You won't believe this

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 18th, 2004, 9:52 am

Run, don't walk to Yendor's Magic and Fedex him $99 for Gaetan Bloom's newest release "The Escalator."

This is a VISUAL piece of magic that will fry the best.

I think Yendor has a website with a demo video.

It is easy to do and scares you even if you know the work.

Jonathan Townsend · Postby **Jonathan Townsend** » November 18th, 2004, 11:36 am

Originally posted by Pete Biro:
Run, don't walk to Yendor's Magic and Fedex him $99 for Gaetan Bloom's newest release "The Escalator."

This is a VISUAL piece of magic that will fry the best.

I think Yendor has a website with a demo video.

It is easy to do and scares you even if you know the work.

Yendor's World of Magic Ltd

1229 E 305 St
Willoughby, OH 44094
Phone: (440)585-2463

are those the guys?

Steve Bryant · Postby **Steve Bryant** » November 18th, 2004, 11:39 am

Freaky! It's at
http://www.yendorsmagic.com

Guest · Postby **Guest** » November 18th, 2004, 3:06 pm

This should play well for laymen. Though I must say it seems to appeal so much to magicians only because it is clever and they can't figure it out. Worth $99? Maybe.

Andru Luvisi · Postby **Andru Luvisi** » November 18th, 2004, 6:22 pm

One concern comes to mind immediately. It obviously uses a gimmick. Is it going to wear out? If so, is it something that the purchaser can rebuild themselves, or will another $99 investment be required?

Andru

Chris Aguilar · Postby **Chris Aguilar** » November 18th, 2004, 6:33 pm

I really dislike the strained and weird (and tense) two handed grip he uses as the gag is actuated. Looks strange and I don't mean in a good way.

Brian Marks · Postby **Brian Marks** » November 18th, 2004, 6:43 pm

I dont believe it!

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 18th, 2004, 6:50 pm

It is sturdy, metal and maintenance bits are supplied, but you should get many miles out of it.

You do not need that same grip.

Pepka · Postby **Pepka** » November 18th, 2004, 7:59 pm

Wow that looks great. I think I may need to see this in person before I plunk down a bill. Pete, when do we see video of cocktail surprise?

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 18th, 2004, 8:31 pm

I don't have the expertise and/or equipment to do videos.

Dale Shrimpton · Postby **Dale Shrimpton** » November 19th, 2004, 4:08 am

Its at times like this i wish we could type the word F***!! because thats what i said when i watched the clip. Its an incredible visual effect. I want one, i want one.

( is santa on Genii?)

Jonathan Townsend · Postby **Jonathan Townsend** » November 19th, 2004, 4:47 am

Originally posted by Dale Shrimpton:
Its at times like this i wish we could type the word F***!! because thats what i said when i watched the clip. Its an incredible visual effect. I want one, i want one.

( is santa on Genii?)

When I showed the video to some folks, I got responses like:

1)Can I hold the case?
2)Can the card wind up under or on top of the case?
3)Can a card push out of the case ( card rise? )

and of course, from the engineers... yeah, cute (?) that case looks wider than a real case (snicker snicker ) and I bet if someone picked up the case they would be more impressed with the mechanics.

Nothing like getting reactions from laymen ( co-workers at the office )sometimes.

Comment (3) above got me thinking about how this might be a great setup for a longer card rise type routine.

Someone posted a cute application where you use the thing to perform Hofzinser's Divider effect.

I have only one question. How close can you be and not get busted by noise or grabby audience members who will likely be astonished and REALLY WANT TO PUT THEIR HANDS ON THE PROPS.

Guest · Postby **Guest** » November 19th, 2004, 6:12 am

sssshhhh, Jonathan, you'll spoil all their fun!

Richard Kaufman · Postby **Richard Kaufman** » November 19th, 2004, 7:45 am

The only thing I can say is, HOLY CRAP!

Guest · Postby **Guest** » November 19th, 2004, 9:00 am

Is that "Holy Crap!" or "Holy Craaaap!"?

opie

Dale Shrimpton · Postby **Dale Shrimpton** » November 19th, 2004, 9:20 am

Jonathans comments on lays seeing the effect does hold up. I had a lay guy walk past my desk, and i made him watch it.His reaction was no where near as strong as mine was.
Still, a great effect. And, i suspect that you can get close, as you couldnt see what was happening unless the box was in your face.

