Oink.

Why did you choose magician? Why not run away to join the circus, or become a river pirate with your meeper friend Big Jim?

Your tricks look pretty good, but seeing them on internet video makes me a bit skeptical. I leaning towards underhanded photoshoppery and/or creative editing.

Good job!

Magic is you.

Not bad, but if you could turn the card into a ham sammich THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING !

I could do that. In under an hour.

I went through a long 2 year phase with street magic. I did parties and stuff for a while, really got into it. I was even dumb enough to spend hundreds of dollars on DVD's, VHS tapes and books (some cost $100 a pop), just to tighten my skills. I like some of the things you're doing, not bad at all.

If you want to learn some of the "master" tricks, like the "pass", the "shuffle pass", the "4-card monty" and color, shuffle and Vegas sleights, check out Brad Christian, he's about as good as it gets. But, you won't get any of the how-to's on his site unless you pull out the credit card. The world of magic is very secretive, and most magicians won't give you their secrets unless you pay a hefty price, which I did for a while.

If you're interested, or anyone is interested in learning some of the "secret" magician meep that can't be found for free, I can type out some stuff.

Oh yeah, I have a cam too, so I could probably record some of the stuff too, like the "Kings levitation" that Blaine did, some of the ash tricks that Blaine used and whatever else.

Dent, magiK is always cool. I would like some tips and tricks.

Por Favor.

Posting to point out that you look perfect for a role as a dastardly English (possibly cyber-) villain in a B movie with lots of bad one-liners.

Just sayin' gangsta.

That's pretty slick :)

:Burned:

I was asked to do a party for New Years 01', and I grabbed my Bee's mat finished cards and went. I knew that drunks always make for the best audience. You can get away with anything, and their reaction is great. Anyway, I got to the party and hung out for a while, not drinking, and made sure everyone was getting buzzed before I began. I started out by asking everyone if they liked to gamble, and of course everyone was meep YEAH!!11. So, I began the "show" with some shuffle tricks, showing them how cheaters can easily get away with cheating through a series of shuffles. Once I got the people drawn in, it was time to hammer them with something called Burned. Little did I know that I was about to get the reaction of a life time from one girl.

I started the trick by handing the deck of cards to a girl. I asked her to cut the deck anywhere she wanted and to memorize the card that she cut to. I asked her to put the two cut halves side by side on the table. I then grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and had her secretively write her card down on the paper, away from me, and then fold the paper into a small square. At this point, I still have not touched the cards. While she's folding the paper, I start what magicians call "chatter", which is talking about the trick and how secretive it is, and how you're not sure if you can pull it off because only a few people have ever been able to get this to work. It adds mystery and excitement to what you're doing. it also makes people concentrate on you, so they watch you more closely, which makes the trick that much cooler when it is pulled off without a hitch.

Now, I ask her to hold her folded wad of paper and to concentrate on the image of the card. I hush the crowd of party-goers. Everyone is smiling and concentrating on my hands. I can hear a pin drop, which is weird with a full room of drunks.

Next, I grab an ashtray and tell her to carefully place the wad in the ashtray and to light it up with a lighter. I can hear people saying "huh?" in unison. She lights the paper and everyone stares at me, waiting for my next direction. I ask her if I have touched the cards yet, and she replies no, which is true, I have not handled the deck since we started this trick. Once the paper is now a pile of ashes, I ask her to choose a part of my body. She looks at me like I have three heads. I said "Choose a part of my body", and she chose my left arm.

I tell her to look closely, and not to blink, because she is about to witness something spiritual. People are giggling and can barely contain themselves. I grab the pile of ashes in my fingers and start grinding it and rubbing it into my left forearm. At this point, no one knows what the meep I'm doing, until an image starts to appear in black on my arm. The girl grabs me by the wrist and pulls it closer to her face. The image appearing on my arm was a 3 and an S. Three of Spades, which was obviously the card she had cut to and memorized. The girl gasped and fell back into the people. I'm excited, because everyone is gasping at the site of the lettering on my arm, written in ashes with the paper that she had drawn her card that she had chosen. Now that I'm about ready to get another trick going, she is covering her face and balling her eyes out. I walked over to asked her what was wrong, when she wiggled away from me and told me to get away from her. I didn't know what the meep was going on, until she screamed for me to leave. "I want you to get out of my house!" Apparently, she thought I was contacting supernatural beings to have them inscribe the image into my arm. It was a mess, but it was by far the most successful trick I had ever done. Could it have gone so well to get kicked out of someones house because they were scared of me thinking I was possessed by some spirit? Yep.

