Sid Fleischman: Charlatan's Handbook

New Tricks -- Insider Sleights -- Stand-Up Comedies -- Magic Meeting Magic -- & Other Astonishments

"If you need your whimsy-battery recharged, read Sid's book." -- Max Maven

Here are unique feats of magical entertainment with story lines created by a whimsical novelist and patter lines written by a successful screenwriter — Sid Fleischman, in both cases. "By choice or by chance, you have discovered a magical gold mine," writes Genii columnist David Avadon in his introduction. "Savvy mystics will find career-making fancies worth far more than the price of admission."

"Crowd pleasing effects with clever methods and new presentations that will be embraced by beginners and experts alike." -- Bruce Cervon

Here in abundance is strong performance material for the comedy magician, the kid show worker, and the magic clubber starved for fresh bamboozla. Here, too, are user-friendly sleights never before in print, and brilliant new adventures with invisible thread.

"For every Merlin with the vision to turn a notion into a signature piece there is the slyest version of the needle trick ever," Avadon adds.

Between these covers are more than sixty-five works, with more than one hundred and seventy drawings and photographs.

"A great book. The No-Switch Needle Swallowing Trick is a work of genius." - Daryl

Contents

Introduction by David Avadon
COINS & STUFF
The World Famous Coin Swallowing Act
The Torn & Restored Cigarette Paper, Revisited
Harry Is At It Again
Ringbound
The 31-Day Coin Trick
Spoon Twisting
Lady McBathtub
Five Minutes of Voodoo
Coin Fade
The Bottle Diabolique
Beer
Perrier
The Bottle Fantastique
The Mean Magician Syndrome
The Longest Card Trick
The Fail-Safe Rope loop in thumb tip or attached to pull
CARD TRUMPERY
A Guide to the Gallows
Flash Mnemonics
Jimmy Valentine Returns, Blindfolded
The Princess & The Pea
You, Too Can Have X-Ray Eyes
Two New Card Reveals
The World's Greatest Average Card Trick
Beating the Odds
The Fabled Non-Working, Self-Working Card Trick
The One Card Repeat parody on Six Card Repeat
One-Arm McDonald Card Tricks
The Right-Handed Card Trick
Avadon's Absquatulated Card
A Flourish From the 30s
A Pocketful of Wry
The Wrong Way Card Trick
The Card from the Fly
An Aside on the Thumb Count
Weighing the Cards
The Machine Gun Color Change
The Pigeon Pasteboard
W C Fields Does a Card Trick
A Magic Club Roast
The Potato and the Card Trick
Card Gossip
The Poor Man's Orient Express
Join the ASCT
FOR THE MOVE MAVEN
The False Shuffle -- Who Needs It?
The Push Through False Shuffle Made Easy
The Zarrow Shuffle -- Fleischman Handling
The Carl March Shuffle
How Did That Card Get In My Hand?
Joe Berg Topping the Deck with Joe Berg
The Coward's Palm
The Fleischman Pop-Up Palm
The Camelback Palm
The Praiseworthy Bottom
Double Lifting
The Camelback Double Lift
The Fleischman Snap or The Wonderful One-Handed Double Lift
Piking the Card
The Thayer Glimpse
the Praiseworthy Pike
Thumbduggery
Center Stealing
Bottom Stealing
Color Changing
Crimpmeister's Crimp
The Chutzpa Crimp
The Fine Art of Card Shooting
The Fleischman Shoot
The One-Handed Shoot No. 3, deck held in hand, selection shoots up into the air
LAGNIAPPE
Adventures With the Three Shell Game
You, Too, Can Saw A Lady in Two, or, Five Minutes of Comedy Suspense with a Red Ribbon
The Lady Disrobes
Ring Business
AND A BONUS
The Fleischman-Avadon No-Switch Needle Swallowing Trick

Interspersed between the effect are fascinating illustrated glimpses of Sid Fleischman's personal history.

228 pages (Hardcover), 1st edition, 1993, published by L&L Publishing. Illustrated with drawings by Tom Jorgenson and photographs by Kevin O'Malley.