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At the Table Live Lecture - Jesse Feinberg

Jesse Feinberg

Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.

(Based on 2 reviews)

At the Table Live Lecture - Jesse Feinberg 11/5/2014

Jesse Feinberg is a true creative force in the world of magic. Having consulted for some of the top names in magic including the one and only Criss Angel, as well as produced mind boggling magic with the likes of Paul Harris, Jesse definitely has a story to tell. His magic is unique and baffling, with methods that will make you shake your head in disbelief. So prepare yourself as Jesse brings you into HIS world of magic. With effects such as:

Rip Off - A BRAND NEW, impromptu SIGNED torn and restored card.

X-Finger - Real permanent ink VISUALLY travels to a new location.

BLUR - A BORROWED iPhone screen becomes impossibly blurry.

McStraw - A super visual effect that uses an ordinary fast food straw.

Spell-O-Change - Make random scribbles on the cellophane of a deck of cards VISUALLY form into a written prediction. This one is EXTREMELY visual.

Coin Thru Box - Cause a BORROWED and SIGNED coin melt right through a regular card box.

Bits and Pieces - This is a section Jesse calls his "Inspiration round". This will be a discussion, demonstration of The Floating Card, The POP Card Change, The Ambitious Card and a NEW Mercury Card Fold.

PLUS! - Jesse will perform and explain some of his hit effects including Wedge, YaYa and Animate & Restore.

Reviews

Josh Burch

Jan 25, 2015

Jesse Feinburg is a young guy that has made a big name for himself. He has consulted for Criss Angel, and released multiple effects with Paul Harris. His magic is surprisingly practical and easy to perform. If you purchase this there’s you will be sure to take something away with you.

WTS (Performance Only): A mini Altoids container is opened and a Sharpie is produced. Jesse will be releasing this in the future. It is a utility gimmick that allows you to produce or vanish a Sharpie. The applications they talk about are impressive but he does not reveal anything pertaining to the method.

Spello Change: Scribbles on a card box slowly morph into a word or phrase that reveal itself visually. This is a simple, deceptive, visual effect that doesn’t take up any space in the box.

Coin in Box: This is a clean subtle coin through box. The coin is placed inside the cellophane, the box is turned over and the coin vanishes. It is then found inside the box. Using a similar gimmick you can switch out a prediction made on a box as well. I’m not sure about the idea to switch out a prediction but I do like the coin in box. It is clean, easy and non obtrusive. You might be able to combine both the Spello Change and the coin in box but I don’t see it as necessary or wise.

Yaya: On the DVD put out by Paul Harris you get a handful of ideas using this gimmick. On the lecture you will learn how to make a Sharpie lid vanish visually and reappear at your finger tips. The visuals are interesting here but I’m not sure if I love the effect.

McStraw: I know Dan Hauss has some work on this as well but jesse’s has some stark differences. Basically the red stripe on a straw slowly and visually changes yellow. You are then able to change it back to red, and you finish with one side red and the other side yellow. This is an interesting piece but I don’t see a really good place to perform it.

Call Box: A flat empty card box is displayed fairly, it is shown to be empty and the magician pulls their cell phone out of the box. Of course to perform this you do need a phone that can actually fit in a card box. There are some angle issues here but it is a completely normal box and phone.

Blurr: You can borrow a phone for this, the magician slowly erases the apps on a phone. Then they reappear instantly. The magician then makes one spectator lose the power to see the phone apps, but when it is shown to the rest of the audience the phone is normal. This is outstanding and completely baffling. I feel like this was the best piece in the lecture, if you have the right kind of phone (a newer iPhone) you have a great impromptu miracle without any apps. Jesse was not sure if it would work on Android phones, it doesn’t. My family all have Android phones of different models and it wont work on any of them as is. That doesn’t mean that with some work you can’t fix it up to get a similar trick.

Rip Off: A card is taken out it can be signed (I don’t see this as necessary) the corner is torn off placed in the magician’s mouth and it restores itself. Another corner is torn off and it appears in an impossible location. It is impromptu and only uses a single card from a borrowed deck. He makes reference to Blake Vogt’s Regeneration because they share some similarities, the credit really goes to Dalton Wayne’s Bite Me as his version of the same effect is much more similar. In either case Jesse has made removed the gimmicks. He makes reference to a Daniel Madison effect as well. Really this is a Jay Sankey idea that Madison has a lot of work on. Anyways, Feinberg's effect is unique and to the point.

