Get out a #2 pencil, I’ll provide the paper; we’re going to take some notes over Tenyo Magic’s ‘MAGIC MEMO PAD’!
This week isn’t going to be filled with so many links. In fact, no links at all. Part of it is that I keep bungling them up when I post these. Last weeks was so bad, I had to make a new post and report the bad one (I think I reported it as having ‘racial slurs’ just to get the ball rolling faster).
That and I’m planning on constructing a blog in the near future that will utilize these reviews (the ones with links will obviously need to be rewritten; copy-pasta-a-go-go). I can’t use the links because I don’t want to get hit with copyright infringement and I REALLY don’t think it would be smiled upon if I took videos here, pictures there, and incorporated them in my reviews without permission. I need to rely more on taking my ‘mind-drawrings’ and converting them into typey-words. Speaking of drawrings!
MAGIC MEMO PAD
Inventor: Naohisa Inaba
Year: 2013
Cost: $15-$25
Type of Effect: 1st effect: Vanish
Skill Level: Beginner
https://instagram.com/p/6yLCNIQOM_/
CONTENTS:
- 1 Memo pad
- Gimmick….thing
EFFECT #1: You, the magician, present a small memo pad. You then draw an oval and present a coin. You rub the coin against the paper and it melts through and disappears! You then draw on the paper further, turning the oval into a bucket, take out another coin, and melt it through the paper too—except this time, everyone hears a *clink* as it drops into the bucket. You do this again with a 3rd coin; it also makes a *clink*. You can then tear off the piece of paper and hand it out for examination.
REVIEW:
Let me be completely honest. I do my best to stay away from two types of magic props:
- Props that have fragility issues
- Props that you can use only so many times, then have to buy more of it.
In this case, you are limited by the number of paper in the memo pad as you finish by tearing off your paper. It would be hen it turns into this weird ‘Miser’s Dream’ routine.
When you do weird if you did the presentation again with the bucket already made. Not impossible to work with, but run out of paper, you can either buy another ‘Magic Memo Pad’ or go out and get a memo pad at Home Depot.
Me? I’m just really hard up on using ‘what comes out of the box’ and I like the look of the Japanese memo pad. Why? Because that’s what keeps the obsessive-compulsive demons away!
Did you see any obsessive-compulsive demons? No? That’s because I’m using the original memo pad.
The truth is, I received ‘Magic Memo Pad’ from a good friend who recommended to me. And his recommendations have been absolutely spot-on, every recommendation he has made for me happens to be some of my most favorite Tenyo in my inventory. Despite that ‘Magic Memo Pad’ goes against one of my ‘magic purchase cardinal sins’; I wasn’t going to provide resistance against his advice. I got out of my comfort zone and gave it a try.
In our house, trying something new nets you a shiny quarter. It would have been a dime, but you know. The economy sucks and inflation and—don’t judge! I also needed some quarters to use for this thing!
Part of why I avoided looking at this thing for a while was because the art on the box didn’t really look appealing. Go ahead and throw rocks at me for ‘judging a book by its cover’, but Tenyo has come up with some AMAZING art for their products. So seeing a white pad of paper with fading quarters into a crudely drawn bucket? C’mon! It’s about as interesting as watching turtles at the zoo.
Still think I’m judgmental? Go look up the box art for Tenyo’s ‘Parabox’ and ‘Dragon Altar’. I’d post it here, but you know: Copyright issues, I’m poor, I have the legal knowledge of a squirrel.
So we’re melting coins into a drawing! It’s not AS fun those crazy donation coin-vortexes that were really popular in the 90’s and you see every now and again these days. But point still stands, you’re performing a coin vanish; and using something rather organic and recognizable, no less. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT PAPER IS!
What makes the memo pad neat is that it’s very easy to view it as something that has presentation versatility with the actual drawing. Not a whole lot of Tenyo can do that by just looking at it. You don’t have to draw a bucket. Could also be a box, a well, or a business of ferrets (seriously, that’s what a group of ferrets are called. You learned something today).
Whatever drawing makes the most sense for your presentation. The bucket is the quickest drawing and gets the point across rather quickly, and that’s sort of the ‘bar’: Either meet it or exceed it.
The vanishing part is rather easy to do. There is a ‘knack’ to it, I won’t lie. But after an hour of working with it. You’ll either have the motions down fluently or you’ll be REALLY close to. No big deal.
What I think is the great thing is that you can rip out the paper and hand it out for inspection after the performance. You know, just to make sure there are no paper switches, usage of portals, or illegal sorcery.
I feel like I’m rambling. Might be the meds. On point! We talked about what it does and what’s good about it. What makes it less than desirable? Because I know that you negative Nancy’s’ skipped down this far to read.
Let’s start with the ‘quietest’ aspect of the whole thing. The demonstration video. Part of it shows the magician folding the torn off ‘bucket paper’ in half and producing all 3 coins again.