Terry Screen · Postby **Terry Screen** » November 19th, 2004, 9:36 am

What impresses me most about it is that it could elevate ( pun fully intended ) an Ambitious Card Routine onto a whole new plateau.
If it's used as a finale for the routine (where else?!) it might (might) just get the folks REALLY believing that the card was penetrating through to the top(or bottom )of the deck all those times.
If such a thing as a convincer exists then this must be it.

Phew! 1st post up at last. Go easy folks.

Randy · Postby **Randy** » November 19th, 2004, 9:43 am

I'd be interested in hearing some ideas for presentation and justification for the effect. Anyone ???

Steve Bryant · Postby **Steve Bryant** » November 19th, 2004, 10:14 am

From the web site:

Imagine a spectator freely selecting a card from a normal shuffled deck and signing its face. Shuffling the signed card back into the deck and returning the deck to its box. And then:

* Sliding two face-up Jokers halfway into the card box on top of the face-down deck (the Jokers can even be paper-clipped together) . The two out-jogged Jokers visibly penetrating down through the encased cards to the bottom of the deck and then visibly rising back up through the cards to the top of the deck. Dumping out the deck and spreading the cards. A single face-down card is sandwiched between the two Jokers, it's the spectator's signed card!

* Sliding a small pay envelope halfway into the card box on top of the face-down deck. The envelope taking the same down and back journey through the deck as the two Jokers. Dumping the deck and the envelope out of the card box, the spectator's signed card is inside the envelope!

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 19th, 2004, 11:05 am

Who needs to justify anything in the entertainment realm?

I think it plays perfectly as an "encore" to your skillful demonstration of card handling... "let me put the cards in the box, so you KNOW that I can't do any of my wonderful sleight-of-hand..."

The card moves up... you tip the cards out onto the table and put the case away.

CURTAIN, act is over!

Jonathan Townsend · Postby **Jonathan Townsend** » November 19th, 2004, 12:21 pm

Originally posted by Pete Biro:
Who needs to justify anything in the entertainment realm?...The card moves up... you tip the cards out onto the table and put the case away. CURTAIN, act is over!

I'm looking for more than that. First up, no curtain. I want them right up close so they can enjoy the magic.

In this case, I like the effect A LOT.

The magic seems to happen in a small area, about a half inch by two and a half inches to be specific. When asking folks to get that close and zoom in their attention to an event happening visibly in that space, they will need a good reason later to zoom their attention out and back to normal social (eyes, face, hands, table ) frame.

This change of attention frame is important to the performer at the conclusion, and the effect itself calls for nothing more than gingerly taking the protruding card from the case and deck and offering it to the signer as a souvenir after its travels. * edit * I keep getting the image of using a coffee stirrer or post-it or something for this trick. Where a post-it would be stuck on the the bottom card and wind up stuck on the top card (selected)

As described all attention is likely to be WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENED, at the top of that card case. The METHOD may call for some additional actions. These may be better accomplished when they come in the context (motivated) by some intent, say in Dean Dill's suggested use as a Divider card (Maxwell's Demon indeed!) which has separated the hot and cold before your very eyes.

Hence my question about HOW CLOSE can you get with the thing. No criticism made of Gaeton Bloom or Pete Biro.

Bill Duncan · Postby **Bill Duncan** » November 19th, 2004, 12:59 pm

The card moves up... you tip the cards out onto the table and put the case away.

Pete,
You seem to know the mechanism by with this works. Your comment seems to imply that the card does't have to move DOWN first for the effect to happen. In the online video it's shown sinking into the pack and back up to the top. Is it possible to case the pack, insert the signed selection into the middle or the pack and have it rise (as is possible with Daryl's Ultimate Ambition) or must the care "sink" first?

Guest · Postby **Guest** » November 19th, 2004, 1:00 pm

"who needs to justify anything in the entertaiment realm?"

Please, you're joking, right?

