Kyle,
You never cease to amaze me. Great advice and a great idea. I agree, too many people look to d'lites as a trick instead of a utility. Hopefully you have opened the flood gates and people will begin to think of the unlimited ways they can use d'lites.

Jim

Weird E.T. routine.

Use a fake, latex wound or scar; or make it from something else.
Show the wound and explain how we use bandaids and ointment to help heal.
Show a bandaid and then put it away.
Recall how E.T. would touch the wounds and they would heal.
Show the healing.

Jim,

Thanks for the kind words. That idea was just off the top of my head and certainly was not totally thought out or planned as well as I usually take my creativity. It was meant only to show how the dLites should only be thought of as a utility prop and not the full essence of the trick itself.

Too many magicians do dLites as if it is just a trick with no meaning, no purpose and no fun after the first 2 times it ligts up. There is so much more that can be done with this if one opened their mind and realizes that this device has so much more potential then what people see it as.

It is pure manipulation of light and light can come in so many forms. I mean just think of how many things use light in our every day world? Man-made objects and even nature itself have light in them. With this in mind, the magician has a WEALTH of information to choose from and work from to create an act using dLites that now has much more fun for the audience watching it.

Too many magicians I see perform dLites for themselves and not for their audiences. Their love for the trick takes over and prevents them from seeing that the audience is bored silly with it after the first few times. They perform it that way because 1) they can and 2) they no no other ways to do it and 3) they are plane and pure lazy.

I am sorry to say it, but it is true. Magicians are plane lazy and a lot of us do not want to put forth the effort it takes to think creatively for fear of failure. we want the safe way out so we tend to mimic what we see working for others.

Forget what others are doing, Do NOT look at other magicians for insiration. Look towards yourself and look to the world around you and let THAT inspire your creativity. Once you do this, your magic becomes original to you and your audiences will thank you for it.

My 2 cents worth.

Kyle

I love the idea of getting the D'Lite from the checkout

I feel that it is all creativity and I never show both lights a once because that it give the imression you were working with to lights the entire time

It goes back to the premise of remembering that this is just a utility prop and using it as so, we must learn to think outside the box and develop routines that work around this utlity prop. I never felt that the central focus of the dLite should be the prop itself.

I strongly feel that your routine, character or storyline should be more important and entertaining as the main focal point. You then use the dLite to add to this overall entertainment value.

Be creative. To come on stage and just toss lites around and eat them for no reason at all, just seems trivial and boring at best. Why go that route when there is far more you can do with them and far more creative and rewarding experiences you can give to your audiences as well.

Kyle

One of my favorite uses for the D'Lite is around Christmas time. As Santa, I wear the naked D'Lite gimmick (no thumbtip) taped to my thumb beneath a white woven glove. As I finish talking with each child I offer them a very special gift. I reach to my heart and pluck out a bit of "Christmas Magic". I place the light into the palm of their hand, close their hand around it and pause for a second. When they reopen the hand I explain that a bit of my "Christmas Magic" now resides in their heart and it is their responsibility to keep it alive for years to come. Parents love the story and children remember it year after year.

:o) Skip

What a great story and a unique way in which to use dLite to bring a special emotional response from your audience. Nice idea.

Kyle

Wow, that is an amazing idea. Very smart

A word of warning...true story...A friend of mine began his D'Lite routine on stage by having a stooge in the front row shine a lazer spot onto his white jacket. He would notice the light, pick it up ala D'Lite then go into his act. Went well until he started hearing more and more laughter during a fairly serious part of the routine. He notices several red flashes from the audience...looks down and sees countless little red dots dancing over his tux...mostly focused in on the...ahem...nether regions. Completely ruined the mood of the act...but he had asked for it by giving the kids the idea to begin with. Those red dots haunted him the rest of the show. Really ticked me...er...ahem...him off! Be warned!

:o) Skip

Which is why you should use the dLites in a different manner entirely. Do not get it from a laser pointer. Use it as a means for a greater and fuller routine. Get the audience to have fun with the routine and they will be less app to react in this manner. The red light could be taken from a red lighbulb or a variety of creative ideas if you open your mind to thinking creatively.

Kyle

Right again Kyle. Also, I don't know how you would perform it, but D'Lites look very cool under water.

Sorry to intrude like this. I hope I am not off topic here.
I am waiting for my d'lites to arrive and I have two questions.
1. can the battery be changed?
2. if not , how long does it last ? (aprox. of course)

The batteries will last a long long time, even with "normal" use.
I'd say a couple of years. I've found, however, that the rubber tip itself tends to get soiled by then and so dark that it starts to become a problem.

You could change the battery yourself, depending: the older D'lites were pretty easy to pull out of the tip, in which case it's easy to change a battery, but the newer ones are encased in a plastic piece which is strongly glued in.

They have a limited lifetime warranty: If they ever fail, just send 'em back to D'Lite in New Jersey, and cover the shipping and handling for a replacement.
It's something like $7.60 for one D'lite, and it's $9.90 to replace a pair.
I just did this the other week, the turnaround time was surprisingly fast !

