Just dropping in to say I saw Jon Armstrong (tiny plunger) at a really small (30 or so) venue in my town. Really great guy, talked to my kids about their comic book shirts and jackets before the show. We bought tiny plungers afterwards.
I have some grainy footage of his tiny plunger finale wherein he never touches the deck of cards or plunger, and he may not have fooled P&T but it was pretty damn impressive to my eyes.
I actually have video of some of his other bits with my oldest on stage with him. Very fun show. He said he likes to do little shows for places that “strongly support magic” which is why he did the really tiny showsh I know. he couldn’t have possibly made any cash from it.
Ha… No. It picks up cards like a Champ though. It can pick up the whole deck. I don’t know how he gets it to pick out a certain number, or even a partial deck at all.
That might work, but it would be hard with what we saw. First, we see the wallet outside as he opens and then folds it closed. To swap, he would have to open to flip the panel, wouldn’t he? Anyway, it’s fairly obvious from his moves he sticks the first wallet into the jacket and pulls the dupe to stuff into his waistband.
New shiny cards stick together fairly well, so a little squeeze and they hold together. He puts a little crimp or fold or bend in the cards as he handles them and that puts the necessary break in grip to separate the cards.
This week:
Riley Siegler, a 13 year old boy with hands as smooth as silk. He appears a bit nervous, but it doesn’t show in his card work. He’s funny, he’s well prepared, and he does the cardwork beautifully clean. Teller guessed the card in his hand because it was the obvious trick. I think it would have been cool if they funded his trip to magic camp, but maybe it would seem unfair. Who knows, maybe they did it offline. Was kinda hacky to see Penn forcing the box to be upright for the audience/camera.
Jade, doing string trick. Penn mentioned the ten ichi thumb tie trick, so I looked it up. I wanted a video to make it more clear, because I can’t visualize the words very well, but the trick was described. It uses stiff cord and the technique of tying so that it creates a nice ring around the thumb that opens and stays open when you manipulate your hands. Then it is the acting of moving hands apart and together quickly, and practice to get the thumb to move in and out smoothly. Very well done.
Ran’D Shine, card sorting trick. I spotted the false shuffle, he moves them one order, then reverses it, so the order is unchanged. I don’t see an explanation of the Claude Rix trick, but just his demonstration. It’s a nice trick. Free choices are always fun.
David Roth, coin tricks. Wow. Now I see a couple of moves, and know what he has to be doing in a couple places, but overall there is a lot I don’t see where he moves. Yeah, no camera tricks, but the camera jumps and cuts to audience sure help. Anyway, I get why they consider themselves fooled, and I get why.
One thing, at one point we get an overhead shot of the cup, and the bottom of the cup is brown like it has creamed coffee in it. No, I don’t know how he makes the coins disappear at the end. Rigged coffee cup?
Penn and Teller trick: I got so wrapped up in looking for what Teller was going to make appear in the funnel, I totally missed the disappearing hanky. I mean, I saw him do something with the hanky, but then when the glitter came out I was completely missing that the hanky disappeared. Till Penn said something and I had to go back and look again.
Nice story trick, I followed what was happening before the explanation. I don’t care as much for the poem at the end, just because I don’t follow poetry well. Nice appearance of the flag at the end.
I thought all of tonight’s episode was pretty weak.
The best trick was the card trick with the dice and dealing the cards out. My initial guess was that the first deck was all 3 of hearts, and there was a deck swap at some point. After what Penn’s comments, maybe the deck was mostly cards that were rigged so that when Penn looked at just the corner of the card, poker style, he would see just half the card, which was always the 3 of hearts, although that wouldn’t explain how the dice randomization part worked.
Definitely a baffling trick.
I don’t like at all the “well, you taught us a lot and we read your book, so you get a ‘fooled us’ lifetime achievement award thing”, and Penn and Teller’s flag trick was stunningly obvious, far below their usual standard.
Astoundingly good coin magic by David Roth. The low camera angle picked up the occasional glint of a palmed coin, but much of the manipulation was invisible. I could see points where he might have done some extremely difficult coin hiding while apparently showing empty hands, but I didn’t catch anything and couldn’t say when or where he did what because there was nothing that could be seen.
The kid was really good. They should have paid for his magic camp instead of giving him a cheesy magic set I think they will give that kid a great boost in his career. He’s already got a great shot with both of the girls at magic camp.
The first coin I could tell he had one palmed and watched him drop it, but didn’t see him load it. The third the load is hard to see, and if you’re not ready for the silent drop, the move is hard to detect. On review I can see both. But a lot of the moves I can’t see how he did it. Juggling the chinese coin and the half dollars is incredibly clean.
Snerk. Yeah, he’s probably beyond that kit, so it won’t mean much, unless he gets it autographed.
IIRC there is a link somewhere in the 12 pages of this thread to Teller doing a coin-in-a-cup routine but with a coffee can. He’s even speaking. Don’t remember if it was a magic lecture or just some corporate lecture. But he definitely knows that one
I have to admit, each episode is feeling more lackluster than the last. I still enjoy some parts of the show, but it’s nowhere near as engaging as the first season. I’m having more fun trying to figure out the tricks on The Carbonaro Effect.
Watching this show makes me cringe when I see the Friday show Masters of Illusion. Not that the tricks aren’t good, and I’m sure they’re better in person, but there doesn’t seem to be as much creativity or imagination. They have lots of sawing ladies in half types of tricks, with much less close-up magic. 30 minutes of that show is about enough; sometimes I don’t even watch the whole thing.
It used to be a much better show mainly because of the quality of the performers was better. It’s almost all stage magic which is becoming a tired art form when it’s just variations of classic acts. P&T have done a lot to make stage magic interesting again. Any of the variations of sawing someone in half, sticking their bodies through things or sticking things through their bodies just don’t impress much anymore because they use rigged equipment. Interesting sometimes, but far from amazing. P&T feature a lot of close up magic and when done by experts even if you know how it’s done it’s still marvelous to watch. P&T still have their weak acts but they’re looking for something that will fool them which brings us the occasional stunningly good performance like last night’s coin magic by David Roth.
It’s interesting… several people in this thread, plus Penn and Teller, seem to have been totally blown away by him. I thought he was totally unimpressive.
In particular, his pacing and showmanship just seemed absent. And I thought the way he was actual vanishing the coins was totally obvious… he was dropping one (from his fingers) in the mug, and simultaneously dropping one (palmed) in the little sack that was conveniently open on the table right behind the mug. In fact, he dropped one coin in totally plain sight and it bounced on the table!
I wonder if there was a kind of reverse diminishing returns factor going on, where a really knowledgeable magic aficionado would be impressed by the absolute silky smoothness of some move or other, while a less knowledgeable observer (like me) would just say “ok, well, he keeps doing kind of unnatural things where he moves things from hand to hand, so clearly there’s some sleight of hand going on”, having a “yeah, I’ve basically seen this before” reaction, and thus ending up kind of unimpressed.
Treating the “you fooled us” award as some kind of lifetime achievement accolade, similar to the guy who produced his aged parents a few episodes back.
It’s a tribute more than anything to those performers they grew up on and shared their secrets with. I have nothing against it; it’s their show to do what they want. I guess it would feel disrespectful and anticlimactic to tell these legends who inspired them “you didn’t fool me, get the F out.” Plus, it would probably feel stale to go several episodes in a row without giving an “FU” award out.
I think they will give that kid a great boost in his career. He’s already got a great shot with both of the girls at magic camp.