Hey gang . . . It’s my fault. Jim and I have both been way too busy to hook up and talk magic this month. So we have nothing to review for your in the Diamond Mine. However, we will hook up for the September issue. Meanwhile, we want to review stuff in the trenches that you want reviewed, so please if you have any suggestions for what we should review, don’t hesitate to let us know. In fact, just post your suggestions below. You may want to have us test a product that I gave a bad review to, [...]
Aug 292010
Jul 302010
Greetings and salutations, I am a huge fan of Card Warp and I perform it regularly, so Siamese Twins excited me greatly. The entire premise and the story of Siamese twins was more than enough for me find time to dedicate to actually putting it to work. Within a short time I was changing my mind. This is one of those tricks that you have to have the right finesse. I found that no matter how much I practiced the routine, I was not comfortable with it. The first phase is straight forward. The second phase has a discrepancy that [...]
Hey gang . . . no – it’s not Diamond Jim . . . It’s the other guy. So this month Jim’s mission was to work on and perform Siamese Twins, however, I got the DVD to him pretty late in the month. Additionally, he was slammed with gigs, and other projects and was only able to spend a little bit of time on it, not enough to be able to give it a full review. Top that off with a busted hard drive, and you now know why I’m writing this article instead of Jim. Thanks for your patience [...]
May 312010
This month I played and I mean played with a new twist on the Las Vegas Leaper by Paul Harris. The version is Shimshi’s 10-13-20. I was never a fan of the Las Vegas Leaper because it seemed pointless to me considering it has no plot to speak of. Well neither does 10-13-20 however that didn’t stop me from having some real fun with it. Jeffro pointed out that there were two additions by Shimshi. He felt that one detracted from the effect. I completely disagree. There is one point in the effect where you slap the table in front [...]
Mirage, very aptly titled. Do you know what that great oasis in the desert looks like? Me neither! At first I thought I saw a great trick here, but then it vanished just like evaporating water in the desert. Simply you are supposed to, with your mind, bend a normal plastic pen, right under their noses. This sounded fine to me, in fact almost exciting. I tried it on my kids (in low light, just after they had eaten) and they were silent! A complete confounded confusion! They couldn’t believe that they had just seen an amazing feat of dad’s [...]
Another month of aging is under my belt and I can’t help but wondering just how Jeff manages to review everything that crosses his mailbox. It’s utterly amazing just how much product the magic industry produces. What’s even more amazing is broad spectrum of quality, spectacular to ok, mediocre to crap. This month I experienced the extremes, spectacular and crap! The first effect I played with this month was most aptly titled. Have you ever chewed an ice cream cone down so fast that it hurt? You know that mind numbing, painful feeling that takes a while to go away [...]
Have you ever seen those spaghetti western movies? You know the Clint Eastwood westerns like “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” or “A Fist Full of Dollars?” I ask you because I can’t decide which title would fit best the review of Jeff Prace’s Orbit. The Good First let’s visit “the Good.” I must say it’s a stunningly visual piece of magic. The vision of the appearing full pack of gum is mind blowing. Jeff has very creatively used an old principal in magic and applied it excellently to something new! The gimmick is clever and easily made. It [...]
Greetings and salutations to all! It seems that another month has passed us by and I still struggle writing 2010 instead of 2009 on things. Weren’t we just having Y2K problems? Regardless of my personal memory issues, I have compiled a month worth of performances and a recipe for this month’s trick, E.A.R. or Everything’s a Radio from Miracles for Mortals Vol. 2, by Geoff Williams. First let’s get to the nuts and bolts. The required gimmick for E.A.R. has to be constructed. I purchased all of the parts at two places, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart. I found in making [...]
Dec 312009
Greeting and Salutations, I hope that the holiday season has been good to each of you. I hope your stocking was stuffed with great magic that will keep you busy in front of a mirror for a while. Doing what is up to you! For a quite some time, my good friend Jeff has been asking me to pen a regular column for him. I have from time to time offered him a piece of my mind, and magic too, but was always reluctant to write a regular column. Take whatever excuse you want, but I have finally caved! (Yes [...]
