Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Sullivan By Caroline's Spine

It looks like I've been heard again . . . or it's just an amazing coincidence. For $30.00 you get:

• A DVD with 90 minutes of performance and Instruction (5 routines)
• Envelopes
• Blank Faced Card
• Labels
• Frixion Pen

So the price is good, but is the effect? In a word, yes. In many words:

The basic concept is that part of a digital photograph on a borrowed iPhone is magically removed from the iPhone. Imagine you take a picture of the spectator holding her credit card using her iPhone. Then you make her physical credit card vanish. Then you show the picture on her iPhone of the credit card in her hand. Grab the iPhone and remove the credit from the image leaving behind only a picture of her empty hand. Remember, this is her iPhone.

It cannot be performed surrounded, and some of the effect require quite a bit of stuff to carry around. In some cases it almost seemed like the effect was all about how many extra props could be added to the effect. Personally, I would drastically streamline the handling and performance and props needed. However, one of the more prop-intensive effects does facilitate a really cool visual vanish of the playing card, so it might be worth it to carry around the extra stuff, but my guess is that I would still leave out most of the props.

The only other thing I would critique on this is the lack of crediting. The Frixion pen has been used quite a bit now (and had been as of the date on Gore's DVD - October 2010). Many, many magicians have used this pen. A handful (including myself) have published books and/or DVDs that are dedicated entirely to the Frixion pen. In my offering alone, there is a pretty comprehensive (though not complete) history of the Frixion pens magical background. That was published almost 2 years before this DVD, and most of the other works were published long before that, so even just a nod to a few other magi who've used this concept would've been appropriate. In any case, my book and DVD would have been a good resource to use for background or even just a quick query on the magic forums would have turned up something.

That aside, this is a solid effect, and it doesn't have to use the Frixion pen. There are many ways to apply this idea; Gore merely scratches the surface. The explanations and performances are well done and very clear and thorough. The nice thing about this is that you can truly have nothing on you, and borrow a dollar bill and an iPhone and do this effect. The only thing you'd have to have is a good bill vanish. Gore teaches a good bill vanish using an envelope. So if you wanted to carry some envelopes - they require some pre-show prep - then you can do the vanish taught on the DVD, but if you already can vanish a bill with no special props, then you can do this effect 100% impromptu with borrowed objects . . . that's killer.

You can do it totally impromptu with just about any small object that you can vanish and that will fit in the palm of the spectator's hand:

• Coin
• Dollar Bill
• Credit Card
• A Stick of Gum
• A Recently Detached Lizard Tail
• You Get The Idea

Final Verdict:
3.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem