On Tuesday night, I gave an impromptu performance at The Newest Trick In The Book, put on by the Toronto Magic Company and hosted by the charming Jonah Babins. I had just come from another event and had been asked to step in for another performer who couldn’t make it. You can see photos from the event from David Fulde here).
Toronto’s magic video elf Chris Mayhew shared the video of that performance:
The Endless Chain is an old crooked gambling game. As Whit Hayden and Chef Anton described in their monograph on the subject, the most difficult thing to do while presenting the Chain is to convince people that it’s actually possible to win.
Normally it’s presented as a piece of close-up magic (and you can imagine it would be much clearer if you could be sitting around watching the chain from above). But from the composition of the rest of the show, which was heavy on card magic, I opted to switch to this, literally on the walk up as I was being introduced. But it felt true to the rules of the Newest Trick as it’s something I’ve never performed in that setting before.