But if you look in the instructions, you aren’t going to find it. Maybe some of you experienced hats could figure a way to make the presentation go ‘full circle’, which I think would make the presentation look less like a slot machine. But me? I’m THE absolute WORST engineer of magic in the world; everything in magic is like a big shiny puppy to me. You could do a color change, and even expose part of it, and I would praise you on being at the same level of sorcery as David Copperfield. I couldn’t figure out how to engineer making the coins reappear in a week. I lost $7.50, and I can’t get it back. I have the crumpled up buckets to prove it.
Let’s get into the bigger issues, and speaking of size…The size! This isn’t the most travel friendly Tenyo out there. Not exactly in depth, but more in the height and the width.
I’ll say this, I can pack a 5-trick all-Tenyo show inside a $10 medicine case I found at Walmart.
I have ‘Magic Memo Pad’ in another set, and it BARELY fits the dimensions, and rather gives the rest of the Tenyo in there a bit of an uncomfortable ride. Not only that, but even if you ‘play from the pockets; you better have some REALLY big pockets. Then again, if you’re REALLY all about this one, you might even have to get a pocket customized for it. I’ve considered it. Seriously. Strolling work.
Another big issue is the size of the effect—it’s rather small. You’re working with making coins like quarters disappear. Quarters are the biggest thing I have on hand at the moment; they aren’t exactly silver dollars here. You’re probably only able to get up to three people to see exactly what you’re doing without someone wondering what it is you’re doing.
And the last point, and this might be a deal breaker: Angle issues.
If you already have this one, you’re probably nodding in agreement, ‘hoooo yeah!’ There are definite angle issues. Considering the size restriction of the coins you’re working with and how many people that WILL be able to see the effect; that part sort of balances itself out.
Would I recommend this? It depends.
If you love ingenious engineering of props, you will not be disappointed here. C’mon! It’s Tenyo! These guys have a magic factory located on the EDGE of madness. The gimmick here is absolutely brilliant. Scary brilliant. Almost to the point to where you wonder about the mental health of the creator. Not in a bad way, but you’d be wondering if they are okay since they made this trick.
‘Magic Memo Pad’ is wonderful and easy to perform, especially when you’re able to work out the knack, which isn’t hard to sort out. However, I find that its inability to be played from the pockets and the size of the effect prevent it from being performed in a wider range of arenas, despite its presentation versatility, which is a shame. The good news is that you have friends and/or family at your place, or have an opportunity to perform for a small number of people (provided your angles are covered); find a way to use this! Customize a bigger pocket in your jacket. In fact, BUY a new jacket, send it to a tailor to make the pocket bigger, get the three shiniest quarters you have, get your best mechanical pencil (not those inferior 0.5 lead garbage can pencils) and USE ‘Magic Memo Pad’. It’s worth the trouble and effort if you have the planets align in your end of the world.
This week isn’t going to be filled with so many links. In fact, no links at all. Part of it is that I keep bungling them up when I post these. Last weeks was so bad, I had to make a new post and report the bad one (I think I reported it as having ‘racial slurs’ just to get the ball rolling faster).
That and I’m planning on constructing a blog in the near future that will utilize these reviews (the ones with links will obviously need to be rewritten; copy-pasta-a-go-go). I can’t use the links because I don’t want to get hit with copyright infringement and I REALLY don’t think it would be smiled upon if I took videos here, pictures there, and incorporated them in my reviews without permission. I need to rely more on taking my ‘mind-drawrings’ and converting them into typey-words. Speaking of drawrings!
MAGIC MEMO PAD
Inventor: Naohisa Inaba
Year: 2013
Cost: $15-$25
Type of Effect: 1st effect: Vanish
Skill Level: Beginner
https://instagram.com/p/6yLCNIQOM_/
CONTENTS:
- 1 Memo pad
- Gimmick….thing
EFFECT #1: You, the magician, present a small memo pad. You then draw an oval and present a coin. You rub the coin against the paper and it melts through and disappears! You then draw on the paper further, turning the oval into a bucket, take out another coin, and melt it through the paper too—except this time, everyone hears a *clink* as it drops into the bucket. You do this again with a 3rd coin; it also makes a *clink*. You can then tear off the piece of paper and hand it out for examination.
REVIEW:
Let me be completely honest. I do my best to stay away from two types of magic props:
- Props that have fragility issues
- Props that you can use only so many times, then have to buy more of it.
In this case, you are limited by the number of paper in the memo pad as you finish by tearing off your paper. It would be hen it turns into this weird ‘Miser’s Dream’ routine.
When you do weird if you did the presentation again with the bucket already made. Not impossible to work with, but run out of paper, you can either buy another ‘Magic Memo Pad’ or go out and get a memo pad at Home Depot.
Me? I’m just really hard up on using ‘what comes out of the box’ and I like the look of the Japanese memo pad. Why? Because that’s what keeps the obsessive-compulsive demons away!
Did you see any obsessive-compulsive demons? No? That’s because I’m using the original memo pad.
The truth is, I received ‘Magic Memo Pad’ from a good friend who recommended to me. And his recommendations have been absolutely spot-on, every recommendation he has made for me happens to be some of my most favorite Tenyo in my inventory. Despite that ‘Magic Memo Pad’ goes against one of my ‘magic purchase cardinal sins’; I wasn’t going to provide resistance against his advice. I got out of my comfort zone and gave it a try.
