I don't think that is something you need to do. A fancy move is not going to make your routine for you.

for 1/10th the price or so, you cna check out Dean Dill's work with the sponge ball. very magical.

p.s.
The garcia book goes for around $300, I think.

My brother showed me a sponge ball routine, mt first of two magic isms. I learned it his way because it was easy and rocked! I spent a bit of time and money learning all I could about thew effect and different handling/vanishes/reappearances/boring people.

The routine I use? The one I first learned, because it rocks and it's easy.

Also I am really great so I can make a pair of Chinese Handcuffs magical. Actually I can't make a levitation of large buildings using only real spirit creatures assisting me magical (For a copy of the "Real Work" don't P.M. me, I'm a liar), but everything else I said is true.

Al Goshman. Also look at Johnny Ace Palmers routine, A tribute to Goshman. John Carney's routine is very good and I like my routine which is a based on the routine in the Mark Wilson Course in Magic (Check it out before you say anything). The routine starts from the pocket and ends in the pocket. Instant reset!!! I also do The Goshman 10 count.

If you want proof, go thru the Magic Castel Archives and watch my card act during the 1980 Jr Magicians Close-Up Show. While not entirely his material, Garcia did put together a good book on the subject of sponge balls.

I like Carl Andrew's routine in Magic from Mauie (?)

Phil

Welll me of course. And simply because it is me. Question answered.

Does anyone know where can I get Frank Garcia's Encyclopedia Of...?

Yes, you can get one on eBay.
Instead of spending $350 on the Garcia book why not spend $12 on the Pat Page spongeball DVD and see if that will suit you.

Sleightly_Dangerous wrote:


Gene Gordon first published the ten count in the first Message from Garcia, which was issued sometime around 1959. I say this, because there was no publication date on the pamphlet, and the second one in the series was published in 1960. A year to gauge response is about right.

Garcia may have learned it from Goshman through contact with the group Abe Hurwitz ran in New York City.

Back to the banjo for a second:
The banjo can be a very mysterious instrument.
I was at a party once at a friends house and over by his fireplace was a very obvious banjo sitting on its stand.
It was only a matter of time before somebody asked him if he played it.
He said "yes" and after the "we've known you all these years and didn't know you played the banjo" stuff he cut into a smokin' version of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown".
Folks listened with their jaws open.

For the remainder of the evening he had girls WAITING in line to talk to him.

I don't know if it was the banjo or not, but there was NO line before he played "Foggy Mountain"!

It works for me, every time. Beats the heck of of the ACR.

I'd like to learn that song before I die.

Move to Branson, believe me you have to AVOID learning it!

Either that or the Orange Blossom Special, which is not nearly as cool on the banjo as it is on the fiddle.

First get a banjo. Then get the Earl Scruggs book. Then sequester yourself for about 3 months.

Ok. will do. eventually.

Some of my favorite TV episodes of all time are the ones where Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt would magically appear in the entrance hallway of Granny's mansion on The Beverly Hillbillies and play a nasty Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

TV doesn't get much better than that...Say what you will about the banjo, but Flatt and Scruggs were COOL!....those guys smoked through Foggy Mountain while Granny "cut a rug".

The Bonnie and Clyde chase scenes were another Foggy Mountain milestone.

I've heard over the years that the actual number of players who can perform Foggy Mountain at Earls tempo and rhythym is extremely small.

That's not true at all. Anytime you go to one of the big bluegrass conventions, you will see hundreds of guys and gals who can play that up to the original tempo. The difference is in the way they feel it. Most of them learn it by reading a form of banjo music called "tablature." They play the notes like a player piano. No feeling. No expression. Like guys who learn "street magic" from a DVD.

I didn't see it mentioned, but Lance Pierce has a great routine in a booklet of his on the Benson Bowl routine. His routining is excellent, I have mixed it up a bit with David Stone's from his latest DVD and also Carney's. I start out differently all the time, but I like to climax with many spongeballs. Just a sweet reaction!!!

Sean

Bill,

Which is also why tablature is nearly a moot issue when listening to Derek Trucks play slide guitar as well . . .

-R