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Bob Sanders Grammar Supervisor Magic Valley Ranch, Clanton, Alabama 20504 Posts |
Rik, Peter, Whit, Bob, Paul, Doc, Mike, Bill, etc.,
I'll just have to respect my elders! (Oops! I'll see Doc in Atlanta in a few days!) There is only one paddle move trick I enjoy doing. (Remember that I'm a ranch-raised cowboy.) I used to see the trick done by old men at church when I was a kid. And they could keep me entertained endlessly. Back in those days, we didn't even have a house key but we all carried pocketknives. (Pocketknives and pistols were the only things under glass at the hardware store! Where I grew up, a well-dressed male had at least one of each on him all the time.) However, I have always been told that it's just not polite show pistols except at a card game. It must be harder for some folks to cheat with just one hand. (See the Tabman for proper rules of conduct in these matters. We have a lot in common.) Color changing pistols was not a socially acceptable demonstration of skill as an entertainer. (Yet, it is a very desirable trait among friends you can count on!) Color changing knives was a "gentleman's" display of skill and humor. It was friendly. It was competitive. Lucy knows I still have my sacred box of color changing pocketknives stored away among the "don't you ever touch these props" section of my things. In the forty-seven years since my first professional stage contract, I swear, I've seen plenty big-name professional entertainers perform this trick. (I've also seen hundreds of Coca-Cola knives given away. The last trade show give-aways of that sort in my hands were for a very large CPA firm at a trade show on the Gulf Coast. These knives are always special order. Some are jewelry store quality. Amateurs can't afford that. (Perhaps they cost more than a year’s pay on their real jobs.) Humor me and admit pros do use color-changing knives professionally. It’s quieter. Certainly, I will be the first to admit that owning a set of props is not the final step in being a professional magician with them. But you can also stand next to someone at church that never misses a word in the songs and wish they would either learn to sing or that your hearing wasn’t good as it is. I was taught that asking them to not sing wasn’t the Christian thing to do. (Besides, they maybe very good with a knife or a gun and know nothing about magic.) I can remember when Case, Queen, Old Timer, Smith & Wesson, etc. made the best of “palm pals”. They never lost their charges either. Some were magic! All were prized. I also agree with Miss Julie. There is much more to a routine than tricks. Color changing knives should transition you from one place in your show to another. There are plenty of interesting ways to use the knife to build a routine. One of the first I remember in a saloon in Arizona (I was certainly too young to be there. Mamma would have died!) was being shown a “floppy” Morgan silver dollar. So the pocketknife was taken out to cut it in half. However, the pocketknife had color problems. After those problems were explored and handled, the knife was opened and did indeed appear to cut the silver dollar in half. The knife was put back into the performer’s pocket and the halves of the silver dollar passed out for inspection. (Of course, skill was involved!) Back in those days movies and TV films were shot in Arizona. My uncle furnished horses, land, etc. to the film industry. Adventure was all around! Good entertainers were a given. There were also only forty-eight stars on the flag. Some colors change a little there too. Bob Magic By Sander |
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TheAmbitiousCard Eternal Order Northern California 13425 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-05-17 14:11, todsky wrote: Peter, why is a piece of wood interesting and a knife bo-o-r-ing? When I was a kid, I used to sneak into my dad's dresser. he had a jewelery box in there. It had 2 drawers. Inside he kept cufflinks, his class ring, a lucky coin, and a couple knives. One in each drawer. That box has been very intersting to me all my life.
www.theambitiouscard.com Hand Crafted Magic
Trophy Husband, Father of the Year Candidate, Chippendale's Dancer applicant, Unofficial World Record Holder. |
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Larry Davidson Inner circle Boynton Beach, FL 5270 Posts |
Personally, I've seen good sharing, and "selling" isn't the motive for pros using the knives. I for one am not selling anything and believe that calling knives boring is as illogical as calling props like ropes, cards, or coins boring. None of those objects is inherently interesting or boring. It's what the performer does with the props that matters.
