Reviews: Read What Bryan Hall Is Saying
Colombini Magic Farewell Tour Lecture Part 2
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Bryan Hall (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Tuesday 25 January, 2022)
This is the second half of the lecture filmed November 1, 2010, three weeks before Rachel's open heart surgery. Her participation is somewhat limited, and to help her rest Aldo covers one of the tricks in this lecture (Nick Trost's "Three Way Miracle Prediction") that Rachel would normally have performed and explained.
As with the first half, the overall production quality isn't particularly good. It's a single camera (camcorder?) positioned at audience center, slightly elevated, with a single microphone at the same location. The performances and explanations are generally clear enough, though you can't make out specific cards when they are on a table. The audio is a bit distant and audience noises drown out parts of the performance at times.
If you'd like a lecture from Rachel and Aldo with far better video and audio quality, try their Penguin Live lecture, which I believe was filmed in February of 2012. Most of the tricks in both parts of this lecture were also covered in that later lecture.
Here are the effects that are covered in Part 2 of this lecture:
Cutting A Rope In Three - from Rope Confection
Ring From Rope - from Rope Confection
Three Way Miracle Prediction - from Card Carnival
Animal Capers - from Card Capers
A Mental Effect - from Stand-Up Cards
Jumbo Prediction - from Card Carnival
Cone-tact (PDF)
Animal Capers and Cone-tact were not in the Penguin lecture, making them automatic highlights for this video.
Animal Capers is performed and taught by Aldo, and then Rachel gives another presentation using Paul Curry's "switchless switch" technique. Aldo's presentation uses two spectators, making it an improved performance over the one in "Card Capers" (where he mentions that he usually uses two spectators rather than just showing it to Rachel and the camera), and Rachel's extra presentation isn't covered in "Card Capers" at all.
Cone-tact is Aldo's presentation of Dai Vernon's classic "Ball, Cone and Handkerchief" routine. The Colombinis had a DVD version of Cone-tact on their website, but it is long out of production and difficult to find. The PDF is available, but this lecture might be the only video available to see Aldo performing it for an audience. He doesn't teach the full routine in detail, but he covers what he calls the key move (repeated as needed) that would enable you to perform a good portion of the routine.
I'd say the other highlights from this half of the lecture are Three Way Miracle Prediction and A Mental Effect. (The "Stand-Up Cards" video lists the trick as "A Mental Effect", while the Farewell Tour lecture notes PDF calls it "A Mental Trick".) Both are easy to perform and potentially very strong effects.
Aldo noted that Restless Colors was a brand new product for them and that this was the very first time he had performed it in a lecture. It wasn't included in the lecture notes they offered at the time (this was actually before the Farewell Tour, and the notes offered then were different from the later Farewell Tour notes). Unfortunately, the instruction was a bit rushed, otherwise Restless Colors would be THE highlight trick of this video.
(The trick is similar to Alex Elmsley's "Dazzle", but without gaff cards. Along the same lines, John Bannon's "Sizzle" works with a smaller initial packet, and you can assemble your own set of cards if necessary from just five different decks where eight decks are needed to assemble the packet for "Restless Colors".) The rope effects are covered in much greater detail (and with better video and audio) in the Penguin lecture, which also adds another ring/rope effect.
Jumbo Prediction requires a gimmick that is difficult to find. But if you do purchase a jumbo deck to make your own gimmicks (most likely by simply pasting jumbo cards together), you can make many of them based on different cards to have a broad selection of cards to use whenever you perform the effect.
If you are trying to choose between the two parts of this lecture and the Penguin lecture, go for the Penguin lecture first. It has a few items not covered here (Contact Colors, the extra ring/rope effect) and has better instruction with better audio and video for several of the other tricks. If you find you still want more, each half of this lecture has two tricks not covered in that one, plus additional stories and other humor from the Colombinis. And of course, the humor and entertainment were what Rachel and Aldo were all about. Thanks for the memories, and rest in peace.
Running time 59:23.
Colombini Magic Farewell Tour Lecture Part 1
Overall customer rating: ★★★★★reviewed by Bryan Hall (confirmed purchase)
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Sunday 23 January, 2022)
Let's get the negative points out of the way. First, the description is somewhat misleading. This isn't their last filmed lecture. This one was filmed on November 1, 2010, three weeks before Rachel had her open heart surgery.
More importantly, the filming is NOT high quality. It's a single camera, fixed position at audience center. You can see the performance clearly enough to learn the tricks and hear most of the jokes, but the camera position isn't high enough to make out specific cards when they're on a table. Audience (in particular one of the host's children in the earlier parts of the lecture) and other noises sometimes drown out bits of the performance.
If you want a later lecture from them with FAR better production quality, try their Penguin Live lecture, which I believe was filmed in February 2012. Most of the tricks taught are the same between the two lectures. The explanations are usually clear enough in this one, but the better camera work and better audio in the other one helps.
The host had asked Aldo to open with roughly a 10-minute performance, so a few of the early tricks are performance-only. Part 1 includes:
Vanishing thumbtip (gag, not really a trick) - included on Gagbuster
Six Card Repeat, which Aldo jokingly calls "How To Kill A Classic" (Performance only at first, but later in the lecture he notes that it's Senator Crandall's handling and gives a basic explanation including the one key move needed to perform his version. He also said that a DVD with that version was put out by Teddy Langsford, but I can't find any references to it.)
Rope In (not taught - perfomance only) - available on Roped In.
Fireworks (not taught - performance only) - available on Fireworks 12 Card Revelation Routine.
Zodiac code - included on A Host Of Surprises.
discussion/brief explanation of the earlier Six Card Repeat
Comedy Six Card Repeat - included on Gagbuster.
Punch His Match - this lecture is the only video source I know of for it, but it's available on several PDFs:
news brief gag - included on Gagbuster
Baffling Book - included on Wild About Harry.
Even if you already have the Penguin lecture, this is worth the extra $10 for Punch His Match and the Crandall version of the Six Card Repeat. I do not know of any other video sources with Aldo performing either of these tricks. (The explanation of Punch his Match also has some performance tips, including some interesting ideas from audience members.) I'd say the video earns four stars for these two tricks alone.
Beyond those two items, I'd say Rachel's three performed tricks (Zodiac Code, Baffling Book, Tri-Color Cups And Balls) are the highlights of this half of the lecture, though all three are also covered with better audio and video in the Penguin lecture. This also has a few extra stories if you want more of their humor - and of course the humor was half the fun of any Colombini performance.
Running time 74:55.