Welcome to the trick section where I'll share with you some of my favorite
tricks, gags, and bits of business. I hope you'll find the material presented here useful whether you're a clown, juggler, magician, or geek. Current tricks are:
‘Midway Moolah’, ‘Drop This’, ‘Through the Eye of a Needle’, ‘The Seven Card Monte’, ‘The Great Cork Escape’.
MIDWAY MOOLAH
One of the great things about having a Grandpa who was a clown, was going to the carnival and having him point out the inner workings of the various scams. I'm not sure if he did that to keep me from being cheated or to give me something to fall back on. In any event, I rarely leave home with out three shells in my pocket.
A particularly sneaky ruse is the evil art of shortchanging. In fact, some circuses and carnivals actually charged the sharpers a fee, just to let them run the lucrative ticket booth.
So it is in deference to these quaint ne’er-do-wells of the past, that I offer my take on this ancient swindle. Use it as part of a gambling demonstration, or to seem more generous than you actually are when tipping someone like a smug valet parking attendant who's just changed your radio station, readjusted your seat, and added thirty miles to your odometer. Of course, if you've lost your will to live, feel free to try it down at the local biker bar. Just make sure your affairs are in order first.
Begin with FOUR bills in your left hand. (It will work with more, but for deceptive purposes, don't do it with less.) Now follow the moves below, counting out loud as you go. Brace yourself; your four bills are about to turn into five.
The secret lies in the way the accents fall, and seamlessly shift. You start out emphasizing the left hand's bills, then at 'three' the accent is shared by both hands equally. At 'four' attention has wandered over to the right as the bill is snapped away. The last bill gets snapped across on the count of 'five'.
Two things to keep in mind: One, this effect is for amusement purposes only . And two, I don’t know you.
DROP THIS
Here’s a trick I wrote up in the March/April issue of JUGGLE magazine. I learned it from a great escape artist in Australia named Arthur Coghlan, who taught me many things, not the least of which is the fact that there are actually great escape artists. I must admit, I’d always been rather dismissive about escapology after my first experience with a strait jacket. Seemed to me the hardest thing about escaping from it was trying to keep it on. My attitude changed somewhat after being locked in a steel drum for an hour.
Anyway, back to the stunt. If you drop a lightbulb from a distance of say, five feet or so, onto concrete, it’s going to break, right? Right. That is, unless you’ve made the mistake of betting a case of Fosters on it.
How is this possible? Does it have something to do with an esoteric natural law, perhaps the same one that governs the direction water swirls down the toilet? Or does it have to do with a trick bulb, or maybe even wet concrete.
The answer is perfectly innocent and practical, and one which I know you’ll be anxious to try. All you have to do is make sure that the bottom of the bulb hits first, and not the globe. To ensure this is the case, hold the bulb lightly from above, and gently relax your grip so that the bulb falls in a perfectly straight line. As long as the screw end hits first, you’ve nothing to fear.
The only drawback is that the bulb will probably no longer work due to the fragile filament inside. A small price to pay, you must admit, for the potentially lucrative rewards a dirty little secret like this can bestow.
THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE
This next trick requires a nickel, fifty-cent piece, and a small piece
of paper. You trace around the nickel then cut a nickel-sized hole out of the center of the paper. The object of this little challenge is to push the fifty-cent piece through the hole without tearing the paper.
The first solution you offer is one which could jeopardize your health. You simply insert your finger through the hole and push the coin across the table with your fingertip. You have literally 'pushed the coin through the hole.'
Before your adoring fans break out the torches and pick axes, you’d better provide them with a more fulfilling answer to the problem. If you look at the drawing below, you'll see how the paper can be folded and puckered in such a way that the hole can be elongated. There should be just enough room to squeeze the fifty-cent piece through it.
Now an even more impossible proposal is put forth. Ask your suckers, er, I mean
spectators if they think it at all possible to cut a hole in the paper big enough to get your whole head through it. Feel free to collect wagers at this point.
By folding the paper in half and making a series of cuts as shown below,
the paper will open out like an accordion into a large circle. Now the paper is more than able to encircle even the most swollen of heads. Just make sure to also cut the crease from A to B without cutting all the way to the edges. With
patience and delicacy you can even cut something such as a matchbook in such a way that it will pass over your entire body.
THE SEVEN CARD MONTE
If you're like me - and I hope for your sake you're not - then you feel there's nothing like a good card trick. Therefore I generously offer the following effect, which I assure you is nothing
like a good card trick.
Of course you've heard of the infamous 3 card monte, but have you ever heard of the 7 card monte? Probably not, since I just made that up. But who cares, honesty has no place in the realm of card trickery.
Anyhoo, what you do is this:
Go round up a deck of cards...I’ll wait.
Back so soon? Okay, now lay out 6 of them in a row, face down as pictured below, with a face up QUEEN placed somewhere amongst them. (you can place it anywhere you want)
What I'm going to ask you to do is to perform a short series of moves to shuffle the Queen around a bit. Let's say you laid them out like so...
Every time the Queen switches places with one of the cards beside it, left or
right, it counts as one move. Two switches would be two moves; three, three moves; four, four moves, blah blah blah...
O.K. enough explaining, let's get to the fun part: a friendly little game of Find the Lady.
First, move the
QUEEN the same number of times as the position it's in. For instance, if you placed it in the third position, move it three times; fourth position, four times, blah blah blah...
Now move it TWO more additional times.
Hmmmmmmmm.
It looks a little crowded to me out there, so get rid of the first card and the last card. In other words, lose the bookends.
Now move the Queen THREE times.
Hmmmmmmmm. Again it looks to me like it's not on either end, so once
again lose the end cards.
Now move the Queen once more.
Hmmmm. It doesn't look like it's on the left, so throw the card on your left away.
Move the Queen one last time.
Let's see, eeny meeny miny...
Aha, there it is, RIGHT THERE ON THE RIGHT.
Impressed? Blown away? Asleep? Oh well, what did you expect for free. For some reason this always works if you follow the above procedure. To duplicate the effect all you have to do is
commit the sequence to memory or tattoo it on an appendage. Then you, too, will be preying on the ignorant masses in no time.
THE GREAT CORK ESCAPE
Here’s a great challenge that comes in handy any place where wine is flowing freely - say a restaurant, bar, wedding reception, prom, gutter, France, etc. All you need are two corks, so go round up a couple then come back here. I'll wait.
Oh, so you're just going to sit there and skip that stage, huh. Okay, but it's much better if you have the props in hand. Tell you what, just use a couple of pen caps for now. Those pens over there ought to do. Remove one of the caps, pretend it's a cork, and stick it in your crotch. After you've done that, we'll continue.
Now that you have it in your thumb crotch, as pictured below, place one in your other hand.
 |
With your Right thumb and index finger (or middle finger if you prefer), grasp the Left hand's cork. It’s kind of like you’re making the international symbol for ‘Okay’ (except in Italy, where this gesture means something else entirely).
Do this with both hands simultaneously, and you should wind up with your hands hopelessly linked together. (See picture below). Basically, each hand grabs the other hand's cork, and this is how you wind up.
 |
Now for the challenge. Go back to the starting position, with both hands separate, and ponder this: There’s a way for each hand to grasp the cork in the opposite hand, using only your thumbs and index fingers, and pull them apart so that you don't end up stuck together. No kidding, and no cheating. There really is a way to remove the corks so that they don't get caught. The challenge is to find that way.
 |
 |
At the very bottom of this page you’ll find the solution, but think twice before you go there. This is a great little puzzle, so why deny yourself the masochistic pleasure of playing around with it a while.
Here’s the solution to The Great Cork Escape: Get in the starting position and take note of the bottom ends of the corks. Put your Right thumb on the bottom of the Left hand’s cork, and your Left thumb on the bottom of the Right hand’s cork. You’ll need to twist quite a bit to do this.
Now keep twisting so that your index fingers can reach the top of the corks. Pull them apart and take your bow.
When torturing others with this little mystery, demonstrate the wrong way first a couple of times, showing how they lock together. Then, in one smooth, well-practiced move, do the twist and take them apart. They’ll say ‘Do that again’ to which you kindly reply ‘No’. Hand them the corks, sit back, and enjoy the show.
...