Hey Gordon,
Kelly J here, from The Castle. It might interesting for all of us to hear your thoughts on constructing presentations of effects. Specifically, do you feel an actual 'storyline' provides a good structure in presenting the effect regardless of the actual effect itself, or that the interest in a constructed story should be equal to the power of the actual effect?

Personally, an effect like Sam The Bellhop has never been 'amazing' to me, but perhaps that's due to the actual effect being not quite the same as say a Triumph, Reset or any change/transposition. Nevertheless, for entertainment value I can appreciate effects such as Sam when the story and delivery are interesting.

But I'd like to know if you ever weigh whether something should be done like "Four kings and an Ace. The Ace turns over. Now watch.." as opposed to "Four gentlemen walked into a bar. A lovely lass sat at the counter..." well, you get the idea.

Any thoughts along those lines?

Thanks-
Kelly

As for the Sam the Bellhop effect, one should look at it from the point of view of someone who buys all the false shuffling and cutting. Yet there are versions where a lot of magic goes on other than the mere sequence of the cards or the changes through double lifts. There is a great one... in Spanish, by Juan Esteban from Chile.

Really good question, Kelly. I've been mulling this over. Last night it occurred to me that card tricks are one of the last places that adults can have stories told to them as they had when they were young--live and in an intimate group. The other place is jokes, and one of my favorite story tricks is Bill Malone's Shipwrecked, which is his matching of a classic joke with Daryl's Diamond Bar.

I will always remember the time Larry Jennings did Shipwrecked for me at the main bar at the Magic Castle, acting out all the accents of the shipwrecked quartet. I thought at the time, and I still do, that it would be very hard to top this as a marriage of effect and patter, and after seeing Larry's performance, experiencing either the joke or the trick by itself now seems incomplete. In a regular performing environment, I can easily see its being the sort of item that people go out of their way to request. (Thanks to Bill's generosity, it's subsequently appeared in Jim Swain's 21st Century Card Magic.)

So, I guess this--and Raphael's examples--are what I think are best: strong story, strong magic. Then again, I'm also very interested in exploring the immediate story of the interaction between magician and spectator, and with the right performer, a simple, bare bones approach can be very effective, as long as it's about that interaction, and not just the props.

If you saw David williamson perform his triumph-color-changing deck (which is GREAT, by the way!), the way he tells the "classic" story of the professor vs. the drunk mean man, with Vernon's accent, the cigar's smoke, and the emotional progression of the trick, it all wraps up (the strong magic and the nice story) in a very strong moment.

I don't think that every trick should be a story (you would become a guy telling 4 stories in 5 minutes) but I feel, like others, that a good trick in a good story (at a well chosen moment) makes a really nice moment, and a quite rare one for adult laymen.

Jonathan.

What does the story of Shipwrecked revolve around?

Niva wrote:
"What does the story of Shipwrecked revolve around?"

Gordon Bean wrote:
"...matching of a classic joke with Daryl's Diamond Bar."

It is basically an assembly type effect. Saying more would be exposure!

Ronnie Lemieux
Montreal
Canada

As to Sam the Bellhop. It really doesn't matter if the effect impresses us (magicians) at all!
ALL that matters is the effect on the audience.
Nothing else. Isn't that who we're doing magic for?
(For money)
The false cuts and shuffles if done with competance will fool laymen every time.
It is powerful!

David Williamson is a legimately great magician. Watching him is always a high, and I'm really looking forward to seeing that new DVD of his.