Hieronymus Bosch: The Conjurer, 1475-1480

The cups and balls is a classic of magic with many adaptations. The effect known as acetabula et calculi was performed by Roman conjurers as far back as two thousand years ago. One popularly circulated painting of a man holding two inverted cups over two small round objects has been taken as evidence to suggest that the effect dates back as far as Ancient Egypt, though experts now doubt that is what the picture shows. Download high resolution version (1576x1313, 217 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1576x1313, 217 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Hieronymus Bosch, (latinized, actually Jheronimus Bosch; his real name Jeroen van Aken) (c. ... “Illusionist” redirects here. ... Khafres Pyramid and the Great Sphinx of Giza, built about 2550 BC during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom,[1] are enduring symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeastern Africa concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River...

The most widely performed version uses three cups and three small balls. The magician makes the balls pass through the solid bottoms of the cups, jump from cup to cup, disappear from the cup and appear in other places, or vanish from various places and reappear under the cups (sometimes under the same cup), often ending with larger objects, like fruit, or even chicks or mice, appearing under the cups.

A typical cups and balls routine includes many of the fundamental effects, such as vanishes, appearances, and transpositions. A convincing performance also requires many of the basic skills, such as misdirection, manual dexterity, and audience management. Because of this, learning the cups and balls is often considered an almost complete education in modern magic entertainment. Misdirection is a form of deception in which the attention of an audience is focused on one thing in order to distract its attention from another. ... A little dexterity is helpful in working with knitting needles Look up dexterity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Instead of cups, other types covers can be used, such as bowls or hats. The classic shell game con is taken by some to be a variant of the cups and balls. ^{[citation needed]} A shell game is performed with bottle caps on a cardboard box, on Fulton Street in New York City The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch. ...

Performance and variations

Cups and Balls uses many of the basic techniques of magic: palming, false transfers, sleight of hand, and misdirection. The performance of the effect and construction of a routine is a complete study in the art of magic. Palming is a technique for holding or concealing an object in the hand. ... Sleight-of-hand, also known as legerdemain, is a technique of close-up magic in which small items are concealed in and around the performers hands, sometimes by the use of misdirection, to enhance the illusion being performed. ...

A basic routine is to start with a ball secretly concealed in the palm, the cups being nested in a stack. The three cups are set down in a line with the concealed ball being now under the center one. One of three visible balls is put on top of the center cup and the other two cups nested above. With a tap of the wand, the three cups are lifted, revealing that the ball has "penetrated" the cup. (There is now a new ball secretly concealed in the center cup). Again the cups are set in a line, the middle cup covering the ball which has already penetrated making two balls there, while the audience thinks there is only one ball. Another of the visible three balls is placed on top of the centre cup and covered with the other two cups, the cups being tapped and lifted to show the second ball has penetrated. This is repeated with the third ball at which time there is a ball still secretly concealed in the cups, and the performer is ready to go into the next phase, perhaps making use of the extra ball.

For a sleight of hand routine, a typical move is to transfer a ball from the right to the left hand, really retaining by finger palming it in the right. A cup is then lifted to show there is nothing underneath and when it is put down, the finger palmed ball is released under the cup. The ball is now shown to have "vanished" from the left hand, and the cup lifted to show the ball has "traveled" there. In skilled hands, the illusion is perfect.

Many other secret moves are possible. These include the loaded lift where a ball is pressed against the side of the cup with the little finger as it is lifted, effectively showing the cup empty, and an extraction steal where the cup is set down over a ball but the little finger removes it to a palm at the last minute before the cup comes down. In this way, the performer is always ahead of his audience; the appearance and vanish of balls being quite miraculous. It must be stressed however, that the actual performance of these moves convincingly takes months and years of study and practice.

In the basic effect, often three balls are on view but as noted above there may be a secret fourth or fifth ball which the audience doesn't know about. The balls are made of soft material so you can't hear if a secret ball is in the metal cups. At the end of the effect, the performer will often "load" large balls or fruit inside the cups for the climax. A load is a secret move which puts the object inside the cup, usually when the audience is misdirected (e.g. by another ball appearing).

Traditional

The traditional Cups and Balls effect is three balls appear and are each placed under a cup. The balls then jump from cup to cup, penetrate through the cups, and gather under a certain cup indicated by the spectator. The performer continues to do this up until the climax where he lifts up the three cups and there are 3 oversized balls under each of the cups.

Many performers have modified this effect, for example, making the balls jump from the pocket to under a cup or producing more than three large balls. Many consider Dai Vernon's handling of the Cups and Balls to be among the most entertaining and influential, as his routine extended the scope of the effect and produced unexpected loads, such as fruit.

Gazzo Macee, (aka Gary Osborne), has also influenced the theory and thinking of the traditional cups and balls routine by performing an extended routine, sometimes over thirty minutes in length, and producing large fruit loads and a melon. While more traditional performers executed their routines in silence, focusing all the attention on the penetrations, Gazzo used the cups and balls as a tool to induce a lengthy comedy routine into his street magic performances. This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Other modern performers have even gone as far as to making changes to the number of cups used in the effect. Tommy Wonder, for example, only uses two cups. Some performers have even gone as far as to performing the Traditional Cups and Balls with one cup (though this is different from the Chop Cup routine).

Chop Cup

A fairly modern development is the Chop Cup. This cup has a magnet inside and a magnetic ball is used. The ball will stick in the top until the cup is set down with a little bump which releases the ball. The ball then "appears" when the cup is lifted. This cup was invented around 1954 by Al Wheatley who performed with his wife in a Chinese-costumed act called "Chop Chop and Charlene." The Chop Cup is a variation with one cup and (apparently) one ball which only requires a small flat area to perform, unlike the considerable table space needed for the classic three-cup routine. The Chicago close-up magician Don Alan performed his streamlined Chop Cup routine on television and was immediately copied by magicians all over the world. The Chop Cup can be handled entirely by the top, fooling people who know about loads.

Penn & Teller

The magic duo Penn & Teller performs a unique version of the cups and balls trick in their act. Initially, they perform the trick with small aluminum foil balls and plastic cups. The trick usually involves switching larger foil balls under the cups, and ends with an object, such as a potato or a lime, under one or more cups. They then repeat the trick using clear plastic cups, claiming that they will reveal how to perform the trick. However, as part of the joke, they do the trick so fast as to make it difficult to follow. They claim that this version of the cups and balls breaks all four rules of magic - Not to tell the audience how a trick is done, not to repeat the same trick twice, not to show the audience the preparation, and the unwritten rule never to perform the cups and balls with clear plastic cups. They claim this version of the trick got them kicked out of The Magic Castle. Penn & Teller at the 1988 Emmy Awards Penn & Teller are Las Vegas headliners whose act is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. ... Aluminium foil (aluminum foil in North American English) is aluminium prepared in thin sheets (on the order of . ... The tone of this article is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. ...

External links

• James Riser: Selecting Cups
• Youtube: Penn and Teller's Cups and balls