Transcript

A: So I have another bar bet for you.

B: Okay.

A: I have $5 here for you. You get to keep it. There’s just two things. You have to get the $5 out from underneath the bottle. You’re not allowed to knock over the bottle and you’re not allowed to touch the bottle.

B: Okay, will you be there in case it falls?

A: All right, I’m ready.

B: All right.

A: I think I better show you how this one works.

B: Yeah, I think so too.

A: Before we end up breaking the bottle, you’ve got to think a little bit outside the box for this one. You’re not allowed to touch the bottle, but you are allowed to touch the bill. So you roll it up. Then when you get here, you continue to roll and it slides the bottle.

B: How much money has this won you?

A: At least $5. Until you get to the end, and that’s how you win $5 with a bottle.

Transcript

Q: You want to see something cool?

A: Yeah.

Q: All right, here, watch this. If I put a card on top of there and turn it over what do you think will happen if I let go?

A: It’ll go over.

Q: Abracadabra.

A: Oh my, gosh! How does it stay?

Q: It stays. You want to know?

A: Yeah.

Q: All right, this is actually just air pressure. It works all by itself. So what happens is there’s greater air pressure outside the glass than there is inside the glass, and as you learn in science class, air pressure always moves from greater to lesser. So there’s about 14.7 pounds per square inch pushing both this way, this way, this way, this way, so when you let go, the card stays.

A: Let me see.

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh, wow, that’s so neat.

Q: And you can do it best with a full glass of water.

A: Really?

Q: Oh, yeah, a full glass of water and an index card, it’s a great way to learn about science and…

A: Noted.

Q: … scare people. And that’s how you turn a glass upside down with just a card.

A: Cheers.

Q: Cheers. You see more magic that way.

Transcript

S1: You want to see a magic trick?

S2: Yes.

S1: Okay, here check this out. Here we’ll use one of these. Watch this. Gone.

S2: Where did it go?

S1: I’ll never tell.

S2: Come on, please?

S1: All right, well…

S2: Why don’t you do it for my friends.

S1: Okay, so here’s how it works. This is the really fun thing. When you got up to go to the bathroom earlier, I did a little secret setup. So here’s the dirty work. You take a sugar packet, and you really do shake it, and put everything all to one side.

S2: Okay.

S1: And when nobody’s looking, you just do a little tiny tear, so nobody’s going to notice that. And you actually empty out all of the sugar when nobody’s looking.

S2: This takes some work.

S1: Yeah, this takes some work. I kept busy while you were out of the room. And you do this and you know it takes a little while, because you have to have just a teeny little slit there. So you really have to work it all out of there.

S2: All right.

S1: And it’s okay if there’s just a little bit left in there. It doesn’t have to be completely gone, but you really want maybe 98% out of there. Then you make sure that this doesn’t look like it’s torn. Then you have to remember where it is. You put it back where all the sugar is. Yeah, and I’ll leave it sticking out just a little bit, so I know which one it is.

S2: Okay.

S1: Then you act like it’s completely impromptu. That you weren’t even planning it. Then you say, “Hey, you want to see a magic trick?” You’ll say, “Oh, we’ll grab one of these. It doesn’t really matter.” And of course, you take the prepared sugar packet. You shake it, you pretend that you’re getting it all of it to one side, and exactly where the tear, you tear at the same spot. Now all the dirty work is done. There’s nothing to be found. You’re clean, as they say in magic. And you hold your hand in a fist, and this is where the mime comes in. You really pretend that– and see how there’s a little bit there? Like that’s on the edges, that’s fine. And then so you dump it in.

S2: Like it’s all [inaudible 02:25].

S1: Right, exactly. You dump, dump, dump, dump really take a little while, you can give it some taps and nobody knows that nothing’s actually going into your hand. Then you put the sugar packet down. You snap your fingers and you show that it’s gone.

S2: There you go.

S1: And that’s how you make sugar disappear in your hand. It’s an old trick, but some of that work there was from the magician Brad Stein.

Transcript

S1: That’s so great.

S2: There it is. It’s neat, right?

S1: It is, it’s fun. How do you do it?

S2: All right, I’ll teach it to you. It’s really cool. This is one of these things you can do anytime, anywhere, all you need is a napkin.

S1: Great conversation piece.

S2: And invisible thread. So all it is all of the thread part is mime and it’s fun and you play along and you’re “Here, hold this.” And you pull up the napkin and you want to pull up about halfway. And what happens is is when you’re using your fingers to pretend to pull, that’s the misdirection, because everybody’s looking at your fingers, the napkin, and the invisible line that you’ve drawn between them. But the dirty work’s actually happening right over here with the thumb.

S1: Okay.

S2: So when I pull this way, my thumb right here, just the teeniest movement bends the napkin.

S1: Okay, neat.

S2: So it’s the timing of going up and down at the same time.

S1: You’ve practiced this before.

S2: Yeah, a little bit. Here, you can go the other way and that’s how you move a napkin with an invisible thread. You want to try?

S1: Okay.

S3: Maybe help her, walk her through.

S2: So the first thing is you hold it and just pull about half the napkin straight up. So try that part.

S1: About that much?

S2: Good, and maybe even a little bit more and you hold it nice and tight with the thumb. Now first just try this part. Try pushing your thumb down. There you go, and bringing it back up, and try not to move this finger so much, so it’s just a little bit pushing forward and back up. Now try to make it go back the other way. And to make it go the other way, you just push down this way, which is going to pull it. So try that. There you go.

S1: Maybe a little smoother next time.

S2: And the more you practice it, not only that, but the more you practice it, the lesser and lesser this movement becomes and it’s just the teeniest, almost like you’re just pushing a little harder right between these two fingers here. It’s cool, right?

S1: Yeah, it’s great.

S2: And that’s how you move a napkin with an invisible thread.

Transcript

S1: I’m going to try to cut through this carrot with a $50 bill. You can use any dollar bill. This is what we’re going to use. Here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to hold the carrot like this, nice and tight, one hand on each side, perfect just like that, all right? And then all you do is you take the $50 bill and you give it a good crease. It has to be nice and crisp or it will never make it all the way through the carrot.

S2: Okay.

S1: Now it’s very hard, you have to give me at least three shots for this, okay?

S2: Okay.

S1: One, nope hold on. Two, all right? One more shot, one more shot.

