Magic tricks that should be possible - but as far as we know

[peter]

ain't.

I'm a magic fan. V made a comment in another post about something that he felt would be amazing to behold and I thought "Hell yes, that should be possible."

The Trick; All members of the audience who have a coin/coins in there pocket are made to stand up. A foolproof random selection of one coin is made [thats the hard bit] and the magician proceeds to toss it 10 times and score 10 heads in a row. He then points to random audience members who call heads or tails and on each call he proceeds to toss the correct face.

Has this been done? If not, it should be.

[Incidentally - I'm waiting patiently for the day when a magician has the tecnique to present the full indian rope trick; how much would I love to see that!]

[Check out 'The Incredible Mr Goodwin' some time. He could be fake, but damn he's fun!]

[Avatar]

There is more than one way to manipulate a coin toss that doesn't require a trick coin. One is to impart a rotation to it the creates the illusion that it is swapping ends.

Even without doing that, I can usually make it turn out the way I want...practice flipping and you'll see there is very often a natural correlation between the side that was up when you toss it, and the side that is up when you catch it.

Even then (on a single toss) you can decide whether or not to flip it over onto the back of the other hand or not, depending on which face presents.

(Oh yeah...I also love close-up magic. Not illusions though...good old sleight of hand.) (And I like to juggle. Flashed 5 balls yesterday for the first time. )

--A

[Vraith]

(And I like to juggle. Flashed 5 balls yesterday for the first time. )

--A

Really? That's impressive from my view. I played around with it for a bit. I could manage a couple 3-patterns for a little time, [with a bit of chasing-them-around-the-room, and numerous emergency panic snatches] and exactly once managed 4 for nearly 30 seconds.

One of my grandfathers left all us grandkids a silver dollar...one EACH, not one for all of us to share...I could make mine come up how I wanted it about 3/4 of the time, IIRC [heh...it's been a lot of years]. Even with 75% control, 100 in a row is pretty unlikely.
Hee hee...not as unlikely as the Ram's "guess our schedule" contest.
If you guess it correctly, [well, too late now, contest is over] you win 100,000 dollars. Sounds good, right???
But the odds against were SO HIGH, that if every single person on earth made 3MILLION different guesses EACH, and no 2 guesses were the same, there was still a 50/50 chance that no one would win.
[slightly better odds than picking the College basketball tournament using coin tosses...but the tournament prize was a BILLION dollars.]

[Avatar]

Really? That's impressive from my view. I played around with it for a bit. I could manage a couple 3-patterns for a little time, [with a bit of chasing-them-around-the-room, and numerous emergency panic snatches] and exactly once managed 4 for nearly 30 seconds.

I've been putting a lot of work into it. Driving the GF crazy, and there are various balls of different sizes scattered around the house.

I've been able to do 3 for years, just a cascade and a simple inside-outside pattern. But a bit more than a year ago maybe, (or maybe 2, I can't remember) I started practising 4. It took me ages, couldn't get the left hand co-ordinated. But I practised a lot.

Then when I could do about 20 catches consistently, I tried to learn a 3-ball snake. Still haven't got it. But it meant I had to learn 3 with 1 hand.

When I could do that, (with both hands, although I still struggle with the left), I went back to 4 for a bit, then started to flash them with a cross-over. That was pretty easy once I could lead with the dominant hand, so I tried to flash 5 for fun, and I was so close on my first try, I kept going and got it the same day.

I can't carry the pattern at all yet, but if I can flash it consistently I'll get it sooner or later.

--A

[peter]

Hah! - fellow jugglers!

I never progressed as far as balls as such - I always found sacks more easy to catch [actually more like square sandbags], but did spend a short while back in the seventies might have been eighties] standing in Covent garden 'busking' for cash. {moved on to selling bags of bread to tourists in St James Park to feed the swans/ducks - more money but mor 'law' trouble}. [nb I was a student at the time and it beat stacking 'thermos flasks' in trays which I lasted a day at].

