Max Maven’s Ansology

On Monday, I went in to have hand surgery. It’s a trigger finger release; hopefully, I will have full use of my middle finger on my right hand again! Before the surgery, I ordered the Max Maven book, Ansology. The night before surgery I started working through the book. This book is a combination of several previously published Max Maven books along with a little bit of new commentary.

A hand with cards and a Magic book by Max Maven

The nice thing about this book is that it doesn’t rely on heavy sleight of hand for most of it. So I’m able to work through a lot of this stuff with only one hand. So far two great tricks I found are Abacus and Out Of Sorts.

Page from the book asology by max maven
Page from the book asology by max maven

Abacus is an epic trick with multiple endings; it feels very modern, even though I think the trick is like 40 years old. The only drawback is that the trick uses a full deck setup, so for this trick to work, you’d really need a deck switch before you do it.

Out Of Sorts is a great hands-off card trick where you not only tell the audience where their mentally selected card is with your back turned, but you also tell them what it is. This trick does have a bit of procedure up front, which I’m not a fan of; however, I think the payoff makes it a real head-scratcher. I think this is going to be my go to trick right now with only one hand.

I’m looking forward to going through more of the book. I’m familiar with one of the books that’s contained in this anthology Of previously published Max Maven Books. This style of magic, which relies heavily on procedure, math, anagrams, and very light sleight of hand, is great for me right now!

-Louie

Having Hand Surgery

On Monday, I went in to have hand surgery; it was a trigger finger release. This has me out of performing for two to 6 weeks, which will be rough, but I planned for it.

A magician in hospital giving thumbs up

While I can’t perform right now, I can still ship out orders. From now until the two-week initial healing process is over, I’m offering free shipping for orders on my site.

For free USA shipping, use the coupon code: surgery
For a discount to apply to international shipping use the coupon code: hand

These codes are good for the two weeks after my hand surgery and expire on November 9th, 2027.

-Louie

Doing Card Tricks Onstage

This is going to be an angry old man post. If you’re doing card tricks onstage and the audience needs to be able to tell what a specific card is, DON’T use normal poker-size cards. I can’t clearly see them from the third row.

There are options to make things play further back into the audience. Card-Shark makes two great options. Number one are large index cards, those have indexes that are a little bit bigger than standard cards. The best option to still keep the feel of a normal card trick, without going to jumbo cards are the Phoenix Parlour sized cards. These have larger indexes and are physically larger than poker sized cards.

Here’s a picture of the different card’s indexes:

playing cards with normal and large indexes

And here they are lined up:

playing cards with normal and large indexes

You can do *most* sleight of hand moves with the Parlour sized cards. I’ve done my card to pocket routine with them and that involves palming a card!

Move up a size and reach a bigger audience!

-Louie

A Magician Needs Their Hands

Today I’m heading into surgery to get my trigger finger hopefully fixed. It’s been a chronic problem for a couple of years, and we’ve tried everything else to fix or manage it, but nothing worked, so it’s time for surgery.

It’s been challenging, basically losing the use of my middle finger on my right (dominant) hand. I’ve had to learn to classic palm a coin, using my ring finger to move a coin from the fingertips into palm position.

After today, I have about a two week recovery period.

Hopefully this works!

-Louie

Writing Patter for a Card Trick

There’s a routine that I’m playing with that uses just the face cards, and they end up being arranged into pairs. Here’s the script that I’m working on for it:

I have all twelve of the face cards. They’re all shuffled up.

(Show cards mixed)

And like a veggie platter, no pears/pairs.
While I deal them, say stop whenever you want, and I’ll mix them at that point.

(Do Paul Curry’s Swindle Switch mix)
They’re more mixed than when I do the laundry. Thanks to Brown vs. The Laundry room, that decision entitles me to pink shirts! Hopefully you mixed them in the right spots to arrange them in pairs like wedding rings, matching in cut, color and three months salary.

