Every act should have style, even a memory or mental math act. I recently ran across some nice items at Brookstone that can do just that.

First, we have the 100-Year LED Calendar, which is perfect for the classic “Day of the Week for any Date” feat. This is a digital calendar that allows you to scroll backward and forward to see the calendar for any month and year, within a 100-year range. There's also a “Home” button that allows you to instantly return to the current year and month. These buttons could easily be used to allow and random month and year to be selected, simply by letting the spectator push the back and forward buttons until they're satisfied that a free choice has been made. This calendar is also big enough and visible enough for a parlor routine, or even a small stage setting.

Speaking of big enough for a parlor setting, there's also the Supersize Pop-Up Calculator. As you can see by the paperclips that were included for scale, this thing is BIG. Your average four-function checkbook-style calculator is only slightly larger than each of the buttons on this calculator! No one in the first few rows will ever challenge your mental calculations again, as they can easily verify the sums on this calculator, even if someone else is verifying the answer.

If your tastes in calculators runs to a more normal scale, you may prefer the Color-Changing Calculator, instead. While it can be used in a normal grey-and-black mode, you can also set it to a backlit mode, in which the color of the backlighting changes every time you enter a number or function. This not only makes the numbers easy to see, but helps add a fun element to mental math demonstrations, which is always welcome.