How it's done:

Before I left the my house that day, I knew what card she would pick. Am I magic? No, I just know how to manipulate, and most magicians learn this at the beginning of their practice. This is something they call a "force". A force is when you use a pre-determined way of shuffling the deck, making sure she would pick a specific card. No matter where they cut the deck, a certain card will turn up, everytime.

Forcing a card:

Let's take a deck of cards and take out the 3 of Spades and place it on top. If you cut the deck of cards anywhere, take the two halves and place it on the table, side by side. Now, place what was the bottom half of the cut sideways on top of the top half of the cut. Now, you tell them that you placed the two halves on top of eachother to save her spot in the cut. You explain what the trick involves, this way she is being forced to forget that she cut the cards and placed them in a certian pre-determined order. The bottom half is ontop of the top half. Now, that the cards at the bottom of the deck was once the very top of the deck, you know that the 3 of Spades is ontop of the bottom half of the two stacks. This is the card she will remember. Now, remember, initially she cut the deck and placed that ontop of the other half. This is the force, she/he doesn't follow this part of it. I don't know where she cut the deck, I just know that I will force her to choose the top card of the bottom deck, where she THINKS she cut the deck. Now, the trick is in cruise control.

The sleight:

The image on your arm is not magic voodoo or anything supernatural. Since I knew what card she would eventually pick, I had to get this image on my arm without anyone seeing it. When I got to her house, I determined that I would force the 3 of Spades on her later on in my set. So, I went to the bathroom to prep. With a bar of soap, you want to put ONE drop of water on the very edge of the bar. Then, you use the soap bar to draw the 3S on BOTH arms. Do not try and draw it neatly, it looks much more believable and creepy when it's almost child like - like a spirit inscribed it on you. Also, remember, she gets to choose her arm, making her feel like she is tricking you, so you have to be ready. Now that you have drawn two 3S's on your arm, do it again on your stomach. People do choose it. Once you're done, blow on it, do not wipe, or your image will be smudged and ruined.

The finish:

The soap will stay invisible on your body until you manually scrub it off. Keep your sleeves up for the entire trick, no one will ever see it. The whole paper writing part of the trick is just drama. You can easily just use cigarette ash, but this all comes together as part of the mystique. They get so involved with all the steps, drama and chatter that the finish is so unbelievable that some people will actually think you're for real. Once the paper is ashed up, have them choose a body part, which you have covered and then wipe the ashes in circles over the soap on your arms. The ashes will turn the soap scribbled images black and the surrounding areas will be a light grey. It's fool proof and packs a monster punch.

I started doing this trick in bars on my friends. Once I got it down, played into the moment with my chatter, the trick became a knockout at parties. Not one person, not one friend has ever guessed how I did the trick. Practice the meep out of the force, get it down and then get ready for some fun...

Good tricks man.

Dent, could you explain the 'force' a bit more please. It's Sunday, and my brain mustn't be working real well today, I don't get it.

I feel like I'm meepting this dude's thread up. But, it's a magic thread.

Force:

Take a deck of cards. Put a card that you want to force on the very top of the deck. Now, have person cut the deck into two piles. Tell person to put both piles side by side on the table. Now, talk bout your trick, chatter. One pile (lets say left-hand pile) has your forced card on top, since it was the top of the deck, and the second pile is the pile that was cut from the middle. While you're chattering, you are taking his attention away from the two piles. You know that the pile on your left has the forced card on top - he has no idea. Now, take pile on left (pile with the forced card on top) and turn it sideways and place it on top of the other pile. Now you have two halves, one half (pile that person cut) on bottom and pile with forced card sitting sideways ontop of the other pile. NOW, tell the person to look at the card that they cut to, and point to the top pile. He will lift the first card, the card that you forced and your job is done because this is the forced card.

I'm posting a video as soon as it uploads with a few parlor tricks.

ok, the secret.......

Ive never done magic before in my life. Ever. But i have done Avid Pro lots.

Work it out.

