I hope you have been amazed by Tony Slydini and his magic tricks, his ingenious art of misdirection and his excellent sleight of hands. Perhaps you have already become a fan of Tony Slydini. There are more to what Tony Slydini has performed than what have been posted on this website.
If you wish to watch more of Tony Slydini’s magic tricks and to learn the secrets behind these magic tricks, you can find them in this almost 2-hour long Slydini Lecture by Jim Cellini – DVD .
In this DVD (Slydini Lecture), Jim Cellini (Slydini’s disciple) performed the following magic tricks designed by Slydini.
Slydini Silks Routine.
Cut and Restored Rope.
Vanishing Silk.
Chinese Linking Rings.
Paperbox and Balls Routine.
Coins Through Table.
Silk Fountain (performed by Jim Cellini’s wife).
You may want to get this 312-page book. “Slydini Book, Annotated Magic of” written by Lewis Gansons. There you may find the explanations of most of Slydini’s magic tricks or perhaps all of them.
Following these performances, Jim Cellini proceeded to explain each magic trick with the exception of the Chinese Linking Rings and the Silk Fountain. Anyway, the secret behind the Chinese Linking Rings is the same to any other magic performance using Chinese Linking Rings. In fact at one point, he carelessly exposed one of the ring’s opening at the early stage of the performance. The Silk Fountain performed by Jim Cellini’s wife was not skillful enough. For those who are fairly experienced with knowing how to do magic tricks will be able to figure out how this magic trick is done. If not, just watch closely several times and you will be able to figure them out by yourself. She is not experienced enough and her lack of proficiency in her sleight of hands actually gave away the secret of the magic trick. May be that was why the secret to this magic trick was not explained in this DVD.
For the “Coins Through Table” magic trick, Jim Cellini explained in detail the ‘7 coins routine”, “6 coins routine”, “4 coins routine”, “2 coins routine” and “1 coin routine”. He covered the subtlety of the hand movements Slydini made and how he personally modified them for himself, as well as how to create the sound of the coins penetrating through the table and falling into the hand under the table. He went on to discuss an unpublished “Unique Coin Routine” which is the one where Slydini fooled Dai Vernon. I have left out the explanation in my earlier posting for this magic trick. Please refer to “How to do magic tricks #9 -Slydini’s The Helicopter Card”.
The invaluable part of this DVD lies on the discussion that went beyond how each magic trick was performed. Jim Cellini covered quite a lot of important information on how Slydini taught him on his body, hands and legs movement on stage, how to sit in such a way so that the lapping technique can be done efficiently and effectively. These lessons are hard to illustrate in books and are seldom taught in any media.
Jim Cellini explained many magic tricks performed by Slydini in which Jim Cellini did not perform in this DVD such as the cigarette magic tricks. He also told how these magic tricks came into existence.
Some unexpected bonuses are stories about Tony Slydini and Dai Vernon’s relationship, Slydini’s way of looking at magic and how he designed his magic tricks. Jim Cellini told how Slydini designed a card magic as Slydini performed it to Harry Lorayne by using his unique way of performing magic. It was quite hilarious.
The only pity is that you do not get to watch any footage of Slydini in this DVD. However, the materials in this DVD are first class. If you want to watch more of Slydini’s footage, you will get a lot of them in this two-disc DVD set, “As I Recall (2 DVD Set) – Tony Slydini”. You will also get to see Slydini’s students perform and explain some of Slydini’s tricks which include those other magic tricks by Slydini that are not performed in the “Slydini Lecture by Jim Cellini – DVD”.
Here are some video clips from this 2-disc DVD set.
Perhaps you may ask, “Why can’t I find all of Slydini’s magic tricks performed and explained all in one DVD?” First of all, I did not produce them. And that is how the way the market operates. Have you ever found a CD of your favourite artiste’s with all his or her songs recorded in it? Never!
If you really want to know all about Slydini’s magic trick, you may want to get this 312-page book. “The Annotated Magic of Slydini” written by Lewis Gansons. There you may find the explanations of most of Slydini’s magic tricks or perhaps all of them. I do believe that you can find the secret to Slydini’s “Helicopter Card” in here.
In stage magic, there are standard routines performed by stage magicians which we are familiar with as children watching magic show on television. In the field of stage magic, only the more exceptional magicians are able to present more innovative routines which the general public is less exposed to; or they could present a standard routine in a more entertaining manner. This is due to the fact that the props of stage magicians are pretty standard just as what we have been regularly exposed to. These are pigeons, rabbits, playing cards, guillotine, hat, custom made boxes for assistants to be locked up in, magic wands, silks, rings, etc. As many props for stage magic are relatively big as they are needed to be presented from the stage to audience seated a distance away, they are pretty expensive to purchase. Thus amateur magicians may find it financially difficult to get more expensive props to incorporate into their repertoire and this is apart from the cost of learning the secrets to performing them.
If you have watched David Copperfield’s performance, you would have noticed that he is able to perform very simple and standard routines interwoven into a dance with a storyline in it. David Copperfield is able to inject entertainment into his performance that makes his show more interesting than an amateur magician who merely performs the standard routines as performed by many other magicians.
My brief discussion on stage magic is to show that items used in stage magic is standard stage props which we would not be using. What I would like to focus on here are items used in close-up magic. Close-up magic is more relevant to the non-professional magicians (since we are only interested in amusing our friends and ourselves) whether you are just a hobbyist or someone who intend to pursue magic as a profession in the future. The most common objects used are:
Among these items, playing cards and coins are among the most common followed by sponge balls, rubber bands. Many close-up magicians are dedicated particularly in the field of card magic and coin magic and the magic tricks devised for playing cards and coins accumulated since early 20th century are numerous and so are the sleights involved in these two types of magic. ESP Cards are more commonly used by mentalists (mind reading magicians) and magic tricks involving the use of ESP cards can be modified and replaced by normal playing cards generally.
