Review: Magic At The Edge (3 DVD SET) by Jeff McBride

A true magic master, Jeff McBride is a soaring authority on sleight of hand, conjuring methods and presentation. This three DVD set is notable not only for its collection of strong effects that require minimal props, but it's worth studying McBride's philosophy towards magic, which he does with the help of Eugene Burger and Abbi McBride.

Much of the discussion talks about how McBride literally spreads the gift of magic through everything he does, even when he's not on stage. With this DVD set, you’ll not only learn some great effects, you'll improve your ability to involve others and entertain with magic. Many of the performance sequences were recorded at the Burning Man Art Festival with real spectators.

Disc one is titled "Magician 24/7." In the impromptu Tribal Piercing, you appear to push your thumb through your ear. It's a bit of geek magic that you can do anytime and just about anywhere. McBride also published this trick in Tom Ogden’s "Idiot’s Guide to Street Magic."

McBride offers several variations on the Magic Wishing Rainbow. Here, you produce a rainbow streamer from your empty hands, and depending on the variation, turn the streamer into a dollar bill for tipping or a rose. The trick is easy to learn and perform and relies on the usual method, and McBride offers insights into using the effect to connect with others and leave a physical gift, as well as the gift of a magic experience.

Abbi McBride teaches Magic Bubbles, an effect that she always carries with her. You blow bubbles into the air and catch them on your hand. A spectator chooses a bubble and finds that it's turned into solid glass and gets to keep it.

Hindu Rope/Rising Card offers a cool, completely impromptu card rise that you can perform using any deck and requires no gimmicks. This one is really good.

Most magicians will be familiar with the Bead & String Mystery. Here a string mysteriously passes through a spectator's finger. McBride offers a compelling theme that talks about breaking free from bondage and negativity and gives the bead and string to the spectator as a gift.

A fantastic card trick, World's Fastest Hands is a quick, two-card effect. You find two selected cards in almost no time and the first card appears to turn into the second card. An offbeat effect with a message, No Smoking involves the vanish and production of a cigarette and a theme that encourages others to quit smoking.

McWallet offers a strong signed card to wallet. The power of this routine lies in the fact that McBride mysteriously inserts the card into his wallet twice and to accomplish this, he teaches excellent and entertaining misdirection.

Disc 2 is called "Survival Magic." Abbi McBride offers tips on performing the strait jacket escape in Houdini Straightjacket. She offers great advice that makes the escape more dramatic and involving. McBride teaches a variation of Nate Leipzig's Magnetic Cards. Here, a series of playing cards are arranged on your hand and when you turn your hand over, the cards don’t fall.

Heart Connection offers an amazing transposition of two signed playing cards that McBride has turned into something of a heartfelt experience. McBride offers a discussion of the dancing cane in Prisna's Dancing Cane, but does not teach techniques or a routine.

An offbeat effect, in Shark Fin Pin you cause a safety pin to seemingly tear through the fabric of a jacket without harming it. While this sounds like that old trick that is in many beginners' magic books, this is different, very visual and intriguing.

Another effect where you give something to spectators, in Samina's "Into Gold", you cause a small block of lead that's held in a spectator's hand to turn into a tiny gold coin. As the name implies, in Trash to Treasure, you literally take a piece of litter and turn it into something more appealing.

McBride offers valuable techniques to produce or giveaway your business card in a magical way. Business Card Connection is an entertaining way to produce your business card that is based on a manipulation technique that McBride taught on his earlier manipulation DVDs.

In the Mcquick Tip Trick, your business card turns into currency and then you pull your business card from within the bill. A great trick to use when tipping.

McMINT offers an amazing "signed card to impossible location," in this case, the ending involves a breath mint case. While the effect is great on its own, this one is worth studying for the "convincer" that involves a torn corner. It's an impressive method that you can apply to any "impossible location" effect.