I just bought some slush powder and the slush powder booklet with some effects. Everything seems pretty weak. Any magic or gag ideas would be appreciated.

Pour blood into the top of a skull with the top cut off. Turn the skull over to show the evil bone has obsorbed the blood. Then have it start talking with its new found energy.

Sorry, don't know what came over me.

Sable

Actually, the first idea that came to my mind was not far from Jeb's.
Red liquid (blood) "vanishes" when the vampire approaches.
Well, okay, it's just a thought!
cheers,
Peter Marucci
showtimecol@aol.com

This isn't very bizzare if thats what your after but...

When I first started magic, I used slush powder in a very entertaining way. I took 3 WHITE styrofoam cups and poured water in one of them. I played the three shell game, and no matter which one they picked I could turn the cup upside down on the table to prove they picked the wrong one. At the end you turn all 3 upside down, crumple them up and throw them in garbge or even your jacket pocket. It blew them away and the kids used to love it when you add in the 'sucker' effect into the routine.

When you use white styrofoam cups you can actually give them a peek in each cup and they wont see the powder because it blends in with the cups texture.

Just a side note: Slush powder was originaly used in diapers!


P.

Still is.

Sable

Greetings,

David Harkey created a clever bit that you might leverage. He would hold a bottle of water and, using his psychic pskills, would chill it into slush.

This was done with a small amount of powder in the cap of the bottle. There is not enough to gel the water completely - just slush it. By shaking it, the water and powder mix and voila.

Now to convert this to gothic bizarre:
* a necklace recovered from a Mount Everest victim is dipped into the bottle
* combine it with Kuehn/Bookings' Cold Spot to show how earth from the grave of a possessed person chills all it touches
* wrap it in the necktie of Jonas Tammaron - the IceBox Killer who locked his victims in a walk-in freezer in the center of his house and listened to their screams day and night...

And so on.

Sam Haine

You should know Jeb!

BTW my bizzare input on my previous post in this thread was the Diaper comment, Jeb can definately give you some weird routines...LOL.

P.

You can do something strange if you use a force :
For example you have a sugar box and a spoon to take the sugar powder. Only a little slush powder is in a corner of the box, on top of the sugar (spectators can't tell the difference between sugar and SP).
You have 4 cups of tea in front of you, and an old scroll of "Petrification".

You drop a cup of sugar (in fact you drop a cup of the slush powder in the corner) in one of the cups of tea. It seems natural, and moreover you tell the spectators to drop sugar in the 3 empty cups, they can even taste the sugar, because it's only sugar (you take all of the slush powder in the 1st spoon to drop it in the 1st cup).

Now you have 4 spectators, force the cup with the SP to the spectator who has the scroll. 3 spectators can concentrate all the time they want on the tea you just dropped in their cups: nothing happens. The spectator who reads the scroll turns the tea into a solid block.

It's natural and when you develop the patter, it's very "bizarre" to the people, because they do all the actions by themselves (except the 1st drop of sugar-slush powder in the 1st cup but well done with a good patter it's unnoticed).

Daytona magic sells what is called "Snow powder", it is super heavy duty slush powder.
You can come up with some pretty cool ideas playing with this stuff, there is an excellent effect using it in AM/PM magazine called "Snow business"(volume 1, issue 2).

You guys got me searching high and low for diapers.

Peter, your idea with the srtyrofoam cups is a GREAT one! Thank you for sharing this with us!

I used the "shlush-powder" for a trade-show. A factory of sweets and a factory of fruit juices united and they put out a juice filled sweet. I demonstrated that magically:

A bag full of sweets was shown and I poured the juice into it.......nearly immediately I turned the whole caboodle upside down and the sweerts only dropped out. This was a very good success.

In my "Bar Act" I use the stuff for making ice-cream! The powder combined with a few drops of appropriate food coloring (McCormic´s is the best) does the job. The "ice-cream" is put into the usual caerdboard-container, which is switched by a waitress.

Not "bizarre" but good to know!

ESPecially and MAGICally

TED LESLEY

I like Peter Loughran's idea of using three styrofoam cups in a 'shell game' with slush powder. I agree with Tlesley that this is a GREAT idea.
I thought of using slush powder with the cup-through-table trick, only doing it with a half-full cup of coffee. The slush powder can easily be added under the handkerchief used in this trick. You can add some liquid under the table so the cup appears normal when you bring the cup back up from under the table. Just make sure you aren't going to have to drink it after that! Note that hot coffee will require a lot more slush powder, so you might want it cool before you do the trick.

Diaper powder, wow. This thread illistrates wonderfully the power of normal objects (or at least portions of them) in the hands of a clever and skilled magi.

You know, all the above gives me another slush powder idea (slightly off the topic). Preloading sugar packets with the stuff would allow you to dump as much as you wanted, into a cup of liquid, in full sight of everyone. Hmmmm, watch me ripping open about twenty sugar packets, right now.

Sable

Nah, ripping it open would be too noticable. Slice open one side of it with an exacto knife and reseal it with a very small amount of elmer's glue.

hmm... how many gallons does the average pool have in it?

Well, yes Moto. I was purposely exagerating for comedic effect. I would definately suggest a razour blade, small funnel and glue. You could also do Equal instead, and make all kinds of jokes about the effects of Nutrasweet.

Sable

Correct me if I am wrong, the material for this is calcium bicarbonate?
Have a product at my place- its called Thirsty Hippo which is supposed to absorb moisture. Well it contains some powder form like stuff in it called calcium bicarbonate (if I am not wrong)

ANy idea if this can be used as a good substitute instead?

Thanks in advance

Psychic--

The chemical in Thirsty Hippo (calcium chloride) is acting as a desiccant (to absorb moisture from the air). It wouldn't "gel", like slush powder, if exposed to actual liquid water....

Slush powder is a kind of super absorbent polymer (probably polyacrylate) that quickly absorbs liquid water in large quantities.

Hope that helps....

Wiley

Peter, I too, have for years performed the 3 styrofoam cup routine with the Super Gel. It is so easy and convincing. Don't remember if it was in the booklet that came with the gel but it is a terrific routine.