In our house, trying something new nets you a shiny quarter. It would have been a dime, but you know. The economy sucks and inflation and—don’t judge! I also needed some quarters to use for this thing!
Part of why I avoided looking at this thing for a while was because the art on the box didn’t really look appealing. Go ahead and throw rocks at me for ‘judging a book by its cover’, but Tenyo has come up with some AMAZING art for their products. So seeing a white pad of paper with fading quarters into a crudely drawn bucket? C’mon! It’s about as interesting as watching turtles at the zoo.
Still think I’m judgmental? Go look up the box art for Tenyo’s ‘Parabox’ and ‘Dragon Altar’. I’d post it here, but you know: Copyright issues, I’m poor, I have the legal knowledge of a squirrel.
So we’re melting coins into a drawing! It’s not AS fun those crazy donation coin-vortexes that were really popular in the 90’s and you see every now and again these days. But point still stands, you’re performing a coin vanish; and using something rather organic and recognizable, no less. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT PAPER IS!
What makes the memo pad neat is that it’s very easy to view it as something that has presentation versatility with the actual drawing. Not a whole lot of Tenyo can do that by just looking at it. You don’t have to draw a bucket. Could also be a box, a well, or a business of ferrets (seriously, that’s what a group of ferrets are called. You learned something today).
Whatever drawing makes the most sense for your presentation. The bucket is the quickest drawing and gets the point across rather quickly, and that’s sort of the ‘bar’: Either meet it or exceed it.
The vanishing part is rather easy to do. There is a ‘knack’ to it, I won’t lie. But after an hour of working with it. You’ll either have the motions down fluently or you’ll be REALLY close to. No big deal.
What I think is the great thing is that you can rip out the paper and hand it out for inspection after the performance. You know, just to make sure there are no paper switches, usage of portals, or illegal sorcery.
I feel like I’m rambling. Might be the meds. On point! We talked about what it does and what’s good about it. What makes it less than desirable? Because I know that you negative Nancy’s’ skipped down this far to read.
Let’s start with the ‘quietest’ aspect of the whole thing. The demonstration video. Part of it shows the magician folding the torn off ‘bucket paper’ in half and producing all 3 coins again.
But if you look in the instructions, you aren’t going to find it. Maybe some of you experienced hats could figure a way to make the presentation go ‘full circle’, which I think would make the presentation look less like a slot machine. But me? I’m THE absolute WORST engineer of magic in the world; everything in magic is like a big shiny puppy to me. You could do a color change, and even expose part of it, and I would praise you on being at the same level of sorcery as David Copperfield. I couldn’t figure out how to engineer making the coins reappear in a week. I lost $7.50, and I can’t get it back. I have the crumpled up buckets to prove it.
Let’s get into the bigger issues, and speaking of size…The size! This isn’t the most travel friendly Tenyo out there. Not exactly in depth, but more in the height and the width.
I’ll say this, I can pack a 5-trick all-Tenyo show inside a $10 medicine case I found at Walmart.
I have ‘Magic Memo Pad’ in another set, and it BARELY fits the dimensions, and rather gives the rest of the Tenyo in there a bit of an uncomfortable ride. Not only that, but even if you ‘play from the pockets; you better have some REALLY big pockets. Then again, if you’re REALLY all about this one, you might even have to get a pocket customized for it. I’ve considered it. Seriously. Strolling work.
Another big issue is the size of the effect—it’s rather small. You’re working with making coins like quarters disappear. Quarters are the biggest thing I have on hand at the moment; they aren’t exactly silver dollars here. You’re probably only able to get up to three people to see exactly what you’re doing without someone wondering what it is you’re doing.
And the last point, and this might be a deal breaker: Angle issues.
If you already have this one, you’re probably nodding in agreement, ‘hoooo yeah!’ There are definite angle issues. Considering the size restriction of the coins you’re working with and how many people that WILL be able to see the effect; that part sort of balances itself out.
Would I recommend this? It depends.
If you love ingenious engineering of props, you will not be disappointed here. C’mon! It’s Tenyo! These guys have a magic factory located on the EDGE of madness. The gimmick here is absolutely brilliant. Scary brilliant. Almost to the point to where you wonder about the mental health of the creator. Not in a bad way, but you’d be wondering if they are okay since they made this trick.
‘Magic Memo Pad’ is wonderful and easy to perform, especially when you’re able to work out the knack, which isn’t hard to sort out. However, I find that its inability to be played from the pockets and the size of the effect prevent it from being performed in a wider range of arenas, despite its presentation versatility, which is a shame. The good news is that you have friends and/or family at your place, or have an opportunity to perform for a small number of people (provided your angles are covered); find a way to use this! Customize a bigger pocket in your jacket. In fact, BUY a new jacket, send it to a tailor to make the pocket bigger, get the three shiniest quarters you have, get your best mechanical pencil (not those inferior 0.5 lead garbage can pencils) and USE ‘Magic Memo Pad’. It’s worth the trouble and effort if you have the planets align in your end of the world.