I could do 3 sacks without problem [in a couple of patterns IIRC] and could do single handed with 2 sacks [just about] simultaneously with both hands [so working 4 sacks, but only 2 with each hand] - but it was poorly done and I think I got more money out of sympathy than as a result of skill. The one thing I do remember about my short foray into juggling is how well it absorbed ones full attention - particularly when learning. There is literally NO room for anything else going on in your brain and this has real theraputic value.

[Avatar]

No worries, 2 simultaneously (or preferably asynchronously) in each hand is the standard 4 ball pattern. They actually never cross, even if it looks like they do. If you can extend a cross-over with 4 balls (I can't, it's bloody difficult), you get a weird 4-2-2 pattern or something.

--A

[peter]

I bought a book that came complete with sacks, Juggling for Idiots or some such title. I remember that the hardest thing of all to master with the first '3 ball' juggle was what it called 'the jug'. This was to start with two sacks, one in each hand and 'perfect' the crossover. Once this was achieved then it was relatively easy to introduce the third sack - but from there on it got MUCH F*****G HARDER!

[Vraith]

The BEST I could do was with 3 rubber-head mallets. [heh...my family was full of mechanics, farmers, and carpenters...for most of my childhood there probably wasn't a common tool that exists that there weren't a dozen of them within arms reach at any given moment] They were really much easier than the other things I tried [live tennis balls, dead tennis balls, baseballs, softballs, hacky-sacks, bean-bags, etc.]
Even that best, though, wasn't pretty...like that joke about the dog walking on 2 legs...it's not that they're GOOD at it, it's that they can do it at all.

[Avatar]

This was to start with two sacks, one in each hand and 'perfect' the crossover. Once this was achieved then it was relatively easy to introduce the third sack...

Now I was taught the exact opposite way...first I practised exchanging two balls in (either) single hand almost ad infinitum, then added the third ball with the free hand and alternated catches.

Took me a long time to get the confidence to add that third ball, but once I did it was easy.

--A

[peter]

It's that gut wrenching 'panic' thing when two objects are in the air at once that has to be mastered [the one that makes you start 'snatching' at things. Once you've done that it's fine. [Might be a metaphor for life there ]

Going back to magicians and magic; I love it/them, but I don't trust them. The film 'The Prestige' demonstrated better than anything else I have ever seen just how far magicians have to be prepared to go in order to perform their illusions. I'm not going to spoil it by spilling the plot, but if you haven't seen it, it's worth it for this alone.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The trick that made me shake my head was the "catch a bullet with your teeth" stunt that Penn & Teller did. Teller stayed on stage while Penn went into the audience with a bullet, picked a person at random, gave that person a marker, and had them put initials on the bullet. He walked back up to the stage then Penn did the same--different audience member, different colored marker, etc. On stage, they loaded the bullets into revolvers they both carried. One by one, they shot at each other then proceeded to take a bullet out of their mouth--each had the other's bullet, which the audience members verified as theirs. (at least, I think I am recalling it correctly)

[wayfriend]

The trick that made me shake my head was the "catch a bullet with your teeth" stunt that Penn & Teller did.

I remember that being on Wide World of Sports oh so long ago. Caught the bullet in his teeth. Oh, how old I am ...

[edit: heh. link]

I still ask the same question ... how do you practice that?

[peter]

That's a trick that a number of magicians have been killed performing. It's ridiculous!

Another one that was horribly frightening to watch [escapology rather than magic] was Johnathan Goodwins trick of padlocking himself to a length of rope attached to an old car which was then pushed over the side of a quarry with a sloping edge leading to a precipitous drop. It was timed so he had 30 or so seconds to pick the padlock, and no doubt he'd practiced it to perfection, but on the day, with the car, and the audience, you were horribly aware that it could all go disastrously wrong. He slipped the rope with seconds to spare and walked away from the cameras. Every body was dead silent - they all knew how close he came to killing himself. He walked in a circle and said simply 'I'm not doing that again'.

[sgt.null]

I am a simple man. I was amazed by the juggler who did aflame torches while riding a 15 ft unicycle at the local fair.