Daune Laflin has put out a DVD on the Snap Silk. The Snap Silk was used in Mr. Electric's routines and is a very visual trick. I think the DVD is 15.00 - Worth every penny! It is a great way to produce silks to steal a load.

I am sure Duane's DVD is nothing but excellent. With that being said, I learned the technique from Pavel's Cabaret Videos, Vol 1 - Cabaret Silks . It is also on Jeff McBride's Stage Magic, Vol. 2, which are two excellent videos that should be in anyone's library (right next to your Rice's Encyclopedia of Silk Magic, Vol. 1-4) that is interested in silk magic. I believe it is also called Diminishing Silks.

David Williams

David,

What's a scholar like you doing in a place like this? LOL

You make a very good point. Facts are there are not many new silk tricks. Many are perhaps thousands of years old. They were just new to the western world that had no silk! Also, people who never saw a stage magician work very likely never saw silk magic either, even today. I wish that were not true. Then again, it helps a magician with silk magic get bookings not available to others.

Access to China silk in the USA has come in our lifetimes! In 1969 when I started in the import business, it was illegal to import silk from China to the USA. Sometimes we are victims of our own ignorance based upon lack of exposure.

A fact of life in magic is that new patter often gets the trick renamed as "new". Remember that for the history of magic, patter is even relatively new! Amplified sound has not existed for most of the history of magic. Routines for larger audiences had to be silent. That limited magic essentially to silk, animals, grand illusion, and manipulation for larger (and usually better paying) audiences.

These facts lead to all kinds of new opportunities for silk magic.

Duane does very good work. I hope he encourages others to contribute the same. Silk is a very versatile medium. You can use it in audiences where cards, animals, mental magic, etc. will never be appropriate.

I don't think we are even started in recognizing the many applications of silk magic in the USA. But, you are certainly right. There are a great many good sources of materials available in English for anyone ready to move up to silk magic.

I encourage magicians to start somewhere. If Duane got you hooked, that's wonderful. Go for it!

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

PS --- I enjoyed the Ring 37 meeting in Nashville this last Thursday. I even ran across an old friend Dick Staub there. Everybody there is taller than me! The grits must be different.

It goes to say, what's old is now new!
I have been doing this for a few years. I learned it from Ron London. Daune has a few ways to fold the silks, so you don't have to tie them together. I have been playing with Snap Silks using 36"; wow, what cover you have at the end.

Do not miss the importance of the follow-up to Snap Silk -- their use as cover in bulk -- or at least to add to a voluminous display of ever greater amounts of colorful silk displayed, and to ditch ala a flash act.

In the Rice Diminishing Silk version, I have often wondered why you would want to diminish a silk size progressively (end result use or patter) with this snap action.

Music adds greatly to this to offer rhythm to the moves --

I have used two Harrakan lighting chandeliers to come from under the cover -- but changed that recently -- still have the chandeliers if anyone is interested, PM me --I would only work with someone building a solid flash act.

Lucy and I used to get a live 13 lb. rabbit at the end. It is cover!

Bob and Lucy Sanders
Magic By Sander

I don't recall, but the Diminishing Silk ending ended with a small 9" silk, and the performer wiped his head with it. Then with a flash production, he turned it into a large 36" silk.

You're right, FD. I attended a Pavel lecture a couple of months ago, and he kept saying roughly the same thing "there's nothing new under the sun".

Boy, is Ron London nothing but a great guy and a great magician. I always learn something from him every time I'm around him.

David W.

I always thought that this was Marconick's effect.

Cheers!