This week, we’re reviewing another LUBOR FIEDLER effect! But there’s TWO reasons why ‘Ghost Card’ is up for this week’s review:
1) Yesterday was the release for Blake Vogt’s ‘Invisible Card’. Considering the name of what we’re doing this week is ‘Ghost Card’ I feel the name fit. At least the ‘card’ in the name did. Or the transparency of ghosts (unless you’re Bruce Willis). I felt it fit, but I’m losing conviction in my decision now that I’m writing it.
2) This is the ONE Tenyo that my daughter considers to be ‘REAL MAGIC’
Real magic?! What are we working with here?
GHOST CARD
Inventor: Lubor Fiedler
Year: 2014
Cost: $15-$25
Type of Effect: 1st effect: ‘Penetration’ 2nd effect: Production’
Skill Level: Intermediate
CONTENTS:
- Cards
- Case
- A gimmick somewhere in the mix. It’s LUBOR! You’ll never guess it!
EFFECT #1: You, the magician show your audience several cards and then place them in a card case. You then PUSH a large fraction of the cards through THE SIDE OF YOUR FACE!
EFFECT #2: After a large fraction of the cards have penetrated through your face, you then produce them through the other side of YOUR FACE!
REVIEW:
Lubor Fiedler made this one, so you know that the idea for this came from the edge of madness. The first time my daughter saw this when we were watching magic demonstrations; she leapt out of her seat, pointing at the laptop at the time (which has since then crashed. Thank you, Limewire), and exclaimed that she just saw ‘REAL MAGIC’!
This is also the same wee magician that decried that the utilitarian ‘Card Case’ is ‘FAKE MAGIC’. Little person, big opinion. I found that out on Christmas, oh boy that did not go well.
I had to get ‘Ghost Card’ out of principle. And I did!
But like many other times in which I try to play ‘guess the gimmick’; anything Lubor Fiedler produces makes me want to go on a bender because I’m NEVER close to getting it right. Although, with this one, I had a faint glimmer of an idea (in which I was on the right track), but I couldn’t make sense of it.
Anyway, I’m a terrible guesser. Who knew? Moving on.
At the risk of sounding like a magic marketing shill, ‘Ghost Card’ is REALLY VISUAL.
I mean, it’s not exactly ‘Hot Rod’, but the audience gets to see you PUSHING CARDS THROUGH YOUR FACE! And the out the other side of your face, or out your neck, or your IPod! I don’t know! There are a lot of presentation possibilities with this one.
Now, I’m not really a fan of ‘shock magic’, and I’d say that ‘Ghost Card’ REALLY teeters on a fine line of ‘fun’ and ‘shock’. I think that because of the fun aspect to it, it’s easy to build a routine, even a lighthearted routine around. And I think that will give it some appeal to those who just spent the last minute and a half of me yelling about ‘cards through the face’.
The effects. There are the two effects in ‘Ghost Card’ that go well together; a penetration and a production, respectively. But I only do the 1st effect, the card penetration, and leave it at that. The way I end, after I’ve eaten the cards, is ask if the audience if they ‘want a bite’ (because some of the cards are still visually there and intact). I think this adds a bit more to the ‘fun-shock’ effect. If they say no, ‘okay! More for me.’ If they say they do want a bite of some cards, you pull them away and state, ‘You can’t eat some stranger’s food! You could have allergies!’
Either way, it provides a great out and a rather organic way of ditching the whole thing and move on with the rest of your routine.
I will say though, because of the way I do this routine, I don’t use the 2nd effect. There’s just no need to. Plus, I’m hungry.
Visual effect, presentation versatility; what can go wrong with the means of EATING CARDS?
Let’s start from the beginning of the routine: the start of the whole thing is a bit of a tough one to do. This WILL be the majority of your practicing. And believe me, it’s not the most fun thing in the world. There’s a good reason for it, but it’s rather…boring to work on. And a bit annoying to work with once you know how it all works. I JUST WANT TO EAT CARDS!
The second effect: the production. I don’t think it looks convincing in any sense. Even when I watched the demonstration video for ‘Ghost Card’, I told myself that if there was a way I can avoid doing the production, I would. And to this day, I refuse to produce the large fraction of cards. It’s been in my tummy ever since.
The problem with those last few sentences; they’re my own opinion of how ‘Ghost Card’ should be done. But I’m kind of this wacky nutjob. And I can make the above presentation work for me. I guarantee that someone out there can produce the production of cards in a way that’s absolutely brilliant. That person isn’t going to be me. But here is something that ISN’T my opinion: ‘Ghost Card’ DOES NOT travel well.
