The Genii Forum

Spellbinder

That reminds me of my own study habits of past years. It also reminded me of the wonderful illustrations contained in "The Award-Winning Rope Magic of Francis Tabary" with illustrations by Jeff. The illustrations are the clearest and most complete I have ever seen in any magic book. Most o...

Spellbinder

Jim and I both love magic history and we always try to track down the originators of the tricks we expand upon whenever possible. In this Pop-Away Wand e-Book, he tells the complete story as he researched it: "The Pop-Away Wand is a product of the 20th century, made possible by discoveries in m...

Spellbinder

I just updated the information on Jim's "Tricks With a Pop-Away Wand." I had forgotten just how many different effects were included in that one e-Book until a customer recently made me go back and check. Here they are: Dog-Gone Silk Trick Rabbit-in-Hat Silk Trick Wand Boojum Production Pu...

Spellbinder

It started with the Hot Book by Billy McComb (1945), then to an idea for a production of a dove from a book, by the same Billy McComb, through a variety of Flaming Books and Dove Production Books from all sorts of manufacturers (currently from India), each one basically reinventing the same trick ov...

Spellbinder

The attractive card principle is being used to make a new "In Their Hands Hippity Hop" trick which uses spectators to hold the bunnies (or whatever, since you print them yourself) from beginning to end. The bunnies are covered with handkerchiefs rather than being covered with suspicious lo...

Spellbinder

I have a P&L Candle Tube in the Wiz Kid Museum and there it will stay, because it has one basic flaw - it's too obviously a magic trick and not magical at all. I replaced it years ago with a magical vanish of a real wax candle which then seems to reappear by magic, lit, from a spectator's pocket...

Spellbinder

For the past year or so we here at The Magic Nook have been working on "Attractive Cards" and one of the outcomes was a new way to perform the old Six Card Repeat. I liked the Abbott's 1940 playing card version of "Rabbit Repeat", but once we applied the new principles, we discov...

Spellbinder

Something new has been made from two old favorites- Ken Allen's Jumping Gems and Jim Zee's Hot Rod are combined in Jim Gerrish's 21st Century Gemstones in the Wizards' Journal #32. It is so named because it uses 21st Century technology not available to the two originators in the 1960's. You can't bu...

Spellbinder

"Some people just can't handle children and/or teenagers. If you know how to, great. If not, then forget it." So you are saying that magicians, who learn complicated skills of sleight of hand and psychological audience control, are incapable of learning how to handle children and/or teenag...

Spellbinder

Mentalism is not what puts children to sleep, nor do card tricks, nor any of the other tricks that "traditional magicians" have decided are boring for children. Boring magicians and boring magic presentations are what put children to sleep.

Spellbinder

Since your request was to "link a card trick to her cake", here's how I do it: when it comes time to make a wish and then blow out the candles on the cake, I have the (forced) card rise up out of the center of the cake in the midst of the candles. The back of the card has a message written...

Spellbinder

Including as many of the children in the mentalism performance as possible, some moms and dads, too, seems to keep their attention as each person wants to see if you can read his or her mind (or guess his or her secret card) on a personal level. Passing out cards with pictures of different toys is g...

Spellbinder

The way to do it, if you insist, is to toss someone the spool of thread and ask him to break off a piece of thread about "so long," showing him the length with your arms spread. Have him hand you the thread in one hand and the spool in the other, pocket the spool and begin. Do NOT mention ...

Spellbinder

If the balls are light enough, the twisted hooks can be made from clear plastic, cut from soda straws. Jim Gerrish tried such a set on his floating beach ball and it was easy on, easy off, but only for "normal" sedate floating and not the bouncy type he prefers, so he is currently using a ...

Spellbinder

When I was growing up in the age of "buy everything from a magic store," I used to think of illusionists as "rich boys" whose fathers bought them the latest and biggest stuff available. Not having a rich father, and being of poor means myself, my equally poor friends and I went a...

Spellbinder

Most children's entertainers are not looking to perform stage illusions at junior's birthday party and instead search for "packs small and plays big" at those events. However, once in a while, they might discover that their "plays big show" is not quite big enough for a gymnasium...

Spellbinder

Yes, thanks for the inspiration and for paying attention to what's going on around you. I still use the little Chap Stick tube myself and didn't notice that women were using the spheres... something about aroma-therapy. My biggest problem was that while Lip Balm spheres screw closed, the regular bal...

Spellbinder

After experimenting with converting a real lip balm spherical container into a Ball and Vase trick, I concluded that it is much easier to convert a large plastic ball and vase to a make-believe lip balm container. It involves slicing off the top knob and the stem and base of a large size ball and va...

Spellbinder

The "no-gimmick" method would work great for these, substituting a superball for the actual lipbalm, taking it out and bouncing it, then performing the no gimmick sleights to make it disappear from the container while in the hands of a spectator, and when it reappears it actually is lip ba...

Spellbinder

3-way, 5-way only matters to those who still perform the same coloring book that was described in 1584 (Prevost and the Discoverie of Witchcraft)and even then have to purchase one commercially made, rather than make one from scratch even in these days of computers and inkjet printers. For those who ...

