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ONLY SLIGHTLY SLEIGHTLY – A Review

ONLY SLIGHTLY SLEIGHTLY – A Review

ONLY SLIGHTLY SLEIGHTLY – DVD
$26.95
Murphy’s Magic

Ryan Schultz is a creator of card tricks. Not just card tricks.. but tricks that require a minimum of sleights. This is much easier said than done. Unfortunately, many simple card tricks are obviously simple card tricks, and fail to fool even the uninformed spectator who has never seen a Youtube video.. The standard for ‘self working’ card tricks has changed, and Ryan is one of the performers at the very forefront. Today, there is a huge market for sleight-free card magic, or something very close to it, and Ryan has published two prior DVD’s paving the way for his latest. ‘Miracles Without Moves’ and ‘Effortless Effects’, his earlier DVD’s were both best sellers.

So much has to happen to make a simple trick appear complex. Patter isn’t enough, and math won’t carry you over the threshold. It takes a combination of complexity and psychology, particularly handling by the spectator to alleviate the possibility of sleight of hand. Ryan covers all the basis. Everything on Only Slightly Sleightly is designed to happen, to an extent, in the spectators hand or as a result of a decision by the spectator. All the psychological moves are there too, to convince the spectator(s) all is fair.

I feel if you are a fan of simpler magic, and if you want several effects that simultaneously tic every box and entertain your audience… ‘Only Slightly Sleightly’ will do just that. In all fairness, these are NOT instant effects. You WILL have to put forth a little time and effort to learn the handling of all the effects. Thankfully, the ‘handling’ doesn’t involve busted knuckles and endless hours of practice.

To quote Murphy’s Magic:

“The focus of the tricks on Only Slightly Sleighty is giving your audience the feeling that THEY have control of everything. Ryan has honed and refined these routines with the implicit target of making the audience feel like they have made every decision. Because if THEY made decisions, then the tricks truly ARE magic! It’s a masterclass in audience control and relaxed misdirection. You’ll have a lot of fun performing these routines, and you WILL fool people!”

Features:

Future Card – A card is fairly selected and placed in the case.. a business card and 2 selections reveal the identity of this card.. Everything seems very fair and perplexing.

Shuffles Therapy – Ryan provides two versions of this effect, a gaffed card version and a borrowed deck version.. A spectators card is found in a random way

Long Way Out – Ryan teaches a Derrick Dingle move that makes the magic possible .. I really like this move, and intend to spend ample time learning and perfecting.

Any Card To Any Sum – All the cards in one pile total the sum of cards in another pile.. plus a revelation. There are no moves to achieve the magic. Maybe my favorite effect on the DVD..

Magic Camp – Three spectators each find a preselected card after a complex series of deals and shuffles. A very good display of discovery..

We Do As We Do – This is a ‘do as I do’ effect where each participant finds the other’s card.

Plus, a very useful bonus section on how to use Pencil Dots and Edge Marking to expand your skillset and add a very special tool to your magical armory…

I recommend ‘Only Slightly Sleightly’ if you tend to favor self working magic. This DVD is available through dealers who carry the Murphy’s Magic line of magic DVD’s and effects…

http://www.murphysmagic.com/product.aspx?id=59203

Review by Rick Carruth

OPUS ( Mona Lisa ) by Nefesch – A Review

OPUS ( Mona Lisa ) by Nefesch – A Review

Opus (Mona Lisa) by Nefesch
Murphy’s Magic
$24.95

Opus (Mona Lisa) by Nefesch is a coincidence type effect, or, a prediction effect.. depending on your spectator. To clear this up.. there are two possible endings; one allows the spectator to recreate a masterpiece.. the other allows the spectator to create a ‘jumble’ of cards that perfectly match a picture of a ‘jumble of cards’ you placed on the table before the effect began..

The spectator is handed four black credit card sized cards. You tell the spectator that the face of the cards contain a picture that will take on a significance at the end of the effect. The spectator is asked to mix the cards thoroughly. He is asks to change the orientation of some of the cards if he wishes. Finally, the spectator is asks to lay the four cards on the table to form a square.
Everything is left to the discretion of the spectator.

Yet, when the pieces are turned.. all four form a perfect recreation of a picture of the iconic Mona Lisa!

This is quite the coincidence, considering all the decisions were a result of the spectator. There is a possibility the cards will form a totally unrelated picture.. with half a head in the top row and the second half in the bottom row.. But when all looks lost, the magi asks the SPECTATOR to remove the one card in an envelope on the table.. (from the beginning).. and it is found to be a perfect image of the jumbled picture created by the spectator.

OPUS comes with five credit size cards.. four are the required four pieces to form the painting of the Mona Lisa. The fifth card is a picture of the jumbled face of the Mona Lisa. Nothing else is needed. Unlike effects with multiple out, OPUS has only one possible out aside from the forming of a perfect picture.. and that out is in plain view the entire time.

I like that the spectator does all the work. I like that the spectator discloses the only other out, if necessary. Of course, the spectator doesn’t realize the out is an out… he assumes it was your intention from the beginning. In the event the completed face of the Mona Lisa is the outcome, the out is never mentioned.. and the spectator is left with a perplexing coincidence.

OPUS will require a little work on your part, memory wise.. I don’t think I’m revealing too much when I mention the position of the cards on the table are known by the magi before they’re turned. The final position of the cards is NOT totally under the control of the spectator.. but I’m sure you’ve figured that out. The question is – does the spectator THINK the final position is his. And the answer is.. Yes. (I wish there were such a thing as true magic.. but I’ve discovered ‘true magic’ needs a little help from time to time.)

I like this… I can definitely see myself performing this during walk arounds. It’s a little magic.. and a little mental.. It’s also something that you can perform almost effortlessly once you grasp the orientation of the cards. There is NO math.. just an understanding of whether you are creating a coincidence or a prediction once the cards are positioned by the spectator.

At a little over 50 minutes, the online instructions are thorough. I had to watch it twice to get a good grasp of my part in the miracle, but that’s to be expected. Watching it twice to learn an effect I’ll actually use is NOT a big deal. There is another learning curve once the basics are understood, and it involves a minor sleight… but it’s just that… minor..

If you like this type of mental magic, I would definitely recommend OPUS go on your ‘to get’ list. Or better yet.. just forget the list and buy it now. That way, you can be performing it next week and getting the kind of responses that make magic so important to us…

Available from dealers who carry the Murphy’s Magic line of quality products…

Watch a video performance at:

http://www.murphysmagic.com/Product.aspx?id=57165

What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?: Part Two..

What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?: Part Two..

By Paul Gertner.. 

So… as I mentioned in my last blog post “What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?  Part One,” I was booked to appear on Penn & Teller:  Fool Us on the CW Network to perform my trick Unshuffled.  The problem was that Penn and Teller already knew the secret to how the trick works.  How was I going to go about fooling Penn and Teller? There was no way I was going to fool them with a trick they already knew… unless I threw in an unexpected twist.  That became the plan.

I rehearsed the routine about 50 times and then began to video tape each performance.  Once I had a smooth looking performance, I posted it on a private YouTube Channel and sent the video link to about 10 friends. This included some of the top sleight-of-hand magicians in the country.  My request to them was that they view the video once and only once then tell me if it fooled them. Read more at:  http://gertner.com/whats-trick-fooling-penn-teller-part-two/

What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?   Part One…

What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?   Part One…

By Paul Gertner…  One of the hottest shows this summer has been Penn & Teller: Fool US, which is now in its third season on the CW Network. I had the pleasure of appearing on the show this season. I was assigned the task of fooling Penn & Teller…with a trick they already knew.

If you have not had a chance to view my recent appearance on Fool Us, you can go to my YouTube page and click on the Penn & Teller Video Link to watch that performance video before reading any further. If you do, this Blog Post will make a lot more sense. You can also link to the video from my website.

Back in February I was contacted by Lee Terbosic an excellent magician and good friend from Pittsburgh who said he had an opportunity to appear on the TV show Penn & Teller Fool Us. But the tricky part (pun intended) was that they wanted him to perform my routine Unshuffled and he was contacting me to get my permission to perform that routine on the show. (As a side note to magicians reading this: That was a very professional thing to do. Unshuffled is a published routine and Lee was under no obligation to do that, but he’s a pro.)

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that Fool Us wanted someone else to do my trick because to me that show is all about original inventions… or at least magicians adding their own unique presentation to a trick and seeing if their performance was clever enough to fool the Bad Boys of Magic: Penn & Teller. Read more at: http://gertner.com/fooling-penn-teller/