Let’s find a spot, give me a number one to twelve.

(Deal to that number and show the next two cards match!)

They match! Let’s do it again, like the time warp!

(Deal to that number and show the next two cards match!)

We need even piles.

(Deal two piles of four cards)

Touch a pile, but choose wisely; the other pile will be banished to the third circle of hell, which is Cerberus and snow. Which isn’t too bad if you like winter and dogs.

(Deal the unpicked in a row. Fan out their pile)

Touch a card.

(Flip the card they picked face up, then deal their cards in a row opposite yours)

And I’ll pick a card.

(Flip over a card. Remove the other two columns of cards that weren’t picked and show they don’t match. Then flip over the cards opposite the two face up cards to show they match!)

They Match!

Method wise, this is a combination of two Nick Trost tricks. This is still in the very early phases of development.

-Louie

The Next Step in the Juggling Monte Routine

One of the routines that I’m working on for my show is a Bank Nite style routine. I’m calling this routine Juggling Monte. This routine has changed a lot in method and presentation since I first thought of it. One of the things I’ve added to it is a display for two of the balls.

Magicians prop

These are my first drafts of them, and they work great; however, I’ve got a few changes that I’m going to make. Right now, because they’re 3d printed and have a strange shape, they don’t hold up to travel very well. I think I’m going to make parts of them out of metal so that they hold up better.

The refining part is a very important step in creating magic. Sometimes good enough works, but you need to play with the idea/prop to see if you should stop at good enough, or go further.

-Louie
PS: you can learn about how I work on routines here!

The Best Chair Suspension Routine

Way back in the mid 1990s I went to a few of the Desert Magic Seminars/World Magic Summits in Las Vegas. One of the acts that I saw was Enric Magoo, who does an act as Frankenstein’s Monster. His chair suspension has always stuck with me, and I think it’s the best chair suspension routine that I’ve seen.

Here’s the full act (the chair suspension is at about 4:30):

What makes it great is that it’s a one-person suspension, and the final display with the chair on his book looks really impossible!

I love it!

-Louie

Is Your Double Lift Good?

One of the problems with magicians is that when they get busted doing a move, they think the person is a “heckler”. Here’s a social media post I recently came across:

social media post about magic

Here’s the main problem, every double lift looks like a double lift. Then add in that everyone who has had a passing interest in magic learns the double lift. Put those together, and 90% of double lifts will get busted by anyone who has learned a couple of card tricks.

OK, so what do you do about it?

In the summers, I perform a lot for teenagers, and when I noticed that it was starting to be a problem, I removed traditional double lifts from my close up set. I do use one, but in a weird way, and if someone busts it, because of how it’s used, I can show them they’re wrong.

Think about it: if someone learned two card tricks and one of them is the double lift in the context of an ambitious card style trick, then when you show them your ambitious card routine, you’re showing them a beginner’s magic trick. You might as well take out the ball vase at that point. You need to do something to separate yourself from basic magic tricks.

How do you do that?

Put in the work and figure it out! That’s exactly what I did for my That Way More card routine. I created something that doesn’t look like what they know and use techniques that aren’t typically used in the routine that kids learn.

-Louie

Bill Change Trick Tutorial

Yesterday I posted a video of a trick where four $10’s change into four $50’s. Here’s a tutorial of the trick:

I don’t think I need to say it, but you could use any denominations of the bills. They don’t have to be $10’s and $50’s.

There’s not much to it; it’s super easy to do!

-Louie

Bill Change for Parlor or Stage!

A year or so ago I posted a video of this bill change to social media, and I started playing with it again. Here’s what the bill change looks like:

I like it because it ends with my face framed for the final display. It’s not hard to do. It’s got a couple of advantages over tricks like Extreme Burn, and that’s that the bills are flat and not held in a cramped position. That position is fine for close up for a few people. When performing for larger groups, the flat nature of the bills in this change play further back into the audience.

-Louie