Zauberhafte Verkehrserziehung

Autobahn
Wer in diesem Symbol einen Hasen im Zylinderhut erkennt, ist hier richtig!

“Der Zauberzwerg”-Macher Volkmar Karsten lässt uns in seinem wunderbaren Blog zur Kinderzauberei gerade quasi live an der Entstehung seines neuen Programms zum Thema Straßenverkehr und Verkehrssicherheit teilhaben – ein spannendes Experiment.

Hier sind ein paar lose Trick- und Gag-Ideen von mir zum Thema, teilweise aus alten Notizbüchern zusammengetragen:

  1. Am Zauberstab ist eine Fahrradklingel befestigt, die vor jedem Zauberspruch betätigt wird.
  2. Der Zauberer kommt mit einem halben Fahrrad auf die Bühne, bestehend nur aus Vorderrad, Gabel, Lenkstange und Lenker, außerdem einem Ständer zum Abstellen. An der Lenkstange ist ein Korb für Requisiten angebracht.
  3. Die “Economy-Variante” besteht nur aus Lenkstange und Lenker mit Hupe oder Klingel, womit der Künstler unüberhörbar in den Saal “einfährt”.
  4. Eine “magische Fahrradlampe” entwickelt ein Eigenleben und geht scheinbar immer wieder von selbst an oder aus.
  5. Ein Riesenzauberstab entpuppt sich beim Entrollen als tragbarer Zebrastreifen.
  6. Zur „Entstehungsgeschichte“ des Zebrastreifens kann man natürlich auf den Trick “Zebra Silk” zurückgreifen.
  7. Aus einer als Ampelkasten dekorierte Fantasta erscheint Stück für Stück das kompliziert-skurrile Innenleben einer “modernen” Ampel, oder sie dient fortlaufend der Produktion benötigter Requisiten.
  8. Mit Goldins “Double Color Changing Silks” oder auch den Chinesischen Schnurstäben kann der kreative Zauberer “magische Vorläufer” der heutigen Ampel präsentieren.
  9. Mit ein paar kleinen Verkehrshütchen (auch “Leitkegel” oder “Pylone” genannt; gibt’s im Spielwarenhandel) lässt sich nicht nur die Spielfläche themengerecht abgrenzen; auch ein spezielles Becherspiel kann damit vorgeführt werden.
  10. Mittels einer Schülerlotsen-Kelle kann man selbstverständlich prima einen Kellentrick vorführen – mit maximaler Sichtbarkeit!
  11. Auch eine grell leuchtende Warnweste bietet sich als thematisch passendes Requisit an – vielleicht für eine kleine Quick-Change-Einlage oder eine (wie auch immer begründete) Befreiung oder Entfesselung?
  12. Von Thomas Vités bekanntem “Exit”-Trick besitze ich die Variante, bei der das Schild am Ende aufgeklappt wird und dort die Abbildung eines Polizisten zu sehen ist – und der Künstler steckt seinen eigenen Kopf  durch ein Loch im ausgeklappten Kartonbogen und wird dadurch zum Polizisten!
  13. Der großartige britische Kinderzauberer John Kimmons (“Kimmo”) bietet einen wunderbaren Vorhersagetrick namens “The Big Race” mit Kinderbeteiligung an, und eine der Varianten stellt ein Autorennen dar. Nicht ganz verkehrsregelkonform mit Kindern am Steuer, aber ein großes interaktives Spektakel, das z.B. immer das Geburtstagskind gewinnt!
  14. Aus den (dank lateralem Denken, s.o.) teilweise zweideutigen Verkehrszeichen lässt sich ja die eine oder andere pikante Geschichte für Erwachsene erzählen (erhältlich unter dem Titel “Die Sache mit dem Verkehr”, glaube ich); mit etwas Fantasie lässt sich auch etwas Lustiges und Kindgerechtes entwickeln, wobei gleichzeitig wichtige Informationen zu einzelnen Verkehrsschildern vermittelt werden.
  15. Alternativ ist es möglich, nach dem Prinzip des “McCombical Decks” eine wunderbare Schilder-Übereinstimmung (mit Aufsitzer) zu inszenieren.
  16. Ebenso könnte auch der bekannte Kartensteiger auf dem Zeichenblock („Cardiographic“ von Martin Lewis) mit Verkehrszeichen vorgeführt werden.
  17. Das Thema „Feuerwehr“ fasziniert viele Kinder. Warum nicht mal die eigene Seilroutine als „Der widerspenstige Feuerwehrschlauch“ vorführen? Ein auf dem Kopf festgeschnalltes Blaulicht sorgt dabei für große Heiterkeit!
  18. Ein abschließender Gedanke: Ein reines “Erziehungsprogramm” zum Thema Straßenverkehr ermüdet nach einer halben Stunde vielleicht sogar die größten Streber unter den Kleinen… Warum daher nicht auch einen Trick einstreuen, der noch morgens zuhause spielt, also vor dem Schulweg, oder dann später in der Schule? (Mein “Pausensnack Mental” bietet sich da beispielsweise an, mehr dazu an anderer Stelle). Außerdem lassen sich so auch noch problemlos weitere Requisiten wie z.B. ein Schulranzen, eine Brotbox oder ein Tafeltrick ins Programm integrieren.

 

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Revealed: Magic Tricks Displayed on Playing Cards (4)

Click here for Part 1, here for Part 2 and here for Part 3!

The final take on exciting research revelations from the Schaffel College for Industrial Pasteboard Paraphernalia in Ryffling, Denmark on the magic tricks which artists shown on our familiar court cards have supposedly been performing for up to hundreds of years, yet unnoticed until today!

Further Pasteboard Secrets

Despite the important breakthroughs in magic and playing card history featured in the previous three episodes, some other court card motifs remain the subject of intense scholarly debate for the time being, explains visiting postgraduate fellow, Tang Acapao, who also happens to be a passionate card magic amateur. Here they are:

Jacks of Diamonds and Clubs: Pole Levitation?

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In some cases, the diagonally mirrored images of all court cards make it difficult to identify the provenance of the originally featured magic trick, especially when both arms or hands would actually exercise the same movements. That’s why, in this case here, the pasteboard researchers are still debating whether the Jacks of Clubs and Diamonds are both performing an early version of the two-hands pole levitation, as junior researcher Les Kerfol speculates in his forthcoming B.A. thesis.

Queens of Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds: Flower Act?

It is also conceivable that the three Queens holding flowers so obviously inconspicuously in their hands were actually three sisters performing a lavish act with spring flowers or are shown here right after performing a choreographed triple silk-to-flower effect. Researcher Anna Gramm is still devoting much of her scholarship time to this particular florid question.

Joker King on a Bicycle: A Grand Illusion?

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Another mystery yet unsolved: Why is the USPS Joker depicting another King, and why is he riding, among all vehicles in royal possession, an ordinary bicycle? “We have yet to determine when and how the first bicycle prototypes were introduced to the French and English Courts,” says the teams’ documentation officer, Sheldon Gitlip. “We are also checking some Court magicians’ papers for possibly lost information on early productions of performers using vehicles. But it really takes a maximal maven to find that needle in a haystack!”

Team leader Gioberto Robbi and his young research assistant, Farhad Fahrar, however, are on a different trail here. “The banishment of Philadelphia from Berlin and his famous exodus through the city gates got us thinking,” Robbi says. “Maybe a fun-and-riddle-loving King like Louis XIV of France rode out of his lavish ballroom at one end, while his then still unknown, but not yet incarcerated twin brother reappeared at the other end two seconds later, thus demonstrating the King’s legitimate absolute power over time and space to his astonished courtiers!” He hastens to add, “Of course this is, unlike our other findings, pure conjecture at this point.”

We hope that time will tell and that these imaginative, undisputed card experts will continue to unshuffle further secrets at Schaffel College, and you will make up your own mind about this paradox pasteboard pocus!

Be that as it may, but from now on you will certainly look at your familiar court cards from a different angle, won’t you?!

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Addendum:

Some more facts you probably didn’t know about playing cards (with a big thank you to the real Reinhard Müller!)


 

Revealed: Magic Tricks Displayed on Playing Cards (3)

Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2!

Further exciting research revelations from the Schaffel College for Industrial Pasteboard Paraphernalia in Ryffling, Denmark on the magic tricks which artists shown on our familiar court cards have supposedly been performing for up to hundreds of years, yet unnoticed until today!

King of Hearts: Jastrow Illusion (held vertically!)