Syncro: Jesse’s take on the Erdnase color change. Two cards change at once with a pass of the hand, you will swear he uses dupes but he doesn’t. This is super cool and I was completely fooled. You can use this to also reverse a card in a visual way.

Animate and Restore: This is a cool trick but he really struggles with the handling and slaughters the presentation. I’m not sure but they may have cut out part of the performance as well. The gimmicks involved are complex and I can’t see many performers using this. If you like this effect I would recommend checking out the DVD released by Paul Harris. It’s worth mentioning that Jesse really didn’t feel like sharing this but was coaxed into doing so. This explains some of the tough to watch performance.

Shadow Box (Performance Only): A card is selected and signed. The lights are dimmed and using the light from a cellphone you can see the shadow of everything in the box. The magicians finger enters the box and the folded up selected card materializes. This is neat, I can’t think of a professional performing environment where it would work. If you like this you will not learn it on the lecture. Instead you will need to check out the DVD put out by Murphy’s.

So that’s it you get a handful of funky fresh magic by one of magic’s most creative young guys. If you like the effects in most cases the methods are very practical with the possible exceptions of Mcstraw, and Animate and Restore. There is definitely stuff here that i would like to add to my repertoire.
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Dr. J. M. Ayala De Cedoz

Official Reviewer

Dec 19, 2014

This was a different lecture because it reminded me of the Dan Hauss lecture, only it was a lot more organized. Like the Dan Hauss lecture, this one had a lot of gimmick magic in it but that is not necessarily a bad thing and there were also some neat impromptu ideas presented.

Jesse also talked about some of his marketed items, such as ‘Animate and Restore’ and his new ‘Shadow Box’ effect, which was released the day of this lecture.

There were two different sets of clips shown of Jesse performing a couple of the effects on the streets and one of the effects was an impromptu iPhone effect, or rather, set of effects called ‘Blur’. The basic sequence starts off by visibly erasing the clock on your iPhone and the second is wiping away the icons on your home screen. No, the phone screen does not shut off for this, it is not an app and it *can* be done with a borrowed phone, but there is a caveat of having to set it up a little bit. If the borrowed phone happens to be set up just right, you can do this. If not, you must use your own. The third part of the sequence is reminiscent of a part of the Eugene Burger effect called ‘Ob-Ser-Vo’ except it is done with an iPhone and one person sees something that the other does not. In my opinion the third sequence was the best of it all and if I had an iPhone, I would do that part of it in tandem with another effect. Jesse shows how to set your phone up for these effects and also says that he was not sure if this could be done on Android phones. Also, it is unclear how long this effect will be possible because of the updates from Apple.

He shows some decidedly different impromptu effects and a very interesting idea with the Erdnase Change. What he came up with was a pseudo-penetration/transposition effect, which I found to be interesting because it is very similar to something I had come up with some time ago and was unsure what to do with it. Now I have an idea to play with.

Surprisingly, though not necessarily thoroughly, he does explain a few of his marketed effects such as ‘Ya-Ya’ and ‘Animate & Restore’, both of which were ‘Paul Harris Presents’ releases. Basically he showed you what the gimmicks are and how they work, and while you can buy your own gimmicks for ‘Ya-Ya’ and come up with a bunch of uses, the gimmick for ‘Animate & Restore’ would be hard to make because it has so many variables to it. Speaking of ‘Animate & Restore’ during the demo in the lecture, he quite obviously flubbed the effect and goes on to explain what happened and why.

Something that I found rather interesting was for just about every effect he demonstrated, he talked a bit about the background and evolution of each one. It is always nice and interesting to see a performer and creator discuss how/where and idea gets its start and how it evolves over time – it lets you in on the creative process of that particular person and while it may not match your own creative process, it can trigger various things in your own mind to help you be more creative.

The very last effect in the lecture was a demo of his ‘Shadow Box’ which at least to me looked to be a very “handsy” effect but overall, the idea is very cool and apparently it can be done anywhere with any objects as an impromptu effect. You do need the ability to dim or turn off the lights wherever you perform this or you need to have one really strong light to shine through a box.

Though not everything in this lecture was gimmick-dependent, if you like gimmicky magic you might find something in this lecture and if you are a fan of Jesse Feinberg, you will probably like this as well. Overall it has some pretty solid stuff in it if you work on a handling and a presentation for whatever you pick and choose.

4 stars.
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