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Magic Sam Regular user Canada 107 Posts |
I'll add two cents as an impartial observer:
If you do the knives because they seem natural (ie not contrived like cards or sponge balls, etc), you're behind the times. Unless you live in a rural town, or you know someone who camps often, pocket knives have become obsolete. Yes, it's true. Of course, people still recognize them, the same way they recognize your [appearing] cane. It's just that these things aren't used any more, so they have an even more contrived feel. If you actually find someone who carries a pocket knife, chances are he's not in a restaurant -- he's out hunting for dinner. Nowadays, there's the swiss army knife (which is used for the bottle opener, screwdriver, etc), or the stabbing knife (ie switchblade or butterfly), because a simple knife has no use. Of course, I'm sure the pros who use the knives have amazing routines and get incredible reactions, etc. etc. I'm not putting down the performers, I'm just saying that pocket knives are outdated. Oh, and asking someone to cut rope with a knife, seems a little crude to me. I use Ink in a Blink, a quick paddle routine using a Bic pen, because it's natural. The number 2 pencil is a similarly good gimmick. Even better is using a dinner knife, or making some very unusual paddle-type object yourself. For routining, stick with one of the aforementioned pros' audience-tested routines, but please don't use a knife.
Magic is like a party in your eyes, where everyone's drunk and breaking the furniture
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Randwill Inner circle 1914 Posts |
While I don't have any statistics or sales numbers to back it up, I expect pocket knives are no less common now than they use to be. Except in schools and airports. I regularly get a catalog from the Rocky Mountain Knife Co. which contains, along with a wide selection of very scary looking hunting knives and display knives a selection of pocket knives. Since these are still being manufactured and advertised, I assume people are still buying them.
Anyway, why would a pocket knife be outdated? There are still some things in life that need to be done that can't be accomplished with a computer. |
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Chessmann Inner circle 4242 Posts |
Pocket knives are not outdated. To equate recognizing a pocket knife in the same way people would recognize an (appearing) is an assertion that can easily be refuted.
My ex-cat was named "Muffin". "Vomit" would be a better name for her. AKA "The Evil Ball of Fur".
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dominik Regular user Germany 143 Posts |
B.M. gets great reactions with the C/C knives because he incorporates his funny personality into the routine. I don't think the audience is stunned, but obviously entertained. It takes a master to turn such a simple trick into a piece of great entertainment value, and that's why I don't do the routine... yet.
However, I will give it a shot some day, because the routine can be performed anywhere, anytime, has virtually no bad angles, and does not require a table. Period. |
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Hart Keene Inner circle Eugene, OR 1486 Posts |
Well since Peter said he was going to fold up his tent but failed to do so I will go ahead and give this dead horse another flogging. Peter does a routine w/ a hot rod. I don't know if it is good or bad because I have never seen it, but that is not the point. The point is that I don't care for hot rods at all. What are they? You basically have to give your audience an explanation of what it is (Peter uses some patter about the rod being used by jewelers). I'm sure that no matter what explanation you give them after you go into your routine your audience will know it is a magic prop. I believe that an audience can smell B.S. from a mile away. Peter, I'm sure your audience thinks that your homemade hot rod is really a tool used by Jewelers *lol*.
Peter plays with a little homemade hot rod and tells his audience that it is used by jewelers (if his audience has half a brain they will know better); the big boys play with knives, which need no B.S. explanation. You do the math. To all you guys who use hot rods: I don't care for them, but if they work for you that's great! Just don't belittle the guys who choose to use knives, pencils, pens, etc. We are just trying to keep it real! |
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TheAmbitiousCard Eternal Order Northern California 13425 Posts |
Maybe Peter just had a bad experience with CC knives?
Actually, I cannot picture getting a good reaction from CC knives but I'm going to give it a shot. And soon. I got the Haydn knives and DVD just because of this thread. I thought the same thing about the three shell game at one point. If I can use diaper pins and get a good reaction, knives might work even better. p.s. Hi Doc!
www.theambitiouscard.com Hand Crafted Magic
Trophy Husband, Father of the Year Candidate, Chippendale's Dancer applicant, Unofficial World Record Holder. |
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Doc Eason V.I.P. Aspen Colorado 429 Posts |
The trick is not the thing...the trick is not the thing...the trick is not the thing
Magic doesn't happen at the end of your arms. It happens in that space between us as humans and it can be a piece of wood, a cc knife, a half dollar, a scarf, the audience doesn't remember what you did (or what you did it with, for that matter), they remember how you made them feel. And that is the bottom line. Ya don't like something, don't do it. Focus on your audience not what is in your hands. hi frank
Doc Eason’s Rocky Mountain Magic
PO Box 50 / Basalt CO 81621 doc@doceason.com http://doceason.com http://doceasonmagicshop.com |
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Larry Davidson Inner circle Boynton Beach, FL 5270 Posts |
What, you mean the magic isn't in the props? It's what you do with them?
