Magic has been a hobby of mine for about 20 years. I would like to get more involved, just don't know where to begin any guidance. The tricks I like to perform are more impromptu, or easy to carry with such as scotch and soda and various paper money tricks that are strategically folded. I enjoy watching card tricks just never really get into doing them. I've purchased various videos and have done instant video downloads on different sites. Many of the videos and instant downloads I've purchased I've been somewhat disappointed with, although they're good tricks just too much setup or prep work, or need to carry more things with me then I want to. That is why I like scotch and soda so much it is so versatile and many tricks can be performed in the audience could almost never figure it out every time you do it. Another great trick is the Two Dollar Window from Penguin Magic. http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=956 those are the types of tricks I enjoy. Any suggestions on other tricks that are as versatile as the ones I mentioned I should purchase.

Why not try to join a club, so you could interact with other magicians and share your 20 years of experience.

I agree with Ronnie...why not join a club?

There are sooo many things that can be done with little or no props involved. If you carry a couple of coins, a finger ring, a shoestring, several rubber bands on your wrist, a matchbook, round washer from the hardware store and learn a few simple mentalism effects, you would have a good 1/2 hour easy, with really not much to carry!

With the above, you have multiple coin effects, multiple rubber band effects, multiple ring and string effects, make a ring climb UP the rubber band, you can make matches reappear in the book after being torn out and burned, do the "blister" effect with the washer and mesmerize with your mind!

You can also learn to do effects with things you might find while your out. How about napkins (Starcle or make a napkin rose) in a restaurant? Pencil's found on desks, paper clips in an office, etc... You get the idea.

With 20 years, or 20 days, experience in magic, the art or magic is wide open to you. Have fun with it and enjoy the journey.

Welcome, twilson9488! In addition to your local magic club, you're at the right place here as you will find a wealth of info. at your finger tips. I'd suggest perhaps you do a search for Impromptu Magic to find other tricks similiar to the Two Dollar Window. I can think of the Wonderland Bill is as fun as the Two Dollar Windown as well as Lethal Tender or Dough by Jay Sankey. Have fun!

Since you don't want to carry much, the best thing you can do is to learn effects that use commonly found or borrowed objects and use gaffs that are versatile.

Gregory Wilson, Dan Harlan, Tom Mullica, J.B. Bobo and others have media resources for impromptu magic.

Learn effects using borrowed finger rings, coins, pens, spoons, playing cards, etc, etc.

Buy media that teaches sleight of hand with different shaped objects and properties like spheres (balls), cylindrical (cigarettes, crayons, pencils), discs (coins, poker chips, etc.), string, elastic bands, handkerchiefs, paper, etc, etc. Once you learn sleights with certain shapes you can apply them to a variety of objects of the same shape.
Buy those special and versatile magic tools like coin ]s, TT, Swami, IT, etc, that you can do more than one effect with. If you don't know the things I mention you will eventually as you read the posts at the Café..

Good luck on your journey.

Everyone, thank you for all your help and suggestions. I'm definitely interested in joining a club, just don't know where to find them, I live in the far west suburbs of Illinois. and any suggestions on books or videos would be appreciated.

Use Mapquest.com to find the closest magic store. They can tell you what clubs are in your area.

These are some books you can't go wrong with:
Coins- Modern Coin Magic
Cards - Royal Road to Card magic
Everything else - Marc Wilson's Complete Course in Magic

I highly,highly,highly recommend (for your taste atleast,or any magician for that matter)- "JAW DROPPERS" by Larry Anderson. There are over 80 tricks on 4 dvd's or vhs and almost everyone of them require no skill what so ever, and a lot of the effects will do exactly what the title states, they will make people's jaws drop. Even though I consider myself a skilled magician, I still find myself useing a lot of these tricks in my payed performances (tricks like drunkin shuffle,two on a match,ash on palm). It is only 60 bucks for all 80 something tricks. And on top of that you get a free Svengali deck with your purchase,which he also teaches 10 good tricks for this deck that will make you look like a pro. I just recently did a show on the 1st of july. And at the end of my show I went up to this guy and asked him, "out of all the effects I did, what trick sticks out in your mind the most", and to my surprize he mentioned a trick I learned off of jaw droppers. I was only shocked because I did so many skilled tricks that took me years of practice to perfect, and he mentioned a trick that only took me one minute to learn over 6 years ago.Amazing!!!! I could'nt recommend this product enough.And only 60 dollars for over 80 tricks!!! that's unheard of these days. Priceless material that you will have for the rest of your life. And Larry's a down ta earth funny guy as well. Take care. 'Piz' P.S-Your a lucky man because when I ordered this 6 years ago (when it first came out) this set was not on dvd yet. Pick it UP!!!

If your looking to go deeper into magic I also highly recommend "BORN TO PERFORM CARD MAGIC" by OZ PEARLMAN, which can be found on penguin magic. That helped me out a lot in the beginning. It will teach you what you need to know at first,and its cheap,only 30 bucks. You will be practicing your butt off though with this one, just ta let ya know.You will have a lot of fun learning this stuff though,i know I did. Check out all the great reviews for it on Penguin. Take care. 'Piz'

I think a deck of cards is even more versatile than scotch and soda, but some coin-buff might disagree with me so I won't get into that.

If you are looking for card effects with minimal or no set-up and not using gaffed cards, I strongly recommend Royal Road to Card Magic (mostly referred to as just RRTCM).

I suggest a book rather than a video, as you get many more effects to choose from per dollar spent, and seeing you are from before videos were the order of the day, I expect you will enjoy a good book.

I am at work and do not have RRTCM at hand, so I can't give you a long list of effects that I think you'd like. I know there are online resources listing the contents of many magic books, perhaps google will help.

Otherwise post in the card forum and get some help with finding specific effects that might suit your needs. Not all card magic is "Pick a card... Here it is!", and not all card tricks require difficult sleight of hand. With just a few sleights you can do 100s of tricks.

Michael