223306325 Gregg Webb Feen X Sample

Excerpt From Gregg Webb's Feen-X: 2001, Issue #13 Sample Trick at FEENX.NET pg 1 of 4

Welcome to the real new millennium. Newcomers need to be advised that you'll get used to thenon-slick look of this rag. It was deliberate, so that I could stay on schedule as one man.

Bear in mind that the material will be good. I decided to make the illustrations only enough toconvey the idea. Forgive the typos. Onward and upward!

Effect: Miracle-monger shows two spoons cleanly, one at a time, and bangs each on the table toprove solidarity. One begins to get soft and rubberybut the performer stops and lets it chill outand it returns to normal and is set aside as a "control."


The second spoon starts to get warm, and then HOT. Then IT starts to get rubbery and wobblylike the first, but then this one goes even farther by starting to droop until the bowl end seems tobe just hanging on by a minute amount of molten metal and then drops off entirely. The handlepart is set down...too hot to handle. After everything cools, all objects can be examined.

Required: One spoon that has been bent back and forth until it breaks completely. A matchingspoon that is left intact.

Also, a modicum of acting ability. A tad.

Performance: This is self-contained. No refills. Make the items up once and you're done. I likethis for the same reason that I tend to like coin routines with no gimmicked coins. Also, manyroutines of this kind either required the right amount of stressing but not breaking, or involved anextra piece that had to be lapped, sleeved, or palmed off. This is direct and ends clean.

The second drawing shows the beginning situation. The gap between the two parts of thebroken spoon is concealed between the left first finger pad and ball of thumb of the left hand. The2nd spoon, ungaffed, is between the left first finger and second finger.

Sometimes my opening line is "No, I'm not going to play the spoons - I want to show you howUri Geller bent spoons with his MIND," and sometimes I just use the second half of that.

Take the bowl of the regular spoon with your right hand and slide it out of the left hand AWAYfrom yourself. Use your right thumb to push the spoon forward so that your grip is more on thehandle as you turn the spoon over to read "Made in USA" on the back. I credit this to a JamesRandi procedure. Bang the spoon drum fashion on the table to enforce solidity.


Put that spoon back in the same grip in the left, remove the right for a blink, ..and here comes asubtle bit of business. You will draw out the same spoon AGAIN and gripping the bowl from thefront and drawing out AWAY from yourself hides this. This must be practiced to be very smoothand it feels like the rope count in Prof. Nightmare. Don't look at your hands, and also, after theswitch, there is a fake finger movement of the left second and third fingers, AS IF READJUSTINGTHE GRIP, yet nothing really does happen. It is just a very minor flutter or twaddle of those twofingers, but you aren't looking at this.

By now you've turned the SAME spoon as before - which the audience thinks is the OTHERspoon - over, and again read "also Made in USA" and proceed to bang on the table, really again,but the viewers think you are repeating the procedure with the other spoon.

Now, a pretty thing, and something you know as a trick with a wand or pencil to make it lookrubbery and wobbly by way of an optical illusion. Adjust your grip of your right hand on the regularspoon about in the middle. By moving your right hand up and down fluidly, and in a straight path,continuously, and varying the tightness of your grip until it is "just right," you will create the illusionof the regular spoon getting all limp and bendy. You'll want to practice and perfect this, becausewhat we are doing is causing the REGULAR spoon to behave in a "supernatural" way before weeven get to the other set!

Say something like, "It gets very warm and starts to melt...BUT, if I stop at this point, it goesback to normal and I'll leave this for later comparison as our CONTROL."

That use of the rubbery wand or pencil is a big part of making the whole thing play in Peoria.

Second Spoon: Without even moving your grip you are ready. "Same thing with this one," yousay as you appear to do the same thing with this spoon as with the first. Remember, you have twoseparate parts held as one, with the gap held pinched strongly between left first finger and thumb.

First move your left hand up and down with very little wobble because you maintain strongpressure in your pinch. Progressively release pressure and the "wobble" becomes morepronounced.

"If I think 'Melt Melt'...LOOK!" Relax your pinch even more and the handle droops and the bowldroops on the other side. With care, you can see to it that you retain more control over the handle,so that the handle stops sagging, but the bowl end droops even more. A gently rocking action tothe hand causes the bowl end to swing to and fro as if held by only a thin strand of metal. Actuallyit is just an illusion caused by the now very weak pinch. The left second finger can help preventthe handle end from falling.

Saying "it is getting very hot now" - pure suggestion - you finally let the bowl end fall to thetable. "Look...it is still melting, but it'll cool off quickly now" is a likewise suggestion.

Drop the handle as if it is hot. SUBTLY rub your left fingers and blow on them and give thehand a little shake - all without overacting. (Less is more. Practice and rehearse this.) And you areDONE.


I performed this at a college, and a science professor came up and asked me "Where do youhide the battery for that spoon trick?" And I looked at his eyes and face carefully to see if he waspulling my leg. Not.

He wanted me to know that he didn't believe it was REAL, but he went for a scienceexplanation. What? I had a battery hidden in my pocket big enough to melt metal? Wires to myfingertips that nobody saw? This told me that he didn't catch the real work at all. A non-scientistasked me, "Are you altering time and space or not?" If you must know... it was later than when Istarted the show, and earth had hurtled probably thousands of miles through space since the startof the show.

This particular routine was still new. I judged the trial a success and know it will just get betterwith time as I live with it and hone it.

I don't like to put the work in honing something until I really believe in itbut this is a keeper andit suits my way of handling that other methods don't. It is more like a good coin routine now. Ithink that is the main personal reason for liking it.

* END OF EXCERPT *

Note: Please do not distribute copies of this document to others.Copyright 2001 & 2005 Gregg Webb and Doug MacGeorge

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223306325 Gregg Webb Feen X Sample