Okay - I've been thinking about how to perform for junior high boys! Sorry - but they are out there . . . and this idea may be, also!!

You're going to sneeze, so you start frantically looking around the air in front of you. Ah - there's the spot! You reach out and grab a silk hankie from the air. Then stuff it up one nostril, pull it partially out the other, and see-saw back and forth a few times before bringing it all the way out. (Might be more impressive if it goes up yellow or orange and comes out green?? Makes more sense then when you can't flick it away.)

Where might I find info on accomplishing the see-saw effect?

Ed

I think you're going to need a nose tip for that one.

Well, there goes another good idea down the chute! I'll never be a Master Magician at this rate! (Said in the same vein as Calvin of "Calvin and Hobbs" complaining "But if we don't have any chainsaws, how am I going to learn to juggle?!")

Ed

You didn't like my solution? One of those eyeglass and false nose thingees they sell around Halloween for a cheap disguise? You put it on, it makes you start to sneeze, etc. With a 9 inch silk on a put/pull and another inside the nose... it could work!

Chainsaws are also available as Halloween props this year, I notice.

The nose and glasses is excellant, remember the "ear floss" where the string went thru the ears. The audience for that is the right audience. And the prosthetic nose will keep the little buggers from actually putting the silks in the nose.
Seriously, we place a silk into the hand and it vanishes only to come out of the pocket, the cigarette up the nose and out the mouth is standard throw-a-way stuff. The silk deal is cool and your method solves it fast.

Sorry - I took the "nose tip" statement as a way of saying "a bit rediculous because they don't exist". I didn't even think of the glasses with the built-in nose tip. It may not be totally "magical", as "everyone" will "know" the silk is only going through the plastic nose. But the visual is great!

And then, when I can't flick it away, and even stuffing it into my fist doesn't seem to work well, I call a boy up from the audience to help, wipe my hand across his back as I usher him to the right spot, and my hand is now empty. Makes sense to me . . .

Ed

Oh, ye of little faith in the professor!

Professor your idea works! I bow to your genius!

I put a version together just for fun (from junk I had handy - lucky I throw nothing away. I put a half-dyed silk in the nose (red over one nostril and white over the other).

I started with a white (12 inch) with a loop of monofilament loop in one corner.

I put a rubber band “pull” with a “lobster-claw” fastener (from a broken ring flight) in my right sleeve.
The loop would be hooked to the lobster-claw and the white silk vanished on the way to the nose.

The tip of the white silk grabbed and pulled out (all while miming getting ready to sneeze and even sneezing violently and bending in half etc.). The white silk is hanging from the hand and looks like the end of a full handkerchief as your hand dabs your nose.

An inhale as if getting ready to sneeze and mime you sucked the hank into your nose! Let it hang from the nostril and look panicked with a lot of hand waving.

Sneeze again bending down and pulling the red side out. Now you are ready for the pack and forth bit. The red kind of looks like a bloody hank!

Now if you have a second small loop on the nose silk and a second pull to hook up you can vanish the nose silk as you bend in half for yet another violent sneeze. Stand up; take off the glasses and fake nose showing it empty as you rub your (real) nose.

OK, I haven’t done the clean up but have played with the thing up to there.

I think that I may just use this while handing out candy this Halloween(with your kind permission that is)!!!

"It works - it works" - said in my best Colin Clive voice!

Anyone who dares to make one and use one certainly has my permission. I could not stand in the way of magic progress. Happy Halloween... you'll have a lot of candy left over, I'm sure.