Favorite Tricks From "Magicana"

[Ryan Matney]

Heres a couple of my favorites,


"Dracula and The Handmaidens" by Bro John Hamman, "Macjennings Aces" by Larry Jennings--Simply incredible trick.


"Ouch!" by Roy Walton

Anyone else use these?
Best,
RYan

[ October 26, 2001: Message edited by: Ryan Matney ]

[Guest]

I can't see going through the entire issue listing, but one trick in particular just stands out in my mind. Just Alan's routine called "Love, Aunt Doris". This is a great example of what magic needs more of...thinking about the performance of magic rather than just coming up with the next new move.
Rick
(Disclaimer: No offense meant to the card guys who come up with those new moves.)

[Guest]

I'm not sure if we're talking about pre-Kaufman Magicana, but certainly some of the most influental magic in my development has come out of Magicana. Off the top of my head:

The original write-up for what became Paul Gertner's "Unshuffled", Larry Jennings' Chop cup routine, ANYTHING that Scotty York published, Ditto for Ray Grismer, the entire Dingle issue, the entire Allen Okawa issue, and the Sawa issue.

Post-Kaufman, I haven't seen that many issues, but certainly the Skinner issue, and "Jet Coins Across" have staying power, and are worth more than the price of a mere subscription.

[Guest]

Curtis, I agree wholeheartedly on the Skinner issue. It was probably one of the best done since Richard took over. I use Skinner's idea for the Copper-Silver transpo. Probably one of the best handling's I've ever seen.
By the way, Curtis...I'm also a huge Hofzinser and Scotty York fan. I sure wish there was more out there on Hofzinser.
Richard, if you see this, why not do a cover on Hofzinser? I'm sure there are a lot of great stories on him that we've never heard.
Just a thought.
Rick

[Guest]

The Force that Jon Racherbaumer included in "Doppelganger" is the best card force I've ever seen. And I've see a great many card forces.

Jon -- is this an original force with you? I don't recall it being credited to someone else. If so, what do you call it?

[Guest]

The force explained in my version of "Photocopy" was inspired by Larry Jennings' approach explained in his trick, "Prefiguration." In Larry's trick the initial force did not necessarily have to fool anyone...even though it did most of the time. The only parts I added to cause the onlooker to "buy the lie" were the two pauses and the visual aspect of holding the dealt cards (as a packet) over the talon JUST BEFORE taking the supposed NEXT card.

Otherwise, the precursor is Jennings, who in turn was sparked by Vernon.
So it goes...

[Richard Kaufman]

Rick,
I have thought of more than just a Genii issue on Hofzinser, and in fact 16 years ago Richard Hatch did a new translation of "Kartenkunste" for me. However, the real news on Hofzinser's tricks is all the stuff coming from Magic Christian in his new book. It seems, based on this information (which includes translations of Hofzinser's OWN descriptions of many of his own tricks for the first time) that a lot of the information in "Kartenkunste" is just plain wrong. We'll see.
But, I like your idea about a Hofzinser issue...

[Guest]

Richard,
I've just been looking on the net and found a couple of places listing some of the inventions by different magicians and found some interesting things about Hofzinser. For instance, I didn't know that he created the book test. There has to be a lot of other things that he invented that the general magic public doesn't know about. He has been such a great read and study for me, I think others would appreciate anything you'ld have on him.
Rick