Spellbinder

For a Halloween seance, the electronic "crystal ball" available at most Halloween shops (for less than a "real" crystal ball, adds a bit of pizzazz to the reading. Also, as I show in The Wizards' Journal #2, item 11, you can cause bits of information to appear in the globe, as sh...

Spellbinder

It IS a wonderful trick, but you don't need a commercial "Ring Flight" to gently vanish a ring and bring it back to a gentle conclusion. It is easier to vanish a ring than to vanish a coin, but the same moves make it possible, and the shape of the ring gives you new options for grabbing an...

Spellbinder

That's a good method. A piece of black lace fabric over the phone should allow the medium to still see the phone and tap it, but keep any side views from escaping.

Spellbinder

The same rule applies to all types of tricks - you don't want too many rope tricks, or coin tricks, or silk tricks, either. Same thing with too many plaque tricks- Hippity Hops + Forgetful Freddy + Choo-Choo Charlie can leave you gasping for air. I think we can all agree that a performance for child...

Spellbinder

There are those who think that Mentalism and Children don't mix, but I am not one of those. I see the results that Wiz Kid Qua-Fiki gets out of his "Small Medium at Large" in The Wizards' Journal #23 - item 9, in which a child can read the minds of others in the audience, and even make a p...

Spellbinder

Jim Gerrish recently published a new version of the Anniversary Waltz (by Doc Eason) which eliminates the deck of cards and whittles it down to just three cards - The King of Hearts, The Queen of Hearts, and The Jack of Hearts (who plays the role of the "parson"). This made it possible to ...

Spellbinder

Jim Gerrish has put together a collection of routines that start with a Pop-Away wand and end up with, perhaps, a trick you never thought of using it for. You'd be surprised, for example, what a great blow-dye tube it makes for doing a mis-made flag. And yes, you can still use it for popping off the...

Spellbinder

Children are not afraid of getting their faces painted, so why should they be afraid of clowns? I used to work with a face painter who would paint my clown face bit by bit between working on the kids' faces. While this was going on, I did some introductory funny stuff to entertain the kids and attra...

Spellbinder

You might want to take a look at the use of color ropes in a routine like Wiz Kid Qua-Fiki's Blendo Ropes from The Wizards' Journal #16 ( http://magicnook.com/WIZj16/WIZ16-06Ble ... uaFiki.htm ).

Spellbinder

This is a trick that has been around a long time in various forms and with various methods for vanishing the elephant. Basically, you have a number of cards (the usual number is three but there is no reason why you can't begin with more than three). Typically, the cards show various circus acts and ...

Spellbinder

The same can be said of the floating ball and the floating lightbulb, but not, I believe, of the dancing handkerchief or a GOOD Zombie or Astro-sphere performance. The floating table ... I haven't seen one yet I could believe.

Spellbinder

It might be useful to examine why many of us feel one way about the cane, and most do NOT feel the same way about the even older Dancing Hank. One thing the Hank has that the Cane lacks is: personality. The Hank is treated as a mischievous little sprite that plays with the magician (and audience) in...

Spellbinder

"There's An Egg In Your Hat" is the title of a new e-Book by Jim Gerrish in which he makes a case for getting rid of the "egg bag" and replacing it with a borrowed knit hat from a child in the audience. At the same time, he proposes doing away with the sucker part of the classic ...

Spellbinder

"Ergo decipiatur."

That's seven dollars for a set of three juggling scarves. There are other sources, and once you know what you are looking for you can hunt them down.

Spellbinder

You might consider juggling scarves, which are sheer by nature.

http://www.amazon.com/Juggling-Scarves- ... B001AZ2FMU

or just Google "juggling scarves" for a wide variety of sources.

Spellbinder

It is a pleasure to see these projects. I started making props on our kitchen table when I was twelve. At sixteen I made the complete show, 'The Magic Bricks' from Peter D'Arcy's book, 'Children's Parties a Speciality'. Making your own props seems to be a forgotten craft. Pity. I congratulate you o...

Spellbinder

We have a lot of Magic Nook props that can be printed on a regular printer right now, without waiting for a 3-D printer. Naturally, these include a lot of jumbo card props, but also others that can be folded into boxes and such. One that I forgot to mention from Jim's Kitchen Workshop is his "S...

Spellbinder

Just an update: Jim Finished his Roy Benson String Sticks project:\\ http://magicnook.com/WizJ27/BensonSticksAD01.JPG Then he went on to a small and easy to make and handle version of the Selbit Traveling Blocks, more recently known as Cube A Libre, or Jim's Version which is called "Bouncing Bl...

Spellbinder

fredreisz wrote:I love mine (although at the moment it is not working!) Peace Fred (Reisz)

There's the best reason for building your own. Having built it yourself, you know how to repair it when needed.

Spellbinder

Jim Gerrish has a rectangular version you can make from hardboard and duct tape (or wood and brass fittings if you want elegance more than utility) in his "Hardboard and Duct Tape Magic Book 1" under the name "Production Tubes." http://magicnook.com/hardboard/tube05.jpg You start...

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