Here's My Chance: Should I?

[Lisa Cousins]

Now that I'm behind a magic counter, demo-ing things all the live-long day, I have my opportunity to perpetuate a magic legend.

I can paint a thumb tip bright neon green and keep it in a handy hidden place. I can demo something with my bare hands, and then steal out the thumb tip and brandish it around, claiming that I had it on all along, and just see for yourself how beautifully invisible a thumb tip can be made under expert handling such as mine.

I mean, all magic's an illusion, right?

[Andrew Pinard]

Go for it Lisa! Are you going to present it at this year's Yankee Gathering?

[mrgoat]

Now that I'm behind a magic counter, demo-ing things all the live-long day, I have my opportunity to perpetuate a magic legend.

I can paint a thumb tip bright neon green and keep it in a handy hidden place. I can demo something with my bare hands, and then steal out the thumb tip and brandish it around, claiming that I had it on all along, and just see for yourself how beautifully invisible a thumb tip can be made under expert handling such as mine.

I mean, all magic's an illusion, right?

I would definately do that. Buy a little Flip camera (100 odd bucks) and shoot the reactions in HD from over YOUR shoulder. So the cam can see the green tip.

I used to pitch sven decks whilst at college. When I got bored of doing it, I would just do the same routine with a regular deck of cards. "It's a trick deck, anyone can do this, look".

I also sold haunted mechanical decks I would do with a regular deck and a thread.

You could get really creative with ficticious magic that isn't on sale 'yet'. Slipping a signed card to a coworker who places it on the ceiling behind the spec. Etc etc

Hope all is well, not seen you for too long!

Damian
x

[Joe Pecore]

You need to sell Invisible Thread too :)

[Jon Elion]

I was in Al Cohen's shop in Washington DC one time when an unhappy customer came in to return a thumb tip, complaining that the color didn't match his skin tones and he was afraid people would see it.

Al proceeded to demonstrate a series of effects with his own thumb tip, and when the demonstration was over, he revealed that the thumb tip was bright red. But it was not switched in at the end -- I was standing off to the side and saw him switch it into play AT THE BEGINNING! The customer "got it" and left the shop with the original thumb tip.

Al's point, of course, was that there are many uses of the thumb tip that do no rely on a close color match to your own skin. Okay, okay, there are many that do, but...

Don't you think a far more mind-blowing (and personally satisfying) demonstration would be one where you truly used a bright red thumb tip, yet it was never seen?!

[Bill Duncan]

Wouldn't that be a dye tube?

[Jon Elion]

No, definitely a thumb tip painted bright red to help make a point. Pretty funny to see standard thumb tip moves (vanishing a silk) being done with it!

[Brandon Hall]

I would hate to doubt Mr. Elion, who claimed to be an eye witness, but this has the ring of Urban "Magic" Legend written all over it.

[Pete Biro]

No legend. I forget who it was some years ago who worked with a chome plated TT.

[Bill Duncan]

Jon, my point was that no one thinks anything about using a dye tube without people seeing it...

If you have to paint a thumb tip red to make the point the student isn't ready for a thumb tip.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Bill, the "legend" is that the guy used a chrome thumbtip. It's in print. It's not the Scotty York Goldfinger item - but dates from about the same time.

The real work on a trick where you surprise tehm with the colored thumbtip is in the Ramsay paper restoration trick from the first Galloway book.

As far as what Lisa wants to do - might as well paint up an entire set of Vernet fingers or thimbles and produce them the same way as the standard thimble production.

[David Linsell]

I have memories of Clarke Crandall using a chrome TT at Abbotts proving the same point. Maybe the mid 70s? Does this sound familiar to any one who knew Clarke well?

[Bill Evans]

Gene DeVoe used to do this all the time at his magic shop in St. Louis back in the 70s. He told the story of someone doing this many years before that, but I can't remember who it was.

[Seuss]

I thought I had heard (and seen a photo) of Grant using a red white and blue thumbtip.

[Lisa Cousins]

As far as what Lisa wants to do - might as well paint up an entire set of Vernet fingers or thimbles and produce them the same way as the standard thimble production.

Now THAT'S hilarious! Or, with very minimal effort, I could immediately make use of the "curved" Vernet sixth-fingers we sell - do a routine with my regular hands - quickly slip my fingers into five of those craggy-looking, over-sized things - and wave my hand around exalting "and I was wearing THESE the entire time!"

I'd sell 'em by the boatload, for sure!

[Richard Kaufman]

This I saw with my own eyes on many occasions up at Tannen's Magic Shop in New York when I was a kid: Lou and Irv would use a thumbtip that was painted silver. It wasn't chromed and glossy, but painted with silver spray paint or Testor's silver model paint. Either way, no one ever saw the thumbtip.

[Pete McCabe]

I never understood the point of this story, which I usually hear in response to someone looking for a more realistic or closer-color-matching thumb tip. This person and his search are then, essentially, ridiculed by way of this old chestnut.

Sure, you can get away with a less-than-realistic thumb tip most of the time. So what? If you're seeking excellence, and you're going to do a trick with a thumb tip, you should seek a thumb tip whose color most closely matches your thumb.

[/rant]

[Jonathan Townsend]

Pete, have a quick read of the story in Bobo's about a guy who got very clever with a thumbtip.

And I agree - it's a gag for magicians only and that's also why I support Lisa's efforts to have fun with the theme and also cited the Ramsay trick.

Come to think of it, I have a sponge ball or coin vanish that folks might like. Maybe it's time for it to see print.

Okay back to Lisa, our OP... any thoughts on going all the way to those Halloween latex monster hand gloves or would that be overkill? :)