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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.