S2: Okay.

S1: Right through the carrot.

S2: How did that happen?

S1: You want to learn that one?

S2: Yeah.

S1: All right, this is a great one. You can use a carrot. You can use other things. I’ve done it with a pencil before. But this is how it works. First of all you need a carrot. I have an extra one right here.

S2: Of course, you have one in your jacket.

S1: And this is the secret. The secret is you’re not actually slicing the carrot with the $50 bill.

S2: Okay.

S1: What you do is you make it a point to emphasize that it has to be nice and crisp, and that’s all hooey, it has nothing to do with how it works. Then you have the person hold the carrot like this.

S2: Okay.

S1: They don’t have to hold it really tight, but you want it to be a little bit of tension there. And then I’m going to do it with my left hand, so you can see what’s actually happening. And you could easily do this on your first try, but I like to say that it’s going to take a few tries, just to make it look harder. So you aim it like this and you act like it’s really important and the angle has nothing to do with it. You do the first one and nothing happens. The second one, nothing happens. Now the third one on the way up I stick out my pointer finger.

S2: Okay.

S1: Now you couldn’t see it and anyone on that side couldn’t see it, because I was using this hand, and my pointer finger was behind here, so on the way up the finger went here. And then on the way down, the finger strikes the carrot, and if you have a carrot this thick, you want to aim for a slightly thinner part.

S2: Yeah.

S1: So in slow motion, it goes up, up, up, up, up. The finger sticks out, it slices through, and once it goes through the finger goes back. And I’ll show you what that looks like at full speed. So that’s one, two, and that’s how you slice a carrot in half with a dollar bill.

S2: Fifty dollar bill.

S1: Fifty dollar bill.

Transcript

S1: So can I buy you a beer?

S2: Yes.

S1: Okay, I actually– I wrote a prediction down about what beer I was going to order you.

S2: Really?

S1: But I thought that we could get you involved and we’ll try to find a random way, because I only have– let’s see where’s the beer on the menu. Here it is. So there’s about maybe 15 different beers.

S2: Okay.

S1: And here’s how we’re going to do it. I need you to think of a number in your head. Don’t tell me what it is; between we’ll say 1 and 15.

S2: All right.

S1: You’ve got one? All right, now I want you to multiply it times two. So you just double the number.

S2: Okay.

S1: You have it in your head already?

S2: Yeah.

S1: Now add eight. You can use your fingers under the table if you want.

S2: Got it, have a little more faith in me.

S1: Now I want you to divide your number in half or divide by two, cut it in half. You have it? Now I want you to subtract whatever your original number was. Do you know what that was?

S2: Yeah.

S1: So subtract that from the number you have now. You’ve got it?

S2: Yeah.

S1: Hopefully, we’re at a random number. Is your number right now lower than 15?

S2: Yes.

S1: Good, okay. So whatever number you’re thinking, I want you to look at the bottle beer list.

S2: Okay.

S1: And say you’re thinking of the number seven, go down and look at the seventh beer. Whatever number you’re thinking find the beer that corresponds.

S2: Okay.

S1: You have one?

S2: Yes.

S1: Which beer are you going to order.

S2: Blue Point Toasted Lager Beer. Look it…

S1: And that’s my prediction, Blue Point Toasted Lager. Two Blue Point’s, please.

S2: Sweet, how does that work? How did you know?

S1: Well, while we’re waiting for the beer, I’ll explain how it works. It’s a math trick and actually it’s a way to always make the number equal four.

S2: Okay.

S1: And if you look here on the menu, Blue Point Toasted Lager was the fourth one down. And I’ll teach you in a moment how you can actually change it to any number you’d like. So if you know somebody’s favorite beer, you can force that.

S2: Use the number according to that.

S1: Exactly. So the first step, and it all works by itself, you can have someone pick a number between 1 and 15 or 1 and 10. I always like to keep the number somewhat low, that way you lower the chances of them messing up the math. So you have someone think of a number between 1 and 10 and then you tell them to multiply it times two or double it. The next step is to add 8.

S2: Okay.

S1: The next step is to divide it by 2 and the next step is to subtract the original number. So pick a number, multiply it times 2, add 8, divide it by 2, subtract the original number.

S2: Subtract the original number?

S1: Exactly, and that always equals four. You know whether you pick one or one million it always equals four. And the reason is because you’re adding on that number eight and then you’re cutting it in half.

S2: Oh, okay.

S1: Exactly, so and then you have them go down and then you make sure that your prediction ahead of time matches the fourth one down on the menu.

S2: Okay.

S1: There’s a couple of ways to change the math. So for example, if I wanted let’s see if I wanted the Cooper’s Pale Ale, that’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven down. Pick a number between one and ten, multiply it times two, add eight, divide it by two, subtract your original number, add three. Because you know four plus three…

S2: That’s right. You’ll always know it’s four going there.

S1: Exactly and there you go. Or the other thing is if you’re using an even number, where I said add eight and you get four, if I wanted to go for five, the fifth one down, I’d say add 10 and divide it by two, but that’s getting a little complicated. The best way is just to add a number at the end.

S2: This is great. Wait until I use this on Courtney.

S1: Oh, yeah. I’ll have to buy Courtney a drink now. And that’s how you predict somebody’s drink.

Transcript

A: You want to see something gross?

B: Not really.

A: Here, watch this.

B: [inaudible 00:17]

A: Yeah, maybe not.

B: How do you do it?

A: You really want to know?

B: Yeah.

A: Okay. This is a great one to do, especially if you have little cousins or a girl you want to gross out. So the secret is, when nobody’s looking, you want to cut a small piece off the straw.

B: Okay.

A: Now you can use just your butter knife or if you have a pair of scissors, and you hide this piece right here, in the side of your cheek and you can talk normally, nobody will notice.

B: Yeah, look at you. You’ve got it down pretty well.

A: Yeah, you do this when no one’s looking, though. Then you take this and you’re going to hold the straw like this.

B: Okay.

A: And the reason is, because when you bring it to your chin you’re going to push up, and what’s happening is that it’s actually being pushed into your hand.

B: Okay.

A: But it looks like it’s being pushed up into your jaw. As you turn with your tongue, it takes a little bit of practice with the tongue, you bring it right over here between the lip and the bottom of your front lower gum. And that’s just like…

B: This takes some practice.

