Cups & Balls

For anyone not familiar with it, there is an online community and magic forum called The Magic Café. It is a place for magicians: professional, amateur or beginner to ask questions and share thoughts. With 43,459 members it is a resource like no other.

I have found the people there to be friendly and generous. I read a post in one of the forums where an individual was asking about the Cups and Balls. He wanted to know whether or not it was worthwhile to learn and perform the venerable effect. One of the respondents on the thread urged the poster to keep working on the trick. The reason, he said, was that a good Cups and Balls routine by its very nature requires all of a magician’s best skills. Misdirection, pacing, timing, presentation, and
quality sleight-of-hand. Lots of sleight-of-hand. I agree completely. It’s been said that the measure of a magician’s ability can be gauged by how well he performs the Cups and Balls. More chops are brought to bear in this one effect than anything else I can think of. So this week’s Magic Friday sampling is the ancient Cups and Balls.
25 years ago I purchased a beautiful set of copper cups from the great Ross Bertram.
These cups sing beautifully when they contact one another. They also have a wide top so the Charlie Miller bit of business (with multiple penetrations) works as well on the top of a cup as it does on the table. The only drawback is the balls used must have a diameter less than an inch for the cups to nest properly. And a smaller ball can look a little less impressive sitting on a large cup. But I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
I choose not to polish my cups very often. I prefer them to be tarnished for two reasons. The first reason is because it makes them look antique. If it’s antique, it couldn’t have come from a magic shop. Right? Even though the cups are not tricky or gimmicked in any way, a shiny pristine copper cup seems too well cared for (If that makes any sense). The other reason is more practical. I took the small crocheted balls and covered them with foil a la Cellini. After a few layers I got the balls to be as large as possible while remaining less than the critical 1 inch diameter restriction. Because the cups are a bit dull with tarnish the foil balls show up brilliantly in contrast to them.

This also serves to make them look bigger canceling out the size restriction stated above. Retention of vision is nice too.
So 25 years ago I worked on Dai Vernon’s Cups and Balls routine. I don’t remember how long it took me to work it out, but eventually I had it down. The problem was, I was either too chicken to perform it for a real audience or the venue wasn’t right for it. And when I went back to college 20 years ago, my beautiful Ross Bertrum cups (along with all other things magical) got packed up into a trunk and remained there until last August.

All this week I have been feverishly relearning Vernon’s routine. Although there are 1 or 2 minor changes I would like to make to fit my own style better, but I decided to play the routine straight from the manuscript. There will be time enough for variation later. Right now what I needed was solidity. By Thursday night I felt I had it ready. There were only 2 minor parts I was a little squirrely about. But when I showed the routine to my lovely wife she was blown away. She did manage to recognize one of the mildly rough spots. So I stayed up a little later and smoothed out the 2 points that were bothering me. Now I was set.
The last two weeks I was a little discouraged because “Silk and Silver” and “3 Ball Transposition” did not play as well as I had hoped. This was going to be a test for me. I really needed a boost. Well, I got it. And then some!
All 5 performances today went very well. Not flawless but good and solid. I had two slip ups during the 4th performance. The fumble was during the very first move. Unfortunately it was not well recovered. I was forced to restack the cups, put the balls back in my pocket and start again. Once I hit my rhythm all was forgotten and forgiven. The other slip was easily recovered and looked like part of the routine. By the time I got to the end and final revelation, they were amazed and responded by
breaking into applause. My only worry at this point was I feared that my earlier error would get inside my head and interfere with the final performance. I have been paying very close attention to my performances and what can be improved and how. Indeed, that is why this blog exists in the first place. This is only a personal journal of my return to magic. The fact that it is online gives me a sense of a deadline. I know myself. If I tried to do this in a bedside notebook I’d have only 3 entries. At any rate, for the final performance of the day I stayed focused and hyperaware. All went well. A few spectators held up their hands with fingers wide apart indicating an enthusiastic “10”. I worked hard on the routine and it payed off. It was just the sort of encouragement I needed. It was a great day.