Hello everybody,
It's been a while since I last posted anything, (been working with some new effects) but I have a question. I am working on a silk routine where I take two silks, magically make them "tie" together, change the colors (see where I'm goin with this?)vanish them, then make them appear seperate again while vanshing a cane. My probem is vanishing the "tied" silks. A TT won't work, and my magic dealer suggested a mirror glass, which was neat, but the majority of my illusions do not usually require a table, which I would need for the glass. I guess what I'm getting at is a nice vanish for color changing silks. I am NOT suggesting that anyone give away any secrets or such, I have no problem doing my own homework, but so far the ideas I have do not lend well to my style. I thought about Fujiwara, but I'm not very familiar with that apparatus. Any suggestions? Thank you all,

Eric Woods

The problem with the Fujiwara gimmick for your routine would be when and how do you obtain it and when and how do you dispose of it, adding more for you to think about than it may be worth. Whether it would work for you depends on the size of the silks you will be vanishing.

Another solution is to let the silks transform into an appearing cane, but then, unless you know how to vanish an appearing cane (it can be done, but not instantaneously) you would have to switch canes.

The question of using a pull or a topit (or topit variation) as a solution depends on your costume.

My best suggestion is that you use my "Spellbinder's Paper Cone Silk Vanish" which can be found in my Dollar Store Section, Book 2, under Vanishing Silk Gimmicks on my site. You might first want to check Rice's Encyclopedia of Silk Magic for other paper cone vanishes, but you won't find my version anywhere else but in the above source and you'll kick yourself when you find out how simple it is (really good magic is like that). To fit it into your routine would require you to have the newspaper folded up and in a pocket. After doing the color change silks, you would get out the paper, open it and show it, etc., then form it into a paper cone and push in the silks. To end, you tear up the paper cone and toss the pieces into the air like confetti. If you don't want a messy floor, you can toss the confetti into a mesh wastebasket, but if you don't want a table cluttering up your act, I doubt you want a wastebasket. Someone will just have to sweep up after you are finished. However, I also offer a way to restore the torn newspaper paper cone after tearing it up (minus the silks), but that adds another trick to your routine which affects your timing and continuity.

Use a P*LL. There are several versions that you can use and at least two are detailed in Mark Wilson's book.

There are several mechanical ways to do a vanish, but each requires an additional prop and you have to motivate what you are doing with it. If you want to vanish it in a cone, that's fine. But why are you sticking your hankies into a newspaper cone in the first place? What's the motivation? Just having the silks vanish is less proppy and I think a little cleaner.

Spellbinder has the answers for almost every question and they usually involve buying something from his site. Now, there might be no better way to do things than he suggests, but I have to say that there are a lot of these answers in books like Mark Wilson. Check the basic texts and you'll find a lot of magic there.

-Patrick