If you want us to test one I have reviewed, take some time to scan the Gems and Rubble column . . . make sure you post your commentary as you go along.

The post Sorry Folks appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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 I was not able to reconcile.  I have performed many tricks with discrepancies and most of the time they go unnoticed, but this time even my kids pointed it out.  Now if a fourth grader can spot it, I would bet dollars to donuts that most adults can find it too.

In the third phase you actually boldly expose the secret.  I was not able to find the finesse to show this without it looking obvious.

There are other flaws with the trick as well.  You have to have a perfect card; the margins have to be ideal.  In order for the premise of the story to work it must be a court card.

Bottom line, I still prefer Card Warp.

I was torn by this one.  I bet if I had a good deal of time to work on this one, I could indeed find that finesse.  However a month, or two, just won’t cover it.  Another card will.  I “like” it 2 out of 5 a lump.

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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 folks. Hang in there till next month when you’ll get a full on practical review. Meanwhile, you can read the review of the DVD.

The post Siamese Twins – Next Month appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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 of the spectator.  The move is so innocent and unexpected it’s perfect!  Classic magic and so cleanly thought out.  The bottom line here is if you are aggressive it will be taken as aggressive.  If you work to make it natural it will be.  Not once in any of the performances did it scare an audience member, in fact it just seemed to slip by.

The second addition of picking a number and that number ending added is so stinking slick that it give me the chills.  It did miss about 1/3 of the time, but as Jeff pointed out Shimshi’s outs are very brilliant and they WORK!

From those closest to me, such as my wife, they were able to sort out the beginning but were never able to figure the second phase.  In fact it seemed to really puzzle them.

I performed it over and over again at This Is The Place Heritage Park and it had great reactions each and every time.  We have been hosting school field trips so I was able to get this in front of a number of people of all ages.  The reactions ranged from wild screams to “cat got your tongue” syndrome.

I did perform it at a restaurant once and it works excellent for walk around.  This is great for that one more trick request.

Bottom line is from here on out, this will be one of those tricks that I do because it works.  It can be done with any cards at anytime.  I like that idea.  Oh and the slights are very simple.

5 out of 5 Carats – Clarity Brilliant!

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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 mind.  So with great gusto I took it into the public arena.

That is where all my hopes for this trick were baked in the 150 degree sun.  After that first performance with my children there was no way of ever reproducing that reaction.  I got just the complete opposite reaction from there on.  People even told me exactly how I did it.  That is just not even cool!

I did discover that the trick worked in low light.  So if you work in a haze filled low-light bar you may have a shot here . . . depending on how many shots your patrons have had.

Sadly, or was it on purpose, I have no idea whom to discredit here.  This is a complete cave in.  Save your money!

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The post Pen bending? You’re kidding right? appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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 and no matter how good the flavor it just zapped the fun out of the ice cream? At least in this neck of the woods that’s called a Brain Freeze!

“Brain Freeze” by James Prince is perfectly titled, a mind numbing, painful experience that left me wanting to toss it across the room.  It just plain sucked!

On the DVD, James moves with such fevered pace that the first time I saw it I asked myself why should I confuse and confound my audience with a pace that is faster than a Jackrabbit on methamphetamine.  I came to realize you have to move fast so as to cover the poorly selected slight.

I will be the first to admit that I am no card mechanic.  However I can do a very clean Elmsley count and a Faro shuffle without much trouble.  This required neither.  However after hours of practicing the required slight I decided it was no longer worth the effort.  No matter how I tried I could not slow down the effect to make it comprehensible for performance.  So I finally abandoned it without ever taking it public.

Simply put, mind numbing to watch and even more painful to perform.  This single flavor could make me quit eating magic altogether.  This one is a lump of coal!

I am glad that I had a second flavor to chew on this month.

“Leipzig Would Have Loved This” by Bill Malone, should have been titled “Diamond Jim Will Love This!” Once in a while I run into a performance piece that is something I HAVE to add to my repertoire.  This one has been added and I have created a whole presentation to fit my character.

First thing, Jeff was concerned that there was a discrepancy in it that would not fly past an audience.  I bet I performed it at least fifty times and not a once did the discrepancy raise an eyebrow.

I found that it played very well for all types of audiences.  My family loved the effect.  My co-workers at This Is The Place Heritage Park actually brought in their family and friends telling them “You gotta see his new one!”  One of my co-workers exclaimed to her sister, “I hate him… don’t you just hate him!!!”

For strangers… it just plain killed!

