I am experimenting with a routine that uses only one silk (or so the audience believes). I started off this idea when I purchased the great video, 5 Minutes with a Pocket Handkerchief by Quentin Reynolds. It has some great knots and other ideas, including the hanky mouse.

As I have been working on the routine, I branched out to use some Tarbell stuff, some knots-off-rope effects, silk through microphone stand, bunny rabbit made from the silk, color changing silk, etc.

Just a thought: What effects can you do with only one silk (other props can be added, such as rope), but only one silk. The silk can be gimmicked, or switched out for a gimmicked one, but it appears to the audience that only one silk is used throughout the entire routine.

I look forward to your ideas.

DonB!

The whirlybird silk vanish routine by David Williamson is a nice trick.

What is the whirlybird silk vanish?

DonB!

I like "The Chinese Laundryman" as performed by Daryl on one of his rope videos. (I know that the trick is much older than Daryl but this is the only source I can come up with at the moment.) A silk is tied onto a rope, then slid along the rope and finally plucked off the rope, penetrating it. It is a funny little bit with a nice patter and it plays well for all kinds of audience.

Another staple in my act is an adaptation of Purse Swindle. A silk vanishes from my hand and reappears in a purse. Then it is vanished again and travels invisibly into an invisible purse (= purse frame). Nice little trick that is perfect as an opener for me.

Let me add a vote for the dye tube. Although most often performed as a sucker effect (and thus revealing that two silks are used) you might just as well leave out the sucker part of it and make it a one-silk-trick.

I think that serpentine silk certainly has to rank very very high on any "one silk" trick list. It meets your criteria and is a wonderful animation effect. If you create your silk in such a way that allows for it to be "ungimmicked" while in use, you can go on and do a follow up effect.

-Ed

The re-souling of magic should be the aim of twenty first century magicians-S.H. Sharpe

Maybe you can do a closer with it. Show a white silk roll it into a ball then do a throwing motion ditching it secretly then stealing a white Kabuki streamer or throw streamer.

Check out David Roth's superb DVD Ultimate Coin Magic Collection vlume 2. The first section is called "A Coin & Silk Routine." It is a series of disappearances, productions, and penetrations which are great. Uses a single normal silk, and a single normal coin.
kerpa
a/k/a Michael Miller
Chicago area

Phao's CR hanke
7 corner hanke

Check out the Harold Rice (silk King Studios) for a couple of nice pamphlets.

The first is called, “More Naughty Silks”. It is a routine that uses one silk to do a series of tricks (mainly involving knots). The second part of the booklet describes a two silk routine. Se it at:
http://www.silkkingmagic.com/Rice's%20M......ilks.htm

Then there is a sweet little booklet titled: “Martineau’s Miracle Silk”. This routine has the flash appearance of a single silk, a suspension and the vanish of the silk using only one silk. It is a clever and technically easy routine. See it at:
http://www.silkkingmagic.com/Martineaus%20Miracle%20Silk.htm

Also check out “Through the Dye Tube”. While die tube work uses two or more silks the audience is only aware of one silk.
See it at:
http://www.silkkingmagic.com/Rices%20Thr......Tube.htm

Just three little inexpensive pamphlets that will give you more silk magic than you can use!

If your looking for a nice way to magically produce the one silk you could use Vito Lupo's Snap Silk Production. Basically you show your hands empty and then reach into the air and a 24" silk appears at your fingertips. I have seen Joseph Gabriel use it and it really looks magical. I know that you can get it from the Denny & Lee Magic Studio, http://www.dennymagic.com.

Vito does a fabulous job of producing that silk. He accepts praise for the skill but not credit as the inventor. That's integrity! Vito has both.

Just a weekend in the classic texts like Tarbell and Rice will supply you with a lifetime of "new magic". The rest is skill and showmanship.

Actually, you can get the gimmick at all office supply stores and many types of other stores. But the gimmick is not the show.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander