– Intro / Brief Overview
What’s up everybody and welcome to Magic For Beginners, my name is Keith and in today’s video we’re going to be talking about reviewing Eric Ross’ At The Table lecture which has some magic in it, but is coupled with a host of sideshow style tricks and effects too This is his second At The Table Lecture too and this . This is just under a two hour lecture which has a whole host of tricks and effects you can learn and perform, actually 8 in total and some of which are the smash and stab cups, hammering a nail into your head, ripping a deck of cards in half and even smashing a can on your finger.
As you can see by those fantastic renditions, this is a very serious lecture. Sorry, I didn’t mean serious, I meant fun. I’m not sure why I opted for the dramatic lighting when I filmed those examples of what you can learn, maybe next time I’ll add in more lights.
Eric is joined by Javier Fuenmayor and also Justin Miller at the table and they both partake in helping with performances, asking questions and there’s also other people added in for some tricks too where there’s multiple people needed.
The thing that I love about Eric is that he kind of reminds me of the Gerald Undone of the magic world, in that he’s so laid back and relaxed and kind of has the same of camera presence as him which makes for an easy watch and easy to follow along with too. If Eric was to start reviewing camera gear, he definitely could cover for Gerald whenever he is out getting undone.
– How Much Does It Cost?
Anyway let’s have a quick talk about costings and how much this lecture will cost you. This is available on penguin magic for 40 dollars
– Quick Performance
Usually I’d throw in a quick performance of some tricks from the lecture, but as my performances for this video seem to just have one light only working, I’ll throw up a live performance from the lecture so you can see one of the effects.
– What’s Included?
This is where the bulk of the review is going to be and I’m going to be talking about what’s covered in the lecture and a little breakdown of each effect and what the effect actually is just so you know what you’re getting. I’ll try to add time stamps for each effect so if you wanted to skip forward or jump back to an effect then you can do.
So firstly Eric appears on the screen and tells you to not try any of this at home and then shortly after he appears at the table with four polystyrene cups and then pulls out a nail and you can see where this is going… that’s right the smash and stab cups. This is actually Instinct by Matt Mello which he is going to perform and discusses this on the lecture. So he has the four cups, a nail and a cardboard disk and he then allows the spectator to select any cup they want and once that’s done, Eric fixes the nail into the cup. He then turns around and has the cups shuffled. He then smashes two of the cups and then gets the cups shuffled again while he’s not looking but tells the spectator to look and see where the nail actually is and tell everyone else too. He then turns around and smash. He bangs his hand down on the correct cup and all that’s left is the cup to be ripped and the nail revealed. Such a nice method for a trick which has gone wrong so many times over the years as you may have seen on videos and this is covered from the cups themselves right down to creating the cardboard disk for the nail and how to assemble it etc.
From the smash and stab we go into the human blockhead and for the smooth transition from the performance of the smash and stab Eric by getting the spectator to check the nail is real and grabs a hammer too to hit the nail and vice versa and then he takes the nail and hammer and starts to hammer the nail up his nose and into his head. I learnt this when I got into magic a few years ago from a Brian Brushwood video and he has a fantastic explanation on the human blockhead so if you’re into this kind thing and want to watch Brian’s video then there’s a link in the description below.
Eric also teaches this in the lecture and goes into how it works and some slight nuances with regards to the nail and how you should start to practice with a ear bud or a a tip depending on where you are in the world and does this on the lecture with the ear buds and Javier does a great job of it.
Once Eric had finished with the explanation of smash and stab which was done after the human blockhead there’s also two live performances of human blockhead from Eric too.
After the live performances we head back into the studio at the table and we’re now onto the simple transpo which is a card transposition which is used quite a lot these days and can be something great to be added to an ambitious card routine too but this is just a simple in the hands card switch.
Two spectators take a card each and they are both shown to everyone and the cards are then placed back on the deck. You then ask who had the first card picked and it goes face down in their hands and covered and the next card is then pinched face down over the other spectators hand and with a quick rub, the two cards magically switch places. There’s also another two live performances for this trick followed by the explanation too.
