• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Easy Magic

I have several of Fulves' self-working card trick books.

You're right; they're good for those who don't want to (don't have time to) spend hours and hours on sleights and stuff.

But they can get repetitive.

Also, bear in mind that the key is the presentation, not the method.

That bears repeating: The key is the presentation, not the method.

Don't fall in the trap of thinking that because it's easy to learn it's easy to do.
 
children under age 10 always fall for my card tricks! Older forget it.
 
kittynh said:
children under age 10 always fall for my card tricks! Older forget it.
Click to expand...

After TAM4, this will change!

If you have the time to learn, I will show you some card tricks that I learned from Michael Ammar (among other sources). The tricks involve no sleight of hand or complicated moves, and they will fool adults. They are easy to learn and easy to do. Many of the tricks can be performed with a borrowed, shuffled deck!

By the way, Garrette is right: It's mostly in the presentation.
 
I agree with Azrael; no counting tricks, at least not the ones that involve more than counting a few down at the finale. I have no idea how magicians keep anyone's interest with those. Then again, they don't keep mine, so it follows I can't present them interestingly.

If I were going to TAM, kittynh, I'd show you a phenomenally easy trick that works best as a faux personality indicator and which never fails to blow people away. It's great for atmosphere building and playing up either the "mystical stars in their courses" approach or a new pop psychology tool approach. Or whatever.
 
I would also suggest Steve Beam's Semi-Automatic Card tricks (there are 3 volumes- I've only seen the first 2). While not all the tricks are 'self-working', there are a lot of very effective card tricks and none are difficult.
 
Taking the easy way is often the best bet - a decent stripper pack will enable you to produce some good effects.

The one I teach to people who are interested enough to practice is the one the spec takes a card and puts it back into the pack and even shuffles the deck themselves. The cards are put under a hanky and cut by the spec, thru the hanky so no-one can possibly influence where they cut.. Somehow they have cut to their card.

It's pretty simple anyway. With a stripper deck even junior magi can pull it off - if they practice a bit.
 
What's a stripper deck?

My first thought was that Gypsy Rose Lee was going to be the queen of hearts....

No really, this could be very good!

I have actually fooled some people with the PEnn and Teller perfectly ordinary deck of cards.

As long as I pretended it was HARD, they never thought that it would be something so easy.

I am so ready (teaching at a school I have a captive audience...hehehehheh.)
 
Stripper Deck is well worth the investment, which is really quite minimal.

I have one and use it sometimes, but even I forget about it and wonder how someone else does an effect I see. It's only later I remember: [I}Oh, yeah. Stripper would allow that.[/I]

I wonder if that's unique to me or if the Stripper Deck is just, for some reason, overlooked.

I'm not sure I'd recommend it for a 6 year old, though. It can require a bit more audience control than tricks without it.
 
kittynh said:
What's a stripper deck?

My first thought was that Gypsy Rose Lee was going to be the queen of hearts....

No really, this could be very good!

I have actually fooled some people with the PEnn and Teller perfectly ordinary deck of cards.
Click to expand...
The Penn and Teller deck IS a stripper deck.

If you riffle the cards, you'll notice that Penn's clothes disappear and Teller starts to look more worried.

Seriously, a "stripper" deck (usually) has nothing to do with pictures of naked ladies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom