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Me and Joshua Jay

Joshua Jay is probably best known as the editor of “Talk About Tricks” in Magic Magazine.  He had that post when I picked up my first Magic magazine around 2001, when he was still in college.  He’s only 28 now, so he’s obviously a prodigy.

As he mentioned at the start, his lecture focused on card tricks using gaffs that end clean.  Since this was a San Francisco lecture and I live about 45 minutes away, I only attended the first half of the lecture, up to the break.  It was fairly short – only about an hour, compared to the usual 1.5 hours.  Here’s what he covered:

The MacGuffin – the magician tears up a card into quarters without showing its face.  Four spectators each choose a card and replace it in the deck.  The four selections are found inverted in the deck, each missing a corner.  The missing corners are found to be the original tabled quarters.  Click here for an explanation of the title.

Charming Chinese Challenge – Jay’s version of Troy Hooser’s routine, in which 3 Chinese coins strung on a ribbon penetrate off the ribbon, one at a time.  One coin returns onto the ribbon.  Finally, a coin vanishes and joins the 2 in a spectator’s hand.

(Bill to impossible location) – I don’t think Jay named this effect.  The magician borrows a bill from spectator A.  He tears off a corner and hands it to spectator B, then vanishes the rest of the bill.  The rest of the bill is found in an impossible location, such as spectator A’s wallet, and matches the corner held by spectator B.  Here, Jay introduced his new method of carrying out this old effect.

Transporter – one of Jay’s marketed effects.  This is a very cool concept for a no-palm card to wallet, and I was tempted to buy it just because of the method and cool gaffs.  The magician introduces his magic membership card, which obligates him to perform a trick for the spectator.  The spectator signs a selected card.  The selection in the deck and the membership card in the wallet are found to have switched places.

Overlap – another one of Jay’s marketed effects.  Click the link to see what it is.  I’m not sure if Jay invented the gaff, but he focused on it enough to write 19 routines in a book, which also comes with a performance DVD and several versions of the gimmick, including jumbo card versions.  Very clever.

Me & Tom Ogden

I attended Tom Ogden’s 6/9/10 lecture at the San Jose IBM.  Here’s what he covered:

The Five and One Dollar Bills: Ogden’s handling of the Marvo Money Miracles, in which a folded $1 and $5 penetrate.  Ogden expanded the basic effect into a multi-phase routine with 2 penetrations, 2 transposition and ending with two $5 bills.

A version of Out of This World: I don’t recall what Ogden called it.  The original Out of This World by Paul Curry involves the spectator randomly dealing the deck into 2 piles, only to find one pile is all red and one all black.  I don’t recall the details of Ogden’s version.

Ogden’s handling of the Zarrow Shuffle: the Zarrow shuffle is a tabled completely false shuffle, in which the deck order is not disturbed.

Ogden’s handling of Terry Lynn’s 7 Penny Trick: the original trick from Bobo’s New Modern involved counting seven pennies into a spectator’s hand, only to magically remove one.  Ogden expands this into a multi-phase routine by repeating the procedure.  He removes a penny each time, until he gets down to 2 pennies, at which point he changes techniques.

Ogden’s version of 2 in the Hand, 1 in the Pocket: Ogden performs this with 3 miniature doll shoes, switching techniques along the way and ending with a child’s shoe final load which was quite startling.

Ogden’s version of Mike Zen’s Cards Across

Card Warp with business cards

A business card trick in which the magician and spectator’s signatures transpose

An egg bag routine for kids: Ogden used this to demonstrate comedy for kid’s shows

All the tricks and routines used were from Ogden’s working repertoire.  While they were all very solid, there was nothing particularly unique.  The value of this lecture comes from Ogden’s decades of experience in all types of performing situations.  As you can see above, he’s expanded several quick tricks into full routines, and fine-tuned his routines over years.  There is a reason for every move and every line of patter, and he explains it all.  He also explained quite a bit about kid’s shows and booking shows, and had some interesting anecdotes (including one in which he inadvertently performed in a part of the world where they still take magic very seriously).

This is the Bee Box.  I got it from CMC puzzles in Germany.  I’m not sure who the designer and manufacturer are.  I wouldn’t be surprised if CMC puzzles makes them, since they do make some puzzles and it’s the only place I could find this.  They have a number of puzzle boxes made out of laser cut wood with box joints.  I think it’s a fantastic way to make puzzle boxes cheaply: it was only 19 Euros (not including shipping).

