talkmagic.co.uk

Just thought this would be an interesting thread to start, sorry if it has already been done..

Being an AH , my knowledge is somewhat limited compared to professionals or commercial magicians, but I would say I know enough about the craft that I can surmise wether something was done by sleight, gaff , stage prop, plant etc...then its just a mental puzzle to put together..Which as a hobbyist is part of the enjoyment of the craft

But once in awhile , I'll witness an effect that just leaves me dumbfounded, and all of a sudden I'm "lay" person, and I experience the wonder and amazement of magic.

What effect have you personally witnessed that left you stumped on how it was done? And who was the artist?



List your Skill level (as described in the Introductions forum)
The artist name (if you can)
Describe the effect/circumstances

Skill Level..Amat. Hobbyist
Artist: Can't remember unfortunately..He was a stage/street Magician at an Amusement park my family and I was visiting

Effect:
The artist had a stage Show at the park, but we did not catch it, we saw him doing a street performance around the park..

He had a about 30 peple surrounding him
This Routine started with him asking for a 20 dollar bill from an audience member...he took one from a lady and handed her a normal white envelope in return..
He then took out a marker and wrote her Name on the bill..returned the bill to her and instructed her to inspect and seal the bill in the envelope..

He asked the crowd for a lighter, in which someone gave to the lady, he then instructed her to light the envelope on fire and drop it in to a tin plate on the ground..

The envelope burned to ashes, took about 30 seconds, during which he asked her a series of questions about her birthday/zodiac sign/ birthplace etc...more patter etc

Where or who has your 20 dollars? he say, or something to that effect

He picked up the ashes from the pail and rubbed the ashes on her forearm arm and a series of numbers showed up in ash

"042352"..He then asks the audience Who's birthdate was April (04), 23rd, 1952.

A man from the crowd raises his hand and the magician asks him to check his wallet --sure enough, the 20 dollar bill is there..

Boggled my my mind, the man was my father in Law and at no time did the magician come within 20 feet of us through out the enitre performance..

I dismissed a number of possibile explanations (but won't discuss due to disclosure for other routines) and thats not the point of the thread, but you can PM if you want to try to figure it out with me

In any event, it wowed me...

The effect that gets me is the Pendragons doing their 'sub trunk' routine. I saw this in Vegas and it really impressed me. When you watch it you see that it cannot be done using the 'normal way', this is due to the speed of the change. I thought it was a camera trick until i saw it live. Everytime i come up with the answer i think back and say "no, they can't do it like that".

I saw Jerry Sadowitz last Saturday, and he did a few tricks that left me stumped. One of them was the following:

He pulled 4 cards from his pocket (yup, a small packet effect). They were blank, with 4 letters on that spelt out a word. If you know Sadowitz, you'll know his humour... and I can't repeat the word here.

He then flipped the cards over individually, and they spelt out another different word, again unprintable here.

He then flipped them again, and they spelt out yet another rude word... and finally he flipped the 3rd card over (the 'N') to reveal a picture.

It was very funny, but I have no idea how he did it, and I was in the front row watching very closely.

If anyone wants to know the words on the cards, PM me. You have to be over 18 though!

Cheers.

Derren Brown on almost all of his shows.

Crazy Man's Handcuffs.

This trick was one of the reasons I got into magic.

I used to work on a holiday park as one of the resident entertainers (read: Redcoat-type-person), and we'd see quite a few magicians performing in our venues - it was these guys that got me interested. One of them once asked me (the guy from the act Dezaar, who I'm sure has something to do with the Ipswich Magical Society), "So do you do any magic then?" My reply was to the negative but it got me thinking...

One regular who we saw fortnightly was Steve Zebs, an absolute diamond of a bloke. He'd chat to us all backstage and basically he was one of our mates - sticking around for a drink or two after he'd finished and so on. He showed us what I now know to be CMH whilst backstage - just three of us watching him do it in our tiny dressing room, and I very nearly fell over. He repeated it, I don't know how many times, but I was convinced that he was doing real magic. It floored me in a way I can't describe. I loved it.

The rest, as they say, is history. As soon as I found out that CMH was a commercially available routine, I bought it. It's one of the very first tricks I show people who've never seen me do magic before, and it has once got me the attention of a lady...

So there you go. CMH floored me, but I now perform it myself.