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Busking and Table Hopping Magic At Gulf Wars

June 11, 2017 by MagicKen 2 Comments

I promised a bit of an update about my magic exploits from the medieval event, Gulf Wars (SCA event) in March. So here is that update.

Busking

I had already been asked to do magic busking outside a merchant stall during Midnight Madness. That’s the one night during the week where the merchants stay open until – well – midnight :). That allows people to come out to the marketplace at night and create a sort of party atmosphere.

My plan was to set up my table and do periodic “shows” for passersby, gathering a crowd first. Then I’d put out the hat at the end.

It went alright. The big challenge for me was just to get out there and do it. It’s kinda terrifying:-P. But I did it. That was a win right there.

The Problems

The main problem was that it was freezing – literally. It was a clear night in Mississippi, in spring. But it was 32 degrees all evening. That was NOT conducive to people standing still, outside, to watch a magic show.

The other problem was that I still have a lot to learn. The magic itself was good enough (more on my set later). But trying to get people to come over required me to shout and announce “magic show!” and other phrases to that effect. It almost never worked. What DID work was when people wandered by while I was ALREADY doing something for someone else (I often just started doing tricks either for nobody, or for 1 or 2 people, often friends). In my future busking exploits, I will try to get at least one “shill” to come out with me and be my starter audience.

The other problem I had was people leaving before my show was done. I’d read about this happening in the Gazzo book on busking – The Art of Krowd Keeping. But I couldn’t seem to manage to get people to stay without directly engaging and saying “don’t leave yet, you’ll miss the big finish.” That did work a few times. In addition to doing that, I tried shortening my show and/or going faster. It wasn’t until the next day that I remembered the advice from Krowd Keeping that said you need to NOT give into the temptation to speed up in response to people leaving. Next time.

The final challenge for me was the “hatting.” For buskers, putting out the hat at the end for tips is essential. At first, I just forgot to do it at all. When the shop proprietor reminded me, I started doing it. But I FELT BAD. I know how insane that is. I just provided entertainment for folks who were out in a marketplace! So it shouldn’t be too much to ask for a buck or three. But I felt so bad doing it. THIS, I need to work on for sure. But all in all, it was a positive experience. And I learned a lot.

The Table Hopping

This is a different kind of magic. You can’t rely on the amount of space you’re going to have at any given table. There is no performance pad (though I do have a little round neoprene pad for my chop cup routine). You don’t have a “servante” (a way to “lap” objects, as well as store props, etc.). So you are mostly doing magic that can be done standing up and without a table, ironically).

My table hopping was done at a “feast.” It’s sort of like doing a restaurant, but the courses are all served at the same time. There was only one feast during the week, so I only did this once. But it was good.

Why was it good? Well mostly it was due to the fact that I had a lot of friends in the crowd – something you’d almost never have in a restaurant or bar gig.

Basically I scouted tables where the people were waiting to be served or were between meals. I also wanted to make sure I didn’t interrupt people if they were all involved in an animated discussion or otherwise engaged. The perfect time to offer table-side magic is when the people are not actively eating AND they are in a sort of down time, ideally in those lulls that happen in conversations.

I would usually do one trick for a table and move on. I was trying like crazy not to interrupt their dinner. But the response was great. The kind of tricks I do for tables usually elicit screams of delight. So I had a great time.

What tricks did I do?

I said I’d tell you what tricks/sets I did for Gulf Wars. So here goes.

For Busking

I wanted to do a mix of tricks involving different kinds of props. Here is what I came up with:

  • Started with a card trick. The idea was to do something for a few people to help build the crowd. This trick was either The Giant Card trick or the Invisible Deck.
  • Next came two coin tricks – Winged Silver (the David Roth version – from Expert Coin Magic Made Easy) and then Chink-a-Chink (otherwise known as Shadow Coins), which can also be found on Vol 1 of the David Roth DVD.
  • After that, I went into the main part of the set, which also includes a cool finale. It was the cups and balls. I did a fairly involved routine by Michael Ammar – The Standup Cups and Balls, from his book, “The Magic of Michael Ammar.”

That set lasted about 15 minutes.

