iPhone post

I am writing this on my iphone

i phone

Today is the day. I have been toying with the idea of putting ALL of my media/calenders/phone/GPS/emails, into one unit for a long time. The i phone seems to be the only option. It's quite interesting actually as I swore off i pod last year in favor of a drag and drop Archos media player. Maybe I will keep it for video as the i phone still does you no favors when it comes to converting those kind of files.

Photographic Memories

This is a mentalism item that I came up with after watching my friend Andy Nyman's DVD 'Get Nyman'

Somewhere on that DVD Andy talks about the possibilities of using accomplices in the audience to transmit certain information to the on stage performer. Understand that such plants are not 'stooges' (not that theres anything wrong with that) but rather hidden assistants akin to sound operators and lighting technicians...kind of. You need five photographs of some family members, pets etc, and a large black envelope. Do not show what is on the photos until the end. This adds to the mystery and helps this effect to be less than 'perfect' The fact that you use photos of your own family adds a nice touch in the presentation and patter.

1 Establish a code between you and your friend so that he/she can signal you the numbers, one through five, with their fingers around a drinking glass. i.e: if they hold the glass between thumb and first finger they are signaling the number one. If the thumb first AND second fingers are curled around the glass the number is two and so on up to the number 4, four fingers and a thumb holding a glass. Number five is represented by not holding the glass at all but rather leaving it on teh table or having it in thier lap with their hand over the top.

2 Each of the photographs corresponds to the numbers one to five. A simple way for your friend to remember this is the order in which they are positioned on the table or in a stand. An easy way for you to memorise it would be the number of bodies in each of the photos.

You instruct your on stage participant to take one of the photos and place it into the black envelope. The others you say should be placed face down with the envelop eon top of them. The sizes of all of the items should be designed in such a way that the envelope completely covers the photos once it is placed on top.

3 When they have done this they are to remember the photos image and ring a small bell so that you know they have done this task (the bell idea belongs to my friend the mentalist Mark Mayer who has performed this trick several times to great reactions.

4 You turn around and look at your friend in teh audience. Your friend now signals you as to which photo was selected and you done.

5 You reveal the photos that are under the envelop first one by one and then after that you slowly reveal the on eon the inside.


6 The fact that you did not show the photos at first adds an element of mystery to the effect. It will lead the specs to think that there may have been duplicate photos and switches involved which ofcourse there are not. Still a good place to have your specs though as it is a very good red herring. They will be racking their brains to try and figure out where the duplicate photos went. For this reason it is also a very good magician fooler.

When Mark Mayer performed this trick at 'Magic Mondays' about three years ago he totally nailed Charles Gauci with it. For all the above mentioned reasons you might want to keep it under your hat.

Back From Tas

Well, I just returned from a delightful weekend in Hobart working for John Berry of Cables Plus Tasmania I was staying in a three bedroom unit. My every need was catered to.

I did about sixteen hours of magic from the minute I walked in to the moment I closed my stand up show in the evening and they loved it. Most of the time I was just talking about being a magician, which is part of the deal when you are booked as a guest 'speaker' as opposed to just an performer.

I had a quick speedboat ride to see some wonderful caves and a seal colony (courtesy of John) This morning before hopping on a plane back to Melbourne, nursing a little bit of a sore head.

John was the perfect gentleman and a good example of a man who treats his business seriously and his clients and guests with respect

Roving Aces

This is a fairly easy ace cutting sequence that I do in roving.

1 Loose, and control the aces to the top via your favorite method.
2 The first ace comes into play via a simple false cut. As I do this when I am roving the cut I use is the 'Classic Pass False Cut'. Show that you have cut to the first ace. Pretty easy so why doesn't the spec try to find the second one for themselves.
3 As you say the above take a double from the top. Face up ace, and face down ace back to back. Riffle down the end of the deck and get the spec to call stop. Wherever they stop insert the double. You say "face up as a marker" You spread through to reveal that they have stopped at the second ace.
4 Outjog these cards and at the same time get a break under the top card (third ace)
5 Move the two face up aces to the top and do a simple sandwich load of the third ace between them. Cut them face up into the deck.
6 Pass them back to teh top. It looks like they visually rose bringing a card between them
7 Stick the three aces up aces in an outjog position.
8 Do a double lift and say, "The last ace is always difficult. It actually isn't the ace at first. Turn the double down and lift off the single face down ace. Place it into the outjogged cards face down and pull them all out of the deck.
9 Place the cards between the specs palms and have the X card transform into the last ace whenever you like.

DIY

Through a lack of being able to procure the correct kind of re-fill paper I found myself making a 'Cardiographic' pad from scratch this morning. For those who are not aware of how unenviable this task was let me just say that Cardiographic is a perfectly balanced example of 'impossibly annoying to re-set (verses) fantastic reactions, ratio. Having said that, remember that I did NOT just re set it...I MADE a new one.

The thing is now complete and working very well considering I cannabalised about three pads/spiral binds/covers to make it. Cardiographic is a joy to perform and never fails to get anything less than a great reaction. After I had shouted at my wife several times during it's construction I calmly told her that it was all worth it......for whom exactly I don't know.

The plus side of making up a Cardiographic for myself was that I was able to transpose it to am A4 size pad, much better for my roadcase. BTW If you are going to reduce the size of this trick to A4 don't reduce the size of the gimmick/drawing. Keep that the sam eas it looks more impressive when a 'big' card starts to rise out of a 'big' picture. When Copperfield did this trick he used a massive pad and it looked great. When most of the people doing his exact routine, even down to the music
up loaded themselves on You Tube as raging plagiarists they used regular sized pads.

Rainbow

A Routine with the Rainbow Deck.

You need a rainbow deck for this. It's not quite the same without one.

Place a blue card on the top and a blue card five cards up. Also place one on the bottom
1 Take out the deck and spread it face up between your hands.
2 Take the last six cards form the top and turn the rest of the deck face up on the table, next to the blue box. As you do this pull the bottom card out to the side a fraction. This (and the fact that the cards are next to a blue box) helps to sell the idea that it is a complete blue deck.
3 There should be six cards in your hand, the upper one is blue.
4 execute a Rhumba count to show all blue back. The cards are dealt face up on to the table.
5 Ask a person to name one.
6 Push it forward
7 Turn the deck face up and place it in the box for later
8 Pick up the remainder of the tabled cards and kiss them to the face of the selection.

9 Turn the selection over to show that the colour of the back has changed.
10 Kiss the selection to the rest of the packet and turn them over doing another Rhumba count. Tis shows that the back of all the others have changed to a third colour.
11 Kiss all of the cards together again and deal them singularly to the table showing six different colours.
12 Climax by showing the deck (inside the box) has changed colour too.