talkmagic.co.uk

There's a guy at work who's been begging me for ages to teach him some tricks he can perform easily.

So today I decided to bring in the classic vase and ball trick to give to him - basically the most basic of things I could find. Both he and I have been performing it around the office today and I was absolutely astounded by how impressed people were with it.

It was certainly a refreshing reminder as to how the simplest of things can be seen as great by a layperson.

Plus, this chap has been buzzing all day. I think I may have found a new student of the art!

Yes the simplest of things and the reason is simple. One it is not the trick it is the performance. Two the simpler the trick the more one doesn't have to worry, the more you don't have to worry the more one can relax. The more one can relax the better the performance. for the most part anyway.

I have got some of my best reactions from my simplest effects, I can fling a card technique or two but I still knock em dead with the old Svengali deck.

Its all too easy to forget this, and I was quite bad when I started at purchasing stuff, finding out the method, then making the mistake of thinking the spectator would also know/find out and not be impressed.
Thats why any newbies should really perform something on a partner/friend/work colleague to get the reactions.

ID - Chris told me it would be the best £5 I ever spent and he was not wrong!

A_n_t wrote:ID - Chris told me it would be the best £5 I ever spent and he was not wrong!

I love my ID. Just brilliant.

The vase and ball can be very deceptive. Because there was always one in every magic set I saw as a kid, I assumed everyone knew how they worked. When I was about 13, I really amazed my cousin (about ten years older than me) with one.

The inverse is also true; sometimes a spectator will see right through an ingenious method that had you totally perplexed.

Welcome to the world of magic.

I have three metal washers.
One has a hole in it.
One has two holes in it.
& one has no hole at all.

I place the washer with one hole in it in there hand,close there palm, & ask them to hold onto it for a moment.
I then show them the other washer with a hole in it, & place that in there other hand.

I ask them to open there first hand.
The washer now has two holes in it. (There blown away)
I ask them to look into there other hand.
That washer's hole has gone, & it's just a washer with no hole.

I had one chap follow me down to the car park at my golf club last week,
begging me show him how it was done.
I told him, being a magician I'm sworn to secrecy.

Can't think what the trick is called, but it's such a simple trick with a massive impact.


CArl...

There was a really simple trick I had when I was young that I'd like to find now (I may end up just making it myself) which was a square plastic tube. When a six sided die was slid through, it'd roll forwards due to a gap in the bottom thus emerging on a different side than it was put in on. At the time it was a distraction but now I know about paddle moves to cover not being able to show the underside, I'd like to do a routine where the die apparently solves simple equations, rolling it through twice, and the second time the die changes to the modulo 6 sum of the two numbers.

I feel like I levelled up with a golden light from the sky (WoW style) when I first realised that the presentation of an effect can totally make up for a really simple method that seems obvious to you...

-Stacy

CArlight1958 wrote:I have three metal washers....

...Can't think what the trick is called, but it's such a simple trick with a massive impact.

Jay Sankey's Holy Moly.

-Stacy

Yep, that's the one Stacy.

Have it in my wallet all the time....

CArlxx

One of the routines I used to do was to guess the contents af a match box! This would leave my audience Gasping.
Method! I opened the matchbox and looked inside.
Nobody expects it to be so simple so nobody noticed.
Ronny