Unfortunately, the box came to me solved.  Another weakness of the solution is that is that many users will be reluctant to try it.  In this way, it’s similar to Carta Blanca.  I can’t say any more without spoiling the solution.  If you want to be spoiled, click here for a video from Grand Illusions explaining it completely.

Me and Michael Ammar

I went to the Michael Ammar lecture on 2/25/10 in San Francisco.  Michael Ammar is one of the top students of the late Dai Vernon, and one of the greatest living close-up magicians.  He is known for having a huge repetoire.  Here’s what he covered in the first half:

1. Topit vanishes (performance only)
2. His award-winning cups and balls routine (performance only)
3. Bill to lemon (performance only)
4. Topit work
5. Bottle production from silk, followed by coin in bottle
6. Torn and restored card, followed by torn and restored with corner reversed (the Albo card)
7. Cell phone production from folded envelope
8. Broken and restored cell phone screen
9. Lightning round: Ammar covered a number of concepts briefly, including his “Little Hand” trick and the silk penetrating the cup.  “The Little Hand” actually is more of a gag than a trick, but it’s really funny.  Both seem to be easy and rely on gimmicks, but, as he pointed out, were the two most memorable tricks in the lecture.

I left after the first half like I did for the Wilson lecture since it was a 45 minute drive home.  Ammar brought Jeff Kaylor along (I thought it was his son at first) to demonstrate “The Kaylor Option” in the second half.  From Kaylor’s description in The Magic Cafe, it’s sort of like a topit accessible from between two buttons of a dress shirt.

What was really cool is that Ammar appeared later in David Letterman’s “closeup magic week.“    3 of the 4 effects he performed were right out of the lecture: the silk penetrating the cup; a cell phone penetrating into a balloon (his handling of Daniel Garcia and Daniel White’s “Pressure”); a cell phone vanish using the topit; and “The Little Hand.”

The lecture was very enjoyable, and Ammar covered quite a range of different methods.

My wife was commenting that I haven’t posted anything about magic in a long time.  I’ve probably bought more magic stuff than puzzles because my average magic trick or DVD costs less than my average puzzle. I thought that I should only review DVD or tricks that I actually have performed for laymen. I’m just an amateur, so I haven’t done much performing, and I’ve been on temporary magic hiatus since my second kid came along. Then I realized I reviewed the Tommy Wonder DVDs, and I haven’t done any of those tricks. So here we go.

Me & Gregory Wilson

I went to Gregory Wilson’s lecture on 5/13/10. One thing I was very pleased with immediately is that Wilson is very entertaining and likable. Even if he didn’t know the cups and balls from a cup of Joe, he would still be the hit of the party because of his comedy.

Wilson is a 2 time FISM medalist in close-up cards: tied for 3rd place in 2000, and tied for 2nd place in 2003.  FISM is the Olympics of magic, and is held once every 3 years.  I assume that close-up cards must be one of, if not the most hotly contested categories, since it has by far the most practitioners.

While Wilson obviously has some serious chops, his comedy combined with his already strong misdirection means he could pull off some pretty amazing switches even if he had to handle everything with a pair of chopsticks.

Also, while he won the FISM for cards, Wilson is primarily known for his contributions to impromptu magic with everyday objects like rings, napkins, and particularly coins and pens.  In this context, even cards and half dollars are out – how many non-magicians normally carry such items around with them?  Some spectator manipulation is used for watch steals and to load objects onto the spectator.  See his “Off the Cuff” DVD for more details.

The lecture covered some impromptu material and some of his marketed items, but surprisingly no hard-core card magic.  I assume that’s because there are few attendees really interested in the last.

Here are the items that Wilson covered in the first half of his lecture:

“Chip on Shoulder“: a routine where a chip continually winds up on the spectator’s shoulder.  Like paper balls over the head, it only fools the one spectator, but is entertaining for the others.  A good example of how Wilson loads items onto a spectator – and he does it over and over again.

“Pitch and Ditch” and “All Around Vanish“: two masterpieces of coin magic.  Both are complete vanishes without the use of a topit, coat jacket or sleeves.  From his “Off the Cuff” DVD.  Watching Wilson do these even after I know exactly what he’s doing reminds me of how good the techniques are.  I really got to get off my butt and learn them.

Watch Steal: Wilson demonstrated how this is all about misdirection and spectator management

Coin from Head: this is an old move used in a few of Wilson’s routines.  Done right, it looks as if the coin fell from the sky.

