Case Study: Bottle

Let’s take a look at the trick Bottle by Michael Chatelain and see how we might approach it from the amateur’s perspective.

It’s a coin in bottle effect where the coin penetrates into a corked, squat, square bottle.

It looks good and it’s been getting generally positive reviews.

If there’s an inherent weakness in the effect, it’s that the coin is going into a bottle whose mouth is far larger than it needs to be for the coin to easily fit inside. Part of the “wonder” of coin in bottle isn’t just that the coin is outside the bottle and now inside, but that it’s a bottle the coin could not get in any other way than by magic. If someone walked in after the trick and saw the coin in the bottle, that would still be amazing on some level if the bottle’s neck is too small for the coin. With this bottle you don’t have that inherent impossibility.

But that’s not absolutely necessary for a successful coin through glass routine. I’m just pointing out that’s a feature that’s lacking from this version.

The other issue is, of course, you’re not grabbing a beer bottle from the bar and performing this. You’re bringing out your own personal jar. If you’re carrying around a special jar with you, you might as well fill it with your feces. At least then you’ll have a reason for carrying around the jar. And it won’t make you look any crazier than carrying around an empty jar. In fact, my mind would be put at ease a little bit if it was filled with shit. If someone just brings out an empty glass jar that they’re carrying around with them I would think, “This person’s crazy. I wonder what weird thing they’re doing with their shit?” At least if it was in the bottle I’d have my answer.

So for the amateur performer this really needs to be an at-home piece.

What kind of presentation would I use with this trick?

None. Well, none of any significance. You can’t hang too long a presentation on a fast and visual piece like this. This trick isn’t a long, seductive striptease. It’s the flash of a titty. You don’t want too much build-up for it.

If I was going to extend it in any way, I would do so at an earlier meeting with my intended spectator. I would take a glass and a quarter and say, “Tell me how this looks.” I’d slap the quarter against the glass but it wouldn’t go in. I’d maybe try again. “Ah… it’s not going to happen I don’t think. I was getting it last night for a little while. If you line it up right, it goes right through the glass.”

This plants the seed and it tantalizes with the explanation. “If you line it up right”? Line what up right? The atoms???

So, anyway, that’s really the only way I’d extend the trick.

But how else can we polish this up a little for the social performer?

I received an email from Craig W., with an idea…

I have started using this Chatelain coin through jar gimmick as an apparently jury-rigged incense burner full time.

I like that. It’s a good start. But can we put something in the jar to further justify it? What about matchbooks? That would give the jar a bit more purpose. You could even put little mini incense sticks in it. It would look like a little self-contained incense station.

So this is on your coffee table or end table.

You’re hanging out with a friend watching some tv, having dinner or whatever. “Oh, I want to try something. Do you have a quarter?” They give you one or you grab one from somewhere.

You pick up the glass you’ve been drinking out of and sip the last of the liquid from it.

“Okay, I’m going to try and push this quarter through… actually, no… this is too wet. Uhm….” You set the glass aside.

You notice your incense jar. You open the jar, and dump out the matchbooks.

“I’m going to try and make the coin go through the glass. Hmmm…actually….let’s do this…”

As a “spur of the moment” decision, you take the cork (remove the incense stick) and put it on the jar. You don’t have to explain this. Don’t be like, “I’ll do this to make it more impossible!” Let it speak for itself.

Give them a good look at the empty and sealed jar. You can’t rush this point. Once that’s soaked in, pick up the coin and penetrate it through the bottle.

Their first guess will be a slit or hole in the bottle (because a slit or hole in the cork would be more easily evident). Remove the cork. Tell them to cup their hands. Pour the coin in their hands. Then place the bottle in their hands as well. As you do those things, switch out the cork (maybe the examinable one is behind a pillow on your side of the couch). Then set the cork on the table too. Don’t bring too much attention to it. You don’t want them to remember a gap in time between you giving them the coin and bottle and you putting the cork down. If you say, “Here, look at this too.” You’re accentuating that gap.

That is, I think, a way to sand off as many rough edges of the trick as possible in order to present it in the most casual, spontaneous seeming way.