 |
Home/Salesroom/Al Schneider PDF Books |
|
| |
Here is more about me and Zombie than you probably want to know. These are bits and pieces followed by a description of the contents of my Zombie book.
A long time ago while I was living in Detroit, a magic club in Windsor, Canada presented a magic show. I was attending a community college at the time and invited an attractive classmate to go with me to watch it. One of the performers was Neil Foster. He, of course, did his famous Zombie routine. I remember watching it and marveling at how beautiful it was. I thought that I would never be able to do something that beautiful. While I was watching it I experienced many strange sensations. A notable one, or several notable ones, was piercing sensations in my right arm. While watching the silver ball float about Neil Foster, I felt the points of several daggers digging into my upper right arm. I looked down expecting to see nothing, assuming it was some reaction to what I was watching. My date had both hands on my upper arm digging her nails into me. When I looked at her she said, "How does he do that?"Hmmmm. I guess that means she liked it.
After that I did not think much about Zombie routines. They seemed simply impossible to do. And time passed. Along the way I was trying to put together a magic show. At the time I was really into manipulation. However, the only kinds of shows that were really available for a person of my talent were Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquets. To me they were brutal. You set up in front of them, you stood there in front of them waiting to go on and you even had to perform in front of them. After doing one or two I decided that any tricks to do for them must be able to be done surrounded.
Along the way I went to an IBM meeting at a meeting room in a hotel in downtown Detroit. At this meeting someone did the Linking Rings. You are wondering what this has to do with Zombie. Well, please hang in there with me. My point of view of traditional magic was that the performer would come out with a table full of stuff, reach in, pull out a trick, do it, and put it back. The guy with the Linking Rings modified this a bit. When he went up on stage he had a bag in which he kept the rings. Upon stepping on the stage, he got the rings from the bag, did the routine and put the rings back into the bag. The routine was very nice. I think he did the six-ring Vernon routine. The point here is that the trick was self-contained. It was a unit that was very well done and a self-contained package.
Now let's jump to another incident. It occurred while hanging around the Fox Fun-n-Magic shop owned by Karrell Fox and Roy Kissel. One Saturday Mr. Fox was playing around with a Zombie ball. It went under the cloth down near the floor. He acted as if he were looking for it. Then it moved up quickly and hit him in the chin. It looked really cool. I never forgot that simple move.
In fact many simple things he did on Saturdays at the magic shop stuck with me the rest of my life.
Since these events occurred, there have been several times I have seen someone do Zombie. They normally looked horrible. The ball did not look like it was floating but instead looked as if it was attached to the person's body with a steel rod.
Now let's put this all together. I wanted to do kids shows. There was a need to be able to do them surrounded. I was also into manipulation. I loved that gag that I saw Mr. Fox do in the magic shop. Then, I had an idea why most Zombie routines looked terrible. Finally, I wanted to package the routine into a unit like this guy with the bag of rings. These were the factors considered as I started building my own Zombie routine.
This gets complex, so I'll just relate what the result was.
The routine became a package. The wire is permanently attached to the ball. There is no get ready. You retrieve the ball, cloth and wire as a unit, do the routine and put them away as a unit. Somewhere along the way I realized that what makes the ball appear to float is your body language. Many magicians take the approach of having the audience see the ball do things. In my routine the cloth usually covers the ball. Then the illusion of floating is created by how the body moves, not some maneuver of the ball between your legs or behind an arm. And then, all this was aimed at being able to do the routine surrounded. And the concept of ball-body coordination became apparent. This principle dictates that when the ball moves your body doesn't. When your body moves the ball doesn't. If you obey this principle the ball appears to float.
All of this required about six years of effort. Zombie is the most difficult trick I have mastered. I had various routines, most of which were incomplete. When I was fairly accomplished with it I found myself living in Minneapolis. One evening I was going to go to an IBM meeting at a YWCA downtown Minneapolis. I wanted to do a Zombie routine. While getting ready to go to that meeting, I formulated the sequence I would use. The sequence I used that night is the one I have used since then.
One year I took it to "Abbot's Get Together" in Colon, Michigan. At the time I was driving a motorcycle, which everyone thought was very strange. Every time I bump into Jay Marshall, he asks me if I still drive one. After awhile that question became quite irritating as I assume it was intended to be. Anyway, since I didn't have a car and I am not good at planning I had nowhere to sleep during my stay at the convention. After bumping into a few people and asking where I might crash, I ended up sleeping on the floor in some large room with about ten other magicians. One of them was Abb Dickson. This is when the trouble began.
We were all sitting around late at night chatting and Abb says to me in a rather surly way, "Al, I hear you can do Zombie surrounded?" I replied to the affirmative. He said something about that not being possible. One thing led to another and everyone voted that I should be put to a test. Hmmmm. Maybe it was Abb that decided that. Anyway, the plan was to have all ten guys surround me while I did Zombie. If anyone saw anything they would sound the alarm. No one said what would happen if someone sounded the alarm. However, no one said what I would win if no alarm was offered. Anyway, I did Zombie surrounded. By the end of the routine no one said anything.
I guess they were impressed. But things got worse. Abb pulled me aside and asked me if I would do him a favor. I said, "Sure". He asked me to get up on the stage in the showroom the next day and do Zombie. He said there would be someone to announce me. However, I had to wait until he gave a signal.
The next day I carried my Zombie ball with me to the stage and waited for a bit. Someone came up to me and said they would announce me. They did and I did the routine. No one seemed to notice what was going on. Later I found out what had happened.