I agree with the mindset here, they're a great utility prop, not a trick.
Magicians who "poo poo" them simply aren't thinking enough.

There is a dealer that has Junior sized delights as well as adult sizes. They also have this thing were the delite floats around in the dark, Lots of cool ideas their. Heres the website:http://www.funtymemagic.com/shop/search.asp
It's in the middle of the page. Hope this helps!
Brian woodbridge
(Woodywizard)

I'm looking to add these to my repertoire soon, so I'm glad I read this topic first! It's always hard to think outside the box with tricks so "straightforward" as this (ditto Invisible deck, etc), so I'm getting a good headstart here. The thing about d'lites that appeals to me is simply the fun factor. I don't anticipate them being a real "wow" trick, but something to entertain and amuse spectators informally.

CJ: That is the problem most magicians have. The problem is that they can not get past looking at the prop as a trick. This only tends to hinder the magician from thinking in creative terms.

You also do not always have to concentrate your magic so much on the WOW factor as juch as you need to make sure your magic is entertaining to your audiences. You can entertain them in a variety of ways and include different elements into your show to create wow moments and emotional repsonse moments as well.

Thinking outside the box does take time and it takes practice as well. You need to train your mind to think in ways that it may not be accustomed to thinking.

Being an artist and graphic designer, I have always used different creative and brain storming techniques to generate art ideas for my fine art as well as my logo designs. I just had never thought about the fact that some of these techniques that I had always used, could not only carry over to magic, but could really work well.

The problem with creativity and brain storming is that we can not always focus as much as we want to be able to. There are so many outside influences and distractions that prevents our mind from staying on topic. We tend to drift around too much and never get a chance to lock in on some great ideas and to really explore them in detail.

The other problem is that we over think things too much. We often get hung up on trying to be creative and trying hard to figure out a particular idea, that we allow other great ideas to just roll on by our mind. All this frustration often leads to lack of creativity and so we shy away from trying it again out of fear.

So how can you brain storm effectively to really generate results while avoiding some of these more common pitfalls?Well, one suggestion is to occupy your mind and teach your mind to think a certain way by simply fooling it. The mind is great at doing tasks and accomplishing them. When your mind is actively involved in a step by step process, there is no time for it to wander likes it often does in most creative processes that we have used in th past.

One way to do this is a form of brain storming that was taught to me years ago and that I have modified since then over time. It is a process that focuses the mind to being creative even if it does not realize it is doing so. It works something like this:

Start off with an idea that you have for a act, routine or even a show. Figure out to yourself what are the main words or ideas that you want to generate ideas for in this new act or routine. Try and come up with the single words that best reflect this act.

For example, let’s use the idea of coming up with a magical routine that is themed around the idea of art. when we look at it we get two main words that are the focus for this act. Those words are “art” and “magic”.

Next, take out a sheet of paper and on the left side of the page, write the word art on the top. Now go over to the right side of the page and write the word Magic. Start with the word art. Start to think of any word that you can think of that has to do with the word art. The idea here is a free-flowing generation of words. You are not trying to develop ideas or thoughts. Just simply write down words that you associate to the word art. Some of these words might be; paper, color, paint, paintbrush, easel etc. I think you get the idea. Now you do the same thing for the word magic. Just generating words and not stopping to dwell on any of them.

Once you have compiled your lists, the fun and creativity really starts to happen. The idea is to start to cross reference words from both lists to generate new words and new creative ideas. For example you may take the word paintbrush from one list and the word vanish from the other list. All of a sudden you generate the idea of a vanishing paintbrush. You keep doing this by cross-referencing other words together.

By doing this, your teaching your brain to stay focused by occupying it with a select group of steps it must do. But in the end your generating ideas and creative thoughts that you may not have come up with on your own or in other means. It really does work and is quite amazing what can be generated just from this simple process.

I hope you may give this a try. If you do, please let me know how it works out for you. I am sure it will work. So sure that I can almost guarantee you will create better ideas and at a faster rate then ever before. If anyone would like other thoughts on this, or a better explanation of the process, please just e-mail me at magic4u02@aol.com. I would be happy to discuss it more with you.

What other bran storming techniques have worked for you?

Kyle

One way to use the D'lite is at the end with a napkin rose. I strip the napkin to one layer beforehand so it is very translucent. I hand the spec the rose by the bloom and when they touch the stem to take it I illuminate the rose for a brief second. I sometimes say nothing and sometimes they say nothing..not sure if they saw what they thought they did. I always look the person in the eye as I do this and never look directly at the bloom. If you look directly at the bloom when it lights it looks as if you expected it and takes the mystery from it. I hand it to them at almost eye level just to one side. They will at the least see it in their periferral vision. They always look into the rose to give you misdirection in case you want to ditch the d'lite. If they ask about the light I just supply appropriate patter to the situation and spectator.