Episode 6 "Stolen Cards"

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Table Hopping: I've done it so many times. And I will probably do it many times as well. And as mentioned in the video Stolen Cards by Lennart Green is not suitable for that particular kind of magic.

However it is good for any other close up setting. I can imagine that this plays well in a bar with a few of your friends. Did I say "imagine"... let me correct myself. I know for a fact that it play well in a bar. Because I tried. My core group (the people I'm hanging out with on a regular basis) loved that trick. They even loved the look of a deck consisting of many different back designs. It is different enough to endure yet another card trick.

The second group was the "stranger" group. All see me doing magic for the first time and only this trick. The reactions were different. I had not built up enough credit for this to be the strong. Somebody actually mentioned that it's probably some mathematical thing that works automatically. And he was not far away from the truth here. My conclusion is that as a stand alone piece this is weak.

And the third group was not a normal formal booking. It was done in my theater. Which is the perfect setting for this. I did enough magic to have established credits as a accomplished performer that does not have to rely on self working things, so this got the best reactions.

Watch the demo which is cut in the middle:



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So you see this has lots of potential in the presentational field. Lennart tells the story of him having stolen those cards. And considering his age and skill this really is a believable thing. However I bet that most magicians would fall flat with that story. So here is an idea:

You collect autographs from different magicians. You show the backs of the cards and show signatures that are on the back of the cards. David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel... But also Fred Kaps and Tommy Wonder. You can tell stories about them. The cards chosen later on have Penn written on one card and Teller on the other card (or Siegfried and Roy). Then the marker cards are turned over and reveal the same signatures. "I've been there twice."

You also have your one way deck finish. And you can have fun counterfeiting all the signatures.

But what I particularly like about this is the fact that you are bringing out a new deck in a motivated way. This allows for a very natural deck switch of the main deck. Not that this matters for most magicians, as they simply do magic with one deck the whole time. But if you want to get the most out of you card act a complete deck switch for either a stacked or gimmicked deck for the big finish is strong weapon.

Episode 5 "The Gorilla Grip Balls"

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The classic of the multiplying balls. Think about it, it is actually a wonderful looking trick. Balls appear out of nowhere and vanish the same way. The ball is a symbol of play and naturally most routines come across as playful.

In fact most of these routines are hard to do. The moves have to be choreographed, the face, the body language... all has to look like the most easy thing in the world. And there lies the crutch that we have to rely on. Props that work. In this case balls that don't slip out of the fingers. Ball that easily slip out of the shell. And shells that stick to the balls.

The Gorilla Grip Balls promise that reliability. And they fail. I assume a gorilla grips things very lightly. And a gorilla probably drops stuff all the time.

As I said in the video, the balls do what they promise in the first few weeks. Then the material that these balls are made of changes. It may be the humidity, the dryness or the sun's UV-rays. I really don't know. All I can says is that I don't want to buy a new set every few weeks.

The white balls are terrible. They got a yellow tint after only a few days. The shell doesn't match anymore and suddenly you have an unusable product.

I have performed and created my fair share of ball routines. Some use shells and some don't. So I wanna close this review on a positive note. Any Silk and Ball routine needs the balls to be slightly slippery. In this case the Gorilla Grip Balls might be the thing to use. A white ball, a red ball and the red shell. With a green silk this could actually be something to explore. You can have the white ball penetrating the cloth, vanish and reappear. You could then put away the white ball, which would come back. Then the ball could change to red and so on.

This however would not be part of the initial instruction and would require some basic routine construction that lots of magicians seems to lack.

Here is an attempt of what I'm talking about:



I did that routine for years, in my humble days of busking. I can tell you at least one thing. It plays well. The fact that it is not a card trick may play a big part in this. The bit using the Gozinta Box, the Para Box, the Inner Outer Box or the Lubor Fiedler Box is not part of the original routine. I included this to offer yet another magic way to introduce the ball. The gag that nicely foreshadows the effect of the inner box becoming the outer box is by Tom Mullica.

The actual routine consists of three parts. The first one is the penetration of the ball through the silk, which ends with the vanish of the ball. There a tons of methods out there. The most practical I found was in Jochen Zmeck's Handbuch der Magie, the German magic bible. At page 173 it starts. Following that is a pretty classic repeated appearance of the ball. The basic handling for that you'll find in Frank Garcias sponge ball book. That phase finishes with the appearance of the mandarin. Fruit always plays well. In the past I used one of the lemons I would use anyway for the Cups and Ball. So I got less props and you have a nice little element that strings the show together.

The third phase is a reprise of the first one. But this time the premise is extended to the part where the penetration can be seen half way. This is what got people. And it is necessary to have a spectator take out the ball. The thought of MAGNET is just there. You must not ignore that and need to prove that magnets are not the modus operandi.

In order to do that last phase you have to experiment a little bit. The thickness of the cloth is key. The Gorilla Grip Balls can actually work, but I would be scared to do so, as the balls are heavy. And heavy balls make it much more scary to pull of. The balls in the video are the "Multiplying Golf Balls" a great product by the way.  (just 10 bucks)