Anyone have any experience with this or resources for it? I know Ammar has some notes on this, any reviews? Also know Kozmo has a chop cup with bill in lemon finale on his DVD set, I own it so no need to mention it

JoeJoe from the café performs thousands of times a year, and just made a bag to perform with this year. You can see it in you oughta be in pictures. Also he is also on Magic Joint.com. He is really helpful and insightful!

What exactly are you asking? Which is better? Which is easier? Which works the best? I am sure you are a smart man. You have Kosmos CDs so I am sure you would have no trouble looking up Gazzo's Street Cups and Balls.

My suggestion is do what works best for your given personality and taste.

I would avoid the bill in lemon for practical purposes ... ask yourself how many shows you plan to do in a day? Then figure out how many lemons you will need in a week, and how to get them to the pitch and what you will do with them afterwards. Lots of extra work.

If you are doing one show a night on stage it wouldn't be so bad, but for a busker that is rinsing and repeating all day, it'd be a mess.

For me, I'd be buying up to 50 lemons a day ... I'm sure my grocer would love that but I'd consider it a waste of money.

-JoeJoe

I think it's anti climatic... Why destroy the beautiful production of fruit by taking it a step further. .. but you could possibly get ideas from John Carney, and his "Fruit Cup" routine. It is published in "Carneycopia" by Stephen Minch, on page 98 ... I do like the way that Carne did it, since he used the money as the "balls" .. he made the trick make sense (if that makes any sense) doing it this way, and using his "citrus" line... A very simple routine, that's the beauty of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Xctoqw1Ls&feature=kp

JoeJoe wrote: "for a busker that is rinsing and repeating all day, it'd be a mess."
Yes, lemon juice on the knife, the surface below, on the magician's hands, on the note. So, you'll have to wipe surfaces, spending time doing that. "...it'd be a mess" indeed.

John Carney's routine is interesting to me, even without the bill being produced from the lemon. Here in New Zealand our notes/bills are a kind of plastic/polymer - try ripping one of those!! It's bad enough to trying to keep folded flat. I press them in between a heavy book pages. But once that has been done, it's hard to get the folds out of the bill so it looks 'ordinary'.

I think this could work if you did the cups first using lemons as the final load... then with the lemons still sitting on the table and go into the start of the card to lemon.

I think it would not flow well to start the card to lemon, go into the cups and then finish up the card to lemon with the produced lemon.

I agree with jojo-- ton of work and waste. I do it in restaurants On occasion and almost find that too much. With that being said I use Williamsons 2 cup routine using one borrowed bill (which will eventually end up in the lemon) and one of my own... To keep things even and because I need 2 'balls' for the routine . I use a sharpie as the wand throughout and the 3 lemons are the ending. They choose any lemon (no force) and their signed bill appears in thy lemon.

Jason

When I did cups at Pike Place I'd have a couple lemons set up beforehand just for the special occasion when you see the cat with the expensive watch that's really playing the high roller. They don't tip. However, give them a dirty wet $20 back at the end of the routine and he's going to give it back to you, guaranteed. My understanding was that was the whole reason Malini created it in the first place. (Which is sad considering that in all those years neither the fact that the rich don't tip nor the siza of the bill has changed) So you don't need a ton of them, just a couple. I used Bill Malone's handling. Worked a charm and that extra beer at the end of the day is that much better for being paid with that man's money.

I think a bill in a lemon as part of a cup routine is a bit of gilding the lily. Two great tricks, I'm not sure the sum is greater than the parts.