The Wizards' Journal #36

$7.00

Boxing Day
(Think Inside the Box!)

by Jim Gerrish

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. For magicians, every day of the year can be a Boxing Day in which large (10.5" x 11") Boxing Day boxes magically appear from nowhere, magically stuffed with all sorts of goodies which can be shared with the audience, or given away as presents. In some cases, the boxes can be given away along with the stuff they contain because they only cost a dollar at Dollar Tree and come in a variety of sizes. Transforming the Dollar Store boxes into magic Boxing Day production boxes is easily done with scissors and flexible fabric glue, and other Dollar Store items for decorations. Can be used to produce live rabbits and doves and most anything that can fit in a box. Bonus: Jim's Pluck-it Bucket from 1957. Light weight and packs flat, too!

$7.00

Bumbling Bumbershoot

by Jim Gerrish

“The Miraculous Umbrella” was introduced by J.H. Anderson in the early 1840s in London at the Adelphi Theatre. The second, more modern method – often specifically titled the "Mutilated Parasol" – was invented in 1916 by Lewis Davenport and premiered that year in London in Maskelyne's Mysteries.

The days of parasols and sunshades has pretty much gone, and umbrellas are boring, so I’m making this more fun by calling it a “Bumbling Bumbershoot” and making it more entertaining than just “mutilating” it. I’m also making it a less expensive “Do-It-Yourself” version that can be made from today’s inexpensive and collapsible umbrellas found in Dollar Stores everywhere. So get ready for a bumpy and a Bumbling magical ride with a Bumbershoot!

$7.00

Dominoes Vos Biscuits

by Professor Spellbinder

In 1968, writing under his birth name, Professor Spellbinder published this mental domino prediction in the Fall Oracle Quarterly. Now he has brought it up-to-date and republished it here, along with some additional new domino tricks. You can use regular dominoes from any source, children's dominoes with pictures instead of spots, or giant multi-colored dominoes for stage from sources provided. Basically, a spectator shakes up a set of dominoes (sixes, nines, or more can be used) and eliminates dominoes again and again until only one domino is left, which happens to match the prediction sealed in an envelope at the very beginning. The biscuits? Edible cookie dominoes make the game twice as much fun!

Bonus for 2018: DominoTrix - Using two sets of dominoes, the blindfolded spectator manages to match each domino turned over by the blindfolded magician.

$7.00

Phantom Artist - Returns

by Professor Spellbinder

In 1937, Ted Annemann published Percy Naldrett's "Celebrity Trick" in Jinx Magazine under the name "Phantom Artist." I made use of that effect in OM Billet Box Revisited in our Mini-Mysteries Book 2 of 2009, and also in Force Field published that same year. This e-Book continues the theme of real "clip-away art" and includes methods of "Speed Painting" touched upon in Jim Gerrish's Window Wonderland in The Wizards Journal # 35. If you enjoy fine arts combined with magic arts, you may want to investigate how to merge them for performing both together on stage. As a magician, you are an actor playing the role of a magician. Now you can be a magician playing the role of an artist without a single art lesson!

$7.00

Hearts & Flowers

(Think Outside the Box!)
by Jim Gerrish

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a fold-flat box decorated with Hearts & Flowers but usable any day of the year for you and a helper from the audience to produce heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, real bottles of real wine plus wine glasses, and all kinds of flowers and silks with Valentine's Day messages (or other stuff) written on them. Other themes are easily accomodated. Make it yourself from some 3-ring notebook binders and a plastic tray from the Dollar Store (sources given). Can also be used in combination with Boxing Day (WJ36-01) above, or as a stand-alone production effect with a different modus operandi (that's "method of operation" for muggles) which allows you to "think outside the box".

$7.00

Easter Bunny Parade

by Jim Gerrish

Robert “Bob” Nelson (1901-1972), a practicing mentalist for many years, is most famous for “Peter Rabbit Goes To Town”, aka “Multiplying Rabbits” which he invented in 1944 and which was made famous by the S.S. Adams Joke and Magic Company. In 1947, that was one of my first magic tricks and the beginning of my Easter Bunny Parade. From there it went through many permutations each Easter when I knew it would be requested as part of my annual Easter Magic Show. It doesn't have to be only performed at Easter, but like the other sponge version can be performed at the drop of an egg. However, it was at Easter that I always added something new to the parade, so that is where it gets its name. Everything you need to perform it can be found at Oriental Trading Company, or most Party Goods stores. It combines sleight of hand moves from the original Multiplying Rabbits, the Red Devils, thimble magic routines, Cups and Balls, egg tricks, silk tricks and more. This is not for a beginner, but for the magician who never thought of using (for example) thimble moves in a sponge ball routine, or sponge ball moves with thimbles... and so on.

$7.00

Under the Rainbow
Multiple Color-Changing Silks Routine

by Jim Gerrish

Where we live, in Kansas and the real world in general, all real magic takes place under the rainbow, not over it. This silk routine brings that thought to home as a single silk changes color magically, in the hands alone, from white to red, to orange, to yellow, to green, to blue and to violet; all the colors of the rainbow. And then in a finale, the silk changes into long rainbow streamer to be stretched across the stage over your head, like a rainbow with you standing under it to take your bow. Buy the 18" silks used and the rainbow streamer, but make the gimmicks yourself. Or buy and dye all of it, for you dye-hards. As a science magic bonus, the kids learn about mixing primary colors using colored gels and flashlights to cause the silk to change as they shine their lights on it.

$7.00

Magic À La Carte
by Jim Gerrish

New Ideas for Old Strollers. There's got to be an easier way to perform strolling magic as you get older. Check out Jim's Strolling Carte that doubles as a walker for the weary. Then there's the Magic Rollator with a Seat, and the Magic Wheel Chair Table for the more severely disabled. The Pièce de Résistance is the Strolling Magic Shack, inspired by Mister Porkpie, but redesigned by Jim to construct from PVC pipe to cover all angles and which also breaks down for easy transportation.

That crazy clock in the picture tells the truth about when the next show will be happening in the world of the stroller- it's always RIGHT NOW! But the clock has a sense of humor and changes the time on a whim. And there's more ideas like that one to go along with the various contraptions that Jim shows how to build to keep you going from customer to customer and show to show.

$7.00

Itty-Bitty Babies
by Jim Gerrish

These are cute puppet babies that look and act like the real thing, and you make them yourself from inexpensive ($10.00) soft vinyl dolls. Choose dolls of any ethnicity or sex (sources provided) and learn to convert them into hilarious active babies that spread joy and laughter to any audience. Unlike other puppet babies on the market, these have both hands and feet and you learn how to use them to bring the babies to life. Being babies of a magician, they know how to do magic tricks and can work right into your act, and will probably upstage you every time. They are too young to speak, so you don't need to be a ventriloquist to make their baby sounds.

$7.00

Whoop-De-Hoop
by Jim Gerrish

'Round and 'Round she goes and where she stops, the Mentalist/Prophet/Soothsayer already knows. An exciting, interactive, participating audience game for children of all ages, the outcome of which is already predicted in a sealed envelope before the fast and furious game begins.

Published by Imagineering Magic
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