Magic Tricks

I love how this looks even more than the mechanical versions. The sleights didn’t feel particularly complicated to me, but I’m moderately adept at coin magic, so it came pretty naturally. I got it looking as smooth as the demo video with about an hour of practice. I also came up with an extra removal move based on a move in the David Williamson lecture on Penguin. I actually sought this out because of his move on that lecture and I thought this would be a great coin for it. But it’s more than just a great karate coin. The pen also plays a nice role and the moves are so well constructed. I don’t love the in the air stab as much cause it’s almost too many simultaneous effects, which (to me) breaks the suspension of disbelief in a way that telegraphs the method. It does look cool, but I think the other versions look exactly like how you would do it if you could actually push a pen through a coin. I don’t even think it has to be done as fast as the demo video. I slow it down quite a bit, and the moves still work great at a slower speed.

I could see how some might be disappointed if they thought this was going to be a mechanical gimmick, but sometimes I love an excuse to sit down and practice sleight of hand until the moves become muscle memory. That’s a type of satisfaction that you can’t get from gadgety gimmicks. This is really, really fun.