Silent Running

I'm always on the look out for good mentalism effects that are big on presentation while not requiring days of my life in tireless study to accomplish. "Silent Running" sounds like the perfect fit as the spectator thinks of a card and the magician names it, causes it to disappear from the deck, or stabs it with a knife from an shuffled, covered deck. It's sort of a hit-and-miss project that you will either love or hate.

First of all, it's fairly simple to learn. There is a little bit of patter and action you must master (as in most mentalism) but you can get it done in perhaps 20 minutes of good study. After that, it's all in presentation. I applaud the author for giving us 3 very solid ways of telling the spectator what their card was, and I can easily see where they would fit into most environments. The card stab is very high on presentation, but limited in where you can do it. The best choice is the "Dissolving Card", where the spectator counts the cards and finds one missing one: the one they thought of. I prefer his other suggested method, and that's having a blank card in the deck so the spectator finds one blank card and it is supposedly their thought-of card.

None of the choices are necessarily impromptu except the "Direct Mind Read", and even that requires pen and paper. There is a huge bonus section, however, where several other magicians have included their suggestions for using this principle for other versions of the effect, and that practically ensures something for everyone.

The price works for what you get, and I feel I've spent the money wisely on this effect. I won't necessarily do it as the book lays it out, but I've learned a valuable principle I can use for other effects.

Escape! Volume 1

I have been looking at lockpicks lately so the timing of this video's release couldn't have been better! Danny Hunt has put together a DVD explaining lockpicking and escapes in a very organized, user-friendly method.

This first volume deals mostly with padlocks and handcuffs, and how to escape them using tapping or using lockpicks. He does show how to use shims as well for padlocks, but some of the newer locks are made to defeat this method so it may not work if you try it at home.

Because Danny is from the U.K. (and the video was filmed there), some of the locks he demonstrates are not going to be familiar to an American audience. It's still interesting to see how they are defeated though.

Danny takes you step by step through each type of lock and how to defeat it. He shows you which lockpick is perfect for each individual type of lock just before he tears into the lock itself. He does a bang-up job of beating each one within seconds.

I haven't watched the second volume so I can't attest to how good it might be, but this one is great for anyone interesting in putting an escape routine into their performance (or if you just want to know how to pick a lock for fun). There aren't any real stage performances here, and I think Dixie Dooley has a better set of DVDs strictly for those grand stage illusion escapes anyway.

Is there anything here you won't find on YouTube from some kid breaking locks in his basement? Well, there's a little, yes. He shows you how to make your own gimmicked handcuffs, which is a nice little bonus. You also get some thoughts on performance and structure in escapes. Volume 2 reaches more into the stage escape area, so it might be a little stronger for a magician. Still, if you're interested in picking locks, this is a well-taught DVD on the subject. The only annoying thing is the swimming text title shot just before each segment. Sometimes the segments are less than a minute long, so you have that title shot flowing at you quite often. It's a minor thing though, so don't let that keep you from buying this!

KONA

This is the first effect I've ever purchased that told me to try it on myself before reading the instructions just to see how magical it was. You have to give them credit for that. Unfortunately, the effect didn't work right for me when I did it on myself, but after learning the principles I was able to perform it flawlessly for others. This is truly a simple effect that really makes it look like real magic has occurred. There are no fancy moves on your part other than just keeping pressure on the deck as you fan it out to show their card has vanished. You are dealing with a variation of the rough/smooth in part of the deck, and it has a tendency to not work without a good amount of pressure on it. You're not breaking your fingers with a vice grip or anything, but it's definitely not a Mirage deck.

The effect is good, but It's not perfect. The deck can't be examined afterward, and unfortunately the effect can't be performed with a signed card unless you can dupe the signature. If you want to change the ending slightly, it's possible to do a switch with a signed card for the ending, but then you wouldn't need the KONA deck since you're controlling the cards. Also, this is pretty much a one-time one-trick deck. It's impossible to repeat this trick or even perform it around the same spectator, and you'll have to do a switch immediately afterward if you want to do something else.

This effect does have potential, and if you're not the greatest card handler in the world then this is a nice way to put a card trick into your act with a minimum of practice.

Aunt Mary's Terrible Secret

This is a full performance in one routine. You basically play a 3 phase gambling routine that's tied to the story of Aunt Mary. Is it vital that you repeat the story? Pretty much, yes. But it's not that hard to learn.

Keep in mind that this is a 25 page booklet and you have a lot to learn before you perform this. You won't be doing this effect 10 minutes after you get it. That being said, it IS something you can do with any deck of cards (after you set it up) and it's something you'll be remembered for.

I, for one, would have rather seen this as a DVD simply because of what's involved, but the book is easy to follow.

Bigger Finish

This is a fairly strong effect that requires just a small amount of practice. Jay presents four different ways of doing the effect, ranging from basic sleight of hand to almost none. He also teaches two good forces to help your spectator find the right card. Everything is taught in detail and even a complete beginner could pick this up in a few minutes.

This couldn't be called a perfect closer necessarily, but it does fool a lot of people and sets you apart from a lot of other card guys out there. The gimmicks are printed on quality stock and pass a relatively quick inspection as they go from your hand to the spectator's.

Card College Lighter

Much like John Scarne's Card Trick book from years ago, Giobbi has developed an entire book of effects that require no sleight of hand. He also takes it a step further by putting this into sections of openers, mid-routines, and closers so you can put together your own routine if you'd like. So how are the effects? Up and down.

Some are pretty good. "The Card Sharp's Triumph" is one that takes a few minutes to learn but makes people think you have way more ability than you actually do as long as you build it up right. There are also a couple of poker routines and one routine that involves choosing a movie star from a list of 150 of them, counting down cards, and finding your chosen card matches the one held by the star in a photo that's been sitting in a sealed envelope the whole time. Unfortunately, making a decent photocopy of the picture or the list is next to impossible thanks to the way it's laid out in the book, so you can plan to do a little bit of doctoring on another photograph later if you have the skills (or know someone with a baby you can photograph).

