Sticky Situation praise

[Guest]

On another bulletin board, Andy Leviss is fairly outspoken. I've not really been a fan of his, since he is mostly a mentalism kind of guy and I'm more of a sleight of hands type of guy, and I rarely see mentalism that appeals to me,

Chad Long lectured this past weekend at the Minnesota "Close up and in the Parlour" convention. Chad is funnier than heck, and skilled to the max.

One of the little bits he did was to remove a piece of gum from his mouth and I don't recall his exact patter, which is MUCH funnier than what comes with this trick but the gist of it was this:

"Anybody need some gum, well that's not so sanitary" at this point he took a well chewed piece of gum from his mouth and squeezed it with his fingers"

"I'll just save it for later" Now he pulled on it a bit, and it stretched into a new unwrapped wrigleys stick of gum.

"Just to complete it..." He waved it once or twice and it changed into a new fully wrapped stick of Wrigleys Juicy Fruit gum.

During the lecture he showed how it worked, and I gotta say, he sold a lot of them, even to the other lectures like Mike Bent and Bob Sheets. This is a clever trick. Its really not much to stand on it's own, but makes a good opener. It would be a funny way to hand a stick of gum to a kid. The whole performance of the effect could be done quite well in 15 seconds, or you may be able to stretch (pun intended) it to a half minute or so. Either way, it really was powerfully visual and definitely a bit of genius on Andy Leviss's part to come up with it. The instructions also document some previous effects from others that led to this. Chad introduces one really powerful addition based on his coin bending routine, which basic"ally allows you to do the effect of "silver shifter for about the cost of a penny, for any coin nationality or composition. The same principle, when applied to "Sticky Situation" totally throws the audience into mental spasms, and increases the cost of the well made gimmick buy maybe a a dime at the outside. The beauty is that you can end up with any type of wrapped stick gum you want, although wrigleys spearmint or juicy fruit will work best.

Just thought I'd post this to the group, it's not a very popular item, at least I've never seen it in stores, but Chad made a big impression with it, and sold one to about every person at the convention. Chad's little improvement is documented and explained in the instructions that come with the trick. Leviss credits Jay Sankey with a similar though different effect, and also credit Chad Long with his improvement and explains that in detail.

[Guest]

I agree with Mark, its one of those effects that is quite often overlooked until you have seen it. Sticky Situation is great.

Tom Boleware

[Andi]

For those looking for more information on Andy's excellent effect, check out Andy's and my website; http://www.asquaredproductions.com

End plug!

--Andi

[Jamie Badman]

Incidently, the idea of using the coin-bending bit to 'Sticky Situation' is actual printed in the instructions for the effect - Andi Gladwin came up with this application for it, not Chad. I bet Chad makes it look damn good though ;-)

Jamie.

[Guest]

Mark,
Thanks so much for the kind words, it's much appreciated! If anybody has Chad's contact info, please e-mail me and let me know, because I keep hearing from folks how great he does the effect, and would love to say hi and thank him for plugging it so much :o)

--Andy

[Guest]

Isn't this an Aaron Fisher trick published many years ago?

[Jim Maloney_dup1]

From a post Andy made over at the Kevin James forum ( http://www.kjmagic.com/forum ):

To clarify one thing on the credits, there are actually three other approaches to this plot I'm aware of, and all four (mine included) were to the best of my knowlege independent creations of both effect and method. One is the Sankey effect Mark mentioned, which is identical in method to one by Jim Pace. The third is by Aaron Fisher, which appears on one of Dan Harlan's tapes on impromptu magic. Of course I like mine the best, since I think it's the most practical, but I suppose I'm biased ;)

-Jim

[Bill Mullins]

Originally posted by Dave Schools:
Isn't this an Aaron Fisher trick published many years ago?

See his "Sleight Album" notes for Eleanor Wrigley.

[Pete McCabe]

Here's another version of this plot which I came up with a while back. I don't use it because you don't end clean. However it does have two names, and both of them are very good.

ABC Gum (aka Double Bubble)

Take two pieces of bubble gum and put them in your pocket.

Take one piece out, unwrap it, and put it in your mouth. Before you put the wrapper back in your pocket, secretly tear a small hole in the middle.

When you're done with the gum, reach into your pocket. Finger palm the second piece and bring out the wrapper.

Put the gum from your mouth into the wrapper and wrap it up. Make sure you don't fold the wrapper over the hole.

Ask if anybody wants some ABC gum. If they can't remember their childhood, remind them this stands for Already Been Chewed.

When they say no thanks, take the spent gum in the same hand as the duplicate. Squeeze it in your fist, which turns palm down. Secretly work the spent gum outside the fist, so the gum that's sticking through the hole is pressed up against the back of your fingers.

Open your hand, keeping the back of the fingers down. The audience will see a fully restored piece of gum on your otherwise empty palm. The chewed piece is stuck to the back of your hand by the sticky gum.

Put the restored gum into your pocket, where you scrape off the sticky piece.


To clean up:
Excuse yourself and go wash your hands. You might want to get your pants laundered as well.

[Guest]

Jim,
Thanks for copying that post for me; I'd meant to add that back into my post last night, but I had just come in from an eight hour night of work and, it being nearly 2am, my brain wasn't working fully. :)

Regarding the Aaron Fisher connection, Aaron and the "Magic Radio Show" gang even mentioned my version when Aaron was a guest on the show a while back, and they had some nice things to say about it.

--A

[Jim Maloney_dup1]

Originally posted by Andy Leviss:
I had just come in from an eight hour night of work and, it being nearly 2am, my brain wasn't working fully.

Yeah, but does it ever?

;)

-Jim