This next sideshow performance is probably one of my favourites from the lecture and something I’m definitely going to be working on over time as it does take some muscle memory and this is ripping a full deck of cards in half. This is a fantastic show piece which is performed by Eric and explained and performed by Justin, Javier and other people who join Eric at the table. The amount of cards left over that have been ripped is crazy. Eric then also proceeds to rip the half of the deck in half again so he’s left with quarters, which is an incredible visual to see. There’s also a live performance with this trick too and he gets a spectator to follow as he does. He hands a deck to the spectator to rip in half and of course he can’t do it, so Eric shows how it’s done and then proceeds to rip the deck into quarters and then rips the other deck in half too. Fantastic responses!
Up next, there’s an interview with Eric and his magic style and talks about sideshow skills and things which have gone wrong whilst he’s been performing. He mentions in the middle of all that about fire eating and a guy called Shade Flamewater and it’s a small world as I’d met him and took his photo in the past too which should be on screen now. Shade is a fantastic fire performer. Me personally, I can eat fire and have various sideshow skills but as Eric says, it’s all about time taken learning and practicing and I don’t have the time free to be hammering these things to be amazing, so I’ll just stay bang average at my sideshow skills and leave the best bits to the people who do it day in and day out.
Next in the lecture, we have a section which features Eric smashing a tin on his finger and as if my magic, there’s no damage encountered to Eric’s finger which is a nice little trick which you can perform.
Following on from this, we have an early look at a trick which Eric released called Eye Candy and this was just called Kernel in the Eye at the time and it starts with some live performances of the routine and the main premise of the trick is that there’s some kernel’s in a TikTak box and then Eric swallows one and then it ends up coming out of his eye. Super visual and super creepy for spectators.
There’s a 5 in 1 transpo trick next which is where you take a five dollar bill and a one dollar bill and show them both. You put them both in a hand, take one out and then the notes are switched! Fantastic trick which Eric has as an EDC and I’d have loved to do the same, but we don’t have dollars here unfortunately, just plastic money.
Chopstick neck break is something which comes next and this is another sideshow feat which you can do. I did fire walking many years ago and my wife was chosen to do this very trick at the fire walk by the people hosting this, so I’ve seen it first hand and despite it looking dangerous and scary, it’s another visual trick to get spectators involved.
To finish off the lecture, there’s a talk with Eric about learning sideshow and where to learn it and that it’s actually quite hard because the sideshow skills and tricks are not as readily available as magic is, due to this usually being passed down in families and sideshow people, rather than it being public domain. There is some great stuff on the internet though for sideshow stuff if that is your thing, or you could just watch the lecture to learn some stuff from Eric.
– Positives
Let’s talk about positives for the lecture and this is right up my street with the sideshow stuff, as I love anything different and out of the ordinary and I learned some new tricks to perform myself, such as the can smash on your finger and also loved his thoughts on the human blockhead and I’ve also been buying some decks of cards to use to try and learn how to rip a deck of cards in half, as I think that’s such a great thing to do and not many people at all can do it.
– Negatives
What negatives are there? The fact that it’s only as long as it was is one for me, as I’d have loved to have seen more and more stuff from Eric and even more sideshow stuff, but I suppose we can’t have it all, can we? The transpo while it is good, it’s only something which can be done for people who have dollars and not used in the UK where I am, but I suppose I could always get some dollars and use those, but they always seem out of place and ‘funny money’ if you bring out money which isn’t from where you are.
That being said, this is a solid lecture from Eric Ross and definitely something which I’d advise other people to watch if this is your sort of bag. I guess with the lecture you get a small tutorial for eye candy too, so if that’s something you’ve been unsure about then you can see how it’s done and then choose to buy the trick to get the new gimmicks rather than having to use Kernel’s as show in this lecture.
Is there any other lectures which you’d like to see a review of on the channel? Please let me know in the comments and maybe I’ll pick up that one next and then shoot that review so you can see what you can get with the lecture before your purchase. If you love magic reviews, then check out one of the other ones on the screen now and until next time, see ya!