For Table Hopping

  • I had one primary routine for the tables, which was the chop cup. This is a pretty standard 1-cup and ball trick. Like I mentioned above, I used a small circular neoprene performance pad for this so I could have a padded surface for the trick. The loads for the trick were in a pouch I wore on my right hip.
  • The only other trick I did for tables was a simple pick-a-card trick with a fun revelation of the selected card using a giant card in a bag. This required me to have a medium-sized paper bag folded over my belt as I walked around.

I could have done some coin tricks or some different card tricks. But like I said, each table was only getting one trick. So it didn’t matter if the next table got the same trick. Nobody was getting a repeat. This is one of the benefits of table-hopping.

If I had thought about it, I would have had someone take pictures. But alas, I forgot about that.

I hope this helps inspire others to get out and just do it!

Filed Under: Featured

My Version Of The Messiah Vanish, by Jay Sankey

May 23, 2017 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

I recently – finally – got my hands on Jay Sankey’s video, “Revolutionary Coin Magic.” Woot!

I learned a routine called Mr. Clean Coins Across from this video last year. Now I have access to all the routines! Buwahahahahaa!

Someone over at The Magicians forum requested that I do a quick video of me doing something I learned form this DVD, so I did a quick and dirty iPhone video of myself doing The Messiah Vanish. Here is the result of that.

 

Filed Under: Featured

What’s Happening With My Magic In 2017?

March 9, 2017 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

I know. I have not posted here in a long time. I apologize for that. Have I quit magic? Oh heaven’s no! I’ve been practicing daily still – now 2.5 years into my magic journey. I’ve also done some performing, though nothing paid yet.

I’m part of a medieval re-creation group, The Society For Creative Anachronism (SCA). I’ve done some busking in that group at a few of its festivals/events. And I’ve learned ever so much more since my last post here.

I promise to get back to posting. I still consider myself a newbie. So nothing has changed in the whole “lessons for newbies from a slightly less newbie” concept:-).

I’m leaving for an SCA event called Gulf Wars today. Maybe I’ll post about my magic experiences at that event here.

Cheers!

Filed Under: Featured

Liwag Subtlety and Crimp Change

February 13, 2016 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

My coin magic mentor, Marion Boykin (“MB”), has created something truly wonderful from developing a variant of something called The Ramsay Subtlety (a way of casually showing a hand that seems to be empty even though there is a coin there), and making it the foundation for several routines. MB calls it the “Liwag Subtlety,” since he was initially inspired by the way Homer Liwag sometimes handled his coins.

MB took that initial spark and honed and developed and moulded and crafted the move to make it into something quite unique. I believe that even though others may have held the coin in a similar manner in the past (the Ramsay Subtlety is really just a use of the finger palm concealment), nobody that I’m aware of has pushed the limits of the “hold” in such a way that it allows for some otherwise impossible displays of coin magic.

One such display is a (seemingly) simple and very fast coin change at the fingertips – MB’s “Crimp Change.” He created this move, which can be both a utility move or a quick trick on its own, by combining the Liwag Subtlety with some techniques from JR Bobo’s “Modern Coin Magic” and the rendered result was larger than the sum of its constituent parts.

I may just be biased, but I think Marion Boykin is one of most creative coin magicians out there. And if it were not for him and his willingness to guide a newbie through the first year of coin magic immersion, I may well have done nothing with coin magic. As it is, coins are my passion and MB’s routines are my staples. Many a waitress and store clerk (my first magic spectators:)) have shaken their heads in wonder at the Crimp Change as a trick by itself. One person even saw me start with two coins, place one of them into Liwag Sublety (I’ll just write “LS” for this from now on) position, and asked where the coin went? It’s so effective that it can even be used as a vanish:).

Below is a quick video showing me holding two coins – one displayed and one in LS. Then I do the Crimp Change.

http://www.kentheriotmagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Kens-LS-And-Crimp-Change.mp4

If you’re interested in learning the details, check out MB’s downloads at Vinny Marini’s site here: at http://www.vinnymarini.com/download/crimp2.html

Cheers!

Ken

Filed Under: Coin Magic, Featured

The Best Starter Kit For Learning Magic

December 24, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

Lots of folks (kids, especially) start down their magic road with a starter kit of some kind. Usually these box sets contain several gaff tricks that people can use right away. I can see the logic in that. But I don’t think it’s the best idea. Let me ask you a question. What would be more magical?

Someone shows you that they have 2 coins in their right hand and 1 coin in their left. They do quick move and suddenly there are 2 coins in the right hand and only 1 in the left. Then…

A. You are shown the secret (let’s say you’re in a magic shop, since magicians don’t give aways their secrets to just anybody:)), and it involved gaffed (trick) coins. Or…

B. You are shown the secret and it was all done with REAL coins, using nothing but sleight-of-hand.

My answer is always going to be B. This may not be universal. But I remember having the exact same thing happen to me in a magic shop. I have been learning coin magic for about 4 months – no gaffs. I learned only how to manipulate real coins to create the magic. A magician in the shop showed me an amazing trick. I asked how he did it and he showed me the fake coins. I felt a bit like he had cheated.

I know, I know. All magic involves deception. It wouldn’t work otherwise. You direct spectators to to believe a thing is in one hand when it is really in the other, etc. And many large stage effects simply could not work without hidden mechanisms. Ever try sawing a lady in half with just sleight-of-hand?

But with close-up magic, I believe there is something much more amazing about tricks that can be done with real coins and real cards. It implies more skill on the part of the magician, who must practice for many hundreds (or thousands!) of hours to develop the skills.

My opinion here is not shared by the entire world of magic. In fact, the owner of the shop where I saw the gaffed trick said to me “but the spectators don’t know the difference between the props – whether a gaff was used or not.” And I had to agree. The goal is to delight your spectators with seemingly impossible “magic.” Should the means matter? I guess not. But I think a magician will be much better off down the road if they develop the skills of gaff-less magic early. Then once that is done, they can introduce the gaffs as needed. It is more of a sequence thing for me.

My Starter Kit Recommendation

So if you are minded to get someone a starter magic kit, here is my recommendation. Build your own with the following items:

  • A pack of 4 sponge balls
  • 5 half-dollars (you may need to hit eBay for these if your bank doesn’t carry these. They are perfect for adult hands. If the kit is for a kid, then ordinary quarters will probably do.
  • A wand with some weight to it – made of wood or something similar. Don’t get a plastic one. It needs to be heavy enough to spin in the hand.
  • 2 decks of playing cards.
  • A set of cups and balls. These can be the plastic, inexpensive kind.
  • A performance mat. These are usually neoprene or some sort of fabric with a rubber base. I’m amazed that most starter kits don’t have one of these. It didn’t take me long to realize I needed one when I started.
  • A DVD and/or book teaching cups and balls*
  • A DVD and/or book teaching coin magic*
  • A DVD and/or book teaching sponge ball magic*
  • A DVD and/or book teaching card magic*
  • As an alternative to the separate books/videos, you might want to just include a general book on magic.**

* There are so many to choose from that I recommend checking out this thread (Magic Books & Videos for Beginners) on The Magic Cafe forum. Speaking of the Magic Cafe forum, joining THAT might be a good idea as well, since there are lots of helpful folks there who can answer all kinds of questions as you progress. Once someone has decided they are ready for more and different or more difficult books and DVDs, you will have an incredible selection of choices by just asking on TMC forum.

As far as books and/or DVDs I used and still recommend:

  • For coins, the best advice for about 60 years is still valid and it’s Modern Coin Magic, by JJ Bobo. As for DVDs – you cannot go wrong starting with Expert Coin Magic Made Easy (a 3-DVD set) by David Roth. It’s excellent.
  • For cards, perhaps the most widely recommended book (actually it’s a series, but you can get the books one at a time) is Card College, by Roberto Giobbi.
  • For sponge balls, I have really loved Essentials in Magic – Sponge Balls, by Daryl.
  • For cups and balls, there are lots to choose from but I have really liked anything by Michael Ammar. His The Complete Cups & Balls Michael Ammar DVD set is probably the most widely recommended resource for beginners.

** As an alternative to starting someone out with separate books/videos for each thing, you might want to get a general overall magic book that has all these things in it. I have a couple and really quite like The Magic of Michael Ammar. Mark Wilson’s Complete Course In Magic is also good. Often recommended on the Magic Cafe (I have not seen them, myself) are Magic for Dummies and The Complete Idiots Guide to Magic Tricks.

