I do it on the street, or at least that is where I am starting to do it.

There are many magicians who use a table, not just cups workers. All of them are stuck doing it at home for friends until they can find a way to do it in other venues. You don't need to learn anything unless you have a compelling reason to learn it.

Pete is right. It's the Performer that makes a routine great.

I've seen maybe thirty different Cups & Balls routines performed. There were only two I really enjoyed. The rest were crap to okay-ish.

I've steered clear of the Cups & Balls until recently when I took a completely different approach to it, and that excites me.

The Performer makes the routine.

So...who were the two that you enjoyed?

Nick Nicholas and Gazzo.


-malini.

I entirely agree with Jon re this!
I've earlier said, and still do, that one should reach the final ending/climax rather fastly and I still stick to that, BUT the road TO the final climax should be a pleasant one, keeping the audiences interest and apart from Dai Vernon I've almost never seen anybody able to do that.

This mainly lies in the personality of Dai Vernon, he was a very fascinating character and storyteller and he did present the C&Bs as ' history' re the issue.
When Dai Vernon did the C&Bs, his presentation/patter was as it should be, it keep the interets of the audience throughout the whole road to the final destination.
Very few other are able to..

I can only add, that when I do table hopping, I do a two cups routine as a finish, and it kills. Same when I perform for a small private dinner party, it's my closer, and it kills. It leaves the spectators with a lot of laughs and great visual magic. It's a gambling patter of the oldest swindle in the book, and finally when they think they have it made, I start producing the fruits and it never fails to get great reactions. It's also the trick my friends asks to see again and again. I plays for all ages (for kids I produce small bags of candy in the end). Bottomline is, when I finish with this trick, I leave the spectators with the feeling of great entertainment, great laughs, visual magic and astonishment with the final loads - that's how I want them to remember me, so that's what my final effect must do. Perfect closer - or if you perform two sessions then close with it before the break and I can tell you they will be in their seats before the 2nd half of your show starts.

It's also the one effect where everybody stands up and whatches intensely, every body wants to see it, I have eye contact with everyone when I look úp, I see a lot of smiles during this routine. So I cannot praise this routine enough. Don't hate it, start to love it, pay your practice lessons, and it takes a lot of practice to do a great routine. I have put a lot of hard work into this, and I know it will last me a lifetime.

When you have it down to the level, where you can totally relax and actually visualise that the balls are really vanishing (Mr. OSterlind and others speaks about making magic real by believing it really happens) then your body language and facial expressions will lift the routine to a higher level - this goes for all magic. But in cups and balls so much is happening so fast - that it only happens to me once in a while to make magic real all the way through the routine - and that's the constant challenge and what I strive to do - and C&B is the ultimate challenge for me to achieve this - because this is a routine where the magician is working full time - it's all misdirection and sleighs - no single move is "selfworking" - that's why its such a pleasure to perform because you know you worked to you max, when you hear the applause.

Good luck with it.

This is a subject very near to my heart. The Vernon Routine was the first professional routine (for my initation show into the IBM Ring 59) I ever learned. I have owned more sets of cups, read more books and tried out so many routines that I can hardly count. The effect also runs the gamut as far as the basic premise goes.

Some magicians treat the Cups and Balls in almost a reverent manner as so many greats were famous for its performance. Yet it was sometimes used by street hustlers to set up victims for pick pocketing! It can be used close-up or on stage. You can produce anything from sponge balls to livestock for the final production. You can make it serious or lighthearted. That is probably why it is a classic. There are so many variations.

Over the years I have thought again and again about the Cups and Balls. I have repeatedly tried to decide what is the genesis of the effect. Are the cups magical? Is the wand magicial? Is it just a display of skill? What is the meaning behind the effect? Stuff like that. I have to admit, I keep changing my mind and, as of yet, can't really decide. Certainly it is very easy to entertain and have a lot of fun with them, but then that word "classic" comes to mind and I ask myself, "Did I do anything that was really a cut above and leave the audience with a real feeling of mystery or just quickness and flashiness?"

Perhaps that is why it is a classic, because there is so much to it and leaves open the many ways to go.

Richard

This is quite harsh, and presumptuous, since I’ve both studied and find some … room for improvement … in every performance I’ve seen.

I was trying to point out a possible distinction in the aim of the test. Are we trying to test pin point accuracy in performing a sleight, showmanship as a whole, or both ?

