Greetings from all of us here at Hank Lee’s Magic Factory. I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July. I went to the parade and it was the best ever. I also shampooed the basement carpet, hung some curtains, installed a couple of windows boxes, and managed to generally reduce the length of the honey-do list. The weather was great, so who can complain?
There is some big news this week. After over thirty years in downtown Boston, we are closing our retail store at 112 South Street. The lease is up at the end of July, and the rents have skyrocketed to the point that it just doesn’t make any sense to try and keep a store in the downtown area. The good news is that we are going to open our warehouse in Medford for retail trade. This will all start at the end of July, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you have always meant to visit us in Boston but just couldn’t find the time, or if you are a long time store customer and want to stop in just to relive some old memories, do it now. After the 28th of July, we will be closed in Boston. Does this feel as weird to you as it does to me?
And now, my friends, here is this week’s excitement!
FREE SHIPPING: Until Thursday the 12th of July at midnight, we are offering free ground shipping to anywhere in the US, including Alaska and Hawaii! Just enter the special code SHIPMEFREE in the Discount Coupon Box at the bottom of the first page of the online checkout at www.magicfact.com. We will happily pick up the ground shipping charges on your order. Of course, if you want your order sent Fedex Three Day (Express Saver), Second Day or Next Day, you will just have to pay the difference. Note: Your email confirmation from our online system will still list the shipping as free, but we will charge the difference when we ship your order. Overseas customers will save as well! We will pay one-half of the Air Post shipping charges on your orders until the 12th! Just remember to enter the special code SHIPMEFREE in the Discount Coupon Box, or let the person taking your phone order know when you place your order at 800 874 7400.
Now, let’s take a look at this week’s Hotlist.
Shrinker – Andrew Mayne: An astonishing new solo illusion from the Andrew Mayne, one of the most creative people in the magic world today!
Imagine, at any point in your act, causing yourself to shrink to a mere 1/3 of your original height! It looks unbelievable. One minute you are six feet tall. In a blink, you are two feet tall! Your audience will gasp!
Just as quickly, you return to your original height and continue on with your show.
The complete illusion includes the specially constructed apparatus and instructional DVD! $149.95 (60.1451)
Magic creator Ron Jaxon, after performing it for the first time got this reaction: "She gasped and covered her mouth in shock then started laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes."
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8919&cat=0&page=1)
Hell’s Smoke: This wonderful prop will allow to have smoke at your fingertips without anything in your hands! You can show your hands empty at any time. It’s a real mind blowing effect!
Hell's Smoke is a combination of the finest paper covered with a highly magical material. The paper is only used to create the special Hell’s Smoke substance and is not used in the production of the effect. The smoke is not harmful to you or your audience, but please do not ingest the substance. Enough for over 200 shows! And, you can prepare the substance up to a full two days in advance!
Use for all your disappearance, to punctuate an effect, to conclude a fire effect. The possibilities are endless!
Not sold to anyone under 18, sorry.
$15.00 (60.1452
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8920&cat=0&page=1)
Rush DVD – Nicholas LePage: This DVD will let you discover the fascinating world of cigarette magic. You will learn apparitions, disappearances, transformations, some modern manipulations for impromptu and visual magic and more!
Contents:
Match Into Cigarette
Pinching Apparition
The Tenkai Apparition
The Tenkai Disappearance
Cigarette to Eye
Cigarette to Ear
MATRIX
Torn and Restored Cigarette
Lit Eaten Cigarette
$29.95 (DVD00753)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8921&cat=0&page=1)
Houdini Silks: There is no more magical name than that of Harry Houdini. And, there are no more magical silks than this set of Houdini Silks!
You get a beautifully printed silk with a caricature of Houdini bound in shackles, a silk with Houdini holding the shackles after he has escaped and a large silk printed to look like the brick wall through which Houdini will pass!
Show the silk with Houdini shackled and poke the silk into your closed fist. Open your fist, and the silk now shows a triumphant Houdini free and holding the shackles!
