In honour of the summer of sports (well, at least the Euro 2016 and Wimbledon) I thought we’d start by re-visiting an older trick, but still a nice close up routine.
Dean Dill’s Sports is a neat little close up effect. You show five cards with pictures of different sports balls on them. One is chosen by the spectator and you ‘snap’ the ball out of the card leaving a regular ball and a blank card. The picture probably gives you a clue about which ball is ‘chosen’! A cute trick. £39.99
Next up is a new release from the ever-inventive Peter Nardi. It is a little difficult to get a description of the actual effect – but the Butterfly Effect appears to be a very clever impromptu prediction effect, playing with the ideas of chaos and fate, which is virtually self-working. We’ll try and get a copy in to review, but it looks worth a punt – Peter’s material is always strong and Titanas (who granted, may be biased) describes it as his “favourite ever impromptu effect” – which is quite a claim! £21.99
If you’re mainly here for the playing cards, then here are a couple of decks worth a peek. The Victoria Deck has some striking design work with custom pips, jokers and court cards. It also has a subtle one-way feature – handy for magicians, as is the unusual order of the deck which means it is only one faro away from the Mnemonica stack. £8.99 Another very different, but very beautiful, release is the Verana Deck by Alex Chin. £14.50.
A quick mention for quirky little release we spotted. Riveted Monte is yet another take on the Monte effect – but this time, inspired by an Angelo Carbone idea, the cards are all riveted together in the corner – but still the odd one out moves around the selection in a mysterious way. £13.50.
If, like me, there’s nothing you’d rather do in the summer than curl up in the sun with a good magic book, the intriguingly titled Applesauce by Patrick Redford looks well worth a look. It’s a good-looking book, and is named after his special take on the ACAAN plot. 13 routines, 156 pages, hours of fun. £42.50.
That’s all for now. Let us know if you’ve seen anything interesting in the magic world…
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