What Is In Tim's Pocket?

hahaha [Music] well as many of you know and some have probably guessed I've got a passion to entertain people I just love doing it whether I'm at a party or at a restaurant and they offered all the trade fairs I go to even traveling in a train I'd love to have something I can have to show people I keep a lot of it in this little package here which I've developed for over 50 years there's about 50 items here as well very small items which are everybody's as fun as a very big one but it's so carriable and so easy to carry some of them don't work very well on camera but I've taken out of quite a number here which do work reasonably well we've practiced and we've found that some of these are okay for camera work so I'll show these and even get the idea of what would mean for me to entertain people with them this is a very early one for instance which I picked up in 1991 it was made for me by Scott Kim who's a much admired artist in California Chinese American who loves writing things so that when you turn it around it looks the same the same word so he asked me what name my name was I said Timothy Rhodes that's interesting he blinked five times in 10 seconds later he was writing this down and this is a bit Scrappy because this is now like 30 years old this is exactly right here so it says Timothy who wrote from here and it says Timothy curve wrote from here and slightly more difficult to read and says March 1991 and this has got him astonishing that you do that in just 10 seconds flat because when you've got more time and he's got he's given he's given um projects and remix to do it this is what he can do when he's getting at his top form this is a remarkable card from Douglas Cameron from Glasgow who I've known for many years he's always the idea himself but he couldn't produce it so he asked him to help him so what's going on here well he's got the word Douglas cover in here and when you ask what's his job or what's his professional world turn over like that and then suddenly the word m-a-g-i-c-i-a-n appears which is magician and that's exactly what Doug is the 35 magician too what a brilliant idea so the middle of his name the end of the first word and the start of his surname when it's reversed and turned over turned into m-a-g-i-c-i-a-n Douglas government so that's the astonishing bit of work that um Scott he was able to develop having been given the remit and probably had several days working it out how to do it properly and the second one to show when you've got a lot of time to do it is just remarkable logo really I suppose it is that a friend of mine uh civithahi has got him to meet for him he said the party I think but he's a American I think he's a math teacher and travels a lot goes to New Zealand in places here's his son he's his surname F and there's an a there a funny little smaller letter r an h and an i and the interesting thing is the first name is also there but you don't turn it upside down you don't look at it from Back to Front you just look at it in a different way this is what's called Ground reversal so the first name is civi s-i-v-y and here it is as big very very fat white letter s curling around like that with a bit of background black background there as if it's finished written on black paper it s there the eye there's the main body of the leather iron the dot on the top here's the nice curly V and the last part of his name is the letter Y all in white on black rather than the normal black on a white background astonishing to work that out so when you've got time to do something remarkable I think this this extraordinary man's got Kim can do quite quite magical things which I've never come across and anyone else before so there's also business cards here Workshop funds of show because they're so original this is a friend of mine Mark says Ducati who gives you his card like that and you're expected to find out that it actually opens up like that and you'll then find that there's a mirror at the top and some funny words at the bottom but when you put it down like that we'll get a nice vertical place and see if we can get Mark says ricardi appearing in the mirror the right way around because it's backwards writing on the bottom and it's real the corrected way when you look in the mirror and just to show it's it is a mirror I'll wig a little bit to move it a bit a very very fine business card and lock this is out in every one of these events which I offer the tinned here's another remarkable one by another friend of mine who's very much into toys if there's his name there and when you turn it over there's nothing it suddenly disappears it's tiny micro dots so let's look at it again Adam Rubin and he has said what the hells.com that's is one of his websites he invented at the time he's still done with tiny tiny little dots like this it's it's an extraordinary art form like that because it turns completely black when you turn the other side but his company makes the most extraordinary wonderful things in Southern California um and I've met him many many times in Canada for gardener here's a marvelous car that a friend of mine David berder who's in in London has made he's many many cars over the years but this one here is one of his nicest it's lenticular and when you when I turn it in general it'll circles like that you see what he's got there is a kaleidoscope and it makes it it actually just like he does collect ground and skills as I do as well but he loves making pictures of it appear on a business card to show his love of optical devices that's what he does and it's a very very nice car to give to people so what about him here's another remarkable one a man who's um made something of something which is his passion which is wood he's an elderly man in his 80s or 90s now not uh and Andreas Lockheed and I miss him every year at Nuremberg and this thing says the old woodworm well that's what he's calling himself slightly deaf self-deprecating it's big of just Woods he's strawberry it's one of these funny Woods which retains its shape and tall when it's taken down very fast and Slither but it's lovely card to give me so that goes into my my little packet of fun things to put in my pocket to show someone who's making something quite remarkable about like that then there's a much more difficult card which I'll go with this is a Japanese Artisan who's made something where you have a black chicken there and then you have a white chicken there and then you've got to lay the one on top of the other so that they exactly match if I can get that to work and one covers over the other so completely that you don't see the um the chickens anymore you just see you just see a egg a black egg this is if I can get this right it comes right in like that and it's just about there if I can get rid of the last bits of stuff but you've got the idea you've got to get the overlap exactly right and then Goodness Me suddenly you'll see a black egg so this is not like reverse hatching it's two chickens suddenly disappearing and appearing as a black egg an extraordinary thing for a business card that that's that's that's nice that's people doing interesting things this is a nice much easier one to make with you just photocopy it's just very contrasting there's two people here this is for a couple of landlord of a pub which is actually a very very nice comfortable interesting Hospital which I've been to a few times in Devon he thoughts about lousy food lousy landlord and don't ring this number of course he's saying he's got his tongue in the cheek they call it and he reads very opposite of it because it's actually a very very nice hospital but he's been over self-deprecating and this is the contrast which I put the two together another friend of mine from New York who's just a perfect normal humble person but he loves putting the idea of what all the all the things he he can be uh he