Pointless: Wilson demonstrated his marketed effect where the pen tip keeps transitioning from one side to the other.  He blended seamlessly into his legendary ReCap routine, from his “Off the Cuff” and “On the Spot” DVDs, which only requires a normal “Bic” -style pen.

Hundy 500: a marketed effect where five one dollar bills  instantly change to five hundreds.

Foreign Affair: a marketed effect where a one dollar bill changes into various foreign bills and finally a $100 bill that can be handed out.   The gimmick is made out of Tyvek so should last basically forever.

Pit Stop: another classic move of hiding items temporarily in the armpit, primarily associated with the cups and balls.  Wilson demonstrated some of his applications.

Sobriety Test: this is the bounce no-bounce ball trick.  Wilson demonstrated his patter and premise for this trick, which provides a logical reason for introducing a rubber ball.

I didn’t stay for the second half because it was a 45 minute drive home and I’m usually too tired the next day.  Lectures tend to have most of the meat in the first, longer “half” before the break, since the audience is more alert.

Overall, it was a very entertaining lecture with great tricks.  Gregory Wilson is The Man.

Visions of Wonder DVDs - Tommy Wonder

Finally, here’s a post about a magic product.

Tommy Wonder is a legend in magic.  It was very entertaining to hear him discuss in detail how he developed each trick, and how he’s considered every nuance.

Having said that, I don’t know how many of the tricks I would actually attempt.  They generally involve making custom gimmicks.  His “nest of boxes” is the best example of this.  He shows 3 different versions, with his most recent version having all kinds of clever mechanisms that are not trivial to fabricate.  “The Ring, The Watch and the Wallet” also requires a few custom mechanisms.  Even his 2 cups and balls routine requires some custom gimmick.

I don’t want to give the impression that he relies solely on his mechanical wizardy.  His sleight of hand, presentation, audience management, and misdirection are all superb.  It’s riveting and instructive to hear how he combines all these elements to maximize the effect.  In essence, he was the total package.

I give these DVDs my highest recommendation, with the understanding that the primary value is in the development of and thinking behind the effects.

I followed up the magic performance at The Magic Garage the next night with walk-around magic at Harvest Restaurant in Cupertino on Saturday evening, 1/24/09.  It was a program for members of the Palo Alto branch of the Society of American Magicians.  The idea was for pairs of magicians to entertain guests between the time they ordered and received their food.  Each pair of magicians consisted of one inexperienced magician (such as myself) and one experienced magician.  We had the cooperation of the restaurant.

The restaurant was packed due to some high school fund raiser.  The inexperienced magicians were myself, Lyn Bonner (secretary of “miscellany” for the club), Joe Caffall (club secretary), and Suresh Govindachar.  I was doing a card trick (either a location of a thought-of-card, or one where the four aces magically turn over one by one) and the same linking key ring I had performed at the Magic Garage.  Joe did a coin trick in which coins placed into the pocket keep reappearing in the hand.  Lyn did Professor’s Nightmare, a rope trick in which 3 different sized ropes become the same length and then return.  She has been doing this routine a long time and is very proficient with it.  Suresh did a trick where a selected card is revealed by rubbing a pencil against a piece of blank note paper and revealing the value.

The experienced magicians were Michael Feldman, Theron Schaub, and Kim Silverman (president of the club).  They did a variety of tricks from their more extensive repetoires.  There were also two “intermediate” magicians: Blaine Garst (treasurer of the club) and Stan Sieler.  Stan teaches a magic class for the Fremont Union High School District’s Adult Community Education Program.  He performed a mentalism effect where he determined the movie randomly selected from a stack of miniature posters by the spectators.  Blaine did some pirate-themed magic.

There were quite a few opportunities to perform, since the restaurant was full and there was almost one experienced magician for every inexperienced one.  Stan stepped into the role of an experience magician.  I think I performed at 6 tables, and also did some magic for Blaine’s girlfriend and son, as well as for Theron’s mother.  It was a fantastic experience, and all the advice from the experienced magicians literally  improved my act from one table to the next.  I screwed up my card location effect a couple of times, but was able to recover immediately by going into the aces turning over effect.  I think it’s very valuable to mess up and then recover.  Sooner or later, you’re going to mess up something.

I’m an amateur magic hobbyist.  I don’t have a lot of experience performing in front of real people, and that is my biggest weakness.  If I get nervous I start rushing and messing up the moves.  Fortunately, several groups that I belong to have venues to gain experience.

This past Friday, 1/23/09, I performed at the Magic Garage.  Will Chandler, a local award-winning magician, has an informal invitation-only magic club that meets almost every Friday at his home.  The put on paid magic shows for family and friends about once a month.

