True Power in My Pants. A Review of Killer KeyInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Jay Sankey?s Killer Key

Retail Price: $20.00

Street Price (Penguin Magic): $17.95

Jay Sankey?s Killer Key ads promise that ?Within minutes of opening the package, you’ll be able to perform the kind of VISUALLY SHOCKING close-up magic that usually takes YEARS of practice!? Can that be possible? Assuming it is possible, do you want to have that kind of power? What is that thing in my pants? It feels so familiar.

I was feeling my pants the other morning before I threw them down the long dark laundry chute of death (for dirty clothing) and realized I left something in my right pocket. I usually check them pretty carefully because I carry most of my tricks with me ? and have a well-washed version of a Hot Rod to remind me constantly of the need to check my pants before tossing them down the Chute O? Death (for dirty clothing).

Chute of Death

I found my Killer Key. This is one of my favorites and I shed a tear of regret that I almost let it go through the COD (for dirty clothing) and into the painful world of soapy struggle that both pairs of my jeans must face at least twice a month.

This is an incredible trick ? not finding it in my pants but the trick itself.…

Jay Sankey?s Killer Key

Retail Price: $20.00

Street Price (Penguin Magic): $17.95

Chute of Death

This is an incredible trick ? not finding it in my pants but the trick itself. The problem with the trick from a cleaning perspective, though, is that it will pass inspection too easily. It looks and feels like a normal key and yet it allows you to do one of the best, slow-motion transformations or transpositions.

I saw Jay Sankey perform this at a lecture ? not surprisingly it was a Jay Sankey lecture. Here?s the effect ? stop me if you feel that I am causing you to read this ? you show your two fists; one on the right hand and the other on the non-right hand. You now open your fists and show a nickel in one hand and a key in the other (the key I almost lost to the Death Tube of Cleanliness).

You now tell your audience exactly what you are going to do and then you do it.

You put the two objects together in your left hand, and make a fist around both. You remove the nickel and hold it in your right hand. You slowly open your paws ? if you are an animal ? and show that the nickel is now in the left (non-right) hand and the key is in the right.

Does that sound goofy or at least not-impressive? Probably because you do not believe what I?ve written. You doubt my words and you probably will even doubt your eyes. You know why, because you?re like me.

Maybe not just like me. I mean, you probably don?t have $12,723.00 in gambling debts racked up from years of participation in illegal ?rock-paper-scissor? matches in the seedy underworld of Detroit; or the four grams of graphite imbedded in your scalp from an unfortunate slashing incident during my escape from one of those matches when I was running low on funds and a disgruntled elementary school kid angrily tried to keep me hostage. She was working off a winner?s high and a vicious sugar buzz but that?s no excuse.

When I saw Mr. Sankey perform the effect at his lecture I didn?t want to admit that I was blown away. I?m a sophisticated magician. I know every sleight in the book and invented several spectacular illusions. Remember the ?Torn and Restored Cookie Dough?? Mine. ?Vanishing Smell?? Mine.

But when you see it performed ? even by someone with my incredible inability to perform even the simplest sleight (I may know every sleight but that doesn?t mean I can do any of them) ? you can?t help but be amazed.

Check out the video at Penguin Magic by clicking here. You?ll be impressed, I think.

Inside Magic Rating: Four and a Halfout of Five.