Leftovers: Practical Magic for All

Everything in this book was earned at a table, in front of people who came out for dinner and got a magician instead.

Carroll Baker performed close-up magic in restaurants for over thirty years. Leftovers is what survived that: two sets of lecture notes, effects he released over the years, and several routines he was using in his own restaurant work when he wrote it. No theory and no filler.

And it ends with the chapter most books like this leave out: how to get the gig, and how to keep it. How to approach a restaurant, how to keep the patrons entertained, and how to have them coming back to see you again and again. His own opinions are in there too, including why he does not use contracts with restaurants and why he will never put out a tip jar.

Throughout the book you will find boxes called "Leftover bits," with the small practical tips that only come from doing the work.

Foreword by Karl Norman. 85 pages and 22 routines, delivered as a PDF.

What is in it, in the book's own order

• Table for 4, page 9. Two sponge balls. One goes into the spectator's hand, yours vanishes and joins it, three times over, adding one each time. The last vanish turns them into a large sponge.
• Sponge Bunny Patter and Routine, page 12. Five bunnies and the full patter script. His most requested effect, with children and adults alike.
• The Visitor, page 15. A blank plastic paddle is signed by the spectator. The signature is wiped away and brought back.
• Coincidence, page 17. Two spectators each think of a number between one and ten. You deal to their numbers and each matches a card they were thinking of. The kicker: their two numbers add up to a prediction you wrote down first. Taught to Carroll by Nick Trost.
• Trash Compactor, page 19. Everyone at the table takes a bar napkin and plays a game anyone can win, including the magician.
• Special Delivery, page 21. Four coins travel from your hand to the spectator's hand.
• Cheaters Lament, page 25. A card is chosen and replaced. Four cards from the deck then turn, one at a time, into duplicates of it.
• Shaken, Not Stirred, page 28. The aces are displayed face up. As the packet is twisted they turn face up and face down in turn, and the last ace has changed into a previously chosen card.
• Sweet Surprise, page 30. A borrowed coin, signed. Two gags where the vanishing ink gets caught, then the marker vanishes and turns up behind your ear, then the signed coin vanishes and is found inside a sugar packet freely chosen from the caddy on the table.
• Sweet Surprise II, page 32. The same idea with borrowed paper money. A signed bill vanishes. His own note: it could mean bigger tips.
• Lie Detector Deck, page 34. The deck is introduced as a lie detector. A card is chosen and the spectator may lie or tell the truth on every question. The deck finds it anyway.
• Magic Square, page 38. Sixteen squares filled in about sixteen seconds. No number repeats, and every line adds to the spectator's own total.
• Pearl, page 44. A mini poodle twisted from a strand of seventeen 6mm pearl beads, the way a balloon animal is twisted. A giveaway and a tip maker, about eleven cents each to make. Comes with the lines he uses while twisting it, the squeaker gag, and a tip for a table with more than one child. From Bob Knigge.
• Out of My Hands, page 46. The spectator does the trick, not the magician. They shuffle, they cut, they find it.
• Chop Lemon, page 50. One cup and one ball. The ball keeps hiding, the spectators are sure you are cheating, and you agree you have been using an extra one.
• Ring in Box, page 53. A borrowed ring penetrates a satin ribbon, vanishes, and turns up inside a locked box in your pocket.
• McBaker's Aces, page 55. The deck is shown ordinary front and back, shuffled, and four aces have turned face up.
• Fingertip Coins Across, page 61. Three coins produced at the fingertips travel from the left hand to the right in four phases.
• Unlinking Straws, page 65. Two drinking straws are wrapped around each other, shown linked all around, and come apart.
• Leftovers, page 70. The title routine. A prediction card reading "You will not pick a joker," a shuffled deck, and a freely chosen card.
• Layman Slip Cuts the Aces, page 72. Four spectators each cut a packet and each turns up an ace. His note: the perfect answer for anyone who asks whether you play cards for money.
• Magician Slip Cuts the Aces, page 74. The session version. Three helpers cut to aces, then so does the magician.

Plus the business chapter, How to Get the Gig and How to Keep It, page 76, a Leftover bit on the sponge ball vanish, page 11, and an essay on the squeaker, To Squeak or Not to Squeak?, page 67.