Ye Olde Magick Blogge

This is a great combination of two classic effects, and it’s got a lot of the hallmarks of John Carney — a nice routine construction, and a very natural way of handling the props, and lots of magic. It’s got a great feeling of impromptu magic, and while it does require a setup, it’s actually [...]

When Tommy Wonder was talking about why he wanted to do a 2 cup routine, he made a pretty compelling case for it — you’re simplifying things overall (both presentationally and methodologically) by eliminating one of the cups, but at the same time you’re keeping the full range of effects open for you. Given that, [...]

I really wanted to mix it up today, so I’m including this performance of Chef Anton from the School for Scoundrels, doing the School for Scoundrels “Jumbo Trade Show Shells”. I’ve mentioned before that I think Chef Anton is an underrated showman when it comes to scams and swindles, considering that he’s got vastly different [...]

A very neat twist. I was curious about this routine the moment I first read Darwin Ortiz’s thoughts on it in Strong Magic. He made the point that while many magicians thought the use of ball bearings was to turn it into a “magician fooler”, he believed that this criteria had an impact upon the [...]

    Had a tiring gig so I’ll be keeping it brief tonight, sorry about that. Or Merry Christmas, depending upon how you feel about my verbal diarrhea tendencies. I mentioned before that I’ll be including variants on the Cups and Balls, and here’s the first, David Regal’s Chop Cup. It’s a cute presentational twist, [...]

Apparently, Bill Malone’s a poet, and I wasn’t aware of that fact. Even though penetration sequences aren’t really my favourite parts of cups and balls performances, it’s difficult not to respect the fact that he’s basically taken a really cheap set and built a rather robust routine around it. Also, it proves another point about [...]

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 [...]

God, I love this performance. I wish I had something more intelligent to add, but I don’t. This might sound cynical, but I don’t care — considering that magic in general is a community of people pilfering each other, is there anybody other than Tommy Wonder who could pull this specific routine off?

Vintage Williamson — manic presentation combined with very good routine construction and great sleight-of-hand. I find it somewhat frustrating that I’ll never be able to get my non-magician friends to appreciate what a great technician he is, because all too often what you get with him on Youtube is a man going from zero to [...]

  Going in a radically different direction for today’s entry, here’s Kent Gunn performing the Fun Shop Cups and Balls. It’s available for purchase here, and if you’re interested in seeing his other work, here’s his Youtube channel. If you don’t know Kent Gunn, go hunt down his posts over on the Magic Cafe, and [...]