| What is Bizarre Magick? When I was growing up and still very young, I remember wanting to be a magician. Back then my hero was Mark Wilson. He had his own TV Show, a beautiful assistant, and there was never an empty seat in the house! Mark was suave and a master of both stage and close-up magic. He did it all! Can you imagine how I felt when I visited The Magic Castle in Hollywood Cal. Just a few short yrs ago and who do I meet? Mark himself. Mark is as wonderful off stage as he is on. He was in a business meeting, but took time to say hello to a fan of his. To him it was just another day at work, for me it was one of the great moments I'll never forget! Mark is a commercial magician, very commercial! He set the standard for magicians long before Henning and Copperfield! What does this have to do with Bizarre Magick? Bizarre Magick tends to deal with things that go bump in the night, Ghosts, Goblins, The Occult, Monsters, Witches, And perhaps the Twilight Zone! It has more of a theatrical flare. Copperfields 1995 show entitled "Unseen Forces" was itself Bizarre. His show centered around a house that burned down. Some of the magic he did was a floating table (surrounded by audience members) and even a spirit cabinet. Now thats Bizarre! In my case, I do mostly close up effects. Let me explain a simple effect and then I'll tell you how I made it bizarre. I bought two books on magic when I was on vacation , I was in my teens. My brother was reading one in the car as I read the other. When we got to the hotel, he grabbed a deck of cards and asked me to choose one. I looked at the selection and placed it back into the deck. He shuffled the cards, handed them back and asked me to look for my card. To my surprise, the card was no longer in the deck. It vanished! I looked at my brother and said "It's not in here!" He pointed to the magic book. I picked it up and inside the book was my card. Now years later here is what I made of that same effect called, "The Card in the Book". I asked my friends if the they would like to see an effect with Rune Stones. I took out the stones from a bag and placed in a formation of a Q I showed Judy a deck of cards and riffled till she called "Stop". When she did, I showed her the card and placed the full pack in front of her. No one knowing the selction but her..I turned to her husband Greg. I told Greg to give me a number between 1 and 24 (number of stones). He chose 15. I told him to place his finger on the last stone of the tail of the Q. Everyone counted as he moved his finger up the trail of the Q. We counted to fifteen. Now we counted back with out going down the tail to fifteen again. One for this life, one for the next! His finger came to rest on one of the face down stones. I pushed it to the center of the circle. Judy I'm going to go thru this deck and I want you to note in which position your card is found. The 10th card the 23rd, whereever it might land. I count through the deck 10 cards, I look at her, she says no, 20 cards, not yet. 30 cards, no. All the cards are shown but I only count 51 cards, none of then hers. I put the cards into the case and look at the circle of stones. " Greg, do me a favor and look at the stone you have picked." Greg turns the stone over. On the table in full veiw at all times is the book of the runes, I ask that Judy pick it up. "Judy the index is inside the front cover, it shows the runes and what page number that rune is on. It tells the meaning of that stone." She looks and finds it to be the rune of mystery. Judy will you turn to that page in the book. When she arrives at that page her card is found marking that spot. Now thats Bizarre! |
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