Here’s my question (the lead is detailed below):



Have any of you seen an effect that looks like Crazy Mans Handcuffs but is performed with corks?



This is another one I have been doing since my youth, even before I got into magic. The effect was originally a "do as I do" bar bet with corks. The corks are held in the crook of the thumb and first finger. The corks were then grasped by the ends by opposing hands and pulled apart.



And, of course, only I could do it. Everyone else would just knock the corks together.



The funniest thing about the gag was that you could even perform it as slowly as you could, detailing where you put your fingers and thumbs and people STILL couldn’t do it. It drives ’em crazy.



So I had been messing around with the gag after performing Mark Jennest’s Jiggernaut (the end production of two corks). And I noticed that because people had been watching magic this effect looked like a solid through solid.



It’s really a powerful effect when presented this way and IMO surpasses CMH. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t in Ammar’s Cork Magic Volume 12 or some other tome before I started running up to magi going,"Hey, look at this."



"Yea, that’s great. What’s next? Your double lift invention? Beat it kid."



"Alright. Then how about this: How to stop an attacker armed with... a banana!"





(Sorry, I’ve been dying to say that ever since I saw that banana )

yep, I perform that all the time, but I use rolled up dollar bills instead of corks.

The corks have been around for years, yak, but I don’t recall anyone fitting them into a magic theme.

You’re right; it’s more impressive than CMH; the first time I saw someone do this, it just about drove me nuts trying to figure it out!

BTW, Magicman, I really like the idea of doing it with rolled up dollar bills.

cheers,

Peter Marucci

Cool. Thanks guys.



And that IS a great idea Magicman. I suppose you could do it with just about anything the right size. I tried it with silver dollars and it works but for some reason it just doesn't look as pretty. I also tried it with my little brothers but everyone just thought they were gimmiked.



Alright. Then how about this: How to stop an attacker armed with...a banana!!







First, you eat the banana, thus, disarming him. (Any Monte Python fans in the house?)

I've seen it done with cigarettes, it look's pretty darn cool.

Thanks Guys, I first saw the cork betcha performed by Mark Wilson on his video course many years ago, but found corks a little hard to come by, so I used rolled up dollar bills, which fit nicely because I can go right into the rolled up dollar thru quarter effect.



I too have done it with cigarettes Steve, but I always squeeze to hard and bend them. Which for some reason does not make the spectator to happy!

I think the trick you are referring to I saw here

http://magic.about.com/library/tricks/bltrick77a.htm



I do like the idea of doing after producing the corks another way.

Thanks to Ray Banks for the link. I've never known how to do this properly before.



Robin

I have actually used AA sizes batteries on several occasions.

More for the electronic age.

:bunny:

Check out Dec's 2001 Linking Ring, "One Man Parade," it features a rotuine on this.

I have done it with, bills, corks, golf tee’s, crayons, pen caps & pretzels.



It’s a nice quicky that I will usually teach someone when asked to teach them a trick.

Thats why I like this board so much. I had forgotten all about this, let alone remembering how to do it!

Thanks

Joe

It never rains but . . .

Since my previous post, where I said I hadn’t seen this in a magic setting although the corks have been around for years, the December issue of the Linking Ring magazine arrived.

And, sure enough, Mike Makman (Professor Putter) has a One-Man Parade which leads off with a magic presentation for the corks.

He also suggests doing it with rolled-up bills.

cheers,

Peter Marucci

Okay, okay. Nobody's mentioned using these (including you restaurant table-hoppers out there) and they're the obvious cork substitute:

Do it with the sealed coffee creamers in the little bowls on restaurant tables!

I've been having a LOT of fun for the past couple of months with kids and adults using these!

In one of Tom Mullica's Impromptu Videos he is doing it with lego stones.