Someone in the past sold a gimmick you could stick into a bottle neck and it turned it into a lota.

You might check out Gaetan Bloom's version using a SPONGE and no bowl.

Kevin James markets it.

Use it as a run on gag w/ the dog walking mime idea... the dog keeps peeing on the flowers, you dump the pee each time.

I read it somewhere, but haven't had a chance to use the idea though.

j

How is this one for style? Place the bowl very deliberately on the floor and set it in just the right spot...to catch the water falling from that hole in the ceiling.

Samuel

There was an interesting Lota idea I saw 20+ years ago....you used a coke can and kept pouring soda out of it throughout your show.

When you were convinced it was really empty you passed your hand over the top of the can and the people saw the "pop top" hole one second and the next second the hole was sealed.

You then pop the top open again (they hear it is really opening and continue to pour soda.

Food for thought ! ... too bad I don't remember whose effect it was....but, at least it will get your creative juices going.

Jeff

I used a piece of black pvc that just fit the neck and sealed it with "shoe goo" top and bottom. small hole in the bottom of the pvc and a small hole in the pot. And that's it (A little magicians wax around the hole helps get a good seal).
Good luck
P.S. at first I ordered a Thaumysta magic Lota Bowl, and they where no longer in production, so this is why I made my own.
All the Best
Telemus

Excellent idea:)

Posted: Apr 10, 2004 6:17am

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Heres a link for the Aqua Vase:

http://www.hanklee.net/cgi-bin/quikstore......arch=yes

Don't forget, whenever you want information, feel free to use the search function on the Café. There are lots of threads already on the topic of "lota" and "lota bowl" (those are the keywords you use in your search, without the quotes).

- Donald.

OK - so we bizzare people do not think comedy first. My lota is used as a story telling device with a story of the servitude of an Indian water bearer and his Pasha. In Spanish it has been written into a Patron and Peon at a Rancho Grande.

Fr. Daniel Roland uses his large Morrisey (Refinished to look earthen) to tell the biblical story of the woman at the well.

A political angle today in the west would be the fight over the drought and water rights of Colorado River Water. Other environmental plots come to mind also.

Even though the public never seems to tire of the old leaky roof running gag -- in all its forms -- I feel the Lota can provide powerful magic, not just laughs.

Can a regular half gallon milk carton be gimmicked into a lota bowl???.....

Jon,

The "finale" of this particular effect is the flower FINALLY remains errect...a successful ending for a clever running gag!

Anyone have info on the lota bowl made into a flask, called one for the road? Is it any good how many shots it holds etc?
Thanks

How about using a large lota bowl with a large Circle square illusion, pour the water from lota bowl over and over into the circle square cabinet and have all that large quantity of water vanish!

Hi there Cashetta,Nice name and it sounds Italian to.I refer to my Lota much like the grand movie the Ten Commandments were Yul Brynner poured water into the Nile and Heston turned the water into blood. After a few times in empty the Lota, I use a pellet of red food dye droping it into it. Hope you like the idea idea.

--Background and Inspiration

In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s prolific author Jeremiah Curtin collected folk tales from many cultures and traditions in small volumes, the Dover Press reissued his 1895 book “Irish Tales of the Fairies” in softcover.

While none of the exact tales in that volume fitted my needs for a magical presentation, those thirty or so short stories provided both a specific voice and style, and elements common to the fairy and ghost genre of the time and local.

With these tools I was able to create a scenario which provided a mysterious and magical (if light-hearted) premise to support the often neglected and even more often abused Lota Bowl or Lota Vase, a classic of magic wherein a small container when emptied of liquid, seems to issue forth an almost endless supply of water or other beverage.

--Performance notes and ideas

While any Lota Vase or Bowl which could feasibly fit the style and period of the story may be used, I went on this particular hunting expedition because I owned the perfect prop which just cried out for a suitable presentation.

Artist and magician Tom Crecelius of Nine Dragon Pottery in Indiana 812-633-7875 (www.ninedragonpottery.com) designs and hand produces one-of-a-kind Lota Bowls that are not only very magical and whimsical in nature, but allow for almost a dozen “pours” issuing from a deceptively small and well shaped vessel. Should you decide to perform ‘Jack O’Shea and the Fairies” I highly recommend that you contact Tom for the perfect prop, and own a true artifact you’ll be proud to use on stage.

I like to think of this presentation as “the magic that keeps on giving” as the routine itself calls for only six pours, but most Lota Bowls will hold three or more additional loads of liquid.

This means that after you’ve moved on to your next piece, you have the ability to give an incredulous-sideways-glance towards the strange flagon, and with a shrug and a sigh, produce another cup of liquid, and then again and again, as a transition between your other pieces, as a sort of running joke. You may even wish to look heavenwards between these occasional pours, and mutter “thanks ye Jack” or “thanks ye Fairies” as you produce an amusingly endless supply of mead.

Finally, I see two approaches to the text. Performed as written you’ll need to develop a passably acceptable Irish brogue, complete with the lilting lift in the voice, and slightly sing-song accent. If this exceeds your acting abilities, you have the option of rewriting the text so that with adjustments for your style and voice, you can deliver the tale without a distinctive Irish flair. To my thinking the brogue adds significantly to the interest of the story and the humor of the piece, so don’t give up unless your certain you can’t carry it off well enough to sell your audiences on the tale-teller’s accent.

Whatever your chosen approach, keep the story affable and casual in delivery, and keep to a conversational tone rather than a more formal magic-patter delivery.

--Walt Anthony, Conjurer & Teller of Tales


© 2007 Spellbinder Entertainment San Francisco
Performance rights granted, publication and marketing rights strictly reserved.


JACK O’SHEA AND THE FAIRIES
-A tale not traditionally told about the fairy folk-

Now, Jack O’Shea a pleasant fellow,
who lived near the fine county of Killarney,
had problems jabbing at him from every which side.

For Jack, you see, was a tolerable farmer,
but for now the third season going on,
his potato crops had failed miserable.
Each and every spud withered with rot.

Jack’s own father had taught him well,
how to till at the soil,
when to water, when to weed,
and when to harvest the ground’s gold,
but all to no avail.
The potatoes still failed all in all,
and Jack and kin were poor and near starvation.

Then as O’Shea’s roving his wretched fields,
he being aimless with worry upon one singular morning,
came wandering upon a Fairy Fort
(those mounds of ground and bog,
where the “good people” congregate.)

Of course, the “good people” are not good a’tall,
they being the pranking and oft'times merciless fairies,
who everyone named “good” to keep their fury at bay.
And o’course, they were not “people” neither,
being the fallen-angels doomed to fairyform by the Lord His-Self.

But I stray in my tale…
for sure you know enough of Fairy-kind.
So, clever Jack O’Shea rests awhile by the Fairy Fort,
and hears comin' from there-in a wailin’ and a weepin’ something terrible!

It’s the cries of a wee fairy babe, it’s mum tryin’ ter quiet the child saying:
“You’ll have milk enough when yer Fairy Father fetches some cow or other,
for my breast is dry as the deserts of Egypt!”
And even though they be Fairy Folk,
Jack O’Shea’s own heart is touched as his family too knows hunger.

But, O’Shea, not having been born yesterday, is cautious,
and knows not to interfere with the Good People directly.
So he says sort of into the air…

“If there were a Fairy Fort near my piece of real-estate,
and there I heard of a hungry fairy bairn,
I’d say unto his mum not to worry,
for I have a cow about to give birth and calf,
and I’d swear never to milk her, nor let maid, nor wife milk her,
but to save that portion for the famished fairy-children.”

With that Jack O’Shea walks straightway home,
and being a man of Truth and the Lord, when the cow did calf,
he tells the milk-maids never to milk that one,
and he tells an angry wife of his the same besides,
but she goes out to the barn to do the deed herself,
and each time she does go,
finds the cow dry and already milked as by some magic.

And what do you suppose happens to Jack then?
Well since magic is hard to guess upon, I’ll tell you what did!
And indeed, here’s the proof of my every word spoken…

(the tale teller brings forth a pottery urn and half-a-dozen or so copper cups)

Each nightfall upon the stoop of Jack O’Shea’s hut,
Jack’s wife finds a flagon of honey-mead,
and as I’m sure you all already know,
it’s honey-mead that’s the favorite Fairy brew they distill.

(the tale teller empties the mead into one cup and toasts)

And not only is there this full flagon of endless honey-mead,
found full upon the stoop each sundown…
the first season after Jack’s promise,
his crops of potato flourish!

(the tale teller empties more mead into another cup and toasts)

And the next season, still the honey-mead appear,
and still his wife finds the cow milked and dry a mystery,
and that second year the potatoes are twice as fat in girth.

