Hey, we’re making that Vegas thing happen.” It was a fantastic surprise. This story took place at the airport, waiting for the first flight out from [DREW’S LOCATION HERE].

    As usual, he requested to see a trick. He took my deck, gave it a quick overhand, and then I turned away. While I was turned away, I instructed him to take a card out of the middle of the deck and keep it to his chest. I told him to have a tiny peek of the card that was on his chest and slap it onto the deck. Once he did so, I told him to cut the cards and shuffle the deck.

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  • In Memoriam of Katakura Yuichi, a Japanese Underground Legend

    Drew
    Category:

    The purpose of this post is to shed some light on a young underground star who passed away decades ago. Katakura Yuichi was a Japanese magician who was revered among his colleagues and fellow magicians. He was a sleight of hand beast, and possessed a unique flow. I’ll be linking you to some information about him, and showing you some of his incredible magic.

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  • Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 2

    Drew
    Category: ,

    Welcome back. In our last episode Drew learned the value of thinking through methods. Today, he’s going to detail how he began to undertake this philosophy and what rewards he reaped by doing so.

    I just told myself I’d wait for the next time I was fooled. The next time I’d demonstrate patience, and this “think through methods” philosophy. Eventually I came across a Facebook video of a magician performing his take on a classic mentalism routine. I was fooled, badly. I ignored everything about this philosophy and immediately emailed him asking if he’d consider teaching me the routine, even for a price (nice going, Drew). To avoid piracy, he didn’t want to write it out or film it. “If I sold it to you I’d have to sell it to anyone who asked,” he said. Fair enough. I had to follow through with my own promise now, there was no other way to learn the effect!

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  • Thinking Through Methods, Pt. 1

    Drew
    Category: ,

    There might be a time (hopefully) when a magician friend of yours fools you with something badly. You have no clue how it was done. In this scenario, I implore you to think about the method, instead of immediately giving up and asking how.

    This post was inspired by a café meeting I had with one of my magician friends. We jam and talk shop often. During one of our meetings, I ended up performing a propless PIN divination on him.

    It had fooled my friend, badly. I was not expecting it to fool any magician, let alone someone knowledgeable like him. He was shocked. I offered to give him a clue as to the name of the trick and author, but he politely refused: “I’m not done thinking about it,” he said with a smile. This struck me, because if it were me, I’d immediately and shamelessly hound the person for the method.

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  • Oops, Private Post Fixed, and An Unscheduled Update

    Jerry
    Category:

    “Sorry, I Have To Ditch This” was mistakenly private for the first 20 hours it was up. We’re very sorry about this, and you can see it in all its fully illustrated glory now.

    We’re also performing site maintenance later today, 6 PM EST or 11 PM GMT, to hopefully improve site speed. There may be downtime.

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