Eggstremely Dangerous by Stefan Olschewski

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Tom Frame
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Eggstremely Dangerous by Stefan Olschewski

Postby Tom Frame » May 29th, 2012, 2:58 pm

Eggstremely Dangerous (PDF) by Stefan Olschewski $10.00
21 pages, 14 illustrations
Available at: www.stefanmagie.de/eggstremely.htm


Heres a version of Russian Roulette that the whole family will enjoy. Hows that for pathological promo?


The performer invites a participant to take a seat on stage. He talks about Russian Roulette and states he will try something similar using five opaque glasses and a raw egg.

He takes an egg from a box and breaks it into one of the five glasses on the table. He drapes a cloth over the glasses and mixes them to ensure that no one knows which glass holds the egg. He disposes of the cloth.

The participant freely selects one of the glasses. The performer picks up the glass and places it in an upright paper bag. He folds the top of the bag and hands it to a participant in the audience.

The performer pours the remaining glasses over the participants head. They are all empty.

He retrieves the paper bag from the audience participant and removes the glass. The bag is shown to be empty. He turns over the glass and pours the egg into a clear bowl.

Mr. Olschewski offers an alternative version in which the performer shows that he correctly predicted which glass would be eliminated.


The authors writing is a bit rough. The text contains numerous typographical errors. He does an adequate job of teaching the handling. Mr. Olschewski includes his mildly humorous presentational patter.

The crude illustrations are somewhat helpful.

The authors method requires five special glasses. Whaley informs us that this special glass was invented by Andrew G. Waring in 1878. It was later reinvented by Professor Hoffman and appeared in Later Magic in 1903.

To obtain the glasses, Mr. Olschewski recommends that we purchase five copies of a commercially available, $15.00 trick. Oh, puh-lease. Not a chance.

Thankfully, he includes Marc Salems sensible suggestion to simply use cheap plastic or paper cups. The one time preparation of the five glasses will take about five minutes.

For each performance, you need to spend a few minutes modifying another prop.

I like this effect and the authors clever application of this special glass. However, Im a bit concerned about one aspect of the handling.

When the performer picks up the glasses and pours them over the participants head, he holds them in a slightly unnatural manner. It doesnt look psychotic, just a bit odd.

If I sit a glass on a table and ask you to pick it up and pour out its contents, you will not grip the glass is this manner.

I discovered that if you change your blocking, you can eliminate the odd grip. You have to be mindful of your sight lines and youre vulnerable on your immediate right and left sides, but youre on a stage, so this shouldnt be a problem.

Im surprised that this solution didnt occur to Mr. Olschewski. It makes me wonder how often he has performed this effect.

If you dig the Russian Roulette plot but have grown weary of the usual parade of bullets, spikes, traps, poisons, jagged things and venomous critters, youll enjoy this less threatening, more humorous version. Think of it as Russian Roulette Light.


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