Ye Olde Magick Blogge

Here’s Fred Kaps doing the cups and balls with spongeballs. Apologies for the audio. I can’t remember if this is from the series of videos where Kaps was performing close-up magic for Brother John Hamman — the tablecloth looks the same — but I guess that’s somewhat irrelevant.

Leave it to Kaps to do it the hard way — not working one-ahead for a large opening portion of the routine. There might be something to that, since in opening clean from a props standpoint he can later switch to working clean from a moves standpoint, as the scrutiny increases. I’m not totally sold on pulling the spongeball from within the jacket, but I suppose if it’s good enough to use in the Benson Bowl routine, who knows?

The handling gets a little sloppy around the 5:00 mark. Normally I’d say that’s uncharacteristic of Kaps, but then again, that’s also the point in many cups and balls routines where your patter actually exposes some of the sleight-of-hand, as a red herring leading into the final revelations, so I suppose the damage would be minimal.

Anyways, there’s still some great stuff in those opening sequences. His strategy to steal the ball strikes me as particularly interesting, as it’s masqueraded in a double show that the ball is gone. Pretty bold, as is his frequent strategy for loading, but there’s a smoothness to it that helps sell it.

Update: Pete Biro has confirmed that it’s from a series of videos that Kaps did for Brother John Hamman whilst over at the estate of Phillipe Fialho. Thanks, Pete.