I hope this helps lead to some amazing magic starter kits for someone in your life (including yourself:)).

Filed Under: Featured

Making A Drawstring Bag For Cups And Balls

December 13, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

Drawstring-Bag-for-cups-and-balls-1In Michael Ammar’s book, The Magic of Michael Ammar, there is a description of a drawstring bag used for holding 3 cups and their balls, along with instructions for loading it so it’s ready to go when you are ready for performing. Since none of the drawstring bags I had lying around were the right size, I went ahead and made my own. This is a big deal for me because I did not get the “making stuff” gene:-P.

After some experimenting with materials and size, I think I came up with something that should work perfectly. One thing I discovered was that leather did not work very well. It was difficult for the cups to easily slide out of bag made with leather. So I made one with flannel. I suspect pretty much any fabric would work as long as it isn’t too thin.

Another thing I did that seemed to work well, though I didn’t compare it with the alternative, was to make a tube-style bag. That basically means that rather than sewing 3 flat sides of a rectangle together, I sewed the short sides together to make a cylinder open at 2 ends. Then I sewed a circular piece to make the bottom of the bag.

Here is a rough pattern (not to scale!)

Drawstring-Bag-for-cups-and-balls-Pattern-web

The rectangle is drawn sideways – The left side (where it says 10″) is actually the bottom of the bag. Sorry about that:-P. Anyway, sew the 2 short sides together from the bottom to just where the dashed line is. This is so you can leave the top part open where the drawstring channel will be. Then sew the edges of the circle piece to the edges of the bottom of the bag.

Lastly, fold the top of the bag to where the edge comes down about 1-1/4 inches and sew that down, leaving an opening for the string to go through. there will be 2 openings to the channel on one side of the bag.

Now all you have to do is thread you string through. You could just thread one long string all the way through. But my wife offered a different way that uses 2 strings. To do that, cut another opening in the channel opposite the one that is naturally left after stitching it up the first time. Snip it down from the top, but not so far down that you cut through the stitching that closes the channel. Make it only about an inch – wide enough for the string to get through.

Lastly, cut 2 lengths of string (I used cotton shoelace material) about 24 inches long. Thread one through one of the right-side openings (see picture at bottom for these “openings” I keep talking about), out the left side and back through the other left side opening so that it comes out the other right-side opening. Then do the opposite withe the other string – that is, thread it through one of the left-side openings, out the right side and back through the other right-side opening until it comes out of the other left-side opening. And you’re done!

At the top of the page is a picture with the bag holding 3 cups and balls. Below is the empty bag with the cups stacked next to it just like it was inside the bag.

Drawstring-for-cups-and-balls-Bag-2

Drawstring-Bag-Openings

Filed Under: Featured

How To Tell If You Are Progressing

July 20, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

Turtle-web-700When practicing your magic skills, it can be sometimes be hard to know if you’re actually getting any better. This is especially true of physical skills involving slight-of-hand. Some moves take hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to finally be able to do them. So you may wonder at hour number 95 if you’ve made much, if any progress at all. Yeah, it can be very frustrating.

But if this were easy, everyone would do it, right!:).

Here is one good way that I have found to know without a doubt that my practice has been paying off. Lots of moves involve just one hand – especially in coin magic. I’ve been practicing the coin roll-down (where the coin rolls/flips down the outside of your fingers between the knuckles. It’s been months and I still can’t do it well or smoothly.

But I’m been practicing almost exclusively in my right hand. It is wise to learn to do things in both directions and with both or either hand in magic. So I decided to switch over and practice the coin roll with my left hand. Wow!

I THOUGHT I wasn’t making much progress with my right hand until I saw how ridiculously bad I was with my left hand. I knew right then that I had made a lot more progress than I had thought with the right hand.

It was encouraging! Try it. You may discover than what you thought was hours of wasted practice getting you nowhere has actually been working all along.

I hope that helps someone.

Good luck!

Filed Under: Featured, Lessons For Newbies From a Newbie

My Less Pathetic Card Spring

May 18, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

Slightly-Better-Card-SpringRecently, I posted a video about my progress on learning a card flourish called “The Spring.” I had only logged about 1 hour of practice, all told.  That’s 60 minutes of actual hands-on attempts, all added up over a number of weeks.

