Price$20.00
Media TypeBook
CategoryClose Up
Date AddedMay 13, 2011
Bullet Party - The Book
Bannon, John
(Based on 1 review)
First, “Bullet Party,” the next installment in Bannon’s “fractal card trick” series. High impact packet magic that ends clean and examinable. Follow the Ace and ignore the Jokers—if you can—before the bullets start flying and all four cards change. Complete with subtitles.
Second, “The Bullet Catcher Routine.” Five unusual Ace routines to be done together or separately. Produce. Re-produce. Assemble. Change. Disassemble. You won’t look at the genre the same way again.
Third, a cache of false cuts and shifts, impromptu card tricks, and a significant revision to Bannon’s faux-poker fractal matching trick, “Poker Pairadox.”
Bullet Party- A fractal blast. Follow the Ace and ignore the Jokers—if you can—before the bullets start flying. Complete with subtitles.
Bullet Catcher - Cut-the-Aces-from-a-shuffled pack. Fire when ready.
Drop Target Aces- Aces, buried alive, return with a vengeance. The future is here.
Four Shadow Aces- Classic Ace assembly, shaken not stirred. Smooth and sophisticated.
Flipside Assembly- An Ace assembly too weird for words. Approach with caution.
Big Fat Bluff Aces- Aces assemble, change to Kings, then disassemble—or do they? Low cost, high bluff, all fun.
Box Jumper-An illusion. Her card (lost in the deck) changes places with your card (in the card box). Presto.
Fat City Revisited- Fine-tuned card sandwiches. Maximum efficiency.
Poker Pairadox Redux- Classic stacker made fractal. Looks and smells like Texas Hold ‘Em poker—but it’s not. Instantly resets.
Question Zero- Ask not the thought-of card. Or anything else for that matter.
Elias Multiple Shift- Bannon’s handy touch on a classic sleight.
Crocodile False Cut- In the hands, no table required. Fast, false and user-friendly. Snap.
Flytrap False Cut- False and fabulous—a standout from Bannon’s DVD B*A*D.
Reviews
(Top ▲)
I really enjoyed this book of clever card magic. It is well written, photo-illustrated, inexpensive, and there are plenty of tips and references to explore. All of the tricks are worth studying, and in typical Bannon style they emphasize straightforward, economic methods. There's no knuckle busting here, but they'll still require some work, and deservedly so.
If you're a fan of Steve Reynold's Seek 52, you should also get Bullet Party, as Bannon builds on a few of Reynold's effects in this book.
I'm only going to tip you off about one of the items that I loved. Simply because it's the last item and isn't a trick, so it's easy to overlook. The Flytrap False Cut is a little bit flourishy, but it's a pretty in-the-hands utility move that I immediately started working on. Try it out for yourself.
I also enjoyed Bannon's discussion of presentational strategies for card magic, which is slipped into the chapter on Four Shadow Aces. Instead of avoiding presentations that hinge on "the adventures of the props in the magician's hands," Bannon suggests strategies for embracing the situation by emphasizing the uniqueness of the demonstration. A very useful way to add texture to your show.
Overall, I was really pleased with this book and I recommend it. However, I'm a little befuddled by how it relates to the Bullet Party DVD. Some of the tricks are repeated, so perhaps Bannon is catering to those with strong media preferences. As a bibliophile, I'm really glad to have the printed material, but Bannon offers no explanation to reassure me that I'm not missing anything. Am I supposed to buy both the book and the DVD? Likewise, he asserts that some of the card tricks are "fractal," without explaining how he's using that term. Based on the dictionary definition I can guess, but if Bannon has some insight into how this applies to magic, or maybe just card magic, I wish he'd made it explicit.
If you're a fan of Steve Reynold's Seek 52, you should also get Bullet Party, as Bannon builds on a few of Reynold's effects in this book.
I'm only going to tip you off about one of the items that I loved. Simply because it's the last item and isn't a trick, so it's easy to overlook. The Flytrap False Cut is a little bit flourishy, but it's a pretty in-the-hands utility move that I immediately started working on. Try it out for yourself.
I also enjoyed Bannon's discussion of presentational strategies for card magic, which is slipped into the chapter on Four Shadow Aces. Instead of avoiding presentations that hinge on "the adventures of the props in the magician's hands," Bannon suggests strategies for embracing the situation by emphasizing the uniqueness of the demonstration. A very useful way to add texture to your show.
Overall, I was really pleased with this book and I recommend it. However, I'm a little befuddled by how it relates to the Bullet Party DVD. Some of the tricks are repeated, so perhaps Bannon is catering to those with strong media preferences. As a bibliophile, I'm really glad to have the printed material, but Bannon offers no explanation to reassure me that I'm not missing anything. Am I supposed to buy both the book and the DVD? Likewise, he asserts that some of the card tricks are "fractal," without explaining how he's using that term. Based on the dictionary definition I can guess, but if Bannon has some insight into how this applies to magic, or maybe just card magic, I wish he'd made it explicit.