Will you use every routine in this book? No. But they are all explained in detail with great illustrations so it's easy to follow along. Even if you don't use the routine as written you can probably find a few things to change here and there to make it your own.

I've been doing card work for a while, and I still found a few things in this book that I loved and added to my repetoire immediately.

Ringtone

I am a huge fan of mostly everything coming out of Ellusionist.com lately, though there are a few effects here and there that aren't as good as the others. Fortunately, Ringtone is one of the good ones.

In essence, you are changing the spectator's ringtone on their cell phone to a new song--preferably one they didn't already have on their phone. The spectator believes they are the ones who came up with the song randomly, which adds to the strength of the effect.

Here is the key: you must have a combination of guts and technical skill to pull this off. The dream setting for this is to find someone who uses either the iPhone or the exact same cell phone you do. Both are ideal, but not necessary. You just might have to spend a little time in Best Buy playing around with their cell phone displays to learn the key factor you need to know about each phone to make this work. Once you have that one move nailed, the rest is performance.

The "gimmick" that makes this work is nice. I've only had mine about three months but it's held up well and was easy to set up. Even though the demo video shows them going with "The Star Spangled Banner" as their song choice (and the teaching video does the same), you can actually use any song you choose. Set it up once and you are ready to go from that point on. You can't change the song on the fly, but you aren't locked in to anything. You can change it before you go out so you're using a different song every day if you so choose.

Handling is good, and the angles are fairly safe (though you can't perform this surrounded or even for a group that's getting too close). Adam Grace does a great job of teaching you how to handle everything and set it all up. There are several ways to help the spectator to choose the right song, and they are explained in detail. Clean up is safe as well. The best part is that you don't damage or even do anything to their phone that could cause it to get messed up. You're safe.

Pretty close to perfect once you spend time learning the moves you need. It's just that element of possible failure that makes it lose a star. Grace gives you ideas of how to get the information about the phone from the spectator themselves, but it's still a little chancy.

Ghost Vision

I've been brutal to Andrew Mayne in the past, but as I've said before when he's made something good, it's really good. "Ghost Vision" is that "really good" effect. You borrow someone's cellphone and ask them to put it in video mode. With them watching with you, suddenly they see a ghostly form move across the screen. The beauty is that they have recorded it so they can show it to friends and others to prove what a supernatural time they had with you.

As you expect, this is an effect that will require a good deal of showmanship on your part. If you just say, "Hey, watch this!" it's going to be useless to you. If you incorporate it into a mysterious evening or spooky environment, you're going to do some serious damage to the spectator's sense of reality. This effect is easy to perform and it leaves the spectator with a lasting souvenir of the performance. It uses something perfectly normal--the spectator's cell phone--and gives them a moment of the surreal. There is only about 2 seconds of set-up you have to do, and it can be done while you're talking about the ghostly experiences you've had or heard of or whatever.

The effect also comes with ways to make a chosen card show up, and just a ghostly face if you want to go that direction. Whichever way you choose, this is definitely something that will set you apart from any other magicians your spectators may have seen before.

Pyro Perception

While the "make a blister on your finger" trick may be a little old, this effect puts a new twist in it. The spectator chooses a card, you bring out a lighter and proceed to light it up, "grab" the flame, and then show your fingertips to show them their chosen card.

The nice thing about this trick is that you can repeat it four times with different results. In truth, if the setup is right you can actually switch around the pips to get more combinations, but that will require a little more wiggle room when the spectator isn't watching you closely.

The gimmick is very well made and fits reasonably well in your pocket. You're better off putting this in your jacket pocket as it gives you more room to "do the magic", but if you wear loose pants you can make it work in your pants pocket as well. There is something special about the gimmick that allows you to pick the right card to blister simply by touch.

You need to be able to force a card, and above everything else you need to be able to sell what you're doing. Performance is key here. You're trying to push some supernatural event, so this needs to be a bit mysterious.

For the price, this is a nice effect that offers something different than the usual card trick.

The Plot Thickens

I call this book a "firestarter". That's not because it should be burned; on the contrary, I think this is a fabulous investment. This is the kind of book that gets you thinking outside the box in a lot of ways. Once you see how some of the effects are done, it's very easy to take those principles and move them to other effects or create your own. Meech has come up with some very interesting ideas, and it's fairly safe to say you'll find at least a couple of things in here you can add to your set.

There are mentalism effects, card tricks, coin tricks, and other various goodies that will make you fly through this rather thin book quickly. There is an effect where you cause a fish drawn on one side of a quarter to jump into the fishbowl drawn on the other side as the coin is spinning on the table. Another effect has you making the spectator believe they must be invisible since another spectator can see the card they chose even though they are holding it close to their chest.

There are several things to enjoy here. Some of them you'll perform immediately, while others might just sit on the back burner for just the right occasion. And then, of course, there are those that will just be read over and forgotten. Meech is currently working on a second book to follow this one, and if it's as promising as this was I'll be buying it as well.

Coin Flux 2

This is powerful close up magic. If you watch the demo video, you're probably thinking it couldn't be that simple, but it is. This is done slowly with no strange out of the way moves, and it will impress even you while you're doing it. This is an excellent close up trick for magicians of all skills, and it is one of the few that you can actually repeat a few seconds later and still fool them. As a matter of fact, that actually builds the strength of the routine!

I had to take off one star simply because you don't end as clean as I'd like to. This is a "look but don't touch" type of effect, which can cause problems in the wrong crowd. But on the plus side, it sets up quickly and takes very little practice to master.