Since learning most physical skills like this requires  many hours of practice, I didn’t expect it to be good at this point, which is good. I didn’t disappoint. It was – as the title of the post suggested – pathetic. See it at: My Pathetic Card Spring

What about 2 hours?

So yesterday, I made another video of my progress on this move. It’s better! This is after approximately 2 hours of total practice.

What did I change? Nothing that I’m aware of! Even in the first video, my hands and fingers were in the right places. And I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, at least as described in all the tutorials I’d seen (videos on YouTube) and read (magic books). For someone who likes to connect a cause to a consequence, preferably with data to back it up, this can be frustrating. But truly, the only thing that changed – at least on a conscious level – was the amount of time spent doing it.

I asked about this (regarding another move – the 2-handed fan) on The Magic Cafe forum. And one answer resonated with me as particularly apt. I was told “your hands will learn it before you do.” And as weird as that sounds, it is really what it feels like to me. A more scientific way to say the same thing is that the learning is taking place on an unconscious level. I’m learning more and more that you need to trust this if you want to master these moves!

Anyway, here is a video of what I’m calling my “slightly less pathetic card spring.”

Filed Under: Featured, My Progress, Videos Tagged With: Card Magic

My Pathetic Card Spring

May 18, 2015 by MagicKen 1 Comment

My-Pathetic-Card-Spring3 weeks ago, I took a video of myself trying to perform a card flourish called a “card spring.” The Spring is where the cards fly – one at a time – from one had to the other very quickly. At the time, I had put in about one hour of total practice on this move.

You can probably guess how well I was able to perform this move 3 weeks ago by the title of this post ;). It was pretty bad. See the video below.

As with most things in magic, one hour of practice is nothing! There are moves for which I have logged hundreds of hours of practice. And I’m still very much a beginner. THAT is what you’re in for if you really want to perform magic. So it is actually no surprise that my performance in the above video is so poor.

But that’s what this site is mainly about – showing progress along the way, at various points along the path to competence (if not mastery) of techniques.

By the way, below is a picture of what a card spring is SUPPOSED to look like. Obviously that isn’t me in the photo:-P.

I’ll report back after at least another hour of practice. Watch this space!

Okay. After adding about 1 more hour of practice, things are starting to look a bit better. It’s still nowhere near acceptable. But the difference is noticeable. Check it out here: My Less Pathetic Card Spring

Filed Under: Featured, My Progress, Videos Tagged With: Card Magic

The Coin Roll

April 28, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

Ken-Coin-Roll-Pic-700The coin roll across the knuckles or fingers is another common magician’s flourish. Heck, lots of people – magician and non-magician alike – can do this. I recently saw an episode of the TV show Bones where a character (a gambler) was doing it VERY well.

As with most things in magic, this takes a lot of practice. And my primary goal on this site is to give beginners and idea how much practice “a lot” actually means. As I am a beginner myself, my hope is that as I gain proficiency in the skills of a magician, I can share my progress here on this site.

I recently wrote a post about my terrible (currently) card spring. Today we’ll look at my pathetic coin roll:-P. Below is a video of how well I can do this after about 20 hours of practice. That’s obviously a total over the past few months. I did not sit in a room for 20 hours straight practicing this. Though I could have, I guess. Anyway, take a look at where I am on April 28th, 2015. I’ll post again when I’ve done about 40 hours.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/kentheriotmagic/Kens+Coin+Roll.mp4

Filed Under: Featured, My Progress Tagged With: Coin Magic

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The 411 on Me

Ken Theriot Musician, Popcorn Addict. Sara Bareilles Fan. Blogger. Aspiring Magician.More about me.
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  • Busking and Table Hopping Magic At Gulf Wars
  • My Version Of The Messiah Vanish, by Jay Sankey
  • What’s Happening With My Magic In 2017?
  • Liwag Subtlety and Crimp Change
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  • Busking and Table Hopping Magic At Gulf Wars
  • My Version Of The Messiah Vanish, by Jay Sankey
  • What’s Happening With My Magic In 2017?
  • Liwag Subtlety and Crimp Change
  • The Best Starter Kit For Learning Magic
  • Making A Drawstring Bag For Cups And Balls

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