If only the first, then take away the miss-direction and clutter, set up the camera and computer, and you can have an exact answer. This may be akin to the, “how many passes can you perform in a minute”, test.
If only the second set up some psychometric personality test, and leave out the magic totally.
If both it would be hard to get a better "playing field" to judge relative performance than C&Bs. Consistent props, the performer has great flexibility for inventiveness in routineing, uses several sleights, it's been around for ever, and has the potential to last many minutes in it's own right, etc. etc. You’d have to record & re-watch each performance though. Once for an appraisal of the whole performance, and again eagle eyed for a possible flash / un-natural handling etc...

Since being technically competent does not make you a magician, and nor can being a showman cover technical incompetence, the C&B will remain a hand-wavey / personally bias yard-stick for years to come.

The above quote is taken out of contex and does not reflect what was mentioned.

Here is the original statement from you and the answer, whereto I stick
Wrong!
The C&Bs is the one of most difficult effects to perform well and this goes for decent vanishes too.
The wand does help, but it never makes the vanishes 'easy'..
Anybody can do the C&Bs badly,..........

The complete contex can be reread at :

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/searc......=4071490

and yes, the answer made might be 'harsh' but the answer was re quite something different then mentioned by you as a quote!

Werner G. Seitz,

Fine... So when you say "difficult" to perform, are you saying that to present this routine takes more than just technical practice - ie. a level of showmanship. Or are you saying that the sleights used in C&B are inherantly more difficult that sleights used in other effects ?

I agree with you on the former, but, because of the "natural miss-direction" built in to the C&B, I questioned the latter. "easy" was the wrong word, maybe, "forgiving" was more like my meaning...

I went on to muse what "exactly" was being tested and what other methods / effects may be appropriate to those tests ?

The extracts from your post are the bits that stuck in my mind, and I'm still finding it hard to interpret them differently "in context". I like to understand what you said more fully, if you don't mind expanding on it for me ?

When someone's primary language is not English, it can help to ASK about interpretations.

My reading of Werner's post had the issue as skill+presentation where both are challenging.

Yes to showmanship and presentation (example Gazzo or Bob Read re how to 'sell' that routine)
No, to more skill then 'other' difficult forms of magic, like f.ex. coinmanipulation or even diff. cardsleights.

All magic well done needs both skill in sleights and presentation.
What I ment re *giving it up* was, that one first of all has to be able to JUDGE what is good or bad..the final judgement is the audience, but before one can present anything for them one already had to make a decission.

Eric,

"No man is a magician until he can adequately perform the cups and balls"

I used to really hate this statement. It put up this big wall between me and the cups and balls. I worked on them privately, sort of dancing around the problem for a while, until I needed to perform something using a busker's table in a dance hall while one band tore down and another one set up. I took a chance and did a chop cup routine with two pieces of fruit as final loads. People were stunned. I couldn't believe the reaction to this.

The next summer I was pitching slum magic at a fair and developed a little routine for the Adams plastic cups that makes them look good. I remember one teenager standing there frozen, speechless, at the end of it; I had performed the routine about two feet away from him on an obviously solid wooden tabletop.

The following year I made a public debut with Gazzo cups, standing in the dust of a busy fair, then later performing in the street. I have performed with the same cups on a rolling meal tray in a hospital.

I can't believe how this trick made me grow! Now I look at my old routine and say, that's kid stuff, it's wrong here and here and here...

Meanwhile I have had to do some difficult things involving misdirection during escapes. It was no problem! It was nothing compared to loading an orange.

So while I used to hate that statement, I have discovered the truth of it. There has never been a better time to work on this effect. The array of cups available is terrific. There are excellent books and tapes available from highly experienced performers. Audiences love this.

Still, if it doesn't appeal to you, don't waste time on something that you don't love. Follow your heart.

Yours,

Paul

This reminds me of what someone told me my first week in Italy. I told him that I wasn't fond of wine. He told me that I had just not found the wine that I love.

He took me to a wine store. There were many hundreds of different wines there. It didn't take long before I found a wine that I loved. I also learned a lesson - before I say that I don't like something, I try as many different types of it that I can.

cups and balls. There are big ones, giant ones, normal ones, tiny ones. There are myriad routines and handlings.

I suggest, my dear original poster, that you haven't found the style of cup and the routine that you would love - I further postulate that there is a combination out there that would make your heart sing.

Greetings and Salutations,

"I consider no man a magician until he can adequately perform the Cups and Balls." -- Harry Houdini

This is slightly different from the out-of-context original post. It was Houdini's opinion. I've heard it said that what he meant was that the basics of the effect: the timing, misdirection, sleights, routine, patter combined in proper combination marks the performer as a magician.

I like this quote, it's on my desktop. I like the cups and balls, I have about a dozen-odd sets, and a number of routines I fool around with. My basic routine consists of borrowed bits from Cellini, Gazzo, Thompson, and Miller.