Now show the large brick-wall silk. Make a “well” in the center of the silk and poke the Houdini silk into the well. Open the brick-wall silk and the Houdini silk has vanished!
Again, make a well in the brick-wall silk, but this time on the other side. Reach into the well, and there is the Houdini silk! It is as if it has passed through the brick-wall!
Again, poke the Houdini silk into your closed fist and, when you open your hand, it has vanished! But, don’t worry, Houdini will be back in time for the next show!
A great routine with a beautiful set of silks and that “special something.” $29.95 (60.1450)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8914&cat=0&page=1)
Scorpion Moth: Mac King & Peter Studebaker have created one of the funniest visual gags ever!
Approach your victim and casually steer the conversation to poisonous insects. Should be easy to do. Ask something ominous like, "Have you heard about the infestation? Those swarms of stinging, poisonous scorpion moths?"
When your friend professes ignorance, say, "Oh yeah, they're coming in from Rhode Island or some other nearby state. They say their sting isn't fatal to a healthy adult, but to a baby or the elderly..."
Let your voice trail off as if the consequences are too dire to even contemplate. When your friend's curiosity reaches its peak, bring out the book. Let them get a look at the deadly looking specimens on the cover.
"Take a look, there's a picture in here," you say as you extend the book toward them. Your attitude is one of helpfulness. You have important information that they need, and you want to show them.
When the book is pretty close to them, open it and let the moth fly out at them. Oh baby! Believe me, if you've built this up proper, you'll have to scrape them off the ceiling!
Comes complete with full color book cover, 2 moth props and illustrated instruction sheet. $9.95 (10.1397)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8913&cat=0&page=1)
Talk About Tricks DVD Set – Joshua Jay: 3 disc set - over 7 hours of Magic!
From the pages of MAGIC Magazine to your TV screen, this is one of the most eclectic, unexpected collections of magic and magicians ever captured on DVD.
The concept is simple: Joshua Jay writes the critically-acclaimed “Talk About Tricks” column every month in MAGIC Magazine, and this set is the column come-to-life! Every month, Joshua Jay features original effects from the world’s greatest magicians. There are hundreds of fantastic tricks buried in those pages. Now we can finally see how great these tricks look at performance speed.
From close-up to parlor, from cards to Q-tips, from money to mentalism, from easy to difficult, this collection boasts over seven hours of the best magic ever published in “Talk About Tricks.” Better still, many of these effects are performed live by their originators. See magicians Felipe Abreu, Paul Cummins, Joel Givens, Rune Klan, John Lovick, Raj Madhok, Rick Maue, Francis Menotti and more, all performing and explaining their creations. You’ll also see magic created by Eric Buss, Bob Farmer, Martin Gardner, Larry Jennings, Ed Marlo, David Parr, Gaston Quieto, David Solomon, Gregory Wilson, and dozens more!
This box set boasts over seven hours of close-up magic from the industry’s leading thinkers.
Hosted by magic performer, author and lecturer Joshua Jay, you don’t want to miss out on the most comprehensive, exhaustive DVD release of the year! $99.95 (DVD00731)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8912&cat=0&page=1)
Secrets of Magic With Dice: World’s Greatest Magic By The World’s Great Magicians - No one knows who invented dice though the oldest known dice were discovered as part of a 5000-year old backgammon set. Dice used as conjuring props is of decidedly more recent vintage with one of the earliest records being Hofzinser who used mispotted dice to force a number as early as 1842. However, the allure of these simple six-sided cubes have not escaped the attention of magicians in intervening years.
In this unprecedented collection, you’ll find completely different approaches to conjuring with dice.
John Mendoza begins by performing and then explaining Senator Crandall’s classic dice stacking routine.
Daryl is up next with a Chink-A-Chink routine that requires only four dice and a cup – a wonderfully visual assembly and no fifth die is required!
Steve Dacri also offers a dice assembly routine (and if you don’t know how it’s done, it’s a real fooler).
Mark Leveridge’s Wild Dice is an eye-popping combination of the Three-Shell Game and the Cups and Balls.
