Jeff McBride: Card Throwing Superstar

Decades ago, in a Genii review of one of Jeff McBride's early Mystery School stage performances, I observed that "McBride can do more with a single playing card than most magicians can with a ton of equipment. Of course, McBride doesn't produce a single playing card. He produces a thousand. Or so it would seem."  In crafting this observation, I unwittingly stumbled upon one of McBride's fundamental magic philosophies.  The magician, long one of magic's most creative forces, a disciple of magic giant Eugene Burger and a venerable teacher of the art, entreats his students to "do the most with the least" during magic performances, offering a stage act using equipment that fits in a satchel or even an eyeglass case.  And those diminutive items are imbued with outsized emotion and power: in this master magician's hands, a tissue paper heart becomes a moving symbol of heartbreak, and its beautiful, transformative restoration an effective remedy for hopelessness.

Card throwing has long been a central part of his compelling stage performances.  Those performances blend a variety of body movement styles -- kabuki, martial arts, dance, mime and puppetry -- with impeccable sleights.  McBride is pure magic, a kaleidoscope of color, movement and energy that imbues each effect with wonder. The result is beautiful, funny, fascinating, and frightening.  McBride doesn't simply perform, he entertains, holding the audience rapt in each new movement.

His adherence to a pack-small, play big philosophy helps explain McBride's fondness for card throwing.    Using handfuls of cards, he creates an explosive onstage display showcasing a series of flourishes and using card scaling as a dramatic finale.  Here's a sample:

As you can see, he doesn't throw cards so much as "shoot" them, using one hand to both hold the deck and propel the cards with his thumb, in rapid-fire fashion.   As featured in the title of his video on the subject, the cards "Zoom, Bounce and Fly" all around the theater.   Indeed, among his many honors, Jeff was awarded a Guinness book record for the most playing cards thrown in one minute - scaling 106 pasteboards more than 12 feet in 60 seconds.

The magic doesn't end with the onstage display: those lucky enough to catch one of these cards (in fact, your correspondent caught two of the cards pictured here) are afforded an opportunity for even more magic.

     

 "The Many Faces of Magic" card is the one currently used by Jeff in his exhibitions.   The "McBride Magic" card was used by Jeff in  2001.   Both cards use the Internet to bring the art of card throwing to a new level: the web addresses on these cards guide lucky recipients to an interactive web interface revealing their fortune.   These keepsakes are, therefore, packed with more entertainment than any other throwing card, permitting audience participation to continue long after the show ends.


In preparing this entry, however, I recalled a masked throwout card from Jeff's early days which I had seen in Kardwell International ads appearing in old magic magazines, like those seen here.


This card is extremely rare -- indeed, I had never seen an original version of the card.    Jeff recommended that I ask Tobias Beckwith, an accomplished magician, artist, director, consultant and producer,  who had created the original design.  Tobias, whom I have known for many years and has always been a supportive fellow, searched through storage boxes for me to come up with a deck of these cards.  The results of this mission can be seen in the images below, which I present with thanks to Jeff and Tobias.

McBride has also become a legendary magic teacher, operating the McBride Magic & Mystery School which provides world-class training and seminars in legerdemain.  Having recently attended the Magic & Meaning conference, I can attest to the inspiring vitality and sophistication of the school's offerings.  More to the point, he has shared many of his card throwing secrets by offering items to performers interested in pursuing the art of card scaling.   In particular, his video, "Zoom, Fly and Bounce" DVD, along with a certain secret something that can also prove of assistance, are available here.  He even offers these cautions regarding card throwing safety as a public service:

And as Jay Hunter recently recalled in this post on throwing card trivia, the great Howard Thurston could have benefitted from McBride's sage advice, having been sued for injuring an audience member struck in the eye with a flying pasteboard.

Your correspondent with Jeff McBride, IBM National Convention, Grand Rapids MI, July 2018

A few other facts about Jeff McBride that I can provide through personal observation: his enthusiasm for our art knows virtually no bounds, as he gets as exuberant about a good story line or pocket effect as for a groundbreaking stage illusion.  He also happens to be a really nice guy.   It therefore gives me great pleasure to salute this grand master of the throwing card tradition, who has proven to be a great teacher and friend.

Judge Brown

Harrison Greenbaum's Stuck on You!

There's just one problem with Harrison Greenbaum's magic performances: he's just so funny that you're likely to forget -- or miss -- the subtlety and sophistication of his conjuring.            