A: A little bit. It’s kind of like tying the knot in a cherry stem. You’ve just got to practice a little bit. You hold it like this. You get this into position from the side of the cheek over here, so it’s standing upright.

B: And there you go. Okay, I got it. I got it.

A: And then you have to get rid of the dirty work. You can bring up the napkin and just wipe your face and bring everything down.

B: Okay.

A: But usually, people are so grossed out that nobody’s looking.

B: Not paying attention.

A: So that’s how you do the straw through the jaw.

Transcript

A: You want to see something neat?

B: Yes.

A: All right. Have you ever took a straw and tried to put it back inside the wrapper?

B: Yeah, fiddle with it.

A: Exactly, why not? This really isn’t magic. It’s just a really cool way to get the straw back inside the wrapper very efficiently. So watch this. You take a napkin and all you have to do is you wrap them up. You wrap the straw and the wrapper right next to each other, and it’s very important that the opening is right here, right next to the opening of the straw. You wrap it in the napkin, and if you pull the two opposite ends of the napkin, tightly and fast enough, it should go right back in the straw. Are you ready? One, two, there we go. Right back.

B: No way. You just flick it open and the straw goes back in there?

A: Yeah, that’s all there is.

B: How?

A: So you want me to teach you how to do that?

B: Of course.

A: Okay, so I did lie a little bit. There is a little bit of magic.

B: I knew it.

A: And there’s actually another straw.

B: Another one.

A: So here’s how it works. You take the napkin and this is the secret setup that you do when nobody’s looking. You put the straw in the wrapper and it’s important that it’s open, otherwise people won’t believe that it actually went back inside. You place the straw in the middle and you line up the two opposite corners. You can do this with the napkin that’s square, but you can see it works just as well with a rectangular napkin.

B: Okay.

A: Then you take these two and you put it in the center directly in front of the straw. You’ll notice nobody can tell that there’s a straw there, it just fits in with the crease of the napkin. But you put these right next to each other and you can add like, “You know, you got to make sure it’s lined up, but that’s all hooey.”

B: Right.

A: You know you can say that if you fold it here and you turn the edge. You can get creative.

B: Okay, ad lib?

A: Exactly, so then you wrap it up and you take the straw in the wrapper that’s right here. You fold it over that straw and then you continue to roll it up and at this point you can’t tell by thickness what’s inside. Now once you get to the end here where the corners are still sticking out, you give it one more roll. That actually effectively flips the entire napkin over, switching the straws. And you have the one on the table away from you and the flap on the table toward you. You pull the two opposite ends. You pull those straight and it pops up the straw.

B: And there it is.

A: That was hidden the whole time.

B: Great.

A: There you go and then people will try and they’ll be like, “How come it come it’s not working for me?”

B: Right.

A: And that’s how you put a straw back into a wrapper using magic.

Transcript

A: Do you think that I could balance a cup on a plate?

B: I don’t know. Can you?

A: Should I give it a shot? I’ll give it a shot. You ready?

B: Be careful.

A: It’s hard.

B: You did it!

A: Do you want to know how to do it?

B: Yes.

A: It’s a really cool trick. People think you have mad balancing skills. You hold the plate and you can even show the plate like this. Then when you go to put the cup on top, you move your thumb to over here.

B: To get a little extra balance.

A: So from behind you’re actually placing the cup right on top of your thumb and you’re balancing the two together like that. The smaller the plate the better it looks. This is quite a large plate, because that way your thumb is right in the middle of the plate.

B: Can I see?

A: Yeah, sure. You want to make sure that your thumb doesn’t peek out from on top.

B: Okay.

A: So that they don’t know it’s there.

B: People will be fooled.

A: Exactly.

B: Ta-da!

A: Ta-da! That’s how you balance a cup on a plate.

Transcript

A: Did you know that actually, if I squeeze my wrist tight enough I can get this butter knife to float? Watch, there is is.

B: That’s cool. Show me how you did that.

A: So this is how it works. You tell them that if you squeeze your wrist tight enough that you can make the knife float. But the reason you are actually squeezing your wrist is because when you put your hand to your wrist, you stick out your finger like this.

B: Okay.

A: And as you slowly open your fingers, your pointer finger holds it right there, and nobody notices from the front that you’re missing one finger. This is one of the first magic tricks I ever learned and it is a lot of fun.

B: Really?

A: You can do it with a knife, a pencil, a fork, anything you like. There, all around the wrist, there you go and you slowly open your hand.

B: One finger at a time?

A: Yes, and it floats!

B: Ta-da!

Transcript

A: Oh, would you like some sugar for that?

B: Yeah.

A: All right.

B: Actually, I would.

A: Here you go.

B: Where’d it go?

A: There it is.

B: How’d you do it?

A: Okay, here’s the secret. You can’t tell anybody, but there’s a little secret setup before the trick begins. The first thing you do is you take one sugar packet and you put it in your pocket or any secret location where you’d like it to appear at the very end.

B: Okay.

A: The next step is, you have a second sugar packet.

B: Okay.

A: Now here’s what you do. You take your napkin and you just give it a little bit of a crease. This way, you can easily slide the sugar packet under the napkin, without anyone seeing. So here’s the magic part. You go to pick up the sugar packet and you slide it under the napkin, but then you continue upward, and you pretend that you’re still holding it, and you place the invisible sugar packet in the other hand. Now nobody knows that it’s still under the napkin, exactly. Then you do a little magic moment, you snap your fingers or you have someone blow on it, and it disappears. Right now, people are thinking: “Oh, where did it go?” That’s exactly what you asked.

B: Yeah.

A: And instead of having them look around and get suspicious and maybe find it, the way you solve that problem is you show them where it went. And you say, “Oh!”

B: It’s right here.

A: There it is. And there you go.

B: Thank you.

A: You’re welcome. And that’s how you make a sugar packet disappear and reappear.

Transcript

Ben:How would you like to learn how to win a free drink with a pack of cards?

Female:I would definitely like to learn how to do that.

Ben:I’ll show you. It’s a little game. Would you like to mix these up for me?

Female:Okay. Any particular way?

Ben:Doesn’t matter, as long as they’re mixed.

Female:Okay. Is that good enough?

Ben:Perfect. Go ahead, take any card that you like. Memorize it, show it to the camera. Make sure I don’t get to see it. Good?

