I would like suggestions for tricks with ordinary drinking straws. For example Mike Close's shoelace and straw trick or floating straw using IT. Thanks, oblique.

How about an old effect: pushing a straw through a potato or apple.
vinny

Here are a few suggestions.

First (not a "trick"): If the straw is wrapped in paper, you can remove it from the wrapper by sliding the wrapper down the straw, creating a pleated wad of paper that looks a little like a caterpillar. Put the paper on a plate, and use the straw like an eyedropper to pick up a few drops of water (or any liquid). If you wet the paper with a drop of liquid, it will start to expand (where wet), making the wrapper writhe like a live worm. If you show this to kids in a restaurant, they will want to do it themselves again and again (could be a problem for the parents!).

Second (also not a trick): If you take a plastic straw by an end in each hand and wind it around like a crank, the air trapped in the middle of the straw will be put under pressure that builds as you "crank" it. Have another person "flick" the chamber that is filled with air with his finger, and the straw will pop with a loud noise.

Third (finally, a trick!!): there is an effect in The Magic Menu - The First Five Years where a large (oversized) straw is produced (a la appearing ten foot pole).

Finally, although I have not checked recently, I suspect that there are straw tricks in Martin Gardner's Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic.

An effect that I've been using successfully with straws is a variation of Eddie Joseph's 'Yogi's Gaze'. Basically, you put a straw (or newspaper in the original) on a table, gaze at it and after about a minute it bursts into flames!

Extremely powerful magic in the right circumstances. Those who know the method will understand when I say that a paper covered straw (as found in McDonalds et al) greatly eases the performance of this effect.

The original 'Yogi's Gaze' can be seen in the book 'Art of Eddie Joseph', published by Supreme Magic in 1978.

Here's an older trick:

STRAW THROUGH CARD:
http://www.hamptonridge.com/product_page......ugh.html

And here's something for kids.
How to build a card lift with a straw
http://pbskids.org/zoom/phenom/cardlift.html

Magic Chris

Just thought of another.

You could do the PK trick of moving an unwrapped straw on the table by gently (and surreptitiously) blowing while "concentrating."

Hi

Here you can see a further demo:
Learn How To
- Stick a Fork in the your Eye.
- Pull your Thumb off.
- Jam a STRAW up the chin. (Easy drinking!)
- Pierce your ear with your thumb
- Cigarette up the Nose!

http://www.themagicschool.com/view.php?inp1=laugh_main.php

Magic Chris

David Harkey had an effect in Simply Harkey where his finger prints are melted into the sides of a straw while it is still in the wrapper. There was also a DVD out a long time ago (one of the first DVDs on magic) called "Magic Interpreted by Michael Reed Lucas". On it he produces a straw from his mouth.

You can find an appearing straw from the mouth in Magic as Interpreted by Reed Michael Lucas DVD.

Mad Mojo by Andrew Mayne. Has one and it is pretty cool.

My favorite trick is to twist two straws together and have them penetrate each other in the spectator's hands. It's been published many places, but I first learned it in Lee Snyder's "Just Like Magic!" book. It's often done with balloons too.

A friend does the multiplying straws (ala 6 card repeat) and another friend came up with a cool impromptu "rising" straw trick.

Sankey magically pushes a coin down through a straw on one of his tapes. It looks cool to see the straw bulge "around" the coin as it slides down and out the other end.

There are several cool PK moves or animations possible involving simple science.

Poking the straw through your chin and into your mouth has been around awhile and I think it is in Mac King's new book about things to do with your head.

Mike Weber's effect "Thinking a Tree Over" is a nice trick in wich a straw is moved around a cigarette and causes it to move.

How about this one. I THINK it came out of a Cub Scout magic book.

Magus produces a drinking straw.

Runs string through straw.

Cuts through the straw.

String is unharmed.

Bend the straw into a "V" about 1" from the end. Insert the "V" end into a empty pop bottle. Don't go down the bottle's neck to far, it will straighten out. Pull the straw up gently. The bottle will come up also. It is called lifting a bottle with a straw.

Here is one a buddy of mine and I recently came up with (original as far as I know).

You take a straw and in plain view take off the wrapper and ball it up into a small ball. Now you tell the spectator(s) to watch closely. All of a sudden, you strike at the wrapper that is one hand with the straw that is in the other hand and bam! the wrapper is back on the straw.

Martin Lewis has a really nice color changing pencil routine. It may be possible to take the principle used there and apply it to a straw.

Since smoking is passe, the old trick of placing a cigarette on the table, pointing your finger and the cig would roll. Well do this effect with a straw at the dinner table.
vinny

Bill Goodwin has a very cool torn and restored straw wrapper in his 1988 lecture notes.

Noah Levine

Thanks to everyone for your posts.I have been given a good deal to research.oblique

If you can find it, Fearson put out a video with a straw trick on it. It has been a few years since I saw it but he showed how to swallow an entire straw in the blink of an eye. It was a great little bit as I recall.

Mat