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 19th, 2004, 5:31 pm

I am not joking... :D what needs to be justified? :confused:

The card does not have to go downward first. I start with it going into the bottom, it rises to the top, and when I dump the cards out it is on top and all the cards can be examined. I just pocket the case (which IS the work). :genii:

If anyone has doubts... forget it... let those of us that have it have less competition!!! :cool:

Richard Kaufman · Postby **Richard Kaufman** » November 19th, 2004, 6:41 pm

I had a long chat with Rodney Whitlock at Yendor's, who make this item.
The method is remarkable.
The effect is remarkable.
All I can repeat is ... HOLY CRAP!

Guest · Postby **Guest** » November 19th, 2004, 6:50 pm

Maybe I can answer a lot of questions by descibing my favorite routine with the "ESCALATOR". I would venture to say that Gaetan is the only person in the World that may have performed the "ESCALATOR" more than myself. I have done it literally hundreds of times for both magicians and lay-folk. I get as strong a reaction from my lay audiences as I do from any of the magicians I have shown it to. I should point out that the "ESCALATOR" knocks the socks off of any and all of my audiences when performed in a tightly cohesive routine!

I hand a box of Bicycle playing cards to a spectator and ask her to remove the cards from the case and shuffle them. I then ask her to take a Sharpy pen and sign the face of a card she has chosen. The card is then shuffled back into the pack and the pack is returned to the card case. The case is placed on the table and the fronts and backs of three or four small manilla pay enevelopes are shown. I insert one of the envelopes into the card box on top of the face-down deck. The envelope protrudes about an inch out of the card box. The envelope then travels down through every card in the deck until it reaches the bottom of the pack and then rises back to the top of the deck. The face-down deck with the envelope on top is dumped out of the card case. The spectator is ask to remove the contents of the envelope. It is her signed card! The envelope is dropped on the table and the spectator is ask to place the rest of the cards back into the card box. FINI!

This routine can be done right in front of the spectators' faces and totally surrounded. This routine is described in detail on the instructional DVD that accompanies the "ESCALATOR".

I hope that this description of my favorite routine with Gaetan Bloom's "ESCALATOR" will answer some of your questions.

Alpen · Postby **Alpen** » November 19th, 2004, 9:54 pm

This reminds me of a trick, by Paul Harris maybe, which you hold the cased deck flat on the table and the deck rises out... it was a matter of simply putting a little work into the flap to make it look like the deck rose out... Does anyone remember that trick?

Anyways, the trick looks amazing... Just that it seems like on of those things that doesn't look too hard to figure out (especially from a magician.) I mean, the way some spectators think, doesn't anyone else think that they are going to assume that the whole deck is dropping, especially with the fact that the flap has to hide the bottom of the case?

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 19th, 2004, 11:34 pm

Richard.. you have talked about it. Have you seen it? I did it today at the Castle for Ron Wilson, and others... and they were all CLUE LESS... right at the lunch table.

Heheheheh :genii: :p :genii:

Randy · Postby **Randy** » November 22nd, 2004, 10:51 am

[Who needs to justify anything in the entertainment realm?QUOTE]- Pete Biro

Pete, I was really looking more for presentaion ideas with a logical conclusion to an ambitous card routine being just one.

We always hear that "presentation is everything" and I agree. Some guy can make a card visibly rise in a packed deck of cards...great...but why....where's the story?

Anybody else have any ideas for a presentation and/or story for this type of effect?

[/QUOTE]

Richard Kaufman · Postby **Richard Kaufman** » November 22nd, 2004, 4:23 pm

There are some things which are so visually exciting that you do not need an intricate presentation for it.
If your spectators are not holding the sides of their heads after seeing the card rise through the deck, without you even saying a single word, then there is something seriously wrong.

Dustin Stinett · Postby **Dustin Stinett** » November 22nd, 2004, 4:43 pm

Just off the top of my head, after doing an Ambitious sequence, you can ask if anyone wants to see it done in slow motion. Even if you were doing a story you could work the slo-mo angle in somehow.

Imagine if this was twenty or twenty five years ago, and Henning or Copperfield did this thing on the tube (and I think they would have), the shop would be sold out already.

Dustin

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 22nd, 2004, 6:55 pm

After Ambitious moves, I say, something like, "What you have seen is made possible by my superhuman skills... but, if I put the deck in its box... then I can't possibly manipulate the cards in any way..." blah blah blah... CURTAIN, APPLAUSE, MONEY BEING THROWN AT MY FEET... :D :D :D

Jonathan Townsend · Postby **Jonathan Townsend** » November 23rd, 2004, 4:40 am

Most simply:

You are holding a card case face toward your audience.