KingofHearts_frame

This discovery tracked down over time by researcher Juanita Marz triggers another necessary rewrite of a chapter of magic history: Obviously, the venerable optical illusion described first by Joseph Jastrow in 1892 had already been around for one hundred years plus before that and was performed as an amusing diversion and paradox at royal courts! “Had the pieces been held horizontally and parallel to each other, we would have advanced much quicker on this magic way,” admits Marz.

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In this context, the third hand with a presumed sword in the background, behind the King’s head, has been identified as a large knife, which was probably used to cut a long strip of paper into two pieces of equal length before performing the illusion.

King of Spades: The Indian Rope Trick (under Glass!)

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You have to marvel at both the ingenuity of the creator one hundred or more years ago and of the scholar who finally unlocked this genius mystery! Likely 999 out of 1,000 contemplators of this card would claim that this King was simply holding his sword and looking at it somewhat quizzically, if not hypnotically. But, owing to her intimate knowledge of magic history, Fay Knjus, the youngest member of the research team, had a sudden brain wave “right after studying Dr. Samuel Hooker‘s legendary illusions,” as she recalls. “Then suddenly it dawned on me that what we had always decoded as an ordinary sword was in fact a piece of string rising under a glass dome in best Dr. Hooker fashion! Both the strange shape of the dome and the uncommon knob for holding it had been misdirecting us for a long time.”

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Further research has yet to determine whether this strange design was caused by slip of the drawing artist or an imprecise briefing, or whether these artful versions of early portable glass domes simply got lost over time.

A tiny dot way up the rising string on an early print run of these cards may indicate that a little boy figure was probably once attached to it, maybe climbing to its top before vanishing, just like in the centuries-old famous story of the Indian or Chinese Rope Trick.

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Check out the final Part 4 with more exciting discoveries!


 

 

Revealed: Magic Tricks Displayed on Playing Cards (2)

For Part 1, click here!

Further exciting research revelations from the Schaffel College for Industrial Pasteboard Paraphernalia in Ryffling, Denmark on the magic tricks which artists shown on our familiar court cards have supposedly been performing for up to hundreds of years, yet unnoticed until today!

King of Diamonds: Palming Cards

KingofDiamonds

This image was more tricky to decipher than the others for the researchers, as it was hiding its secret in plain sight! But team member Liam Erdnus finally cracked the code: The artist’s hand is evidently shown empty, yet the body profile (necessarily turned sideways) and the familiar position of the flat hand and the fingers tightly pressing against each other can only lead to one scholarly conclusion: This artist is an early master of the back palm, and he is just about to make a playing card (or even more?) appear!

KingofDiamonds_close

According to research fellow Grennart Leen, it is not unlikely that this particular image served as the inspiration for young Harry Houdini to bill himself as the “King of Kards” in 1895. He also sharply rejects the notion recently suggested by Prof. Silke Kloeppelt from the University of Yarnmouth that the diamond pip is supposed to represent a red handkerchief which has just appeared out of the the artist’s empty hand, unfolding in flight. “This idea is really off-center! It escapes me how any serious scholar of our pasteboard art could come up with woofledust like that,” Leen says in the upcoming paper in Glibecière.

The Jack of Hearts: Color-Changing Silk

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This image has fooled and mislead many a scholar — until now! Traditionalists among cardboard historians have always held up the romantic belief that the Jack of Hearts represents a sensitive, woeful lover writing moanful poems to his mistress crush with a quill. Duh!

Magic researchers know better now. Just look at the tight grip of the hand: “You don’t hold a feather in an unnatural position like that when you want to write something,” explains junior researcher Reinhard Pithart-Muellinger. Thus, the closed fist likely covers an early dye tube, and what we see is the artful display of two different silks as one in order to perform the now classic color-changing silk trick!

It is wisely assumed that the lower tip of the silk was once printed in red color to emphasize the effect in action, but this detail obviously got lost over time in the declining craft of fine printing of playing cards, as it moved on into the age of less careful mass production.

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Check out Part 3 now with more exciting discoveries!


 

 

Revealed: Magic Tricks Displayed on Playing Cards (1)

Cardicians and card historians, take notice: Recent research conducted at the Schaffel College for Industrial Pasteboard Paraphernalia in Ryffling, Denmark has revealed astonishing facts about some of the key images of our beloved standard poker playing cards: Most of the men and women on court cards are actually portrayed performing magic tricks! And the biggest trick of all: This open display of the magical skills of some Jacks, Queens and Kings has gone wildly unnoticed in our card-crazy community for at least 100 years!

