The Egg
in the Magazine
I showed
this effect for the first time in a lecture
in Pittsburgh in 1955. There's a lot to recommend
it because without a shadow of doubt, the Egg
in the Newspaper means more than a little to
the lay audience. They recognise a broken egg
is a messy thing and hard to contain so, if
you pour one into a newsprint receptacle, they
imagine it must be very hard to hide the traces.
When you not only do that but also give them
a laugh, you get that much more appreciation.
The magician
shows a popular magazine and flicks through
the pages. Laying it aside he breaks an egg
into a glass. If you have just done something
like the Stodare Egg Expose you can get a further
effect out of the broken egg. One thing it's
hard to use again is a broken egg! The magazine
is lifted again and opened. The egg is poured
into the pages. A cigarette-lighter is passed
under the magazine. On leafing through the pages,
the egg is discovered again...but this time,
it is fried.
 Find a colourful, glossy-covered magazine. In Britain,
the publication "She" is a good example. In
ten years time, it'll probably be something
else. The most important adjunct it must possess
is that the stapling must be in TWO places.
That is to say, where it is stapled in the centre
folds there must be about 5" to 6" between the
two staples.
Procure
some disposable plastic bags. I get mine in
Woolworths where they are sold to wrap up sandwiches.
Make sure they are long enough to allow two
or three inches or more to protrude when you
slip it under the centre fold and between the
two staples. With some Scotch tape, fix it so
that the mouth of the bag lies in a get-at-able
position just inside the pages. With some good
paper paste such as "Grip-Fix" or rubber cement,
stick all the edges of the centre two double
folds. As you look at the magazine opened at
the centre fold in front of you, the situation
should be this. You see an unsullied double
page, but behind this there lies a plastic bag
which extends from about one-half inch in from
the edge and across between the centre staples,
through to the other side.
If you
leaf through the pages, it won't be seen because
you have glued all three edges together in these
two centre folded pages. But, by separating
the end which has the opening of the plastic
bag, you can gain access to it. With the double-sided
Sellotape, affix the fried egg to one of the
pages.
The magazine
is flicked through and shown as normal. The
long edges are upwards as you close the magazine.
Opening it at the pages which hold the bag,
you pour in the egg. As you hold it up sideways
and leaf through the pages, you will come to
the egg stuck to the centre page. Remove it.
Meanwhile, the egg has had time to run down
to the bottom of the bag. If you show the rest
of the pages you can place the magazine down
on the table with no bothers since the bag has
been folded and thus trapped the egg into the
bottom of the bag.
Several
points. The plastic fried eggs can be easily
bought in novelty stores. I didn't honestly
think you'd use a real one, but some funny people
read magic books. When you stick it to the page,
take care not to affix it too firmly, otherwise
when you remove it you might find the page will
tear and expose the plastic bag behind.
In dropping
the egg into the magazine, make sure the mouth
of the bag is well open. It helps the egg to
land almost down at the fold so that it has
little traveling to do to get past the centre
fold. Try to hold the magazine high enough so
that the audience can't really see that you
are dropping it into a pocket rather than between
the folds of the pages. To help in opening the
two pages to get at the bag, I cut one page
slightly shorter than the next one in the centre.
It looks so bad if you are seen to struggle
to find the "right place".
Check
the stapling. If it seems weak or if the weight
of the egg is liable to cause the two centre
pages to tear away from the existing staples,
it may be surer to restaple them again out towards
the edge of the spine. Four staples should easily
hold the weight of the average egg.
Try to
pour the egg in from a height so that everyone
can see it go in. One man I saw poured an egg
into a newspaper with the lip of the tumbler
half-buried in the folds. The whole time he
held his hand around the glass so that you couldn't
tell whether the egg ever went in or not. Come
to think of it, when he put the glass onto the
table, he put it behind something... I've just
had a dreadful thought.
He wouldn't
have!!! He MIGHT have...!!!
EXTRA
BONUS: If you are impecunious, you can slip
out the plastic bag, throw away the magazine
and take the egg home for frying. It will be
quite clean.
If you
are up against it, you can also tear out the
centre stuck-together pages, re-set the new
plastic bag between the next two, paste the
edges and you are all set to go again with the
same magazine.
P.S.
When you come to the cover - STOP. Don't push
your luck!
|
