Combine a great close-up routine with an exceptional teaching tool, and you have a winner. Lance Pierce’s “The World-Famous Bowl Routine” explains a powerful “bill in lemon” act that provides a climactic moment to a strong “Benson Bowl” segment. Every move and word has evolved over thousands of performances, and Pierce thoroughly explains his routine in its entirety.
Pierce says that he had never before thought about writing a book on magic, but told himself that if he ever did, it would be the kind of book he wanted to read - packed with details and nuances that make a routine work. As it turns out, Pierce, as well as all magicians will want to read his book. “The World-Famous Bowl Routine” is among the finest magic teaching tools that I’ve seen.
Not a Lemon
To start, Pierce’s bill in lemon routine is a strong crowd pleaser. The magician borrows a twenty-dollar bill from an audience member. After the spectator signs his or her name on it, the bill disappears in a barehanded vanish. The magician then segues into a Benson Bowl routine, where various balls appear and disappear from under a bowl. The routine builds and at its end, the performer lifts the bowl to reveal a lemon. He cuts the lemon open and finds inside the borrowed bill-the actual, original, signed bill.
In addition to the routine, Pierce presents his entire patter and discusses timing, audience management, misdirection, which side of a table to work, sizing-up the audience and more. At certain junctions in the routine, Pierce even explains the various comments that he typically receives from spectators and offers appropriate responses. The text is not only an explanation on how to perform the sleights and routine, it’s almost an education in close-up magic.
Great Illustrations
The excellent illustrations show how to execute the moves. And Pierce has gone beyond. The pages of the book are divided so that the illustrations are on top and are independent from the text. While this is hard to explain, it allows readers to conveniently turn pages as they read the explanations, and still view the appropriate illustrations.
The book also comes with a first rate sponge ball routine, a well-choreographed and strong segment that offers lots of interaction. It’s one that Pierce himself has performed for some 20 years.
In “The World-Famous Bowl Routine,” Lance Pierce not only presents a couple of fantastic routines, he offers a complete education into the execution, presentation and psychology of them. It’s rare to come across a teaching device that so clearly stands above the rest.
-Wayne N. Kawamoto