can blow himself up into important person in the world or something like that it's a bit of fun you know Consulting is nice one is is is is is the far far too far to feel clever about yourself the other one has been well anyway you've turned the opposite now here's some interesting things which I've had in the collection for a long time this is one of the earliest things I picked up about 19 1970s I think it was it's an old Victorian thing it says that if you do a phantom baseball if you do a little circle like this something start to happen and when you speed up very gradually it suddenly appears as a little gray ball in the middle of the thing I wouldn't think it was just covered way back this probably before 1900 even but it appears in many books on optical illusions and it's easy to produce as a car because you can't really make the book go wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle a bit too fast I mean it's it's popular and I'll slow it down a bit but the fact is those extraordinary very clear patterns when I speeded up the brain interprets it in a different way or the other and it appears as a gray ball which is very remarkable indeed and I think that's the first one I ever had when I took it out in the pocket I wave it like that to people and people go wow the effect is very strong coupon then there's a couple of fun little um joke notices which I like if you're running a shop for the retail shop or any business for that matter and you're saying we're always getting people coming in with a complaint so when I say you want one of these and they come in and say I want to complain about you say hang on a sec here's a Complaint Form would you mind filling it in and look what it is something that Martin Gardner sent for me sometime in the early 1990s a mini Complaint Form and you're supposed to fill in your complaints in the box below literally and of course it's impossible it's a lovely way of diffusing the whole thing I mean you'll have a laugh so I've had lots of those and I'll end up giving them as many of these things actually I give away as free samples because that's so easy to make I've got a big sheet of that and here's a similar idea you attach this to something like a book just put it over the very very light that lights with a little bit of adhesive so it's not spoiling anything and it's apologizing for itself it say I'm sorry I'm here roughly speaking it's a sort of some sort of of replicating but there's a very humorous way I like things which are that's some genre this is a very clever little puzzle that a friend of mine who's running a personal shop in London for many years and it's only just folded and he's passed away by now but some village games made this in 1988 it was a little mathematical puzzle you added up it found that it didn't work that does not produce the answer so your challenge to how do you make it so it's a correct addition one two three four five you've got to make it into 1988 which was the year that he produces and the answer was a very tricky one this you simply got to fold it like that with a what's called a fruitful in like that so that comes up to there and then makes a 707 and cut that two other numbers when you add that knot up you have to go yourself you'll find it comes up to 91988 but it won't work like that that's wrong and that's right that's a very little thing to do well people like doing trick things that you see here's a marvelous one which comes from that wonderful book I've got which I want to show soon it's some it's an optical illusion really but a very very well drawn one those two tables apparently are the same size and the same shape but in the plane of the paper when you're looking at three dimensions they look very different that's long and thin and that's short and wide and the proof of this is something that a friend of mine invented about 30 years ago he said what do you want to do is you've got to put on a tablecloth and then you can show it so I made a tablecloth for him like this like a gingham tape with with um white and blue squares and I found out I I actually made a photography of it to make it sure exactly fitted and it's now seems to be impossible for that one to go there but actually it does fit exactly and it's a magic table cloth because it goes on both tables which should be very different in size I think that's something that's so easy to make and photography I made lots of confidence of that and keep it in my little pocket in my in my pocket and give them out as a little gift for people which I love doing one of the most recent ones I've come across which is um I've only left there a few days ago this is a cartoon that appeared in the Bloom Report that delay of a lady friend Mary from Chicago produces every week on a summary of the toy business throughout the United States it's a very good very well worth reading Vlog she does on instant news items obviously as a hold of the toy industry and this is a cartoons you started putting in cartoons into a vlog and it was Pi Day just recently In America which meant it was the third month that's March and it was the 14th day of March so they're right there as 314 and then some years ago some Mass magicians said let's call it Pi Day because 3.14 is the value of pi if you just write it into a mirror writing and put it as p-i-e like that well that is actually a mirror I could do it with a mirror but what I'll do is I'll just turn it around you'll see what the number here and you've got the name there but turn it around and light it up and now you've got so you've got the name at the top then you've got the number at live awesome so it's a perfect perfect mirror image of the other one and it was a clever idea to make it into that and that's the little pie and that's a piece of Prior which is a pork pile or something you've need so it's a brilliant cartoon I've put that into my package in my in my pocket because I think that's probably the most recent one of my of my collection oh my so many ideas thrusting out of people's minds and things there's two different Shoppers here this is um a Rudy one but it's fun it's quite fun because what you're supposed to do is get the boy on the potty it starts like that and you really have to cut out that square fold it up and then that's so tear it off you're not allowed to fold a bit of paper you're supposed to get the man sitting properly on the pot I'll do it well I'm afraid it's a bit rude but I put it on my hand like that would you believe to solve it and I'm going to turn it around like that and hold it up to the camera and there's my two fingers as if it's my bottom cheeks good as me what a clever but we'll see what makes kids laugh but one of those things and the last item to show I think is this one here which is my business card which I've had from only about the last eight years or so written made up by a friend of mine anamorphic writing and this is I'm gonna hold it up like that unreadable you can't read anything there this is lots and lots of squiggles and of course when you turn it over like this is slowly put it on the vertical then you can read my name Timothy rivet Tim the toy man that's me so that's something when I finish showing the rest of the um stuff to friends at these events like Cinemas and um restaurants and parties they say where do we get some of this stuff I said well just contact me I've got spares of many of it and here's my business cards and they take that away and they've had a lot of fun too and I have a lot of fun so I'm going to go on collecting into my dosage I think things like this which are lots and lots of fun and a very small volume and highly pocketable [Music] ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha [Music]

Channel: Grand Illusions

Views: 155,305

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Id: PTxRKVjT1cI

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023