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kevmundo wrote:That said, you can take any of the routines in this DVD and bring them right up to date. My personal favourite (as I love billets) is the billet pxxl. You can do so many things with this principle and yet I never see anyone using one. I yawn when I see things like magic squares and the knights tour, but then again, if I actually stand back a moment and think carefully, I've never seen a live magician actually DO the knights tour.
Mr Grumpy wrote:I haven't, and it's a while since I read the book, but if I recall, he came up with various other ways to use the memorised data.
Mr Grumpy wrote:kevmundo wrote:That said, you can take any of the routines in this DVD and bring them right up to date. My personal favourite (as I love billets) is the billet pxxl. You can do so many things with this principle and yet I never see anyone using one. I yawn when I see things like magic squares and the knights tour, but then again, if I actually stand back a moment and think carefully, I've never seen a live magician actually DO the knights tour.
Paul Brook performs the Knights Tour and has written a lot about it in one of his books. I forget which.
kevmundo wrote:Mr Grumpy wrote:I haven't, and it's a while since I read the book, but if I recall, he came up with various other ways to use the memorised data.
I could only bring myself to memorise it if I could think of a fresh presentation. I love the Gimmick Osterlind uses in the DVD but the presentation is still very much rooted in Corinda - not that that's a bad thing. But since the knights tour isn't really an opener and I don't think it's a closer, it has to appear in the middle of a set. The way I like to routine things I just can't think of a way of fitting it in. I know this may sound weird but I always think it looks 'mathematical.' I'm just not drawn to it for some reason, the same as Anneman's 'seven keys to baldpate.' I don't know what it is. They're both classic effects but for some reason they just smack of trickery. Maybe it's my paranoia.
Off topic but I gimmicked a favorite book of mine today for the Al Koran book test (A word in thousands). I showed my wife and throughout the presentation I was thinking 'this is so transparent. Why did I waste my time on such a stupid effect? It's so obvious. No-one is ever going to believe this!' When I finally revealed the word she gasped - 'how the xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxx did you do that!!??' It just goes to show, sometimes you need to step back. Some of the simplest effects can yield the most amazing results!!!
Kevmundo (One day you will all know me as - The Great Kevmundo)
A J Irving wrote:Mr Grumpy wrote:kevmundo wrote:That said, you can take any of the routines in this DVD and bring them right up to date. My personal favourite (as I love billets) is the billet pxxl. You can do so many things with this principle and yet I never see anyone using one. I yawn when I see things like magic squares and the knights tour, but then again, if I actually stand back a moment and think carefully, I've never seen a live magician actually DO the knights tour.
Paul Brook performs the Knights Tour and has written a lot about it in one of his books. I forget which.
It's in Chrysalis of a Polymath. In the book he presents the Knights Tour as an effect that lasts the entire evening and goes into how to present it as one long set piece rather than as one effect amongst many in a show. I don't think he still performs it anymore but I might be wrong.
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