Something impressive happens right before their eyes.

And you are in exactly the right position to hand them the case and ask them to remove their card.

Yet you don't.

Suggestions?

mrgoat · Postby **mrgoat** » November 23rd, 2004, 5:59 am

I would love to hear/see a layman's reaction to this. I can hear them saying "Cool trick deck".

Robert Allen · Postby **Robert Allen** » November 23rd, 2004, 8:18 am

I've thought about it a bit. I am in the camp of most people here, I don't like it, as you're being burned heavily at the conclusion and you have few outs.

That said: this trick requires a performer of sufficient quality and confidence that they can make an out happen. Most of us probably aren't of that quality. Whatever trick you preceed this with needs to to be very strong, so the strength of this item doesn't eclipse the trick you just did, and doesn't make the audience so unruly that they 'demand' to see the deck.

Jonathan Townsend · Postby **Jonathan Townsend** » November 23rd, 2004, 9:28 am

Originally posted by Robert Allen:
...Whatever trick you precede this with needs to to be very strong, so the strength of this item doesn't eclipse the trick you just did, and doesn't make the audience so unruly that they 'demand' to see the deck.

So first you want to put them to sleep, so they won't react with the bugged eyes and insistence on "seeing that" which you put in their faces.

The natural reaction is to grab for the box and say "let me see that".

Any suggestions on handling that moment beyond pretending to be an oaf by spilling out the cards, or a boor by simply taking the cards away?

The image of folks bowing down and throwing money is attractive. How do we get from the bugged eyes and reaching hands to the adulation Pete describes?

Pete McCabe · Postby **Pete McCabe** » November 23rd, 2004, 10:43 am

It is easy to structure things so that, to a spectator, this trick has nothing to do with the box. If they grab for the box you are doing something very wrong.

First, you start with your ambitious card routine. Whatever presentation you use for that. Presumably your routine increases in how impressive each rise is; if not, start with that before you ring this in.

For a climax, you comment that some people think you are doing this with sleight of hand. To prove this, you put the cards in the box, so that you couldn't possibly manipulate the cards.

In the box, the card rises, visibly.

Dump the deck out and hand it for examination.

Put the box in your pocket. The box has nothing to do with it; after all you preceeded the climax with an entire ambitious card routine that didn't involve the box. Later, when the spectator has examined the deck, pull a different box out of your pocket and put the deck away in it.

The effect on a lay person of watching this routine will be quite different from watching just the climax on a computer video.

Brian Morton · Postby **Brian Morton** » November 23rd, 2004, 10:52 am

Pete's right -- remember, it's just a card box!

I regularly perform Jay Sankey's "Paperclipped" at the end of a cards to pocket routine. When I take off the paper clip and stick it in my pocket, nobody goes, "Hey -- lemme see that paperclip!"

If you treat ordinary objects as ordinary, nobody will suspect that they are anything but. If you perform with lots of brass gimcracks, painted boxes and other unnatural objects (such as sets of specially-printed playing cards that come out of little plastic wallets), they'll automatically have reason to suspect any and all of your props.

And if it worries you that much, do a box switch at the end while looking for something else in your pocket to perform another trick.

brian :cool:

Jonathan Townsend · Postby **Jonathan Townsend** » November 23rd, 2004, 11:11 am

Originally posted by Brian Wendell Morton:
Pete's right -- remember, it's just a card box!...

If you believed that, wouldn't you just give them the thing, no dumping, no fussing?

Here.

Suggestions?

Pete Biro · Postby **Pete Biro** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:30 pm

Have the card signed.

Perform Ambitious routine.

Put deck in box, card rises.

Spectator asked to "cup hands".

Dump cards out into his/her hands.

Box held in, say, left hand...

Left hand goes into jacket (drops box into topit) and gets ungaffed box hanging on a clip at inside pocket and brings out a big eraser.

Hand eraser to spectator to "erase name off the card"...

"Oh, Sorry, you signed it in ink."

Or bring out a candy prize for their help.

Use your brain.

:kermit: