Cigar Chop'er
/I thought this was a great idea from supporter from. Salim K. It’s an alternative to Craig Petty’s Chop gimmick. I’m not really in the population that could use this regularly, but for those who are, I think it could have many potential uses (as Chop itself has many potential uses).
Here’s Salim’s email to me…
I performed a modified Abraham Presley from your 7.14.22 post last night. Every few months our core group of 5 guys go to dinner and smoke cigars into the night at one of our homes. I’d been preparing to make this my debut effect for them for a while now. 4 of them have never seen me do anything, 1 of them has.
My modification is super simple and ended up being excellent albeit very circumstantial for how we gather and interact which made it impossible for them to fathom. Instead of the Chop gimmick I took a 20mm x 1mm magnet with me. I had practiced and prepared the idea of nonchalantly sliding the magnet under a cigar label prior to lighting the cigar. I did this because I didn’t want to be there pulling a Sharpie out of my pocket (too unusual) and I didn’t want to fret with having to maybe swap for the gimmick if my friend had a Sharpie at his house which in and of itself was a risk. Using the lit cigar as the gimmick was just incredible. It allowed me to use any pen he could find at home and since we smoke outside in the dark ink matching perfectly wasn’t a concern. I just had to bet on him finding a black pen. I made my gimmick drawings using regular black pen instead of a Sharpie marker.
Made it seem like I literally created a monster effect with the same collection of stuff we always have on hand. They didn’t even fully realize I was performing until I was like 25% into it all.
Blew 4 of the smartest 50yr olds most people will ever meet completely out of their chairs, I wish I recorded it. —Salim
That’s the idea, sliding a magnet under a cigar band to use as a Chop-style tool.
I suppose you could also play around with the idea of slicing into a cigar and implanting a magnet inside of it. But then you’d have to somehow deal with the magnet as you smoked your cigar (or stop smoking it before you get to that point).
Obviously, if you don’t smoke cigars… you should start!
No. If you don’t smoke cigars, this idea may be of little use to you, unless you utilize it during a special occasion. Like one of those occasions where people who don’t regularly smoke cigars do for the evening.
But if you do smoke cigars, this is something you could use somewhat regularly. Not necessarily for the Abraham Presley routine mentioned above, but for any routine you could do with Craig’s Chop gimmick.
If there’s a weakness with Chop it’s that you have to be holding a Sharpie through much of the trick. You can often justify that. Or say you’re using it as a “magic wand,” but that can come off a little hokey in a casual performing environment.
But it’s perfectly natural to hold a cigar as you’re smoking it. That’s what you do with cigars. (Bill Clinton not withstanding.)
If you have an idea in mind for this, but you don’t smoke cigars, you could justify it by indicating you need the smoke for what you’re going to do, or there’s some scent-based Imp involved that clouds the spectator’s mind or heightens something in yours, or you could say, “I stopped smoking these years ago. But I allow myself one, on occasion, as a celebration… if I’m able to pull this off.”