I had two school groups from Japan this month. I couldn’t help it I had to be the showman even if it required a translator.  Both times the rumble from the group was a profound disbelief that eventually ended with a resounding applause.

I had a group of lady church missionaries that stopped in at my work and was told I had to show them.  Again it ended in applause.  One trick, just one trick!!  I did nothing more and decided not to follow it up.  I was asked to repeat this more than I expected.

There are three great moments of magic in this effect.  Two of them are unexpected convincers.

The only thing I can complain about; Bill, why couldn’t you have just given this to me instead of publishing it to the world?!?

This one is definitely a 5 carat Diamond!

I haven’t decided on next months yet, so hurry get in a request or you may be subject to Jeff’s request.

~The Cardslinger

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The post The Tale of Two Packet Tricks appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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 only took 30 minutes or so, and when completed you have two gimmicks. Additionally there is no practice to speak of required for this. Play with it a half a dozen times and you are ready.

My co-workers at This Is The Place Heritage Park, and surprisingly my family, were completely fooled by this. It seemed the closer the relationship to me, the more it “chewed them up and spit them out!” My wife, who busts me on everything, looked at me and said “I got nothing; how’d you do that?” On a side note she still doesn’t know and it’s bugging her.

The Bad
“The Bad” part is that it doesn’t really play for strangers. It’s not a performance piece. It’s one of those quick tricks for friends. For example, I stopped one guy in the grocery store and showed him and his kid. When I got finished he could have cared less about the appearance of the gum. His exact words to me were, “You offered him one (a piece of gum); now are you going to give him one?” It just didn’t have the impact of the “street trick” that I expected.

It may be partly due to the 2 fatal flaws that are inherent in the trick.

The Ugly
“The Ugly” thing is the display at the beginning with one sole piece of gum in the front center of the box. Who saves this one center piece of gum for the last one? It’s almost always the first one consumed! The gimmick didn’t perform as well when the non-gimmicked piece of gum was in other locations, such as the back corner of the pack, and if you change where it lays in the pack, it then becomes almost impossible to dig out if you want to give it away.

That brings up the other flaw. You can only give that one piece away. Yes you can switch out the pack for an un-gimmicked pack (an idea NOT mentioned on the DVD), but that means going to a pocket, or some other hokey move. No matter what I did for a switch it just seemed like an unnatural thing to do.

In a lowdown here’s how it appeared with a switch.

• Offer someone a piece of gum
• Open the gum box
• Recant on the offer (because you only have one piece)
• Close the box
• Re-open the box
• Show it full of Gum
• Conveniently forget to give away the gum

— OR —

• Only give out one piece
• Put it back in the pocket from whence it came
• Act like you can’t believe that everyone wants gum
• Retrieve the pack from your pocket again
• With a sudden show a manners offer gum to everyone

Fist Full of Dollars
Surprisingly, the trick got real expensive, real fast. Partly because I don’t have a “gum budget,” and giving a way a lot of gum “eats a hole in your pocket!” The initial purchase for the materials was about twelve bucks. That included 3 packs of gum, one for the gimmick, one for the switch and one for a refill. I burned thru the refill the first day, so if replenishing is an issue, don’t do this for a crowd in which you don’t want to buy them gum! On day three I had to get another box for the gimmick! In a three week time period I purchased 17 packs of gum at $1.29 each! I spent more on this trick than I did on E.A.R. last month!

I can think of one place, however, that I can’t wait to perform Jeff Prace’s Orbit, a major corporate event sponsored by Wrigley!

On a side note, it appears the company has changed the design of the Orbit box recently. The new design may complicate things slightly. I did discover a way around it, however this article is not the place to divulge that info.

All in all, Orbit “burst my bubble.” I think that only 2.5 out of 5 dentists would recommend Orbit.

Next month a double whammy . . . Ed Marlo’s (performed by Bill Malone) Leipzig Would Have Loved This and James Prince’s Brain Freeze.

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The post Jeff Prace’s Gum, A Practical Review appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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 my purchase that it was more economical to make two gimmicks for the cost and so Jeff Stone and I shared the costs.  The total cost for both gimmicks was just over $32.00.  Had I only made one, the cost would have been $22.00.

I was able to construct it easily with the tools that I had at home.  I did use a soldering iron, but I can see ways of making it with out one.  Time for construction totaled 2 hours.  I followed closely Geoff’s instructions and found that I completed the task easier than I expected.