(the tale teller empties more mead into another cup and toasts)

And the season after that, still the honey-mead appears at the hut,
and still the wife wonders at how the cow is dry of milk,
and that third year the potato crop more than triples in measure.

(the tale teller empties more mead into another cup and toasts)

Let the self-same Fairies *** me to perdition if I don’t speak the truth…
until old age (made sweet and mellow with much honey-mead)
that same cow never comes to be touched by maid, nor wife,
and Jack O’Shea’s farm seems always blessed,
even by those one and the same meddling Fairy Folk.

(the tale teller empties more mead into another cup and toasts)

So, have a last drink o’ mead on me,
and one to Jack O’Shea.
and another to the young fairy children,
and another to the old cow,
and yet a remaining cup, to everyone’s healthy crops forever!

(the tale teller empties more mead into a last cup and toasts)

Tom & Katie Crecelius
Nine Dragon Pottery
102 Margaret Street
Milltown, IN 47145
Toll Free 877-546-1646
http://www.ninedragonpottery.com

Dover Publications
Customer Care Department
31 East 2nd Street
Mineola, NY 11501
http://www.doverpublications.com

Spellbinder Entertainment
Walt Anthony
SanFranEntertain@SBCGlobal.Net
415-771-6606

I have created a drinking horn that uses the "lotta" principle. This is used when I am doing Viking age re-enactment and stories.

I am currently working on one for a gourd based upon a Japanese tale about and old woman and an injured sparrow-

It really does pay to research the old tales and legends from around the world. How important would it be for a poor villager to have gourds that poured forth clean water or sake, or even rice endlessly on demand?!
There really is a reason for those rice bowls and lottas!

As to the milk jug, I know Dan Harlan is working on a "magic pitcher" style milk jug, so you might touch bases with him, he may or may not be incorporating a lotta into that line.
Kay

I am trying to come up with a nice routine that combines a lota bowl and a vanishing milk pitcher. There must be some comedy and potential in gimmicks where one makes the milk disappear and the other makes it reappear over and over.

The prop (teddy bear, doll, ETC.) sitting on the lota is an ANCIENT gag.

I think it's going for a cheap laugh. POTTY HUMOR! IMO, it's what a "magician" who needs to think about PREENTATION, might use.
If you could watch a real Indian Fakir present it, you would see "magic" happening!

Look at what McBride "gets" out of his "water bowl"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PRESENTATION!!!

The lota's shape is a factor in the illusion that it can't possibly hold that much water.

I used a lota, as a young lad, got many laughs, and, yes, it slso puzzled many. The performer MUST look at the potential EFFECT through the eyes of a non magician!

If you hate the "potty humor" of a lota then you'll really hate my "Fire Hydrant Lota" that I show how to make from an inexpensive plastic fire-hydrant for use with "Fido-Fiki, The Busking Dog" in the Wizards' Journal #27. You basically make the marionette dog (which is the focus of the e-Book) walk over, sniff around and then raise its leg against the small fire hydrant again and again. As with the usual lota routines, the quantity of water is less and less after each pour, but by pouring it out slowly into a fire pail or the gutter (your choice) you can actually make it seem like more and more. Because the lota is so small, it is easily switched for a duplicate to hand a spectator for the final gigantic pour- a completely filled hydrant with no lota parts.

Jim: "De gustibus non est disputandum" (Concerning taste, we cannot argue.)

P.S.: I had a P&L ("big") Lota. (I think it held a gallon!) --It would not have been easy to switch! (Besides, who could afford to own two P&L Lotas?)

Really, I don't HATE "nothing", I worked in schools most of my life. I remember Clem Magrum getting "heat" from school administrators because the passe passe bottles were wine bottles! He had MILK bottles spun. No more problem. When milk bottles became "extinct", I suggested that he paint them orange and call them orange juice bottles. He did. He got a few more seasons out of them. When Clem quit the road, I bought his props. I now own the "world's only set of passe passe milk bottles!

This slightly hijacks this thread, but I wanted to make the point that people do note "things".

I grant that it all depends on "where you work"!

Spider brought up "FLORIO" by Magic Inc. Louis Paul Productions is building a similar "Crazy Lazy Daisy" that could accompany a Lota Bowl.

Jump to time 1:22 for a short demo
http://www.louispaul.net/content/lazy_daisy_in_action