I'd like some help with my card manipulation act. Here's my act so far.

1. simultaneous right and left hand fan productions
2. ungimmicked diminishing cards
3. single card back palm production (7x)
4. card stack is vanished from left hand
5. left handed silk production
6. right handed perfect production (10x)

Any ideas of what should come next?

Nothing. Sounds fine. End it at the silk.

Too many magicians learn all of these moves and think they need to put them ALL into a routine. Brevity is a blessing, and your audience will thank you for it.

Thanks, that's very helpful. Also, this is only going to be the beginning of my entire stage/parlor act. Any ideas of how to transition from appearing silk to color changing candle?

Use the silk to change the color of the candle?

The silk production is out of place. There's no reason to produce cards, produce a silk, then produce more cards. You should have a reason to produce a silk.

You can also try something like Thurston's five card vanish and reproduction sequence at position 3. This will lengthen your routine and add variety, since you have single productions at 3 as well as 6.

Are you using a receptacle of some kind? Jeff Hobson's "Caucasian Box" is something you might like to use. It's clever and seldom seen. I believe someone on YouTube posted a video using it if you'd like to do a search.

Thanks that's great advice.

Posted: Nov 25, 2009 12:55am
Where can I find Jeff Hobson's "Caucasian Box"

It's actually a "Jap Box" made of file folders. Very deceptive.

In regard to Michael's comment that "The silk production is out of place. There's no reason to produce cards, produce a silk, then produce more cards. You should have a reason to produce a silk." I'm not sure I understand why there's any concern about having a reason to produce a silk between the two card sequences. It's not like there's a reason to produce cards and then toss them into a hat in the first place. When you think of it, there's no _raison d'etre_ for producing cards at all. That's what makes the Miser's Dream at least partly understandable. Who wouldn't want to be able to pull coins out of the air? But playing cards? And billiard balls? And candles? And birds? What practical benefit is there in being able to make a silver ball float around under a cloth?* And why in the world would anyone produce seven doves only to place them into a cage and vanish them? If you didn't need a cage to produce them, why use a cage to vanish them? Why produce them at all if you're going to make them disappear a few minutes later?

The vast majority of magic effects have no real world justification. What real world use is there to being able to saw someone in half with a buzz saw without injuring them? Richiardi at least added the element of evisceration and restoration, which shows the power of magically restoring a maimed body to its original physical state. (I suppose though that there's some value in making a body impervious to damage by a buzz saw or guillotine. Surely Sidney Carton would have found a practical value in being able to cause a guillotine blade to pass harmlessly through his neck. I always thought a "Tale of Two Cities" presentation for the guillotine would have been logical, dramatic, and appealing. I thought it would be particularly effective in a high school show since many English classes include _A Tale of Two Cities_ in the curriculum.)

As far as I'm concerned, the raison d'etre for all manipulative magic can be summed up in these words from Henry David Thoreau: "Beauty is its own excuse for being."

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez
*I think Joe Karson's original concept behind Zombie had a reason for using the cloth, related to his choice for the effect's name. Nobody in his right mind would want to actually touch a zombie with his bare hand. Of course, since the audience doesn't usually know the name of the effect, when Zombie is presented as a silent interlude, it doesn't matter what the trick is called. I'm sure when Lance Burton did Zombie on the Tonight show, the non-magicians in the audience didn't care why the ball was floating around under the cloth. And what's the point of all those candles? Sure, if there's a blackout, being able to pull a candle out from under a silk handkerchief has its practical value. But why do it on a fully lit stage? And while we're at it, who in their right mind would want to change a beautiful girl into a tiger?

As a real Magician with special powers, I can pull cards from the air, and coins, Cigarettes, thimbles and birds. I do not know why these items come to me, but they do. When asked to perform for an audience; demonstrating some of these feats, I honor their request.

I do not want the members of the audience to get bored, so I change things around a little. I can make a silver ball float while holding a cloth/foulard, again very strange, but the people who hired me seems to like what I show them.

I have had these powers since birth, I do not ask why I was gifted with these limited strange powers, but I accept them. My powers have never hurt anyone, thank goodness, they have not taken a different path, ever.

People come up to me after a demonstration and ask how do you produce all those Birds, Cards, Coins, Thimbles? I just tell them it is MAGIC. I really do not want them to think these unusual powers really exist. They may freak out or something, or call the Government.

After 50 years of showing my limited abilities, they still enjoy the simple things I show them in a short period of time. I will continue to do so until I am no longer asked for a demonstration.

This is my Secret, please do not tell anyone, I have these limited abilities. Thanks.

Anatole,

I agree, as magicians, we do some incredibly ridiculous things. As an example of what someone else recently posted in another thread, why would anyone pour milk into a newspaper cone? However ridiculous this may seem, it's a means to an end - that's how we vanish the milk.

Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should if there's no justification and it causes confusion. To produce a silk out of nowhere in the middle of a card manipulation routine is distracting for the audience. You don't introduce a new object without having a use for it. If you were to produce a silk, then produce more cards from the silk, that would be one thing - you're progressing the plot. However, a silk isn't used with the Perfect Production, which is what was proposed.

Think about this: After the usual vanishes, productions, etc., in a Cups & Balls routine, would you produce a pelican from beneath the table before you produced your C&Bs final loads? Of course, not. A pelican serves no purpose in the C&Bs and would only distract your audience's attention from the effect at hand.

A greater magician than I once said, "Confusion isn't magic."