:-)

http://www.youtube.com/v/Yzcfy40RqG8

Pretty cool, but I think you just dropped the glass in your lap when you brought it back to you on the last time. Napkin is noticably less shapely

Awesome

Good show, Dent.

Both very nice vids. Post more!

Dent, how about sharing a simple trick that I can impress down the pub with?

Haha. point point point.

HOW BOUT A BIG HAND

wait wait a minute

Ok, heres another one i knocked up earlier on.

It surely deserve the accolade of "most unsuitable music for a magic video".

Lefen, try this.

Ace Attack:

First thing first, you have got to get the Aces to the top of the deck. Usually when you want to do a trick that involves getting 4 cards to the top of the deck, you want to do this before you leave the house, or take a bathroom break and set the cards up quickly. You could always fumble around at the table, but make sure you have an alibi, like, "I'm checking to see if there are any Jokers in here."

Once you have the 4 Aces at the top, now time to shuffle, so it looks like there would be no way of keeping track of the cards. Now comes an easy technique called "jogging", and this is a technique that dealers use to cheat at Poker or Black Jack.

Jogging:

http://www.pokerology.com/articles/shuffle/overhand.htm *this guy is a lefty, do this backwards.

This works just like a regular overhand shuffle. An overhand shuffle is when you have the cards in your left hand (if you're right handed) and you use your right hand to take cards from the back of the pile and transfer them over the pile to the front, towards your left thumb. Naturally, when you are dropping cards over the pile, they land in a messy pattern, or "un-squared" with the deck.

To jog the cards, you want to take the very first chunk of cards from the rear of the deck and transfer over to your left side of the deck (towards your left thumb), just like in an overhand shuffle. But, you want to drop a few cards towards you in your palm, about an inch. Once you have done that, start dropping cards as you would in a regular overhand shuffle. You only need to jog the first few cards. What happens is that the cards that you "jog" towards you leaves a jog in the cards that marks the top of the deck.

Finish off dropping the cards from the back and overhand shuffle them to the front, towards your left thumb. Now, grab the cards behind that jog and drop them over the deck, just like an overhand shuffle. Your 4 Aces are now on top of the shuffled deck. Ready to start.

The trick:

Starting on the right side of the table, have a friend cut the cards into 4 piles, placing them side by side on the table. You now have 4 piles in front of you, pile 1,2,3,4 (pile 1 at your left, pile 4 at your right). Pile 4 contains all 4 Aces on top. Only you know this.

Have him pick up pile 1, but this needs to look randomly chosen. Tell him to take 3 cards from the top of that pile and transfer them to the bottom. Now, tell him to take a top card and transfer it to the top of pile 2, one on top of pile 3, and one on pile 4. Now, you have a card on top of pile 4, above the 4 aces. Tell him to place pile 1 back in it's original spot on the table.

Have him pick up pile 3, but this needs to look randomly chosen. Tell him to take 3 cards from the top of that pile and transfer them to the bottom. Now, tell him to take a top card and transfer it to the top of pile 1, one on top of pile 2, and one on pile 4. Now, you have two cards on top of pile 4, above the 4 aces. Tell him to place pile 3 back in it's original spot on the table.

Have him pick up pile 2, but this needs to look randomly chosen. Tell him to take 3 cards from the top of that pile and transfer them to the bottom. Now, tell him to take a top card and transfer it to the top of pile 1, one on top of pile 3, and one on pile 4. Now, you have three cards on top of pile 4, above the 4 aces. Tell him to place pile 3 back in it's original spot on the table.

Have him pick up pile 4, because it's the only pile left. Remember, you have three cards on top of the Aces at this point. As you did with the others, have him transfer three cards from top to bottom, and now the Aces remain on top. Just like the others, transfer a card to the top of pile 1, 2 and 3. Now, all 4 piles have an Ace at the top.

Here's the finishing chatter:

"Tell me, have I handled the deck?" Which you have not, except the initial shuffle. "Did I persuade you to cut the deck in any way?" Nope. "So, you did everything yourself, without my help." Yup, which is true. "What is the greatest 4 cards in a poker game?" Any moron will say Aces.

Ask him to turn over the top card on each deck, revealing all the Aces.

With all the shuffling and cutting and card transferring, this trick seems like pure meeping magic.