Will has a small stage built inside of his garage, and he fills the rest of the garage with folding chairs.  It is here that the “big show” is performed.  I’ve never seen any of the typical stage effects where the magician levitates, vanishes, or dismembers a beautiful woman, as these would require a lot of apparatus.  However, the effects are such that they can be seen from the back of the garage, maybe around 10-15′ away.

Will’s front room serves for close-up magic.  I made my debut opening for Michael Feldman and Theron Schaub, both of who are experienced professionals.  OK, I know Michael is a pro, and I assume Theron probably is also, given his skill level.  John Bodine served as emcee.  I did a coin routine called “Wild Coin” and invented by David Roth.  In it, 3 half dollars change one at a time into Chinese coins, and then change back.  I followed it up by penetrating 4 coins through the table, one at a time.  I finished with a linking key routine called “3 Ring Circus” and invented by Jay Sankey.  I think I did ok.  Based on the audience response, I fooled at least a few people.

I don’t recall exactly what Michael and Theron did, since I got a poor view of their performances after I rushed to the back of the room after mine.  I do recall Theron doing a dice routine in which the spots keep changing; a routine where he failed to find a spectator’s card twice, and each time, his insurance policy (the same one!) turned out to be the selection; and a routine where the spectator’s selected card kept vanishing and reappearing near the card case.

A kid came up to me afterward and told me that he liked my tricks best because I didn’t use my sleeves.  I didn’t think about what I should say and just blurted out “but the other guys weren’t using their sleeves.”  He replied “I didn’t know that.”  Then I thanked him.  I should have just thanked him.

We were supposed to do shows at 8:30 and 9:30 pm.  However, the room filled quickly – by 8 pm it was already half filled.  It filled very quickly after the 8:30 show spectators left.  Therefore, we wound up doing 3 shows: 8:30, 9:10 and 9:40 pm.  I think there was also a midnight show, but I didn’t know about that beforehand, and I couldn’t stay that late anyway.

The “big show” started at 10:30pm.  There were quite a few short acts:

1. Will Chandler started emceeing.
2. The first performer was actually a musician, who sang and played the guitar for a song he wrote.
3. Jonathan Steigman showed up as the “real” emcee.  He did a funny bit with some Hershey’s kisses and some rope magic.
4. Carey Klenetsky was in character as “Carey White”, doing a hilarious and technically very good ring and rope routine.  The ring was a large gold-colored ring, and he brought it out as the pendant on the rope necklace, which was in line with the Barry White music  and his blue pimp outfit.
5. John Bodine did a short, silent piece in which he smashed his finger with a soup can.  His finger was none the worse from the experience.  I saw him do this before, and it really freaked me out the first time I saw it.
6. Will Chandler did a 3-card monte effect with poster-sized cards to “Mambo #5″.
7. Michael Feldman did a cards-across routine that really got a fantastic response from the audience.

The show was concluded by Brian Hart.  Brian is primarily a close-up card magic specialist, but he decided to try his hand at mentalism.

There were a few magicians strolling around Will’s house who were doing magic on their own, including Michael Feldman (who also did 3 close-up shows and the big show!) and Kim Silverman.

The magic group at Pizza My Heart, 11/2/08

Left to right: Theron Schaub, Jonathan Steigman, Ricky Smith, Jeff Chiou (me), Dave Buck, John Bodine.

It’s time I entered my first post about magic.  I am a magic hobbyist, with a particular fondness for coin magic.  I’m currently a member of the Society of American Magicians club (SAM) #94 (Palo Alto, CA) and the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) #216 (San Jose).  I’ve been practicing sleight of hand on and off since around 2000, for maybe an hour a day when I’m diligent.

On 9/8/08, SAM #94 had an auction.  I love magic auctions because you can get magic for dirt cheap.  We’re all in there just getting rid of stuff we no longer want.  Practically nothing can get sold anywhere near retail price.

Toward the end of the auction, there was a very interesting item offered.  Two guys, John Bodine and Theron Schaub, carried up a third guy, Ricky Smith, for auction.  If you won the auction, Ricky would teach you any card sleight you wanted to know over dinner at Pizza My Heart in Cupertino or Campbell or somewhere like that.  John would also be present, and pay for Ricky’s dinner.  I was responsible for my own dinner.

I’ve seen John at work, and I know enough to know his card skills are absolutely top notch.  I haven’t seen as much of Theron’s magic, but he is also very good.  However, Ricky started showing up to meetings.  When I had a card question for John, my usual resource, he directed me to ask Ricky.

