It's not so much that I don't like the effect I just don't see any effect. At no point am I surprised that there is still water in the bowl. I'm not trying to be a smart alec I just don't see the effect.

Dear Mike!
Your words are also true! I agree. Here are my thoughts.
But I take into account that this is an effect from the area of juggling that originated as I think in the east, this is not a trick in the classic understanding of the word, but an illusion.
In the east (China) were very fond of and loved - tricks and juggling with water.
If you look at traditional magic in China, then certainly this will not fooled the professional magician.
This is a special theatrical - street genre.
I think if P & T - not working with Jeff they would be 100% cheated.
I'm sure their first thought * prop *.
Does anyone know where I can see the routine of Rocco?

This routine is also in the Cellini Book, called the Infinity Cups.

I know 5 sources - where is the description of the routine.
I heard that Rocco does a decent routine, maybe someone saw it live?

I saw Rocco perform his water bowls live in Salt Lake City last year as part of his full show. I know it's blasphemy but I prefer it to Jeff's. Jeff's is a little weird to me, it feels like he's a mime pretending to receive water from the heavens. With Rocco's there was less theater and more magic. It didn't feel like Rocco was pretending, it was just a fact that the water was coming from the sky, there was no other explanation.

It's completely possible that I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective but Jeff's presentation seems a bit silly and hard to believe. Rocco made me believe.

I'll stop here as I'm afraid I've slain a sacred cow...

Josh I happen to agree, I've seen Jeff do this a few times and I still just don't get the appeal. It's like "OK I get it, endless water coming from the bowls" but after a minute or 2 of the same thing it becomes tedious. I have the same reaction to guys who do endless card productions, after 20 or 30 I just want it to end.

Glenn

The performance of Jeff McBride on Fool Us was very theatrical, but it is hard to believe that Penn and Teller were unfamiliar with this routine and were genuinely fooled.

Perhaps that is the illusion here - Penn and Teller are trying to fool us into thinking that they genuinely didn't know how this was done - when of course they did?

I cannot disagree more with Mike and others here about Jeff's brilliant water bowls routine.

When I saw Jeff perform this in Salem, Mass., a year or two ago, I found it immensely moving--one of the most astonishing and emotionally powerful effects I've ever experienced. What could be "magical" about producing mere water--only the most elemental, miraculous, life-giving force on the earth, if not in the universe? Are people so used to turning on the tap in our country that they have forgotten that billions of humans, and other beings, struggle each day to get access to this precious elixir? That our life as a species has revolved around water--drinking it, bathing in it, building aqueducts to channel it and cities and ports to use it for trade, sailing on it to discover new lands and peoples, and even drowning in it and having our homes and cities swept away by it? Perhaps people are unaware that all the fresh water on the earth is disappearing, being squandered by industry and drying up due to climate change. Nonetheless, I ask: What could be more magical than making water appear in a drought, which is the narrative driving Jeff's routine?

There are elements of Jeff's theatricality which in other contexts I'm not comfortable with. But here I think the theatrical flourishes work, brilliantly. I do agree that on television the effect is underwhelming and even cheesy. But before a live audience, in a theater, it's exactly what magic should be--symbolic, mystifying, elemental. The audience I saw it with was as blown away as I was. Jeff obviously has spent years routining this effect, and it shows, particularly in his skillful use of sound (the bowls ringing together, the high-quality musical score of rain falling). And the effect truly seems impossible. I still have no idea how Jeff makes the water keep appearing, and in a way I don't want to know.

I find it surprising and even mildly shocking that some magicians don't "get" what Jeff is doing here. Is it because we have all become too accustomed to thinking of magic as the production of hankies, coin matrix routines, and billiard ball manipulations? "Back to the things themselves," I say (to quote a philosopher named Husserl). Look at the 20,000 year history of human magic and supernaturalism, and make the art more of what it started out as--a ritualized performance that brought humans in touch with hidden, elemental powers that could be made responsive to their gestures and supplications. Magic shouldn't be schtick; it should be miraculous.

From here: (The story has been with us in magic lore since Doug Henning was starring in The Magic Show. )
http://www.intuitivetimes.ca/Spiritualit......agic.htm (1999 Magic Magazine -?)
https://doughenningproject.com/2017/07/1......th-pole/
http://www.magicianvancouver.com/blog/do......-moment/

Jeff was also an early fan of Penn & Teller before that was the name of their act.

T is written up in the Sam Sharpe trilogy published by Mickey Hades

Alan,
This may be too late, but for what it's worth, the "More Water" routine was published in the April 1963 Genii magazine. It is written up in "Gems from the Loyd's Scrap Book" column and is credited to Harry Mendoza, a magician whom I wish I had met/seen. I can't find the exact source, but I believe (but not sure) that Charlie Miller mentions this routine in a Magicana or Intermission column.
Regards,
Barry Moran

Sam Sharpe did a great version - loved seeing it with Jeff on P&T