So are you proposing that award winning performer Johnny Ace Palmer, who produced a dove at the end of his close-up act does not make sense.

There are those that believe everything needs a reason, and those that do not. Neither are wrong, it is just different views. And yes if we can do something, we should do it.

By your reasoning, what justification do you have for tearing a dollar bill and restoring it, or what is the justification for turning coffee cups over and making sugar cubes jump from cup to cup. No normal person would do these things.

I assume then you do not own any magic equipment that is not ordinary everyday item.

Johnny Ace Palmer's dove productions (he produces two) are a separate effect done after his cups and balls routine, not during. He doesn't do one phase of C&Bs, produce the doves, and then finish his C&Bs routine. It may be a kicker to his C&Bs, yes, but it's not a part of his C&Bs.

Also, if you read my post again, I said that we do many nonsensical things. All my point is, which seems to be getting lost in translation somewhere, is that there's absolutely no reason to produce a single silk in the middle of a card manipulation act without having a reason for producing it. No matter how many silly things we may do, they should still be theatrically sound within the whole.

I think two ideas are getting mixed up here. One, where a magician does something illogical to or with an object or objects; tearing up money only to restore it, pouring milk into a paper cone, using a strange box to produce silks, etc. Two, where a magician does something illogical within the context of a specific routine. It's the latter of which I'm talking....or typing, as it were.

If Mac King were to produce a single Fig Newton from his pocket, it would be out of place. "Why was it there?" "How did it get there?" It may get a slight chuckle, like his first one does in his show, but it would be confusing and a distraction from whatever routine he's doing. However, as you watch his act progress, you see his character is plagued by Fig Newtons showing up in odd places. As ludicrous as it is to find a Fig Newton in your pants when you unzip your fly, it fits together as a whole and is theatrically sound within his act. You don't see him producing the Newtons when he's doing a five minute bit on a TV show; because you won't see the rest of his act, it wouldn't make sense.

If cardphreak wants to produce a silk at the end of his card manipulation act to wipe his brow, that would make sense - card manipulation isn't easy. However, to produce one silk in the middle of the act, only to throw it away and return to card manipulation, would be a distraction.

I hope you guys can see the difference between the two ideas. I don't know how to explain it better. If not, I would suggest reading up on routining and presentation. wmhegbli, I know you're well versed in both, so I would've thought you would know the difference.



On 2009-11-26 02:41, Michael J. Douglas wrote:
I thought I'd share a funny story once told by Vernon. It's more to do with Johnny's dove productions, with which I really don't have much of a problem. I can't speak for Vernon, but I bet from this story, he wouldn't have liked it!

He once had a guy ask him to watch a card routine, which ended with four cards on the table in a Matrix-like formation, and the guy said, "And do you know how it was done? Because I had these four coins here!" The guy turned the cards over to reveal a coin under each. Vernon: "What were they for, to show how clever he was to sneak them under there? I told him to get rid of them. It muddies the effect."

(I'm paraphrasing what I can remember, but it's essentially the same. I believe he retells this story on his Revelations series.)

In response to Michael Douglas's Vernon anecdote critical of the production of jumbo coins at the end of a matrix routine... What is the difference between producing the jumbo coins at the end of that routine and producing large balls at the end of a cups and balls routine? On top of that, not only did Vernon's routine include producing three jumbo balls at the end of the cups and balls routine, but he added a fourth jumbo ball. There's only one reason for that fourth ball. To show how clever the magician is.

When you think about it, the cups and balls in general has no practical application in the real world. Cups are for drinking, not for making balls wander around from place to place. Of course, the cups and balls may have originated as a guessing/gambling game like the walnut shells and pea and only later was appropriated by magicians for magical purposes, which can probably also be said of cards and dice.

Perhaps tangentially germaine to this discussion is the following popular quote from the beginning of G. K. Chesterton's play "Magic: A Fantastic Comedy":

I have a hat, but not to wear;
I wear a sword, but not to slay,
And ever in my bag I bear
A pack of cards, but not to play.

I wish all the readers on the Café a Happy Thanksgiving!

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Thank you, Anatole. I'm heading out to meet family right now. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, as well!

BTW, Vernon's story wasn't about jumbo coins at the end of a Matrix routine, it was about coins produced at the end of a card effect; I believe it may have been a 4 Ace effect, but I can't remember. Don't want you to have a conflicting impression of Vernon!

I have been on the look out for a video of Lance Burton performing the zombie... If somebody out there could guide me, I would be ever grateful to you for it...

I just love this site... Too good...
Am presently looking for some good tapes/DVDs teaching card manipulation... My dealer doesn't have Jeff McBride set right now... He says I need to wait for another 6 months to get it as he already has got a lot of orders for it pending and is awaiting arrival of the next lot...

High time I changed dealers, I guess!

Could you plz suggest some good material I could purchase on card manipulation? Thanks in advance, friends!!!

Long live MAGIC!!!

Do your order over the Internet? Here is where you can get the McBride DVDs.

http://www.llpub.com

I believe McBride to be the most complete information on this subject.

They also have Jeff Sheridan's DVD, vol. 2 is on card manipulation.

Shimada Volume 3, has some card information on Vol. 2. Get his at http://www.stevensmagic.com

I love L&L. Free shipping, 10% discount on 3 or more items, and superior customer service. Productions are top notch, too. I've never been disappointed when ordering from them. I just wish they had a chain of brick & mortar stores!

P.S. The McBride series is excellent.