Female:Yep.

Ben:Okay. Place it right on top, there. I’ll put these here. Would you give them a cut for me? Perfect. Would you like to give another cut?

Female:Okay.

Ben:The last cut’s optional; it’s up to you.

Female:Sure.

Ben:Why not? All right. Look at the cards, but don’t tell me if you see your card, all right? Would you buy me a drink if the next card I turn over is your card?

Female:Yes.

Ben:I think you owe me a drink.

Female:How’d you know?

Ben:You want to know?

Female:Yeah.

Ben:All right. This is a great way to win a drink in a bar because everyone thinks, “Aha. The magician messed up. He’s never going to get it.” Here’s how it works: It uses an old principle called the Keycard Principle, and I’ll walk you through how that works.

The first step is I have you shuffle the cards. They can be mixed any way, it doesn’t matter. Perfect. Then I take the cards back and I have you select a card. While you’re looking at the card or showing it to your friends, I do something. I very subtly glance at the bottom card of the deck. Right now, I’m going to have a look and I see that it’s the 9 of Diamonds. I know in my head the bottom card is the 9 of Diamonds, and I’ll show you how that comes into play.

I take about half the deck and I place it on the table. Then you place your card there. When I put the rest of the packet on top, I now know the 9 of Diamonds is directly on top of your card.

Female:Then I’m cutting that.

Ben:Exactly. That’s why it fools people, because you can’t shuffle the cards. You can cut the cards, because if you’re cutting the cards, the 9 of Diamonds will always stay directly next to your card, which I now know, is the 9 of Spades. However, if you cut right at the 9 of Spades, it’s still next to it. If you cut between the 9 of Diamonds and the 9 of Spades, the 9 of Diamonds is on the bottom and their card is on top. If you cut directly above, the 9 of Diamonds will be the first card; their card will be the second card.

It can never actually get separated unless one’s on top and one’s on the bottom. The way you check for that is you just make sure that the bottom card, when you’re done cutting the cards, isn’t still the 9 of Diamonds. You can cut it and complete the cut as many times as you like.

Now, I have no idea that your card is the 9 of Spades this time. As I turn the cards over, and it’s very important that you say, “Look at the cards, but don’t tell me if you see your card.” This way, the person won’t miss the card as they’re looking. You slowly turn them over, and I do this until I see that 9 of Diamonds.

Female:Right.

Ben:You’ll notice that I’m only using about half the deck, because sometimes, it can take a very long time. Now I see the 9 of Diamonds here, which means I deal another card, which is your card, and then I say “Aha,” and I point to the card that isn’t their card.

Female:[inaudible : 04:08]

Ben:Exactly. I say “Would you buy me drink if the next card that I turn over is your card?” At this point, they almost always say, “Yes.” Then you turn their card over.

Female:Great. So clever.

Ben:There you do it. That’s how you win a drink with a pack of cards.

Transcript

Ben:I want to show you something here, with a piece of rope. You see there’s a knot in the middle? I can take the knot and pull it off the rope. It disappears. It goes right over there.

Female:Wow. Fancy. How did that happen?

Ben:You want to learn that one?

Female:Yeah.

Ben:Okay. This is actually a, it’s a type of knot called a slipknot that you’ve actually probably heard of. There’s how it works: First of all before the trick starts, I cut off a small piece of rope, I tie it in a knot, and I put in my pocket or any hidden location you like. Then this is how you tie a slip knot. First, you make a loop; you do that just by bringing one piece of rope over to the other. Loop around, through. You make a loop, you take this end and you wrap it around the other end. Then you take the top loop and you bring it around the back and through the bottom loop, and you pull it up. Now you see you have one big loop that looks like a noose. If you pull the two ends, that slipknot slips through and gets smaller and smaller, until you have this. This is the knot that I showed you; this was the slipknot.

There’s a few ways to make it disappear. One is the way that I showed you. Also, if you pull the two ends, it just vanishes. One thing you can do is you can make a loop, make another loop, pull it through, and tighten it up. You’re going to say, “Here, blow on this,” and it disappears. Another way is you have that knot in your pocket like I showed you to begin with, you do the slipknot. You notice if you pull one way not much happens, but if you pull the other way, it completely undoes itself. I go like this to make a fist and I pull down, but as I’m pulling down, it’s actually undoing the knot.

Female:Okay.

Ben:You continue that motion down the string and it looks like you have the knot in your hand. You do a magical gesture, it disappears, and it comes back over there.

Female:You found it in your pocket.

Ben:That’s how you do magic with a slipknot.

Transcript

A: You know, I notice that I don’t have a knife here. But, you know, I think inside here…

B: Oh my, gosh.

A: There we are. I can use this. This’ll be much better.

B: How did you do that?

A: Sure. Here, let me explain it. This is a really cool trick that you can do to impress your friends. First of all, before the trick starts there’s a secret setup, and you won’t be able to do this right now, but you take the knife and put it in your sleeve. You can do that when no one’s looking, especially the restaurant staff.All you do is when you take the roll and you show it, your left hand drops down and the knife comes right here, in the ready position.

You take the bread roll and you push it against the knife, so it pokes through the middle. Then you take these two fingers, and you dig into the center of the bread roll, until you find the tip of the knife and you start to pull it out. And what they don’t see is that you’re slowly pulling it out of your sleeve, and then once it clears your sleeve, you can bring your hands further away and you pull it all the way through. And that’s how you make a knife appear from a bread roll.

Transcript

Do you know that you can actually make a spoon cry?

No. How?

Yes, if it’s a sad spoon. Look at this. Hold the spoon. Say the saddest thing you can think of.

All the puppies died.

Dead puppies. Spoon starts to shake and spoon starts to tear.

Oh.

Oh, it’s quivering, and that’s the crying spoon.

What’s the trick? How do you do it?

You just have to find a really sad spoon. You want to learn how to do it?

Yes.

This is the really fun one. All you need is a small piece of napkin or tissue paper. We can use the corner of this, right over here. When nobody’s looking, you dip it in water, and you hold it with your thumb, right here, on the back of the spoon.

OK.

Here, I’ll let you try and run second. You hold it up and down, and when you squeeze, the water travels down the back of the spoon, all the way to the tip. You go like that and you see it starts to go down. It looks like it’s really coming from the tip of the spoon. Want to try it?