Here is the story Abb told me later with a mile wide grin on his face. He said he was hanging around Neil Foster. Neil was quite busy so Abb had to wait for the right time. When Neil had a spare moment for Abb, Abb gave the signal for me to do Zombie. So Abb and Neil were watching me do the routine together. Abb says to Neil, "Hey what do you think of that?""You know he does it close-up!" "You know he does it SURROUNDED!"Abb said that Neil turned his back and walked away saying, "Well, someone had to do it someday."
Moving on.
One day I went to a magic convention in London. In a late evening event I was standing somewhat away from the crowd where it was a bit quiet. A slender good-looking guy came up to me and offered to shake my hand. I did not know this person. He said his name was Tommy Wonder. I was not familiar with the name. He said he was glad to meet me and that my book on Zombie inspired him to develop some routines that had become quite popular. He asked if I had seen his work and I replied I had not. He said he would send me a tape of one of his routines.
Some weeks later, back in the states, I received a package in the mail. It was a VCR tape of Mr. Wonder doing a floating birdcage. Apparently Mr. Wonder sent a tape of the routine to Max Maven and asked him to convert it to an American formatted tape and send it to me. Well, the tape I got was not in a box. The tape was simply wrapped in paper. One corner was completely crushed. To get it to work I had to carefully load it into a player. It worked enough to watch once.
I was very impressed with what I saw. I wrote a letter to Mr. Wonder telling him that the magic on the tape satisfies one's desire to see magic well done. I got a letter back from him that was very nice.
As time passed I received the two books he had put on the market. They are very good and anyone that wishes to complete their magic library should have them. I am very impressed with Mr. Wonder's thinking and attention to detail.
However, there was a problem. One of the books presented his method of doing Zombie. In his method there is a mechanical pivot inside the ball to enable the ball to remain motionless while the hand is moved. This seems to me to be a bit limiting for there is a slot in the ball only allowing the gimmick to move in one dimension relative to the ball. This limits the overall motion of the ball to a couple of dimensions. The gimmick seemed to accomplish something that my routine did with manipulation of muscles in the hand and wrist. I am at a loss to understand why a gimmick should be utilized to do something that can be done without a gimmick and done much better. I thought it was a step backward for the effect. He did give me credit for contributing inspiration for this method. However, this credit was expressed as if I had a subtle thought about how some object might be caused to appear to float. The suggestion is that he carried it to its full potential with this mechanical device. However, I see it as something that has very limited motion. My perception of Zombie is that the ball can float all around your body. It can turn and twist in about five dimensions or more. It can also move with speed and personality. Indeed, in my hands the ball develops a mischievous personality, which taunts my very existence. It does not behave in my hands but violates my will at every chance. It even strikes me in the chin to express its independence. Hmmmmm.
Moving on.
When people speak about my version, they often refer to it as the Close-Up Zombie. I had never applied that name to it. Actually I did not create this routine for magicians. As mentioned, I was trying to come up with a good trick to use at Blue and Gold banquets. My fellow magicians applied the name after doing it a few times at magic conventions. The first was at a "Magi Fest" in Columbus, Ohio. This was the first time I did anything before a group of magicians. The convention management was short one close up performer for the next day's performance. Jay Marshal was kind enough to suggest me. I was hired on the spot. My next task was to do the show. Having been to many close-up shows before, I knew the table would be packed with a large crowd. I also knew all performers would be in the same room and the noise level would be high. Well, I am a quiet guy and not accustomed to handling all that noise and I feel sorry for the folks in back that can't see over the heads of those in front. I decided to do rings, golf balls and the Zombie. Not only that I decided to do it silent. It seemed to go over quite well. I later found out that the management of the convention was very upset with what I had done. Oh well.
But from that point forward the Zombie became a part of my close-up show. I closed my act with it. At the end of my show I would push my chair back a bit and do the routine while standing behind the table. Trust me when I say that it sells very well.
There are a few memorable occasions of doing the trick. I normally perform at private parties in people's homes. I have my own room someplace in the house and set up about chairs in front of my table. At one show a lady sitting in the second row ducked behind a chair screaming, "It's going to get me, it's going to get me." Long ago I had occasion to do magic in the close up room at the Magic Castle. Most of my shows were jammed with people. There were even people standing to the left and right of the room in front of the regular seats. If you have been there you know that the room is not very large. When I did "Zombie" my ball whipped to my left about six inches from the person's face on that side. This occurred show after show.
And by the by, Dai Vernon attended several of my performances. He sat in the far back in each show. I was warned that he would watch the show and come up after and tell me what I did wrong and how I should correct it. He never spoke to me.
Presently I have been performing Zombie for over 30 years. If ever I do a close-up show that is important, I will include Zombie as the finish. If I do a stage show, it is always my closing trick. It has never failed me.
1 Introduction
2 Props
2.1 The Ball and Gimmick
2.2 The Cloth
2.3 Clothes
2.4 Lighting
2.5 Manipulating the Wire
2.6 Holding the Cloth
3 Theory
3.1 The First Principle of Floatation
3.2 The Second Principle of Floatation
3.3 The Third Principle of Floatation
3.4 The Fourth Principle of Floatation
3.5 The Principle of Not
3.6 Focus on Audience Perception
3.7 Another Not
3.8 A Last Word
4 Performance Sequence
4.1 Introducing the Ball
4.2 Getting Ready to Fly
4.3 The Heart of the Routine
4.4 Final Sequence
5 Summary and Patter
5.1 Summary
5.2 Patter
|
|
|
|
|
|