22 Blows to the Head
Jay Sankey (DVD)
#1 This is great mental magic. A lot of it is not as sneaky as a more pure mentalism, though, some of it could be. The effects in here are good and well taught by an ingenious thinker. If you are the type of person that gets annoyed by Jay and his style, this is no different and you will be annoyed. If you let this limit you from Jay's material then you would be missing out on some very clever thinking. This was my second ever Jay Sankey video. The look and the feel are OK. I much prefer more live demonstrations with people than I do Jay being the magician and the spectator. This is a problem I have with most of Jay's DVD's and I can get over that pretty quickly based on the material. I only perform about 4 items as routined by Jay of the 22 effects given. I also learned paperclipped from this DVD which is killer as well. I have not watched this video in some time. I will go over the routines and effects that I have used. Like most of the other reviews so far I do appreciate the thinking and the effects that are given and just because I don't use them does mean that they aren't good, it just means I scanned over them because I have something like them, i didn't like it or it has a sleight/working that is not good for me.
Greed and Homicide use the same concept which is very clever. I went with Homicide as it is a little wierder and more my style, though that's not necissarily true either because in performance Greed would be more appropriate for me. Basically the spec picks out and punches a whole in 4 of 5 envelopes. The one he does not punch has a picture of a stick figure inside. the others do not. Presentationally you can prove that the person does not have a propensity for harm. I do this effect for friends and have performed it at the club several times. It is really fun and is interesting as it is a little different.
Memory Lapseis clever indeed. It uses a widely used principle for business cards. I use this regularly in my act. I do not sell it as much as a mentalism thing as I do a memory test. Audience management is a great skill for this effect as you can really affect a person negatively if you don't choose the right spectator or you present it in an argumentative way. The effect is the spectator looks at a series of items drawn onto a business card. Once he is comfortable with remembering them he signs off on the card and the card is given to his friends. After a short beat and the magicians magical gesture he states all the items aloud. But he leaves one out, though he'll swear he remembered. When he sees the card he will see the one he has forgotten. Again this is great thinking on a known principle. I like it a lot.
Mercurial PredictionA freely chosen card is named from a blue deck. There is a red prediction on a paperclip. The card on the paperclip matches the card named. This is Jay's paperclipped. It is a great effect and worth the price of the DVD. I do not use this effect as it stands but I use the principle of paperclipped and Jay's full view switch. Brilliant thinking. There are better sources for paperclipped if you are not familiar with a lot of magic and this is early on but, if you have been in a while and get some concepts the Jay's teaching of this is just as good as any other source. Nice work on this one Jay. Awesome effect.
Mute is a great effect. I found all the items needed and the sleight is so easy and deceptive that this effect has been a worker for me for quite some time. The idea is you show Jingle bells that don't jingle, well except for the one that the spectator picks up. Again this one is wierd but the impact on the spectator is great. It uses strange props, but the props are liken to rubber bands in that they are already magical in a way. If you have this DVD and you haven't tried this you should, it's fun!
Laying on of Handsis another effect that I loved. It is really strong and the principal behind is so simple. This effect kills and works well with the Anytime/Anywhere concept. You can do this with a borrowed deck or SDIU (shuffled deck in use). Three predictions are made; a card is thought of, a card is selected and cards are predicted while the magi holds the pack. More of Jay's brilliant thinking but this routine is routined so well it is hard to beat in tough situations. This is hands down the effect I use the most from this DVD.
Shuffle cut dealis another good effect. I used it for a while and dumped it when I was getting rid of some of my card stuff. simple and can be done impromptu as well (well preparation can be done on the fly as long as there is a card box..) The deck is shuffled by the spectator and placed in the box. The magician makes a prediction. the cards are removed and dealt fairly on to the table by the spectator. The spectator then deals the cards into three piles the cards match the prediction.
Formal affairI thought that a spoon bend in a handkerchief would fall flat on an audience. Boy was I wrong...Dead wrong. This weekend (April 17th to be exact) I was at a local magic event and I saw a friendly acquaitance of mine perform this and it killed the lay audience. It is not the bend or the business card effect but the way the effect is routined. A picture of a spoon is displayed on a business card and a spectator initials the bowl of the spoon. A spoon is then placed into a handkerchief. the handkerchief is swung. The spoon in the handkerchief is bent the card is shown and the picture of the spoon has bent as well. Very nice and I will be working on this in the following weeks. I admit I was dismissive of this until I saw it in the real world.
OverallThis is a good DVD. There is some usable stuff and the effects are relatively simple to do. There are some that require elaborate setups and others that require gimmicks but everything is solid usable material. The filming and the sound were watchable and Jay covers a lot in a short amount of time but it's a well done video. I got a lot out of this video and I think you could to.
http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=786 Hope you found this review Helpful,
Adam
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