I do.

So this is a little gross, you just dip your fingers in the water.

How do you make it quiver?

Dead puppy! You just squeeze really tight, and just by squeezing tight, it kind of shakes a little bit, all on it’s own. Here, you need to try. Just squeeze really tight. The tighter you squeeze, you’ll notice it might even start to shake a little bit, all on it’s own. It just drips right down.

Great!

That’s how you make a spoon cry.

Transcript

A: All right, so this trick, actually the name explains exactly what’s going to happen. It’s called Last Two Cards Match.

B: Okay.

A: Okay, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to spell the phrase or the sentence Last Two Cards Match. I’ll move the cards for every letter that we spell.

B: Okay.

A: I’ll explain as we go along. So pick a pile and you get to pick, whichever pile you like for every word. So which pile would you like first?

B: Let me try that one.

A: That one, okay. So we’ll spell L-A-S-T. Choose another one or the same one.

B: Let’s use the same one.

A: Okay, T-W-O.

B: This one.

A: Cards, C-A-R-D-S, and then match.

B: Let’s use the same one again.

A: All right, M-A-T-C-H. I’m going to put these aside over here. Let’s do this one more time. Choose a pile to start with.

B: Let’s start with this one this time.

A: Sure, that’s last, L-A-S-T.

B: Now this one.

A: Okay, T-W-O.

B: Again.

A: Cards, C-A-R-D-S.

B: And then one more time.

A: And match, M-A-T-C-H. And we’ll put these over here. These are the last two cards.

B: And they’re going to match.

A: I hope so. Ta-da!

B: Yay!

A: Oh, and by the way, so do these, and so do those.

B: And so do those? So how does that work?

A: It just does. Actually, this trick works all by itself.

B: Really?

A: Yeah, here so I’ll show you the setup. What you want to do is you want to get six different cards, but each card has to have a match. So obviously there are not two of the same card in a pack of cards, so there are two ways to do this. One is to get an ace of hearts, ace of diamond, five of diamonds, five of hearts. Any card with what you call it’s mate. So it’s the same color, different suit.

B: Okay.

A: King of spades, king of clubs. Then what you do is you want to make sure that they’re in the same order, too. So king, five, ace from the bottom up. King, five, ace and then you would just invert one of the piles.

B: Great.

A: And it will work all by itself. Do you want to give it a shot?

B: Sure. You may have to help me through it. Okay.

A: So all you have to remember is last two cards match.

B: Last two cards match.

A: So I’ll pick a pile and I’ll choose this one and then you spell last.

B: L-A-S-T.

A: Good, and then two. I’ll use this pile over here.

B: Okay, T-W-O.

A: Then cards, I’ll use the same pile.

B: Okay, C-A-R-D-S.

A: Perfect, and match. I’ll use this one over here.

B: Okay, M-A-T-C-H.

A: Then you take the top two cards and you place them to the side.

B: Place them to the side. So one more time.

A: So then we’ll use this one, last.

B: Okay, L-A-S-T.

A: Two, I’ll use the same pile.

B: Okay, T-W-O.

A: Cards, I’ll use the same pile.

B: Okay, C-A-R-D-S.

A: And match, I’ll use this one over here.

B: M-A-T-C-H.

A: Then you place these two over here.

B: Okay.

A: Now what they don’t know is this pair and this pair also match. So that’s what we call the kicker, so they get excited about this and then you go, “Oh, and this.” Then you say these are the last two cards and they should match and they do. And then they think the trick is over and you say, “So do these, ta-da!” And now there is one other way to do this. Another way is if you want to take three different cards, any three cards, and you can rip them in half and then turn the one pile face up and one face down, then you can use it that way. But this is a great way of doing it without destroying a pack of cards.

B: Great.

A: And that’s how you do the Last Two Cards Match.

Transcript

Ben:Hey. Watch this. See the penny?

Female:Uh-huh.

Ben:Blow on it.

Female:Where’d it go?

Ben:It actually went right over here. Here, look. We’ll take one of these.

Female:There it is.

Ben:There it is.

Female:How did you get that in there?

Ben:It’s magic.

Female:It’s magic. Will you tell me how to do it?

Ben:Here’s the secret. There’s actually 2 pennies. The one that I made reappear at the end of the trick isn’t the same penny that I made disappear in the beginning of the trick. I’ll show you how this all plays out.

For starters, there’s a little secret setup that I do when nobody’s looking. Maybe if you go to use the restroom or wherever you are, I look and I find a sugar packet and I tear it about halfway through. I dump out just a little bit of the sugar onto my plate, and you slip the penny inside.

Female:That’s how it got there.

Ben:That’s the dirty work. Then you take the sugar packet that has the penny already in it, that’s halfway ripped, you reposition the flap so it looks like it’s not ripped. Nobody’s going to see that, because you stick it right back in the middle with all the other sugar. The next part is making the coin disappear. There’s hundreds of different ways to make a coin disappear. Actually, if you go back to a different HowCast video, I think there’s 3 or 4 different HowCast videos that teach you to make a coin disappear. What I did is I used a method called the French Drop, where you pretend to take the coin, but I really leave it in the same hand.

Female:The French Drop.

Ben:The French Drop. The reason it’s called that is because when I go to take the coin, the coin drops, and I pretend to hold it over here. When I said, “Blow on it,” go ahead, blow on it, my left hand which is concealing the coin, secretly dropped it in my lap. That way, nobody noticed that the coin really didn’t . . .

Female:Disappear.

Ben:Exactly. That’s exactly how that part works. I’ll walk you through that part again. I hold the coin here, I pretend to take it. I say, “Here, blow on that,” that’s when I drop the coin on my lap over here.

Female:On your lap, and then [inaudible : 02:20].

Ben:Then I show that it’s gone.

Female:Great.

Ben:Then you ask where it is and I show you. I say, “We’ll take one of these.” You pinch it like this, that way they don’t see that it’s already been opened. You say, “I’ll rip it.” Then you dump it out. There it is.

Female:Great. Voila.

Ben:Voila. That’s how you make a penny disappear and reappear in a sugar packet.

Transcript

Ben Nemzer: All right. So this magic trick just uses a piece of rope or string, and I’m going to wrap it around my thumb a few times . . .

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: . . . and I’m going to make a loop, just like this. And the object is to take this end and thread it through that hole super fast. You ready? One, two, three, right through the hole.

Assisstant: Wow.

Ben Nemzer: You want to learn how to do that?

Assisstant:Yes.

Ben Nemzer: All right. So here’s how it works. For starters, you have the rope, and you hang off at least six inches off the inside of your thumb, right here, and then you wrap it around your thumb, going away from you. I guess it’s away and then toward, but you’re going this way in a motion toward you, and you wrap it once, twice, I usually do it about three times, and then I make a loop.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: Now, here’s what’s actually happening. This string, or this part of the rope, is lifted up and goes in between this hole.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: And so it just gets lifted up, and that brings it in the hole.

Assisstant: Oh.

Ben Nemzer: But you do it under the disguise of a forward motion, so you say one, two, and on three you go right next to it . . .

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: . . . and that gets lifted up, and it looks like it goes through the hole. So let me show you one more time, and then I’ll let you try it, if you like.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: So you wrap it around. You make the loop. Whoops. You want to make sure to leave enough space there, as well. So you wrap it around. You make the loop. That’s one, two, three, right through the loop.

Assisstant:Great.

Ben Nemzer: You want to give it a shot?

Assisstant:Yeah.

Ben Nemzer: Okay.

Assisstant:You have to walk me through it.

Ben Nemzer: Okay. So you start off, you leave at least six inches hanging here, and then you wrap it towards you about three times.

Assisstant:One, two, three.

Ben Nemzer: Great. And then you make a big old loop . . .

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: . . . and you pinch it there.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: Now, what’s going to happen is this end is going to be lifted up through the hole.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: So you pretend that it’s going to go through the middle. One, two, and on three you go quickly to the side.

Assisstant:Three.

Ben Nemzer: There you go. Only you have to be lifted up through the hole.

Assisstant: Great.

Ben Nemzer: You want to try that part one more time? Yeah, you got it almost.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: And then a loop, and then you take this end over here, and then you pretend you’re going to go through the middle. One . . .

Assisstant:One.

Ben Nemzer: . . . two, and on the third one, you want to make sure to lift it up through that finger.

Assisstant:Okay.

Ben Nemzer: One, two, three.

Assisstant: Three, and there it goes.

Ben Nemzer: And that’s right through the loop.

Assisstant:Great.

Ben Nemzer: And that is the threading loop trick.

Transcript

A: So I want to know if you can help me out with an experiment. All right, it’s an experiment using intuition. So can you mix these up for me? Any way you know how, it doesn’t matter.

B: All right.

A: That way I don’t know where all the cards are and you don’t know where all the cards are.

B: I don’t want to do all fancy. I always wanted to be that person that shuffled them [inaudible 00:21]. All right, no peeking.

A: Okay, I won’t look.

B: How’s that? Is that good enough?

A: That’s perfect. And I’ll take these and I’ll just kind of spread them around like this, and I want you to touch the card and don’t pick it, just touch it. The one that you think is the nine of diamonds.

B: Nine of diamonds?

A: Really go gut instinct here.

B: Oh, okay. This one.

A: This one right here? Have you done this before?

B: No.

A: All right.

B: No, come on.

A: No, we’ll check it in a moment. Let’s do another one, touch the one you think is the four of diamonds.

B: Okay, that one.

A: This one right here? No way, you’re good. Here, I’ll do one. I’ll touch the one I think is the ten of hearts.

B: Okay.

A: Go for this one. Do you remember the names of the cards?

B: Nine of diamonds. I don’t remember the second one.

A: Four of diamonds.

B: Four of diamonds.

A: And the ten of hearts. You did it.

B: No, come on.

A: We did it, yeah.

B: Really?

A: Yeah.

B: How’s that happen?

A: Intuition.

B: Was it really just intuition?

A: No. All right, do you want to learn how this works?

B: Yeah.

A: This is great. This is something that you can use to fool your friends. All you need is a pack of cards. And its an old principle in magic that magicians refer to as the one ahead principle and that will make sense in a moment.

B: Yeah, okay.

A: So let me walk you through this. The first thing I have you do is mix up the cards. So mix them up anyway you like.

B: Okay, shuffle, shuffle, mix, mix.

A: Now when I take the cards back, I do something a little bit tricky and I very subtly glance at the bottom card and I just did that there.

B: Okay, so you know…

A: So I know the bottom card and right now I know that the bottom card is the two of spades.

B: Two of spades.

A: Okay, and in your head you don’t want to forget the two of spades. You just keep thinking two of spaces, two of spaces, two of spades. And then I spread the cards in a circle and I remember where the two of spades is. It doesn’t have to be a circle, you know you can mess it up like this, as much as you want. Cards can drop on the floor, they can go around, as long as you remember the two of spades and exactly where it is. So then I say to you, touch the card that you think is the two of spades. Now you have no idea where it is, so you’re going to touch a random card. You’re not actually going to pick the two of spades. The chances of that are one in fifty-two. So go ahead and touch a random card.

B: This one.

A: And I look at it and I pretend she got it right. She actually got the nine of spades.

B: Okay.

A: But I go “Oh, wow, have you done this before, its so good.” And then I put it to the side. And then now that I know that this is the nine of spades…

B: That’s what you’re going to ask me to find next.

A: Exactly, so I say touch the card that you think is the nine of spades.

B: This one.

A: This one right here?

B: Yeah.

A: Are you sure?

B: Yes.

A: You really have that gut instinct?

B: You know it.

A: Okay, and then I take that one out. “Oh wow, you’re good.” But she’s not, because this is the ace of spades. In fact, it’s impossible for her to have picked the nine of spades, because I’ve been holding it the whole time and there’s only one nine of spades.

B: And you’re going to say…

A: Now we need one more card and the only card that we’re missing is the two of spades, which she should think I’m already holding in my hand. So I say, “I’m going to touch the card that I think is the ace of spades.” This is the only one I haven’t said and as I say it I want to make it sound like I’m making them up, arbitrarily off of my head. So and then I look around, maybe this one, no, ah, this one right here.

A: And now you don’t want to make this very obvious, but once you pick them all up, you kind of mix them around a little bit in your hands. That way they don’t realize that the order has changed. And then I say “If we did this right, we should have the two of spades, the nine of spades, and the ace of spades.” There you go.

A: Just a couple things to keep in mind, some common mistakes that people make. First of all, so here’s the two of spades. If I say touch the card that you think is the two of spades and you touch this, when I’m holding the card I have to be careful not to let you see it. A common mistake is like “Oh, very good. That is the two of spades,” and then it ruins the whole trick.

B: Okay.

A: So that’s number one. Number two is people always ask what if somebody picks the card that you put down there? And it does happen, I mean it’s a one in 52 chance…

B: Right.

A: … and you perform this more than 52 times, its very possible that they’ll pick that one. So let’s do it. So pretend its by accident, now you know where the two of spades is. So I say use your female intuition, your gut instinct, we’re doing an experiment here. Touch the card you think is the two of spades. This one right here? You mean out of all of these 52 cards you could have picked any card and you really felt it was this one?

B: I think so.

A: Well, you’re right. So you end the trick early. With magic one of the biggest advantages you have is that your audience doesn’t know how the trick is supposed to go.

B: You’re right.

A: There’s one more scenario that’s also a lot of fun. And it’s if the person picks the two of spades or whatever card happens to be on the bottom, when glance at it on the second try. And that I think is also a very ideal situation, because I as the magician, don’t have to come in there and pick the last card to solve the problem. So let me show you what I mean. So touch the card that you think is the two of spades.

B: This one.

A: This one right here?

B: Yeah.

A: Oh wow, very good, you got it. And touch the card that you think is the queen of clubs.

B: This one.

A: So you could have picked any two cards and I said the queen of clubs and the two of spades, and you got both of them. So those are the only three possible outcomes that I know of for this trick, and that’s how you find a card using intuition.

Transcript

S1: Have you ever heard of a game called the Three Card Monte?

S2: Nope.

S1: Okay, so it’s a game where you play– you see people playing it on the streets. The whole point’s to win money. And you just have to keep track of one card. We call it the money card. I like to use the joker because it has…

S2: Money on it, yeah.

S1: Yeah, a little dollar sign. So there are three different cards, that’s why it’s the Three Card Monte. We have the queen or any other arbitrary card, the money card and the other card. I’ll mix them up. It’s your job to keep track of which one’s which.

S2: Okay.

S1: Which one do you think is the money card?

S2: This one.

S1: That’s the queen and that’s how I win all the money.

S2: I was watching it.

S1: You want to learn how to do it?

S2: Yeah.

S1: All right, this is an old, old trick that con men have been doing for hundreds and hundreds of years.

S2: Really?

S1: Oh, yeah. But I’m going to teach you one of the many methods that they use. Don’t go thinking you that you can go out and play on the streets now, because this is just one of them. Yeah, yeah even if you win, you might not win if you know what I mean. So here’s how it works. There’s three different cards. You show the first card and then give it a little flick like this, and then I flick it down here, and you’ll see why that’s important in a moment.

S2: Okay.

S1: Then I show the next card to you. I’m also showing the camera’s over here. I give it a little flick and here’s the secret move. As I bring the cards down, I’m actually sliding them and reversing them and the bigger motion of bringing my hand down, hides that movement. So it’s this, that. I’ll do it again. So from here to here. But here’s what I do. So I say the queen, one of the red cards, I’m going to flick it again down here. The money card, and I switch it, the joker and the last card. And this is actually out of Diver and his Three Card Monte routine, which was published. But this is what seals the deal is when you show the first card, you give it a flick, they remember it and then you flick it down here and you say the queen or the other card. Then you show this card and you flick it, and as you put it down, you say the joker. And they remember seeing the card and hearing it flicked and they associate and remember that they saw the joker down there. But they never saw the joker down there. They saw it up here. And then the last card, which you can’t show, but by process of elimination people assume it’s the other queen. And when people try to trace back they’ll really recall that they saw all three cards very fairly, and now when you mix these up people are thinking that, “Oh, you’re mixing them so…”

S1: They don’t really know, yeah.

S2: And then they have no idea.

S1: Great.

S2: And that’s one way to win at Three Card Monte.

Transcript

Ben:Do you have a piece of string I can borrow?

Female:Fresh out of string.

Ben:I actually brought some of my own right here. How about a drinking straw?

Female:No.

Ben:No? Okay. I got one of those, too.

Female:Of course you do.

Ben:I’m going to show you something really neat. Watch this. All I do . . . and this is actually the hardest part, is I put the string all the way through to the end of the drinking straw. This just takes a second. Bear with me. I assure you the buildup to payoff ratio will be just fine.

Female:Good to know.

Ben:There we are. You don’t have a pair of scissors with you, do you?

Female:No. You have them, too?

Ben:I brought one of those, too. Here’s what you do: You just fold the straw in half. Can you take these scissors for me?

Female:Of course.

Ben:I want you to do is slip them right through the middle here and cut the straw in half.

Female:All right.

Ben:Watch your fingers and my fingers there. Yep. There you go. You can see it’s clearly in tow pieces. Then I put it back into my hand, snap my fingers, string goes right back.

Female:But I just cut it.

Ben:Yeah. Right?

Female:How’d you do it?

Ben:I’ll never tell.

Female:Please.

Ben:Okay, but you have to keep it a secret.

Female:Of course.

Ben:There’s a little secret setup that you do before the trick begins. You take the straw, and it can either be in the wrapper or out of the wrapper. I like to start with it in the wrapper because it really disguises the fact that you did some secret preparations with it beforehand. You take a pair of scissors and you cut the straw just about halfway to the middle point, right here. You’ll notice that’s maybe 1 inch or 2 down. You can even do it about here. It doesn’t have to be exact. You notice it doesn’t go all the way through. Then you take a pair of scissors and you cut along the middle of the straw for about 4 inches. Just like that. Now you have a straw with a slit in the middle.

Then you can put this back in the wrapper. You can do this while that’s still in the wrapper. The neat thing is even with a slit in the straw, you can handle it, you can show it; you don’t need to be super-secretive of the fact, because you can’t see the slit. In fact, it’s very hard for me to see it even when I’m holding it. Then you take the string, and this is the part that takes a little while depending on the string and the straw, and you bring it all the way down to the bottom of the straw.

Female:This is the part I saw?

Ben:This is the part you saw, yeah. This part is fine. It’s okay if they watch this part. You pull it down so it’s hanging down from each side. You keep it nice and symmetrical. This is the secret move: When you fold the straw in half, under the misdirection of putting the straw from one hand to the other or handing somebody a pair of scissors, you take these two ends and you pull the string down, and then the string is actually right there between the two pieces of straw, but it’s covered by this hand. When I hand you the scissors, you’re not paying a lot of attention, and you can’t really see what’s happening here anyway because it’s covered by my hand. I pulled the string down in a quick moment so it’s really right here. When you’re cutting . . .

Female:You’re not cutting.

Ben:. . . you’re missing the string, but nobody can tell because I’m holding it in my hand and I’m pulling these down. Then I have you cut through there. There you go, and you display the two pieces. You can even separate them into two hands as long as you’re not showing the string that’s going between. Then you put them back together like this, and really, nothing’s happened; it’s still connected. Then you have to do a magic moment. You wave your hand. You snap your fingers and you pull it straight back out.

Female:There you go, full string.

Ben:That’s how you do the Cutting a String in a Straw trick.

Transcript

Ben:Check this out. I have 2 pieces of rope tied together, right here in the middle. I want you to make your finger like a gun, point at the middle, and say ‘bang’.

Female:Bang.

Ben:And the knot comes off.

Female:How does it work?

Ben:Here, I’ll show you how it works. There’s a little setup you do before the trick begins. You take a small piece of rope and you tie it in a knot. You keep it loose so you can still see that hole there. Then you take a longer piece of rope and you fold it in half. You take the center of the rope and you stick it through the hole, not too much, and then you pull this knot tight. Now you have it like that. You can even pull this a little bit to decrease the visibility of that loop there.

Now you create the illusion of 2 pieces of rope tied together. All you need to do is pull to make it come off. You want to try?

Female:Yeah.

Ben:Here hold onto this side and this side. Bang. There you go. That’s how you make a knot pop off a rope.

Transcript

Ben:Do you want to see something really cool?

Female:Yes.

Ben:Grab a small handful of those M&M’s.

Female:Okay.

Ben:Hold them out like this.

Female:Okay.

Ben:I’ll go for one of the green ones. Watch carefully.

Female:No. Come on, I was looking at your hand the whole time.

Ben:Yep.

Female:Where’d it go?

Ben:Right over here. Check it out.

Female:How’d it get in there?

Ben:I don’t know.

Female:Come on.

Ben:You want to see it disappear again?

Female:Yes. You couldn’t even get it in your mouth. How’d it happen?

Ben:Here’s how it works. It’s really easy. First, you have someone . . . you can do it right from the bowl or you can have someone scoop out a handful. It works with M&M’s, it works with peanuts, really, almost any bar snack that there is. First of all, there’s a secret setup. When nobody’s paying attention, you take an M&M and you put it in the hidden location; you can put it in a shot glass and cover it up, you can wrap it in napkin. Don’t put it in your pocket, it’ll melt.

We’ll use the shot glass again. Then we put it in there. My aim is off today. You put it in there, you cover it up, and you leave that in plain sight. This is the tricky part: You have someone scoop out a small handful. Would you do that again? Then I say, “I like the green ones,” because I have a green one hidden over here. I look through like . . . we’ll add a few more in there just for good measure. I look like I’m trying to find a green one and I scoop it like this, but the secret is that I just don’t actually pick anything up.

The way to practice and get good at this is you do it for real. Say I’m actually looking for a green one. I say, “Let me get a green one,” and you scoop it up and you take a green one. That’s how you practice. When you’re doing the magic trick, you want it to look exactly the same. Here we are, a green one. Nobody knows that you don’t actually have one here. Then that point that really sells it is that you take this imaginary M&M and you place it in the other hand. They think they’ve seen you pick one up and put it in the hand. Then you snap your fingers and it’s gone.

Female:Because it was never there.

Ben:Exactly. Then reappears wherever you like.

Female:Great.

Ben:That’s how you make an M&M disappear and reappear.

Transcript

S1: Could I borrow your ring for a moment?

S2: Yes.

S1: Yeah, this is nice.

S2: Thanks.

S1: Where’d you get it?

S2: I actually got it down the street.

S1: Oh, watch this. If I take it right here I can… I’m just kidding. Here it is.

S2: What did you do?

S1: It’s a mean trick, right?

S2: It is.

S1: This is something you can do to fool your friends. You borrow a ring. So that’s the ring and the only other thing you need is a small coin, like a penny.

S2: Ah, a penny.

S1: So here’s what I do. I put the penny in my hand and I hold it naturally so nobody knows there’s anything in it.

S2: Okay.

S1: And you can even handle the ring like this and nobody is going to see that you’re secretly hiding a coin.

S2: Okay.

S1: You put it on your thumb, and when I go to take the ring, I’m actually putting the ring inside my fist.

S2: Okay.

S1: So this is the move right here. I have the coin here. I cover it. You hold it right here. Magician’s call this finger palm. It’s a way to hide a coin. You put the coin in the fist. You pull, and now you have the coin in the hand that they think the ring is in, and then you throw it. You can throw it at the table, at the wall, you just want to get rid of it.

S2: Make the noise, yeah.

S1: And they’re, “Oh, no you threw my ring.” And to make it reappear, you put your hand behind your back, and it comes out like this and all that is is when you have the coin in your hand, and it goes behind your back, you put your thumb back in the hole and you pull it back out.

S2: Great.

S1: Isn’t that cool?

S2: And there it is.

S1: There it is.

S2: Can I have my ring back?

S1: Yes.

S2: Thanks. Don’t trust you with my ring anymore.

S1: You want to try it?

S2: Sure.

S1: Are you right handed or left handed?

S2: Right.

S1: All right, so you start with the thumb on your right finger, and then you want to secretly hide the penny in your left hand, and just kind of close it and leave it on the table. Good. You show your thumb like this and you’ll stick it up all the way. There you go and when you go to take the coin– sorry, when you go to take the ring, you cover it with your hand that has the penny. You put the thumb down and into the hand.

S2: Okay, with the ring on the thumb.

S1: And you steal the ring into your fist and pull the thumb back up. And then, but you don’t want them to see that part, and then you pretend to pull it off. Good, and that’s it. Now you have it here and throw it into the wind. And then you make it reappear, you put your thumb in there, and then ta-dah.

S2: Ta-dah, I did it. That’s so fun.

S1: And that’s how you throw somebody’s ring away and make it reappear.