Categories
magic

Sam the Bellhop

I’ve only ever seen Bill Malone perform "Sam the Bellhop", so I’m inclined to think it’s his signature trick. Even if it’s not, it certainly is amazing.

Hit play or watch Sam the Bellhop on YouTube.
(via)

According to Mark Evanier, "the ‘Sam the Bellhop’ routine was not invented by Bill Malone but by Frank Everhart, a magician-bartender who worked at the Ivanhoe restaurant-dinner theatre in Chicago back in the late fifties. Mr. Everhart apparently did it with just a stacked deck and Malone added in all the fancy sleight of hand and false cuts that make it into a truly dazzling effect."

Categories
magic psychology

Quirkology – The Missing Piece

See if you can figure out how psychology professor Richard Wiseman creates space for the missing piece. I have to admit, even though I’ve seen tricks like this before, it took me 3 or 4 times through to figure it out completely.

[The Missing Piece – YouTube]

Categories
magic psychology

Psychological Card Trick

Those of you that enjoyed the colour changing card trick, may also enjoy this psychological card trick.

[Psychological Card Trick – YouTube]

Categories
magic psychology

The Amazing Colour Changing Card Trick

As a former magician myself, I don’t believe in telling how the trick is done, but in this particular case the spoiler doesn’t just reveal how it’s done but is the actual trick.

Watch carefully.


[Colour Changing Card Trick – YouTube]

Categories
magic

How To Slice an Unpeeled Banana

How To Slice an Unpeeled Banana, because the gift of a banana, pre-sliced from the inside, cements a friendship.

I began to pre-slice bananas and give them to people I knew. Even when you know how it is done, peeling open a banana to reveal those perfect slices transforms the mundane banana-peeling experience. The service provided by pre-slicing a banana is a small (and unnecessary) one, but pre-slicing magnifies the effect of the gift. The recipient not only gets a banana, they get the unexpected.

Now I’m off to buy some bananas.

(via)

Categories
magic news

David Copperfield is Tricky

I used to do magic. I wasn’t half bad at it either and I even did a couple of paid gigs but I never really considered myself that great of a magician. I did have a lot of fun fooling a lot of people while I was into it though and while the magic itself is fun, the most excitement comes from the feeling you get when you know your audience is wondering whether or not you really have supernatural powers.

A thought that has often crossed my mind is what it would be like to use magic to fool someone when it really mattered. Take this CNN story for example, where David Copperfield hid the contents of his pockets from three would be criminals with just a sleight of hand.

Copperfield, 50, and two female assistants were walking from the Kravis Center to their tour bus when they were approached by the teens April 23. The assistants handed over money and a cellphone, but the illusionist turned his pockets inside out to reveal nothing, although he was carrying his passport, wallet and cell phone.
“He said in depositions that he had things on him, but it wasn’t difficult to make it seem like there was nothing there,” prosecutor Sherri Collins said.

I don’t know why, but this inspires me to get out my old magic box and stuff a couple of those tricks back up my sleeve.