New Release Roundup #2

Howdy, Buckaroos.

Time for another new release roundup, where I quickly give my worthless, uneducated opinion on new releases based solely on the advertising copy and first impressions.

I’m just plucking items off Penguins “50 New Arrivals List.”

Color Match by Tony Anverdi

This is essentially $300 to know what color marker someone is holding.

There is one truly brilliant trick you can do with these. And that’s this one that Justin Willman did on Ellen.

(Although I think the “duplicate predictions” part was a mistake, but whatever.)

I’m sure there are other good effects to come be accomplished wit this, but the ones shown in the demo look pretty dull.

Still, it’s very tempting to pick this up. What’s keeping me from pulling the trigger on this is that I’ve found I tend to abandon tricks that at any point need to be plugged in. No matter how good they are. My desire to perform the trick and the battery charge never seem to be in sync.

Plus… would I carry these markers around with me? Probably not. So it would purely be an at-home trick. Which is fine, especially if I’m taking my clothes off at some point during the trick. But it is a mild strike against it.

And while I feel like I could probably come up with a few tricks I’d really enjoy performing with this if I bought it, I feel like word would get around with my friends, “He sure is doing a lot of marker-based magic recently. What’s up with that?”

I don’t know… I think I’m posting about this because I want one of you to talk me into, or out of, getting this. If you have it and it’s really good (or not so good) or you have a particularly strong use-case for it, let me know.

Polite by Raphael Macho

Honestly, I think this looks dope.

Unfortunately it has a big warning sign on it when it says: “Perfect for Social Media.” And whenever I see that I’m like…

Because it means it looks like dogshit in real life.

Red Pill

The ad copy says,

“The magician displays a bottle of pills, and has a spectator hold on to it. The spectator can freely name any playing card, and choose either the red pill or the blue one. When they open the bottle, the chosen color pill will predict the spectator's card perfectly.”

Huh? This is the type of magic I don’t understand at all. “They name a card and it’s found written on a piece of paper inside a pill.” Well… why? Why would you do such a thing? Predicting the card they would name is a magic trick. Rolling up that prediction and putting it inside a pill isn’t a better magic trick. It’s just a needlessly complicated way of giving that prediction to them.

It’s not like pills and cards have anything to do with each other. It would be like putting your prediction in a ravioli. Yes, you could do it… but why?

I mean… maybe ask them how many prescription drug overdoses there were in 2021 and have their guess predicted in a pill. That would at least be thematically consistent.

Then you can follow that up with another new release. This “prank” Covid test. And all your friends can be like, “Hey, does anyone know what the fuck is up with Bob? His magic tricks have taken a real dark turn.”

Nudes Playing Cards

“Hell yeah,” I though, unbuttoning my pants.

Sadly this was a big pump-fake as it turns out the “nudes” on these playing cards are some bullshit artwork from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sorry, that’s going to be a big “no thank you” from me. Here’s the deal… I CAN’T WHACK OFF TO “SEATED NUDE WITH A FLOWER” FROM 1906.

Hmmm…

Or can I?