Magic Tricks

Call me old school, but I'm not a huge fan of over-proving or magician fooling. Don't get me wrong now, it's just that, I don't get hired to do paid shows for magicians. When I booked to perform, it's usually for groups that haven't seen magic before. It's for groups that don't know the difference between a gimmick that took ten minutes to make, or a double lift.

Eclipse is a neat gimmick, that will take about ten minutes to make. But honestly, you could accomplish the same thing with some pretty basic sleight of hand.

That's not to say that the gimmick isn't clever... it is. And it will do it's job well. But you may not want to be bothered to make a gimmick and add it to your deck for a gig if you're able to pull off the same effect (basically) without it. With that said, there are probably some magicians that could really benefit by using Eclipse:

1. If you're just starting out in sleight of hand, and don't have a solid double lift and/or color change under your belt, you can use Eclipse to do some pretty cool things without a ton of practice (but keep in mind, you'll still need to know a basic sleight used in most card to pocket type effects).

2. If you are known as the no-gimmicks move monkey at your magic club, and you want to use a gimmick to take the room by surprise, Eclipse will work. The gimmick gives you the ability to do an extra show of the signed card that would be very difficult (but not impossible) to do with sleight of hand. This extra-clean show may throw magicians off the trail. However, as I noted above, I doubt very much that a lay audience would pick up on the difference.

I did find Mr Loosley's thinking on the Anniversary Waltz interesting and novel; but again, probably nothing I would bother using. His use of the Eclipse gimmick here cleans up a moment that has never given me problems.

I agree with Vernon that you should never stop thinking about how to improve an effect. However, I also believe that you have to consider the efficiency of method in relation to the added impact that method provides.

In short, Eclipse is a wonderful solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. A fun toy, and a way to fool your magician friends, but not a worker.