But more on that in a moment - first I need to cover today's unusual offering.  The item depicted here is not a throwing card.   It is is business card-sized, but it is not a business card.  As its purveyor would likely shout in a mock-enraged stage rant "It's a sticker!"  And so it is.  For collectors, such an item should be highly sought after, as it is so very ephemeral (fans tend to apply and discard stickers, making them rare).   Showcasing a sticker is unusual without being unprecedented here:  we featured a sticker on the Bamberg page.

A second aspect of this keepsake also renders it unusual for its inclusion here: it makes no mention of magic.  Accompanying the genial portrait, the front reads "This is Harrison," followed by two notations "He does comedy" and, on the reverse "He likes you too."    The reverse lists a variety of social media references which have become so very important for contemporary performers, (which we'll examine in a subsequent post about Jeff McBride) particularly one that, like Mr. Greenbaum, offers more than 600 performances per year.  

And just like this collectible, Harrison Greenbaum defies easy categorization.  As a visit to his site, harrisongreenbaum.com, confirms, Harrison defines himself primarily as a comedian, which is where, unquestionably, he developed his performing chops. According to his bio, he began performing stand-up comedy while studying psychology and English at Harvard (a fact he often cites self-deprecatingly as part of his performances). A summa cum laude graduate, Harrison was the co-founder of the Harvard College Stand-Up Comic Society.  And he is a superlative comedian, featured on NBC's Last Comic Standing and America's Got Talent.   

Make no mistake, though, his conjuring skills are equally impressive.  Clues to his magic pedigree can be discerned from his bio -- he won an award at Harvard for his magic book collection.  Indeed, he maintains a separate magic website which includes the following magic credits:

Harrison offers his vision of the Mental Epic by Hen Fetch.

"As a magician, Harrison was named one of "today's best" by Newsday and tours around the world as one of the stars of The Illusionists: Direct from Broadway, the biggest selling magic show in history. The most requested performer at Monday Night Magic, the longest-running- Off-Broadway magic show in New York, Harrison has also performed at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the Mystery Lounge in Boston, and was one of only 30 magicians chosen to perform at the International Festival of Magic, Illusion, and the Unusual in Louisville, Kentucky. He is also the proud winner of the Senator Crandall Award for Excellence in Comedy, given out annually at Abbott’s Magic Get-Together in Colon, Michigan. Harrison is a counselor at Tannen’s Magic Camp and has been an advisor to the Society of Young Magicians in Boston and New York for almost a decade."

At a recent performance at which he was the headliner, Harrison offered sophisticated, complex and beautiful magic pieces, accompanied by his frenetic comedy.  His set included some classics, such as his unique twist on the Mental Epic, a flawless and funny newspaper tear, a bizarre and hilarious add-a-number routine and a celebrity prediction that still has me scratching my head.  His effects were thematically linked in a nuanced way that nearly escaped my notice amid his razor-sharp wit, performing energy and gales of laughter.

At one point,  Harrison unleashed a sticker upon a particularly quirky audience volunteer (a man who claimed to be from Australia, Los Angeles and New York, and who proved incapable of describing his very strange job).  The spectator was clad in a tee shirt featuring a portrait of a snarling tiger.   The performer produced a sticker, peeled it and pasted it over the tiger's face.  "There, see, now it's not so scary!  My sticker helped," he quipped, in a tone of faux-derision, but belying the performer's efforts to not break out laughing.  "It's a picture of me, not of that scary tiger!"

After the show, Harrison let me in on his plan -- which he has since shared with his fans via a posting -- to have his fine portrait made into a lapel pin, and was choosing between the following designs:

Harrison explained that these can be produced at a modest cost.  When they come out, I'll want one!

I first encountered Harrison at Monday Night Magic, a permanent magic venue founded by my friend Michael Chaut.  In creating Monday Night Magic, Chaut was able to accomplish what others -- including top performers from magic's heyday like Houdini and Carter the Great -- could not: he established a permanent venue for magic in New York City.  Monday Night Magic has been running for more than two decades, powered by the energy of performers like Greenbaum.  Just a note to those in or around New York City, and those planning a visit -- go see Monday Night Magic.  If you check the schedule, you might catch Harrison Greenbaum there!  You won't regret it!

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Postscript - December 2017

After sharing this post with Harrison, he kindly send me one of his new pins, hot off the press (and, in his words, that's assuming that lapel pins are made on presses!).  It's a terrific keepsake.  Take a look:

The card on the left is a business card on which the pin is mounted over his face!  Thanks again, Harrison!