"Pen Thru Arm" by Jesse Feinberg
Suggested Retail USD$35.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 3 Out of 10

"Pen Thru Arm", an effect by Jesse Feinberg, starts off with the combination of a couple of old, old ideas into a new prop, but drops the ball on how the thing is put together and the instructions on what to do with it.

The effect is simple, and I'm going to quote the ads here for a reason: "A real bic pen is handed out for examination. The pen is handed back to the magician and everyone is told to watch his arm. The pen is slowly pushed into his arm and removed leaving everything unharmed... You arm can be immediately examined and the pen can be handed out for examination again if you'd like."

I've left off the hype about using "Pen Thru Arm" with bills, coins, etcetera and people screaming because, honestly, if you can't get away with the initial effect that the gimmick was designed for, why believe the rest of it?

To paraphrase a line from one of my favorite schlock horror movies: "You mean the ads lied?"

Well, maybe not. Maybe I've got some sort of fluke on my hands, the one single, poorly made unit of the thing. But I'd be willing to bet I don't and therein lies the rub.

There's no way this thing can be examined. In fact, it can't be shown very freely without exposing a piece of the gimmick (there are a few parts to pulling this one off and some parts work better than others). The other part of the gimmick is a pain... literally. This will hurt you (not disfigure you, but certainly cause you more than moderate discomfort) if you try to do it out of the package. There's a section in the instructions about altering this, but they are unclear to me.

And that's the other part of the problem: the instructions are unclear in a lot of places. It takes some deciphering to get the idea of how to handle this one and, to be honest, even after the deciphering I'm not convinced I'm doing it the way Feinberg imagines.

Of course, I could take Feinberg's advice and go watch a demo video and compare the instructions to that, but I refuse. Instructions are supposed to instruct, period. Really good instructions will go beyond the simple mechanics and include other things pertinent to the effect. Really bad instructions point you to a non-included performance-only video so you get the gist of how things go.

If it sounds like I'm being harsh, well, I don't mean to. The fact is that "Pen Thru Arm" is a really slick idea. Feinberg combined a gag with ye olde "Wand Thru Arm" and put it into a common household object. That's neat thinking and Feinberg should be applauded just for that.

But when the gimmick doesn't live up to the hype and the instructions offer fuzzy directions at best, then it doesn't matter how good the idea is; it simply fails to be worth the money or the time.

Sadly, that's the case with "Pen Thru Arm". I really wish it weren't.

"Pen Thru Arm" by Jesse Feinberg
In a Blink: 3 Out of 10

Practicality: 5
Forget about handing this one out for examination; it won't pass even casual examination. Since that seems to be the big selling point with this, it's a huge problem. The other things we normally concern ourselves with -- set-ups, resets, and the like -- are all adequate enough. If you can get by the heat, this is workable enough.

Workmanship: 1
If something is advertised as examinable, it better be. "Pen Thru Arm" ain't. Further, there are a couple of problems with the look of the pen so at times it doesn't look normal. Then there's the pain issue -- it hurts to do this one -- and the instructions are inadequate as to how to fix this (Feinberg, to his credit, at least tries, but it's unclear).

Documentation: 1
The instructions are inadequate and badly worded in some spots; Feinberg explains this away with telling the consumer to go online and watch a demo video to compare to the instructions. This is unacceptable.

Effect: n/a
Forget it. I didn't even get this one out in front of friends and family.

Presentation: 5
There are some neat ideas here and it would have been a kick to explore some of them, but not considering the problems with the thing.


Shane