Remembering Scott Alexander

The magic world lost another great recently.

Scott Alexander passed away while on a cruise ship for a performance. As Bob Kohler explained it, Scott performed his act on the cruise ship but wasn’t feeling well after the show.

He eventually succumbed to a stroke that took his life.

I was a huge fan of Scott and many of his creations over the years. We didn’t have much direct contact with each other, but the times we did, Scott was gracious and kind.

I first became aware of Scott through his contributions to the magic community. I remember hearing of this legendary method for the Bill in Lemon plot called The Final Answer. It was rumored to be the holy grail of the signed bill to lemon solution.

I missed out on it as the unit sold out and then was no longer available. But the legend only grew over the years. Finally, last year Scott and Bob released a new version of The Final Answer.

I immediately grabbed it and waited with bated breath for it to arrive. Happily, it lived up to the hype. I gave an in-depth review of the piece on the podcast, but I’ll just say right here that for my money it’s the best, most deceptive method for the signed bill to lemon I’ve ever come across.

Scott was great that way. He’d take a classic plot in magic and keep working on it until he had the best solution for the working pro.

He wasn’t interested in adding sleight of hand for the sake of the techniques. He wanted solid, reliable solutions for the working pro.

While I have purchased plenty of great stuff from Scott over the years, the one item I was most excited about was Velocity.

Velocity was Scott’s answer to the classic bullet catch plot. I had first seen Penn & Teller’s brilliant routine on The World’s Greatest magic years ago. Although I was never comfortable with the idea of using an actual firearm in my show, I was nonetheless intrigued.

“What if?” my younger 20s mind would think.

Years later, I discovered Scott’s Velocity. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a signed paintball effect. A spectator signs their initials on a freely selected paintball. The spectator loads it into the paintball gun. You stand far away. The spectator aims and fires the gun.

Your head snaps back and you open your mouth to reveal the signed paintball between your teeth.

It’s that clean looking.

Once again, I immediately grabbed it. Once again, Scott had found the perfect solution. Velocity was simple, direct, and a real fooler. I performed Velocity for years in my corporate shows.

These days, the two Scott Alexander effects I perform the most often are his popular drink-in-shoe trick (the name escapes me right now) and Slashed, his cut and restored rope routine. Both are winners and if you can find them on the used market, I highly recommend them.

Yesterday Bob Kohler sent out a newsletter asking magicians to contribute to a Go Fund Me for Scott’s surviving family. Click HERE if you can contribute to helping Scott’s family.

Scott Alexander was a great performer, a clever creator, and by all accounts a wonderful person.

He will be missed.

Until next time, have a great week.

--Cris

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