David Harkey and Eric Anderson have put together a wonderful book very much worth your consideration. Ah-Ha! (Anderson-Harkey, Harkey-Anderson) provides the perfect mix of practical material specifically designed for working magicians as well as extremely creative effects that may only be performed in special situations. The ideas presented are, at the very least, inspiring. Many of them, however, are very workable in the real world.
Fingerling- In effect, you remove a small child's finger and magically restore it to their hand. Honestly, I have not tried the routine, so I can't speak to it's effectiveness, but I can't imagine many people believing this is "real" magic.
Torque- This is cool. Street magicians and others who love to perform seemingly impromptu magic will have fun with this. A borrowed quarter is placed into a cup of hot coffee. After a moment, the coffee begins to boil. After giving it a few seconds to cool, the spectator is invited to remove the coin with a spoon. The coin is retrieved and found to be severely bent. This strikes me as something David Blaine or Chris Angel could make great use of.
Scatterbrain- For many, this will be the highlight of the book. An audience member thinks of any word on a standard newspaper page. The magician tears the newspaper in half and the audience decides which half to keep. This portion is torn in half, and again the audience decides which half to keep. This process continues until one small piece remains. Someone in the crowd closes his eyes and points to a random word on the page. Finally, the magician writes this word on a notepad. Amazingly, it matches the spectator's mentally selected word. The method is extremely simple and direct. In fact, there is very little work involved at all; many will be able to add this to their act immediately after reading the explanation.
Airlock- This is an offbeat effect where the magician apparently locks his keys in his car and magically causes the door to unlock. The illusion is interesting, but any spectator is going to believe you simply pressed a button to electronically unlock the door (even though that is not at all what happens.) This effect would have been more workable when the book was originally released, but it is now a bit outdated.
Twins- The magician introduces two cards that have been stapled together face to face. Two cards are then selected and initialed. Guess what happens next...the stapled cards are ripped apart to reveal the signed selections. This is very practical. The only downfall in the routine is that the selection procedure is a bit too cozy, causing the cards to be handled a little awkwardly at times. The handling will pass by spectators who are not accustomed to the manner in which you usually have cards signed (i.e. removed from the deck and signed largely across the face), but audience members who have seen your previous performances may feel a sense that something isn't quite right.
Squink!- A silver dollar is dropped into a shot glass and heated with a lighter where it splits into two half dollars. The half dollars are placed into the glass and change to four quarters.
DBA- A visual transformation of a spectator's business card into that of the magician. The effect is a wonderful of example of situational magic. It is perfectly motivated: you pretend you don't have a card, so you offer to write your info on the spectator's card only to transform it into one of your own. However, the routine requires you to borrow an entire stack of business cards from your spectator. While this may work in offices where plenty of cards are available, most people do not carry a complete stack with them everywhere they go.
Shufflesque- Eric Anderson's false riffle shuffle is used by many magicians today without them even knowing who published it. The shuffle looks extremely fair since the cards are riffled together fairly to begin. The "work" is done after the initial riffle. Done casually, this looks couldn't look more perfect.
Zuzu's Petals- This is the most disappointing effect in the book. Petals are plucked from a flower as the magician plays the old "she loves me, she loves me not" game. Unfortunately, the count ends on "she loves me not." To save himself, the magician magically creates a single petal on the flower. The handling is simple. So simple in fact that I highly doubt anyone will be fooled by this.
Wingding- This is a great routine for restaurant workers looking for something cool to perform for children. The magician introduces a strip of butterfly stickers (though any type will do). A snap of the fingers reveals one sticker missing. When the child looks for the butterfly, he or she finds it stuck to the back of their hand. This is a sort of Ash Trick for children. It's extremely easy to execute and leaves the child with a small memento of your performance.
Flashpack- A small piece of paper is touched to a flame. Out of the fire, the magician instantly produces a pack of cards. There's not much else to say.
Bottom Feeder- An unknown card is sandwiched in between two jokers. The packet is placed into the card case. A card is selected. The card case is opened and the card between the jokers is revealed to be the selection. The effect itself is good, but the real value is the method of "secretly adding cards to a packet already sealed inside a card case." The technique is somewhat unnatural, but with the correct flow of motions, it is still convincing.
Feeding Frenzy- The method used is basically the same as in Bottom Feeder. Three unknown cards are placed into the card box. Three cards are freely named. The cards from the box are removed and revealed to be the named selections.
Schmobius- This is another disappointing effect. Actually, it's more of a puzzle. Somehow the magician manages to tie a single knot in a rubber band. Some audience members may be intrigued, but most will shrug it off. Even worse, the authors recommend that the band not be handed out as a souvenir due to the method involved.
Bonfire- This is another effect that most who read this book will never perform because of the needed supplies, but there's no doubt that the effect is cool. Several matches are dropped into a glass. Without touching the glass, everyone concentrates on the matches. After a few seconds, they burst into flames.
East Meets West Meets South- This basically impromptu version of the pencil through bill is very convincing. It is very similar to the version explained in David Harkey's Simply Harkey with one small addition. The routine is a collaborative effort from David, Eric Anderson, and Jay Sankey.
Tour De Cartes- This seemingly innocent interlude allows you to switch decks in front of your audience. Holding the deck in his left hand, the magician reaches his empty right hand into his inside jacket pocket to produce half of a deck. Adding them to the deck, the pack is seen to contain no more than a full pack. This is repeated once more. The magician now proceeds to destroy his audience with his favorite stacked deck trick.
Petrified- I would love to see this piece actually performed. In essence this is just another version of Paul Harris Solid Deception. This time the deck not only becomes solid, it actually becomes petrified in front of the audience, breaking in two when it is dropped to the table. There is a ton of work to be done to set this thing up. In fact, I wonder how many times the authors have actually taken the time to prepare for this trick. In the words of the author, "This trick does not reset."
If Looks Could Kill- This is a very powerful Q&A routine using nothing but a stack of business cards, a stack of coin envelopes, and a marker. The spectators secretly write information about themselves on the back of the cards and seal the cards themselves into the coin envelopes. The magician then reveals the information to each of the participants "without gaffs, forces, stooges, pumps, misses, bad angles, and without overtly unfolding each answer to stay one ahead." The method is easy in execution and very convincing.
Outsmart- This is just cool. The magician asks the spectator the name of his favorite card. The spectator freely names any one. The cards are uncased and the spectator deals one card for each letter as he spells "My Favorite Card." There is no need to shift any cards after the selection is made. In fact, no sleight of hand is used during the entire routine. If you're thinking that this effect sounds too clean to be accurate, you're somewhat right. To be fair, the above description is too clean to be true, you are somewhat correct. This is not exactly what always happens. However, each of the scenarios appear to your spectators to be very clean.
Fooling Pavlov- Basically you teach your dog to perform magic. For example, you ask your spectator for his favorite and least favorite foods. Let's assume he names pizza and carrots, respectively. You give your dog a piece of bread telling him that it's pizza. Of course, he eats it immediately. When you hold out the next piece, calling it carrots, he turns away refusing to eat.
Interestingly enough, even if you never plan on performing even one of the effects found in this book, it is still worth your consideration. For me, the feeling was much the same as when I first read Paul Harris material. I knew from the beginning that I would never use some of the ideas, but reading them seemed to "stretch" my magic brain. For the size of the book, the $30 price tag is a little steep, but you have purchased far worse for the same amount of money. Based on content and the enjoyment you will get out of reading, I highly recommend this book. However, those looking for the best value for their money may be better off looking elsewhere.
