Effects:
Silver Quick (Derek Dingle)
You display four coins on your left palm, your other empty hand is over your spectator’s outstretched hand. In an instant, the spectator feels a coin travel across to their hand. Now you only have three coins in your right hand. This happens three more times until all of the coins have traveled across. This is an alright routine, but it seems repetitive to me, because the actions are about the exact same for every coin that goes across. Also, I’ve never liked routines where the magician holds their hand over the spectator’s so that a coin can appear “in their hand.” This just isn’t my cup o’ tea. If you do want to perform it, however, you will need a standard coin gimmick.
Sirius (Andre Robert)
A card is selected and shuffled back into the deck. Then the spectator and you eliminate cards until only one remains; of course it is the selected card. This is only one of the endings that can be applied to this effect. Essentially, you can use it as any card location type effect. It seems like a good effect, but it utilizes a faro shuffle and something that I don’t like very much. I can’t do a faro shuffle consistently, so this effect is, for the most part, unusable for me. If you are able to do a faro shuffle, then I think you should take a good look at this.
Break Up (Les Shore)
A silver dollar is displayed on your left fingertips. The right hand shakes the left, and the half dollar visibly and audibly splits into two half dollars. I liked this effect because of the visual nature and the open handling employed. It’s very quick, but like many of the shorter coin routines in Apocalypse, it could be incorporated into a larger routine. The moves are pretty easy, I got it down after trying it just a few times. This effect is similar in effect to Sol Stone’s effect, A Bird In the Hand, but the method seems much better in this version. Play around with both and see which one you like better.
Flippant (Looy Simonoff)
This is an interesting, utility color change. Perhaps you have seen Oz Pearlman perform this in a demo video. Basically, you flick your wrist and the top card changes visibly. You can also do this as a delayed change; when the spectators don’t actually see when the card change. I actually like doing the change this way, rather than visually. Either way you do it, it requires a bit of a knack to master it. I’ve been working on it for a while, and I still am not able to do it consistently. When practicing it, make sure not to do it many times in a row because it will become much harder to do the move after doing it so many times. Just set the cards down, do a few hand exercises to make your hands feel fresh, and then practice some more. Also, Harry gives some good suggestions to get the most out of this change.
The Winter Change (John Cornelius)
This is another card change that looks completely different from Flippant. A lot of you are most likely familiar with the mechanics of this change but you may have not known where it originated; right here in Apocalypse baby! To the audience it looks as though you are holding the face-up deck in dealer’s grip in your left hand, and then your open, fingers-spread, empty right hand waves over the deck, causing the face card to change to a completely different card. This is quite possibly my favorite color change that I find myself doing most often. It is well-worth your time to learn it.
Columns:
Editorial
This is simply a message to the readers thanking them for their support and asking them to contribute their effects. It’s not much use now, obviously.
Guest Tidings (Frank Garcia)
This is a hilarious story about a “magic” act that portrayed the act of Jesus being nailed to the cross, for real! This is a must-read!
Closing:
Ah, yes. Christmas time is here (UPDATE: It was when I wrote this), and everybody is in a cheery mood. I’m in a particularly happy mood, because I’m getting the third Apocalypse book! Finally I will be able to say that I have all of Apocalypse. I’m getting a warm feeling as I type this right now!
Buy Apocalypse for everything in this review, as well as TONS (like 500) other effects.
My Magic Reviews 