4. 4 MILLION VIEWS!

[Dave Le Fevre]

Merely FYI, I can view the video

[Tarotist]

Perhaps you have to be a member of Facebook to see it? I have no idea. Mind you I did see a notice at the side of the page before the video appeared saying there were no videos to show. Maybe Alfred had to wait a few seconds longer for the video to appear.

[MagicbyAlfred]

Perhaps you have to be a member of Facebook to see it? I have no idea. Mind you I did see a notice at the side of the page before the video appeared saying there were no videos to show. Maybe Alfred had to wait a few seconds longer for the video to appear.

I will try again, and wait a bit to see if it magically appears.

I am not a member of FaceBook. Wasn't it Groucho Marx who quipped, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

[MagicbyAlfred]

Oh well, no dice. I waited more than 5 minutes in vain. Perhaps they knew it was me. My girl friend is a member of FaceBook. When she gets home later I will provide her with the link and see if she can access Mark's video. The waiting wasn't a total loss, however, as I suddenly got an idea for a new social media platform that could make me rich and famous. Well, no, I don't actually want to be rich and famous - I just wanna make a ton of money and have everybody know who I am.

[DennisLisi]

I tried the link early this morning, and just got your Facebook page, Mark. But now, the vid pops right up. Might be because I'm using the Facebook app--I don't know.

Anyway, your routine gives me an idea. As I am undoubtedly a better poet than I am a magician, perhaps I could make a living by writing brilliant verses for other performers.

Or get a job at a greeting card company.

[MagicbyAlfred]

I actually have a video I made ages and ages ago of a trick I have never shown to a single human being let alone a woman human being. I think I might put it on You Tube. I suspect it would appeal to women. It is actually a long winded love story set to rhyme. Or I should say a card trick disguised as a love story. I learned it from Expert Card Technique about 60 years ago and have never showed it to a single living soul. I did put it on Facebook but that is hardly a place of living souls...................

I might as well place it here too since I suspect there aren't too many living souls here either..............
https://www.facebook.com/mark.lewis.758 ... 3389514877

I was finally able to view Mark's video. Quite clever and entertaining, and I enjoyed it. Actually, I did not find it long-winded at all, but brief and refreshing. Well done!

[Tarotist]

For me it was long winded simply because I rarely (in fact never) talk a lot when nothing is happening like a lot of magicians do. In fact I am dead against it. I certainly talk a lot but there is always action going on. However you don't really have much choice when reciting a poem.

Now I may have told this story before but some decades ago I read in the Gen magazine a thimble routine by Arnold Furst. The whole thing was done to rhyme. I don't normally do rhyming patter except for the card trick under discussion but I rather liked the poem. I then made a disastrous decision to put it into my act and I had rehearsed it and was very excited to get a booking where I could try it out. I had decided to open my act with it. Alas it was a very large room where I am quite sure nobody could see the bloody thimbles in the first place and worst of all it was filled with the working classes of Northern England who were not terribly good audiences. The working men's clubs were plentiful and notorious for their tough down to earth audiences. Not the type to listen to poetic musings about a thimble they couldn't see anyway.

Now when you do some other trick and see that it isn't working out you can switch tactics very quickly and end the thing and change pace. However, when you are two lines into a poem somehow you can't stop halfway and are forced to continue. It was a horrific experience and in fact I feel quite traumatised writing about it again. Reciting a bloody poem about a damned thimble to hundreds of dockers, miners and other non poetic types is not a recipe for standing ovations I am afraid and of course the entire act died a horrible death.

Anyway as a result of this horrific experience I never did the trick again until 40 years later when I was in Canada where the natives are far more polite and easy going than the rather awful British and most importantly were not members of the working classes of Northern England. Even garbage collectors over here are terribly high class. Anyway I wondered what would happen if I performed the trick here to easier audiences and in smaller rooms where the visibility would be better. The only problem was that I couldn't remember the rhyme properly any more! Anyway I remembered what I could and invented a few lines myself to cover up for the ones I had forgotten and finally tried it out and was astonished at how well it went! And I have been doing it ever since!

I had to practice it all over again of course with older and slightly arthritic fingers and before I did any shows with the routine I tried it out on Facebook. Despite a certain amount of fumbling it garnered quite good comments. Some of you will probably be able to see it here:
https://www.facebook.com/mark.lewis.758 ... 9142894877

[Tarotist]

I did put the rhyming love story on you tube and it did receive lots of positive comments from BOTH men and women! Here is my favourite comment which has appeared overnight. Interesting reactions from a trick I have never performed in my entire life!

"My eyes have been cursed, they always look for the trick, the slight of hand, the truth. I enjoy magic anyway. But regardless, my eyes never seek truth with you. You are one heckuva performer, the best I've ever seen. And I could live off of your magic, and your comedy. Please keep it up."

Here is the video anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdsdt8tx9oY

You can find the trick in Expert Card Technique if you like this kind of silliness.

[BarryAllen]

Whatever prop you decide to use, you are most certainly an entertaining chap Mr. Lewis!

Loved the thimble routine - in particular, the 4 Thimble Vanish/Reappearance finale. It's an Al Koran move; outlined within 'Mastered Amazement' - a book that my old man passed on to me, that Al wrote with Jack Lamonte in 1947. The way its explained makes you believe that it would never fool anyone. However, both yourself and Pat Page have most certainly now proved otherwise.

As for Canadians - as I've alluded to before, they appear to extremely polite, easy-going, ultra-friendly people; particularly the ones I met on your gorgeous forested campsites.

[Tarotist]

The more I read of Barry's posts the more I realise that he is very well read in magic. I am surprised than anyone has ever heard of Mastered Amazement let alone read it. It is indeed exactly where I learned that four thimble sequence. And yes, it is indeed an Al Koran move. When I first read it I was taken aback at how easy it was. I was able to do it 5 minutes after reading it. If you can do the original Devant vanish the rest is virtually self working. Sometimes if I am doing the trick close up, after doing the Paul Rosini routine and ditching the extra thimble I say to the bemused spectator, "Oh, the trick is easier than you think, try it for yourself" and hand him the vanished thimbles. He goes to take them from my hand and finds there is nothing there whereupon I produce them again saying, "Never mind, they're over here". It does get a good laugh and a gasp or two.