I hate the cups and balls when the routine is boring or badly performed, without showmanship or skill.

I hate card tricks in general, when they are performed the way I see most of them performed by average magicians.

I hate coin tricks when done by someone who does not understand the routine, either from a technical standpoint or the standpoint of entertaining someone.

HOWEVER -- I love the cups and balls when performed by an entertainer. I love card tricks if they aren't too long and they amaze, astound and entertain me.

And I really like coin magic when it is performed in such a way that I don't care whether it was done with or without a gimmick because I have been entertained.

Basically, I hate being bored by magicians no matter what they are performing.

This doesn't mean that when someone is working on a routine I won't watch him. I understand. It's part of learning.

And entertainment is part of magic.

Greetings and Salutations,

Um, yeah! What Whit and Bill said! Ditto! LOL.

Whit, I was convinced I loved the cups, and then you stroll in and reveal me as a common piker. Thanks! That was possibly the most eloquent discourse on the cups and balls I've read in a good long while. Thank you!

And Bill, thanks for giving me something to think about as I work on a couple of card and coin tricks.

Is it entertaining? I love the cups because I like to think that the only people entertained more by my routine than me are my audiences. I now have a renewed sense when I go to work on those cards and coins. Thanks again!

tedb, you're a good man, I don't care what Gazzo said! Oops! LOL. Unfortunately, I haven't done much in the way or reading about Houdini. I understand that at one time he was quite the card guy but made his reputation as an escape artist. But his greatest success was self-promotion -- proving that in order to be successful business is at least equal to show!

Joe in KC

"First, you should remember that the object of a conjurer is not, PRIMARILY to deceive. That is his secondary object - his first being to ENTERTAIN." – Wilfrid Jonson

Bill Palmer: Great Post! That's what magic is all about. (And by the way, thank you very much for your Cups and Balls museum. I surf in there almost once a week...)

I have to admit that I, too, was a bit tired of C&B after a few years. I'd seen way too many performers do the same routine to the point that after having seen so many people perform this "staple", I wasn't even impressed when I finally saw Vernon do it.

Then, in 1996, I saw Ricky Jay perform his "The History Lesson". I was expecting just another C&B routine...Man, was I fooled! When I finally learned about the John Mendoza handling (which is what Ricky's version seems to be based on), I took over a year to work on the handling that I now perform in my Victorian act.

I'll add just one thing to what Bill and Whit said...magic is like anything else in life...your tastes in what you like/prefer will change with age. I do things in my act now that I love performing and the audiences respond strongly to that I would have never done when I was 25. I just see things differently at 40.

Rick

I do not perform the Cups and Balls. They do not fit my personality or performance. I DO however practice them periodically as there is hardly a better workout and practice of sleights and timing.

"L'escamoteur -- for those of us who slept through French class, 'one who puts' -- one who puts balls through cups. . ." In my admittedly irrelevant opinion, the most artistic of all the classic magic acts -- and I do the rings and rope tricks in my show too.

I love to watch a master. In a master's hands, nothing matches the cups and balls for the historic romance of our craft and the requirement for sheer technical ability.

When I got my first cheap set seven years ago, I determined to master the cups and balls. I've been at it ever since, evolving. Today in the streets of Wichita and for my professional clients in restaurants all around the world I perform a shortened, punched-up version of Gertner's cups and steel balls with spice from many other masters including Vernon, Ammar, Gazzo, and others. I've gone recently to RNT II Foxy Two cups using the Chop-cup lead in, a rapid build up with the small ball bearings, and logically developing loads from my pockets -- all with audience participants doing the magic and me as the humble stage manager. Audience members as far as 40 feet away can follow even the smallest balls through the act -- and anywhere on earth, it doesn't matter that I only speak English. In restaurants everywhere, this act draws people from all over the room. Done properly, the cups-and-balls "kills," to quote my friend, Gazzo.

I've been developing my cups and balls for seven years. I wonder how far I'll be able to take it in the next seven.

AMEN!

So in closing.. I guess I AM the only one who hates the Cups and Balls huh... fair enough..hehe

Actually, an escamot is a small dark colored nut similar to a chestnut. These were used long ago as the balls for the cups. So an "escamoteur" is actually one who handles, or plays with "escamots."

Don't knock it 'til you try it, Eric!

Whit, I wouldn't argue with you for the world re the origin and meaning of the word 'escamoteur'.
You no doubt found and know exactly it's meaning.
The below is just the history of my 'earlier' intro to, and knowledge re this word.

I never investigated it's meaning, but -as I'm from Germany- and did in my very young years read the books from Conradi-Horster, an oldtimer that had a magic-shop/bizz, work as a pro performer as well as published and wrote a lot of books on Magic and sleight of hand, I f.ex. recall *Das Universum der Magie*, I also recall he used (and so probably misused) the word *escamotage*.
It did -in his interpretation- mean a *vanish*(fake-pass).

Also that word was used (escamoteur) for a 'magician', meanaing a person making things 'vanish'.

He had quite a couple of sleights in his books called this and that 'escamotage', hereby meaning, this and that version of a vanish.

So I alwasy interpreted the word 'escamotage' with the word 'vanish', without ever knowing it's true origination, and it looks to me now, Conradi-Horster just did interpret it 'his' way.

What you explained makes sense, because as you explained, those 'escamoteurs' used 'escamots' in their C&B routines and made them vanish..

Yes, I had heard it the same way, Werner. Later the connection with "escamot" was pointed out to me, and I learned that the original meaning of the term had shifted over time. "Escamotage" can refer to chicanery, evanishment, or miraculous escape. L'escamoteur can refer to a mountebank, magician, con man, or extremely sneaky and clever person.

As I understand so far, and I am not an expert at all, these usages are all correct as well, just more recent.

I do not yet have any single literary source to back me up on all of this, so I don't yet have a great deal of confidence in this position and am still looking for information.

It is an interesting and believable derivation though, I think.

It is much the same with the French "bonneteau" which is used to refer to Three-Card Monte. This current usage has an interesting history.

I had heard that it came from the word for "little cap" (bonnet) and the curved surface of the monte cards resembled the bill of a boy's cap. My good friend Ron Wohl's research provided a much more complicated origin.

"Bonneteur" in the early eighteenth century was a word used to refer to a courtier who was overly or inappropriately friendly--someone who wanted something. It was a reference to his "tipping the hat" too frequently--bonnet being a man's cap.

Later it was used to apply to con men or their shills, who were also overly friendly to strangers for their own hidden agendas. The word "bonneteau" was coined to apply to any of these con men's tricks. Later it became associated almost solely with the three-card monte trick.

Since the late eighteeeth century the English have used the word "bonnet" to refer to a con man's shill. This must have come from the much older French usage, and I suspect that it was brought to England at the same time as the game Three-Card Monte itself.

Anyway, the point is that all of the definitions of escamoteur, escamotage, etc. are valid, it is just that they are more recent derivations from the original meaning of one who works with "escamots." I think this makes sense and is certainly an interesting explanation.

I guess that "escamotage" is just one other way of saying that someone spends time playing with his nuts.

I wonder if an escamot is anything like a nutmeg. Nutmegs were commonly used by German magicians.

Could be. I have no idea what an escamot looks like, nor for that matter, a nutmeg.

Hmmm, maybe you have to read between the lines re what Bill Palmer mentioned ?
I'm not sure, but somehow he's on the 'dirty' site re what he said

My regards to good old Ronald Wohl, also known as *Ravelli* that good 'old guy from Swizzerland..I always loved his work..
(I hope he doesn't remember me..if he does, he most likely will remember me as a *pain in the a*se. )

Werner, I will be happy to give Ron Wohl your regards.

And Bill was very much on the "dirty side" in what he said. Please don't encourage him. He has done the cups and balls so much his palms are getting hairy.

Ahhh...those 'old' guys make me blush

Hi Whit-

One Southern boy to another...A nutmeg looks like a grey petrified hickory nut.

Quite simply I become a MUCH better magician all round, once I had worked on the cups and balls.

I have liked the cups and balls from the first time I saw it. When I got into magic it was with the cups in mind. (But as everybody else, I belive it was a TT that made the trick so to spreak...) When I finaly bought a set of cups I didn't like to practise them. I performed it sometimes for friends and at a medival party - but I never enjoyed it that much. I did, however, enjoy the chop cup and keept practising and performing a routine with that one. Years passed and this fall I picked up my cups again. And now, I can't let a day pass without me doing some cups and balls practise. I belive that the cups grow on you untill you finaly just love them. Therefore a classic - perhaps. I don't try to say that everyone has to love the cups. (My brother still doesn't like them.) Just that it is pretty likely...

/Ark

L'escamoteur -- a nut??

Thanks, Whit.

OK -- so much for Randi's definition. . . .

But "nut" pretty much sums up the dedication I needed to create an enjoyable cups-and-balls routine for my audiences. Maybe in seven more years I'll know how to do it right.

By the way, you scoundrel, I still proudly display that framed and autographed picture of you conning me with your shells in the Hound and Hare.