I take it as a challenge from Harry to me. One man's meat is another man's poison, says I.

If you don't like the cups, don't do the cups. I don't particularly care for cards tricks. I generally don't make an issue of it.

That's my $.02 (USD) worth. YMMV

Joe in KC

"First, you should remember that the object of a conjurer is not, PRIMARILY to deceive. That is his secondary object - his first being to ENTERTAIN." – Wilfrid Jonson

Joe, I hate card tricks...want to put me to sleep...do a card trick...but that's my view...the basis of the cups and balls is misdirection and skill using the sleights that make it work...but you can be a great magician and never do the cups...

was houdini a magician?...i thought he was an escape guy

koz

Taken in context, and remembering how much he disliked competition... I am inclined to wonder if he meant to distract folks from working other things.

MagiUlysses said:

If you don't like the cups, don't do the cups. I don't particularly care for cards tricks. I generally don't make an issue of it.


I made "an issue" (?) out of it because of the statement "no man is a magician etc"... Is ridiculous.. and there are SO many threads on the cups and balls and I was wondering if I was the only magician (IF I can call myself that) that hated the trick.

I think its not convenient as an effect and pointless to want to master.. The only setting I see someone doing it is at home. Sure you get a lot of people who say "it gets killer reactions" but what magic trick dosent really? If you practice a trick you like better than the cups as much as you have to to perfect the cups.. it will be the same impact.. that's all.. no issue being made..

my cups and balls routine consists of 3 athletic cups and well.. you know.. hehe

There are numbers of venues where the cups and balls work extremely well.

Obviously, they were originally created for street and open air performances--like a Renn Faire or amusement park. They are a great draw because of the sound and the ability to control the pace of the routine as a crowd gathers.

But this also makes it a great trick for Trade Show booths, stationary close-up setups like you often find at large corporate events, and large private parties and theme events.

Bob Sheets and many others since the time of Bosco have used the cups and balls very successfully on large stages, and Paul Danials even did them on the Broadway stage to great critical acclaim and huge audience reactions. Your statement, Eric, that they are only useful for the home reveals a lack of experience and knowledge.

The statement by Houdini was probably not meant literally, although in his day magicians seem to have had a lot more respect for the classics and the importance of learning from them. You can be a fine magician without knowing the cups and balls, and yet there is much that you can learn from the study and presentation of the cups and balls that you will have a much harder time learning anywhere else.

Eric LeClerc:

You have not said what sort of magic you do, or what venues you generally work in, but I have found the cups and balls to be a valuable, almost essential routine in many performing situations. I have been doing magic full time for more than thirty years, and though I don't use the cups and balls on stage, or in my normal circulating close-up shows, I always used them when I was a street performer in the Sixties and Seventies, and often use them in trade show situations or in outdoor performances at elaborate corporate events. The right trick for the right circumstances...

Your comment about every magic trick getting killer reactions just doesn't hold up. There are differences in reactions, and different tricks solve different problems.

The cups and balls is uniquely strong in the circumstances that it is most often used. People who have to hold their crowds at a trade show, street performance, or corporate event tend to prefer long routines that are showy, loud, easy to follow, and that a person can come up and watch at any point and understand what is going on. When you have to hold an audience spellbound that is distracted and has other agendas, you don't want to ever come to the conclusion of a trick--as soon as there is a logical break in the performance, the audience will seek to escape.

So performers that have to draw and hold their own crowds like routines that go on for as long as possible and still have plenty of magic, surprise, and entertainment value throughout. The Cups and Balls fulfills these requirements wonderfully--probably only the linking rings comes close to working as well.

There is something primal and mythic about the trick itself that draws and fascinates audiences. The cup represents many powerful archtypal images, as does the wand, and these objects and the game of hide and seek and cornucopia-like productions has an immediate, visceral appeal to lay people--adults and children alike.

You are perfectly right that a magician can be a good magician without knowing the cups and balls or the linking rings, or in fact, any of the classics.

It has been my experience over many, many years of performing and of associating with other performers that the best magicians have almost always been well-versed in the classics.

So though you don't need to know the cups and balls to be a great magician, being able to present the cups and balls competently is a pretty good sign that you are a good magician.

If you are a good magician already, you will probably easily find great success in demonstrating the cups and balls.

And, I am convinced, learning the cups and balls, no matter what level of magician you are, will make you a better one.

Whit said:

And, I am convinced, learning the cups and balls, no matter what level of magician you are, will make you a better one.



Wow, that's saying a lot... Thanks for your post, it was really well said...