I'd like to share a great experience I've recently had with the cups and balls. I use a quick routine involving only 45 seconds to a minute when I'm in a hurry. The other day, I was performing for my mom's boss, and when I vanished the ball using the french drop he was instantly amazed. When the time came to show the ball under the cup he was even more impressed. After that the actual cup penetrations were done, and he was astonished. Finally, I disposed of the evidence and showed him everything. Seeing his face, and the faces of others in the room when I performed it a second time after I got a bigger crowd, made me so happy. I love that moment of astonishment. Do you folks have similar stories? I love hearing about "perfect" performances done by others. It sure does bring joy to a performer to get big reactions, doesn't it?

I was in Home Depot and I had picked up five tennis balls for dogs, they are just under 3" in diameter and are perfect for final loads for my Johnson cups. I was walking back to the check out when I saw a display of pots for planting trees. I just tapped them as I passed and I realized they were made of something like styrofoam. These pots were huge! They came up to my knees! They nested too!

I immediately pocketed the balls and pulled off three pots and turned them upside down. I went straight into my routine. It was like doing an entire routine with nothing but final loads! Talk about a challenge! By the time I finished I had a crowd of about 30 people, including employees.

I got a standing ovation. OK, there were no chairs so everyone was standing for the whole performance but they were standing when they applauded and I'm counting it!

They should have given you a sitting ovation since they were already standing while watching you.

I remember when I first nailed the Striking vanish. Of course, David says it doesn't look good to the performer, so I didn't know if it was good at all.

I was practicing, and my wife came in. I wasn't thinking necessarily about performing for her (as she runs when I ask)... just did the move as pratice, and my wife just stood there. "Ok, how did that happen?" was her next question.

It was so great.

RevJohn

I feel the same way about the striking vanish. I've done it, and it always kills, but I always think, "You didn't SEE that?"

It's odd that way. I've found that if a sponge ball vanish or a Vernon Wand Spin or a retention of vision coin vanich looks good to me then it will look good in the mirror or on film. That striking vanish doesn't look good to me but seems to work for others.

When I tried that I got arrested ;-)

Joe H

It is moments like these that make one appreciate the time put in practicing.

I work in one of those pavillions where we are often performing for an audience of tourists. So there I am, performing the cups & balls for this family. Well, apparently, sometime earlier in the day, one of my fellow magicians must have been performing an effect using IT. Now, I didn't realize that there was some IT left on the close up mat. So, in the middle of my final phase, I must have gotten my hand caught up in it and somehow gotten the little fuzzy ball stuck and before I know it, I'm levitating the ball in front of everyone.

Now, I had no idea this was happening at first. I'm just talking to the crowd, trying to be charming, when suddenly all their eyes start to bug out of their heads. At first, I was thinking, "Jeeze! I'm a better magician than I thought!" Then I looked down and saw the ball simply floating there like a soap bubble about 8 inches off of the mat.

Needless to say, I was confused as to how this was happening at first, but soon realized what was going down. So, naturally, I took advantage of the situation and acted like I was the greatest magician on Earth.

The crowd went nuts at the end, but could only talk about the levitation part. So my poor cups routine was upstaged by some leftover IT.

*sigh*

Thank you all for sharing your experiences with me! The cups and balls are truly a great act.

I remember one particular lecture here in Houston. Bill Palmer was talking about what else? Cups and Balls. He had about a dozen different samples from the museum. He was just showing us the different types of cups and their histories etc etc etc.... at the end of the lecture he turns over each cup and there's various final loads under each cup. This is like a 12 cup final load climax. As he was lecturing he was loading the cups right under our noses. It was awesome. I'll never forget it. I'm sure Bill has some great experiences he could comment on. But that one was my favorite hands down!

Last week, I showed my first set of cups to a young magician who was interested in a second hand purchase. Several high school students were watching us, so I made a couple of impromptu vanishes and penetrations for them. One girl could not disabuse herself of the notion that the cups had trapdoors, and asked if she could try the cups to see if she could do it too. Needless to say, no amount of slamming the top cup on the bottom made the ball penetrate. With a casual explanation, I managed to load the tabled cup and steal the ball between it and the one above and she was finally able to make the penetration. But she never did find her trapdoor.

Man. I wish I could design a routine as fun as this one!

John