If you’re looking at ‘Ghost Card’ like I once did, and said, ‘dead ringer for a strolling routine‘. You’re dead wrong. ‘Ghost Card’ has some MAJOR fragility issues and carrying it around in your pocket doing your restaurant routine is going to leave you with a dead trick and out $25 bucks at the end of the night. It doesn’t travel AND it needs prep time. Everything you DON’T want in a ‘stroller’.
And that’s what makes ‘Ghost Card’ such a conundrum for me. It has all the workings of a great stroller, but can’t travel. It has a great visual element for a close-up show, but it’s too small to use for that setting.
On top of that, despite the effect that it produces, it’s a VERY presentation heavy in order to ‘sell’ the effect. A LOT of practice needs to be done in both presentation and practice in order to give it a sort of ‘believability’ factor, which is why I stick only the initial penetration effect (less is more, you know?).
So is it ‘REAL MAGIC’? Well, it comes from the head of Lubor Fiedler, so at least I know my daughter has good taste in magic engineers. It’s a good take on ‘shock magic’ while also giving it the specialness that Lubor always delivers.
But after my daughter and I went over the trick, looked over the gimmick and how to use it, both of us were sort of surprised and dejected. The effect was neat, but immediately lost its luster over how tough it was for her to work and the fragility of it made it hard for her to carry in her ‘rough-and-tumble’ magic case AND my case, which I baby like it’s a Faberge Egg collection.
To be honest, this isn’t a Tenyo I’d recommend to use in any sense, even though I REALLY want to. And still try to find a way/excuse to use it. I think it’s a neat effect and rather easy to build a good routine around, but the part that KILLS it for me is the fragility issue. I have tried to find ways to store it while travelling and that been a logistical NIGHTMARE! There’s no way I can comfortably travel with it for a close-up show and NOT go mentally nuts getting there. I’m too worried that I’d get to the venue and the thing would be ruined by the time I get there.
If it were me, I’d only get ‘Ghost Card’ under these conditions:
- You’re a collector have space in your ‘magic room’/’magic closet’/’magic garage’/’magic corner of the office’ and you just want to know how it works.
- You’re a fan of Lubor Fiedler.
- You’re up for a challenge
- You don’t want to listen to me.
That’s all for this week! Have a Tenyo request? Shoot it on over! I MIGHT have it, provided it’s less than $40 bucks. We’ll work out the details.
1) Yesterday was the release for Blake Vogt’s ‘Invisible Card’. Considering the name of what we’re doing this week is ‘Ghost Card’ I feel the name fit. At least the ‘card’ in the name did. Or the transparency of ghosts (unless you’re Bruce Willis). I felt it fit, but I’m losing conviction in my decision now that I’m writing it.
2) This is the ONE Tenyo that my daughter considers to be ‘REAL MAGIC’
Real magic?! What are we working with here?
GHOST CARD
Inventor: Lubor Fiedler
Year: 2014
Cost: $15-$25
Type of Effect: 1st effect: ‘Penetration’ 2nd effect: Production’
Skill Level: Intermediate
CONTENTS:
- Cards
- Case
- A gimmick somewhere in the mix. It’s LUBOR! You’ll never guess it!
EFFECT #1: You, the magician show your audience several cards and then place them in a card case. You then PUSH a large fraction of the cards through THE SIDE OF YOUR FACE!
EFFECT #2: After a large fraction of the cards have penetrated through your face, you then produce them through the other side of YOUR FACE!
REVIEW:
Lubor Fiedler made this one, so you know that the idea for this came from the edge of madness. The first time my daughter saw this when we were watching magic demonstrations; she leapt out of her seat, pointing at the laptop at the time (which has since then crashed. Thank you, Limewire), and exclaimed that she just saw ‘REAL MAGIC’!
This is also the same wee magician that decried that the utilitarian ‘Card Case’ is ‘FAKE MAGIC’. Little person, big opinion. I found that out on Christmas, oh boy that did not go well.
I had to get ‘Ghost Card’ out of principle. And I did!
But like many other times in which I try to play ‘guess the gimmick’; anything Lubor Fiedler produces makes me want to go on a bender because I’m NEVER close to getting it right. Although, with this one, I had a faint glimmer of an idea (in which I was on the right track), but I couldn’t make sense of it.
Anyway, I’m a terrible guesser. Who knew? Moving on.
At the risk of sounding like a magic marketing shill, ‘Ghost Card’ is REALLY VISUAL.
I mean, it’s not exactly ‘Hot Rod’, but the audience gets to see you PUSHING CARDS THROUGH YOUR FACE! And the out the other side of your face, or out your neck, or your IPod! I don’t know! There are a lot of presentation possibilities with this one.
Now, I’m not really a fan of ‘shock magic’, and I’d say that ‘Ghost Card’ REALLY teeters on a fine line of ‘fun’ and ‘shock’. I think that because of the fun aspect to it, it’s easy to build a routine, even a lighthearted routine around. And I think that will give it some appeal to those who just spent the last minute and a half of me yelling about ‘cards through the face’.
The effects. There are the two effects in ‘Ghost Card’ that go well together; a penetration and a production, respectively. But I only do the 1st effect, the card penetration, and leave it at that. The way I end, after I’ve eaten the cards, is ask if the audience if they ‘want a bite’ (because some of the cards are still visually there and intact). I think this adds a bit more to the ‘fun-shock’ effect. If they say no, ‘okay! More for me.’ If they say they do want a bite of some cards, you pull them away and state, ‘You can’t eat some stranger’s food! You could have allergies!’
Either way, it provides a great out and a rather organic way of ditching the whole thing and move on with the rest of your routine.
I will say though, because of the way I do this routine, I don’t use the 2nd effect. There’s just no need to. Plus, I’m hungry.
Visual effect, presentation versatility; what can go wrong with the means of EATING CARDS?
Let’s start from the beginning of the routine: the start of the whole thing is a bit of a tough one to do. This WILL be the majority of your practicing. And believe me, it’s not the most fun thing in the world. There’s a good reason for it, but it’s rather…boring to work on. And a bit annoying to work with once you know how it all works. I JUST WANT TO EAT CARDS!
The second effect: the production. I don’t think it looks convincing in any sense. Even when I watched the demonstration video for ‘Ghost Card’, I told myself that if there was a way I can avoid doing the production, I would. And to this day, I refuse to produce the large fraction of cards. It’s been in my tummy ever since.
The problem with those last few sentences; they’re my own opinion of how ‘Ghost Card’ should be done. But I’m kind of this wacky nutjob. And I can make the above presentation work for me. I guarantee that someone out there can produce the production of cards in a way that’s absolutely brilliant. That person isn’t going to be me. But here is something that ISN’T my opinion: ‘Ghost Card’ DOES NOT travel well.
If you’re looking at ‘Ghost Card’ like I once did, and said, ‘dead ringer for a strolling routine‘. You’re dead wrong. ‘Ghost Card’ has some MAJOR fragility issues and carrying it around in your pocket doing your restaurant routine is going to leave you with a dead trick and out $25 bucks at the end of the night. It doesn’t travel AND it needs prep time. Everything you DON’T want in a ‘stroller’.
And that’s what makes ‘Ghost Card’ such a conundrum for me. It has all the workings of a great stroller, but can’t travel. It has a great visual element for a close-up show, but it’s too small to use for that setting.
On top of that, despite the effect that it produces, it’s a VERY presentation heavy in order to ‘sell’ the effect. A LOT of practice needs to be done in both presentation and practice in order to give it a sort of ‘believability’ factor, which is why I stick only the initial penetration effect (less is more, you know?).
So is it ‘REAL MAGIC’? Well, it comes from the head of Lubor Fiedler, so at least I know my daughter has good taste in magic engineers. It’s a good take on ‘shock magic’ while also giving it the specialness that Lubor always delivers.
But after my daughter and I went over the trick, looked over the gimmick and how to use it, both of us were sort of surprised and dejected. The effect was neat, but immediately lost its luster over how tough it was for her to work and the fragility of it made it hard for her to carry in her ‘rough-and-tumble’ magic case AND my case, which I baby like it’s a Faberge Egg collection.
To be honest, this isn’t a Tenyo I’d recommend to use in any sense, even though I REALLY want to. And still try to find a way/excuse to use it. I think it’s a neat effect and rather easy to build a good routine around, but the part that KILLS it for me is the fragility issue. I have tried to find ways to store it while travelling and that been a logistical NIGHTMARE! There’s no way I can comfortably travel with it for a close-up show and NOT go mentally nuts getting there. I’m too worried that I’d get to the venue and the thing would be ruined by the time I get there.
If it were me, I’d only get ‘Ghost Card’ under these conditions:
- You’re a collector have space in your ‘magic room’/’magic closet’/’magic garage’/’magic corner of the office’ and you just want to know how it works.
- You’re a fan of Lubor Fiedler.
- You’re up for a challenge
- You don’t want to listen to me.
That’s all for this week! Have a Tenyo request? Shoot it on over! I MIGHT have it, provided it’s less than $40 bucks. We’ll work out the details.