Next, the gimmick has to be worn.  I found I wasn’t overly excited by this prospect and had some apprehension.  Honestly, it’s a pain to put on, and as a big man I was worried it would show under my clothes.  At last I gave in for you the faithful readers!  Yes you made me do it!!!  It really wasn’t as bad in the long run as I expected.  I didn’t have to wear a tie, but I do wear a vest all the time, so it concealed nicely.  If you do not want to wear a vest I would strongly suggest you wear a tie.  The cover is needed.  I wore this gimmick upwards of 8 hours a day, and performed it an average of three times per day.  I practiced using the gimmick a handful of times.  It was simple and reliable.

Now on with the fun stuff!

I performed it similar to the way Geoff does on his DVD.

The first to be victimized were co-workers at This Is The Place Heritage Park.  I got mixed reactions.  For the most part they were completely stumped.  Some of my co-workers were just astonished and others were looking for a hidden radio.

My family, which consists of 5 children ages 11, 10, 9, 8, and 3, LOVED it!  My wife saw me building the gimmick late one evening and wondered what I was doing.  However, when I finally got it set up for the kids she watched and was blown away as well.  Then later on she admitted that she remembered the night I build it and still was a bit puzzled.  My kids freaked out the first time I did it for them.  I kept trying other presentations on them.  My 3 year old keeps shaking the ketchup bottle trying futilely to get radio sound to come from the opened cap.  If we could only get the rest of the audience to have that firm of a belief!  My other kids all asked me to repeat it for their friends.

I performed it for a Boy Scout Pack and felt for a moment like David Blaine.  The kids all ran away from me screaming!  As a whole, strangers just looked completely dumb-founded.  I couldn’t decide if it was because they couldn’t believe the trick or if they just thought I was some weirdo.  I believe it was a mix of both.

What I finally decided can be summed up in a nutshell.

Used for a smaller, more intimate audience it’s worth the effort.  The effect gets lost on groups of more than 15 or so.  It was fun and for the most part was enjoyed by all.

I give it 4 out of 5 blisters.  It was a pain to wear, but fun to perform.

Next month Jeff Prace’s Orbit.  Since there was a lot of controversy over Stone’s review and a request for me to try one of the effects, we will put it to the test.  Until then try to catch a radio wave!

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The post Review: Everything’s A Radio (E.A.R.) appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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 the rock pun was intended!)

Jeff gave me the title for the column but stated he had no idea what it would be about. So, in sitting at my kitchen table one evening we brainstormed and came up with an idea that you will, hopefully, find entertaining and hopefully useful. So without further delay the new column will called The Diamond Mine

Ok, now you’re asking yourself, “what?!” Just hear it out.

Jeff writes a review column here every month called Gems and Rubble. In it he gives us his opinion of whatever has caught his eye or his mailbox. Sometimes, at least in my opinion, he hits it out of the park. Other times I’m not sure what rock he crawled out from under.

Thus the concept of a “mine;” you have to dig through a lot of dirt to find a true “gem”. See it’s coming to form.

What I am going to do is take one effect form something that he has reviewed the previous month and put it to the test. Call it a practical review. That way we can see if it really works. I will build it, practice it, and finally perform it. But not just once, I will focus on performing it for the entire month.

I will perform for three groups in particular, getting direct feedback from only two of them. The two that I will ask directly what they think are family, friends and co-workers (basically those closest to me) and my fellow magicians. Then there are those perfect strangers. I will get feedback from strangers, but it will not be solicited. The feedback will be just their reactions.

Then I will let you know how much it really cost, how it really played and whether or not the effort was worth the pay off. That does mean that I am going to have to try some things that are totally out of my element, but I am up for the challenge.

Finally, I am going to allow requests. Yes really, requests! However there are a few rules. Jeff has to have reviewed it the previous month (in other words, make sure your requests for February’s article come from January’s reviews). If the cost is too much I will not perform it but will happily give you a real cost and “mine” something else. Lastly I will not perform anything that I think will offend the members of my audience.

Since this is the first month I will pick the first effect to mine. I have chosen: Everything’s a Radio from Miracles for Mortals Vol. 2, by Geoff Williams. The write up will be in January 2010’s issue of The Diamond Mine. Thus starts my new magic collection of gadgets! On a side note, this is not something that I would have normally done as an 1880’s cowboy.

So in a nutshell, we will either find a gem, and I can give you a verifiable thumbs up, or we’ll just have to keep minin”!

Until then,

Diamond Jim “The Cardslinger”

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