Does anyone currently perform "Thanks to Ramsey" by Jonathan Townsend? I stumbled accross this today and wonder how it would work and in what situations.
-Mitch

I did, but then again, I had the benefit of having Jon fool me with it first. It's a good piece, and there are real lessons to be learned from it. Don't count on the bare bones description from Apocalypse. That's a description of the moves. You'll learn a lot more if you work on getting the psychology of the piece to work for you.

Jonathan's here at the Café, perhaps he can shed a little more light on it.

Hi folks,

It took a bit to get over the shock of seeing the thing referenced.

If you have a chance to work through the original three coin vanish sequence from Ramsay's Three Coins in the Hat trick, you will be almost ready to play with this small variation Harry was kind enough to publish.

The vanish 'feeling' is different than in the Ramsay trick. Think of how you react to flash paper when you burn a piece in your hand. Think of how you toss the stuff from your fingertips so's not to burn your fingers. That is where we are going with the vanishes in this trick. Imagine that coins dematerialize at your fingertips when you give the coins a certain glance. As they fizzle away into nothingness, you toss the remainder away, lest your fingertips get fizzled.

The coins do not need to be identical, as no utility switch is used. Likewise the coins need not be quite as soft, since the second placement is covered by a situation where there would normally be some noise anyway. It all comes down to that last coin vanish. If you get the original Ramsay thing working, you have a general/utility thing.

Hope this helps,

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan for the response. You couldn't have been as shocked as I was having you respond. Could you clarify some things for me? In the Apocalypse description, there is a utility switch after the 1st coin. Am I misunderstanding the text or the term? Also what would you do following this if anything? Did you leave them dying to know where the coins went?

Thank you very much for your time.
-Mitch

As I recall the thing... been a while since reading the Apocalypse issue;

First vanish is a standard pivot vanish,
(okay, could do two utility switches here)

Second vanish goes into the hand holding out as per the hanging sequence in Three Coins...

Third vanish is standard last coin vanish from Ramsay trick.

What surprised folks was that the vanish action was not set to a palm up display of an empty hand, and this permitted the left/right/left display.

Kainoa Harbottle picked up on this idea in his 'pendulum' type routines. He also extended the idea of making the magic work from both hands in other routines in his book Coins on Edge.

If you are doing a trick like the Hat or the Cylinder and Coins, where the coins appear elsewhere, the sequence works well.

If you want to leave people wondering about some vanishes; start by taking sky hooks out of your pocket (three) and then do the Roth hanging coins. When you get to the last coin... go looking for another hook and then tell them you only brought three sky hooks, and ask them to come back in a year when the hooks will be in the same position again. IE, vanish 3 of 4, look in your pockets for another hook, and leave the trick hanging there.

Speaking of Ramsay.

I Just attended the Carney Lecture.

Great!

Also the Ramsay videos were just released on dvd!!!
http://www.internationalmagic.com




Best
Joe

Hey Jonathan, which Apocalypse issue is it in?