“In the light of these exciting revelations, the history of some classics of magic may need some serious reshuffling,” says Gioberto Robbi, research director and current chef artist in residence at Schaffel College. The results of his team’s research are currently under benevolent peer review and will likely be published in an upcoming issue of the renowned magic history magazine, Fibecière.

Thanks to our tightly-knit global research network, we are happy and proud to offer you an exclusive sneak preview here over the next few days. Read along and marvel with us why we all haven’t spotted these obvious performances from the past before?!

The Jack of Spades: Paddle Trick

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His magic prop is obviously a paddle, likely made of wood, big enough for good visibility in the spacious parlors and ballrooms at any Renaissance court. The artist displayed here is left-handed and just about to execute the paddle move.

JackofSpades_close

Robbi and his research team believe that the diamond shape in the middle of the paddle could not only be made to appear and disappear, but also to jump freely to the top and the bottom of the paddle. This is possible due to some clever flipping mechanism probably furnished by Johann Gaugann the Elder in the early 18th century! (Further proof pending.)

The Queen of Spades: Torn and Restored Paper

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Once set on the magic trail, it doesn’t take an expert to realize that the female artist on display here has just torn a royally imprinted sheet of fine handcrafted paper, and she is about to magically restore it instantly.

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Notice the flowers which are held in each hand, apparently serving, just like a magic wand, for misdirection and for the concealment of the secret paper ball in one hand!

Robbi speculates that this trick may have been a simple forerunner of the later and more elaborate illusion of cutting, burning and restoring a royal silk handkerchief.

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Check out Part 2 now with more exciting discoveries!


 

 

The Horst Vegas Magic Chalk Talk (7): Tricks in Magazines

Horst Vegas, self-proclaimed Senior Boy Wonder of Magic and an unfailing Lota Bowl of Wizzdom, shares another of his tinny-tiny Golden Showbiz Rules & Recommendations:

Most trick descriptions in magic magazines make three kinds of people happy: the authors, for seeing their name in print; the editors, for having filled at least two dreaded pages without much ado; and most readers, for thinking „I could have come up with something better (if only I would)!”

The Horst Vegas Magic Chalk Talk (6): Tricks

Horst Vegas, self-proclaimed Senior Boy Wonder of Magic and an unfailing Lota Bowl of Wizzdom, shares another of his tinny-tiny Golden Showbiz Rules & Recommendations:

In these times of stimulus satiation, headline news and constant eye candy, we are well advised to re-evaluate our traditional tricks-per-minute ratio and to consider quickies rather than „slowies,“ visual magic rather than verbal, and multiple effects rather than one trick ponies as the new norm, exceptions granted.

Vanishing Julian Assange

Let’s not get too political here. Let’s simply state that WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange has been living and hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than three and a half years now (!) in order to avoid being arrested by British authorities and, subsequently, turned over to Swedish or U.S. authorities. His future path is uncharted and most likely stony.

Now, if you were an illusionist like David Copperfield or Franz Harary and called in for help, how would you make him disappear from the embassy without his guardians, his persecutors, and the press bloodhounds noticing in due time?

Having just watched several old TV specials by Copperfield and the late great Paul Daniels, I would have an idea or two. (O.K., Jim Steinmeyer would probably come up with 27 solutions at once.)

If someone were to pull this off – can you imagine the hoot and the headlines?!

This is not your grandfather’s egg bag trick. This is not the latest poor poo-poo card move. This is truly magic with a meaning!

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Tricks & Ideas (9): Copper/Silver Sugar

Have you experienced this, too? Sometimes the magic seems to happen out of itself and to jump right into your face, just like that (to quote Tommy Cooper here).

I was sitting in an unfamiliar café somewhere down the road, absent-mindedly pouring sugar into my cappuccino, when I realized that all the sugar packets in the basket only seemed different but were in fact identical, each carrying one design on the front and another, distinctly different one on the back.

A minute later, I was able to perform an impromptu miracle on my unsuspecting family by making two different sugar packets transpose in my closed fists, and they were duly impressed (much more than with many of my well-rehearsed marvels, I hate to admit), at least for about five seconds.

Unsolicited advertising: You can order these Hellma sugar packets in 1,000s directly from the manufacturer here.


For more Tricks & Ideas, click here.