Daryl follows with the classic Sack’s Dice Routine and if you take the time to learn it, you’ll never leave the house without a pair of dice.
Finally, everything you always wanted to know about dice stacking is ably demonstrated and taught by James Zachary. In The Art of Dice Stacking, the video companion to his seminal book, Zack Stacks, you’ll learn how to create a stack fourteen dice high, in addition to dice cup final loads, taking the stacks down one die at a time, and lots more.
Dice are intriguing and romantic props that guarantee spectator interest and these routines represent the best dice magic ever created. $19.95 (DVD00734)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8917&cat=0&page=1)
Secrets of Card To Wallet: World’s Greatest Magic By the World’s Greatest Magicians - The card-to-impossible-place plot is almost as old as card conjuring itself with the earliest ancestor of the trick we now call the Card To Wallet appearing as “The Card in the Pocketbook” in early magic literature. Over the next two centuries, magicians devised a myriad of ways to create the effect of a selected playing card appearing mysteriously in the performer’s wallet. In this collection, you’ll find an amazing variety of methods for all skill levels.
John Mendoza begins with two selections appearing in the zippered compartment of a wallet that was in plain sight throughout the routine – and there’s no palming involved.
Likewise, Alexander deCova has devised a way of recreating the famous LePaul effect of a signed playing card appearing inside an envelope and, once again, there is no palming involved.
Michael Ammar is next with an extremely logical approach to the effect as a torn playing card visibly changes into a credit card while, naturally, the playing card is found restored in the performer’s wallet in the space previously occupied by the credit card.
Then, Eddie Tullock, the king of trade show performers, demonstrates how to turn a basic card-to-wallet effect into a powerful promotional tool.
Dan Fleshman offers his take on the classic Red Hot Momma effect with a socko wallet finish while Alex Elmsley demonstrates a card-to-wallet effect that uses no gimmicked wallets and is virtually always ready to perform.
Finally, Eric DeCamps presents his card in wallet routine with three selections that can play in a stand-up as well as close-up situation.
The discovery of a chosen – and oftentimes signed – playing card in the magician’s wallet is a centuries-old crowd pleaser and if you’re looking to add this all-time audience favorite to your repertoire, you won’t find a better starting point than this collection. $19.95 (DV00733)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8916&cat=0&page=1)
Secrets of The Chop Cup: World’s Greatest Magic By The World’s Greatest Magicians - Ever since the Chop Cup was invented by magician Al Wheatley (whose stage name was Chop Chop, which is where the trick derives its unusual name) in the early 1950s, magicians have devised increasingly clever ways to use it. The basic one-cup one-ball approach to the classic Cups and Balls has held the fascination of magicians through the years most probably due to its devious use of a mechanical principle along with sleight of hand to create an intriguing and compelling illusion.
On this DVD, you’ll meet some masters of the Chop Cup, each with their own spin on the trick. There are classicists such as John Mendoza, Danny Tong and Steve Dacri who beguile their audiences with basic but still utterly baffling routines. Then we have rather unique approaches to the trick, such as David Regal, who substitutes the ball with – no kidding! – a toy mouse and later, Gary Ouellet, who performs a beautifully choreographed (to music no less!) routine using a Chop Cup and a matching, ungaffed cup. Finally, we have Larry Jennings who created one of the most original (and most performed) Chop Cup routines ever. Finally, Jim Swain presents his own version of the Jennnings routine with his own singular imprint.
The Chop Cup has been a signature effect for many of magic’s most successful performers and on this DVD, you’ll find marvelous ready-made routines in addition to scores of ideas and stratagems to add to an existing routine. $19.95 (DVD00732)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8915&cat=0&page=1)
Jules Gems – David Eldridge: A collection of material derived from Jules Lenier's books. His three best effects!
Includes:
• The Act
• Mindability
• I'll Get Them All
$19.95 (BK01530)
(http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=8922&cat=0&page=1)
And that’s all the great new stuff for this week. Selected just for you! I hope you will find some time to spend with us either online at www.magicfact.com or in person at 112 South Street in Boston.
Either way, we love the company.
Hank Lee