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Chessmann Inner circle 4242 Posts |
Oh, no....here we go again....
My ex-cat was named "Muffin". "Vomit" would be a better name for her. AKA "The Evil Ball of Fur".
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Larry Davidson Inner circle Boynton Beach, FL 5270 Posts |
Sorry Chesmann, my mouth is now firmly shut. Hmmm, I wonder if I could pry it open with a color changing knife?
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toonomads Regular user Albuquerque, NM, USA 172 Posts |
I've gotten great reactions from the Whit Haydn routine. I've done it one-on-one up to a street crowd of about fifty. As usual, Whit's clever routining plays on people's suspicions about how things work then cancels out those ideas leaving them totally baffled. I like the routine.
Like Doc says, the trick is not the thing. People have to like you in order to like the magic that you do. |
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todsky Inner circle www.magicstore.ca 2354 Posts |
Well, I had no idea I was opening up such a can of worms (with a knife, of course). I would have to agree with the cooler heads here that the bottom line is: if your audience is entertained by what you do, than you have succeeded, no matter what props you use. By gum, I still do the Magic Colouring Book for preschool audiences, even though I despise myself for doing this overdone piece of cliche, but they love my routine, so who am I to judge? Just another case of separating the performer's likes from the audience's likes.
I'm pretty sure c/c knives are not for me now, after giving it much thought, unless I were to use hunting knives at a steakhouse, and have blood appear on them, maybe juggle them, knife thru hand, etc. Those c/c knives are just too small and delicate for my taste, and besides I prefer spoons. Speaking of paddle-type tricks, my favourite was always the money paddle: coins double, a bill appears, and the climax is a mirror. This was accomplished with a cheap plastic paddle and three elastics, and it was a very strong effect with many changes. The only problem was the paddle was too narrow, and the specs could sometimes glimpse the hidden coins underneath. I will likely go in this direction for a close-up paddle effect, but will make the paddle a little wider, and out of a nicer material, probably that driftwood. Happy paddling to all, no matter what you paddle, be it a knife, rod, canoe or buttocks. Let us all rejoice in our piddling paddling pastimes, for it is we better than others who know that there are two sides to any issue and any paddle.
Todsky's Magic Shop: over 15,000 tricks, books, DVD s and Card decks. www.magicstore.ca
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Larry Davidson Inner circle Boynton Beach, FL 5270 Posts |
Todsky, there are some very nice wooden Money Paddles available, and I believe that Chance Wolf is about to release one. I really like that effect.
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Joe Mauro Inner circle 1133 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-05-20 21:29, doceason wrote: I think this thread was made gold by having Mr. Eason share this with us. Maybe that's what Peter hadin mind? From controversy sometimes great things come.
~Joe
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Lee Darrow V.I.P. Chicago, IL USA 3588 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-05-19 00:11, Chessmann wrote: Aichmophobia, maybe? (fear of knives) Just kidding, Peter. I won't second-guess him, but I can understand anyone deciding not to do the knives based on the innumerable bad routines that are out there and on not wanting to do someone else's routine as well. That makes sense. for me, I am fortunate enough to still have a set of smash knives and have worked out a routine about the athame and boline that witches use and finish with a relation to ceremonialist relations with different colors and magickal intent - and it's a comedic routine! But that's me. Some folks just don't like paddle routines. No big deal. I don't like football, jalapenos (I'm allergic) and can't work a pogo stick for beans. Some folks can. To each his or her own. Godspeed. Lee Darrow, C.H.
http://www.leedarrow.com
<BR>"Because NICE Matters!" |
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kinesis Inner circle Scotland, surrounded by 2708 Posts |
...And there I was about to try and sell Lee a fantastic color changing pogo stick routine.
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snilsson Regular user Stockholm, Sweden 186 Posts |
Quote:
On 2005-05-20 21:29, doceason wrote: Tonight I saw a wonderful show with the Swedish artist Carl-Einar Häckner. It so happens that he used a five inch plastic color-changing rose in his performance. I might be the only one of the five hundred in the audience who remember this. But I can assure you that we all had an unforgettable evening. It all happened in the space between us as humans and the feeling will stay with us for a long, long time. And that is the bottom line so please don't make a fool out of yourself by writing more about the relative merits of cc roses and cc knives. Please... |
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