Ricky is an underground legend and a technician of the highest caliber.  He can do all kinds of crazy moves usually you only read about or see on a video.  He pretty much has a deck of cards in his hands at all times.  However, he has a very quiet, reserved personality.  I think for that reason he actually doesn’t make his living doing magic performances.  Instead, he writes for magic magazines, does reviews of magic products, and was a manager at a magic book wholesaler.

Ricky is known for being the original mentor of Dan and Dave Buck, the Buck twins.  They are known for their incredible card flourishes, particularly very complicated multi-packet cuts, and are pioneers in this field that has recently seen incredible growth (see www.dananddave.com).  Dan and Dave were teens when they met Ricky at a San Jose Ring 216 meeting, where he refocused their interest from stage illusions (which I don’t think they got that far on) to card magic (see www.dananddave.com/genii.html).  After I won the a auction, I went to their website to try and find more information about Ricky.  They have an excellent site; check it out.

My first idea was to spend a few months trying to learn a new sleight, and then have Ricky fine tune it.  It’s a waste of time having someone of that caliber just get you started.  That would be like Yo-Yo Ma giving you an introductory lesson on the cello.  That hour would better be spent with Yo-Yo Ma giving pointers to someone who was already very proficient.

A few months passed.  Ricky was going to move to New York soon.  I realized that I could learn very little over dinner.  However, my parents were coming to visit.  I asked John if they would be willing to do a few tricks for my parents instead, and if we could meet at the Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto on Sunday, 11/2/08.  I would pay for their dinners.  He and Ricky agreed.

I also invited Jonathan Steigman, another one of the best magicians at the clubs.  He’s been doing magic for close to 30 years.  He’s not quite as good as John at cards, but he is also a master of coins, cups and balls, sponge balls, ropes and pretty much every piece of standard close-up and parlor magic apparatus.  Jonathan agreed, and came along with his son Daniel.

John spent some time talking with my parents.  He then launched into some rubber band penentrations; had one of the hot pepper shakers penetrate the table; did some coin magic; and had straws penetrate through other straws.  Ricky did a few card tricks.  Jonathan did a bunch of card and coin tricks.

John got a call from Theron and Dave Buck.  They had just been in San Francisco watching Ricky Jay’s (not to be confused with Ricky Smith, who was eating dinner with us) magic show, and asked John what he was doing for dinner.  A little while later, they showed up, along with Dave’s girlfriend.

Theron did a trick where 2 out of 5 dollar bills immediately reversed themselves.  He handed the bills to John, who made them all turn into 100’s.

This attracted the attention of the guy at the next table, who asked John if John could turn his money into 100’s.  He was a young guy, maybe still in his teens, and was sitting with 2 other people.  John immediately asked him for a few 20’s, which he crumped up into a ball.  He then completely vanished the ball by tossing it over the head of the guy.  I’ve had that trick done to me, and it looks absolutely astonishing for the one person.  It doesn’t fool anyone else.  Theron was immediately in position at a different part of the restaurant to catch the ball.  He walked over to John and put the bills into John’s back pocket.  Again, this didn’t attract any attention to the one “victim,” but was apparent to anyone else.  John reproduced the bills and gave them back to the guy.

Dave Buck was last.  He did a medley of his card flourishes.  Everyone at both our tables immediately went silent.  Basically, the thought is “I didn’t even know that was possible with a deck of cards.”  Absolutely amazing.  Having Dave Buck do the flourishes that he and his brother invented is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We finished up with a few interested items I brought along.  First was a pair of large ball bearings. I got them from work, where they had been used for impact testing.  I found out that if you bang two of them together with a piece of paper in between, it will actually burn the paper at the point of impact.  You can smell the burning.

Next, I handed out samples of miracle fruit tablets along with some lemon, kiwi, and vinegar.  Miracle fruit coats your tongue’s sour receptors so that normally sour things taste sweet.  A lemon tastes like a lemon, and you can eat slices of it straight.  John originally told me about miracle fruit, so he explained the whole background of it to everyone while handing out samples of the fruit.

It was definitely one of the most memorable nights of my life.  I wanted to make sure that my parents could see some good magic, and I was worried that someone might cancel at the last moment or not make it due to the daylight savings time that morning.  Instead, they all made it, plus Theron and Dave Buck as a bonus.  We didn’t see some magic from one or two guys; we saw world-class magic from 5 guys.

Hello.  My wife convinced me to write something about my main hobbies: magic and puzzles.