Stegosaurus Phill Smith

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EFFECT: You lay out a series of cards on the table with a bunch of seemingly random words handwritten on, and give the punter a pile of cards, each bearing a jumble of letters. “I’m going to show you three things.” “The first is like… a puzzle, the second is a memorisation challenge, the third is something impossible. Let me show you how it works.” You explain that for any word they choose from the list you want them to find a card with the first letter on, and put it face up on the table. Then the same for the second, and the third, etc, until they have five face up cards. “Of course to an onlooker this is just a mess of letters, but because we know that the word is CAMEL, we can see the thread of logic - C, A, M, E, L. It’s clear to us.” You reset the cards. “OK, this time, you pick one of these words, don’t tell me which one, but do this yourself, find a card with the first letter, and the second, etc.” This they do, until there are five face up cards in a row. “This is the puzzle for me now - I’ve got to mentally sift through all of the possible words that could be there, all the possible threads, and see… ah, OK. You picked P… R… A… N… K. Prank. Solved it! And a pretty good time too.” They seem impressed. “So that’s the first thing. This time, it’s a memorisation challenge - pick a different word, and I’ll look away whilst you set this one up. Tell me when you’ve done it.” They do. You nod. “Right, I’ll do this quick, count down from five.” They start counting, and you turn back to face the table, and stare intently at the cards. “Nearly… got it!” You turn back around. “Right, er… OK, what I’ve done this time is to try to flash memorise

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that mess of letters, and this time rather than trying to see the thread on the table, the challenge is to find it inside my head… er… was your word… PLACE?” It was. They are impressed so you high five yourself. “So, a puzzle and a memorisation challenge. Now the impossible bit. I’ll turn my back, you pick a different word and set it up.” This happens. “OK, before I turn around I want you to just lock in that word, check that you can see the whole thread on the cards on the table - got it? Now turn those five cards face down, so when I turn round I can’t even see the letters.” They do this and you turn around. “The first time this thread of logic was here on the cards. The second time, it was in my mind. This time, it’s in your mind. This whole thing really is about this moment. This ‘puzzle’ is really a way to get your brain to arrange itself around this word, that only you know, in a very specific way. For example, it forces you to think about the letters and spelling of the word rather than the meaning. I can read your mind, and the signal that I pick up on is this exact moment now when you imagine that thread of logic…” you pause and focus intently on them “and then *switch* to thinking of the meaning of the word.” you hold the focus then smile. “Brilliant.” You quickly write down a word on a business card and hand it to them face down. “What was the word you were thinking of?” “It was blame.” You smile and nod. They turn over the card you gave them - on it is written the word BLAME. They go nuts.

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METHOD: The three phases work in exactly the same way, but are presented in three different ways. This is easiest if you have the cards and stuff set up, so let’s make them first. You need five business cards with this set of letters on:

YU I O P G H J K LB N M Make sure they are all differently arranged so the cards are not immediately obvious that they are the same. Now make five with this set of letters on:

Q W E RTA S D F Z X C V Again, make sure that the cards are all jumbled up differently. To the spectator it should look like 10 different cards, when in reality there are five of one card, and five of another.

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You also need THIS list of target words, here numbered for your convenience (of which more later): 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Blink Build Lousy Moist Plank Blame Model Place Lanky Orbit Bagel Hands Prank Masks Pasty Heart

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Sling Coins Cloth White Curly Tudor Vocal Rover Sting Trout Camel Tried Drank Crepe Raven Trade

You should now have 10 cards with a jumble of letters on each, and this list. The way this piece works is that each of these words forms a unique combination of cards. So for example, the word BLINK is made up of letters from the first letter card. The word TRADE however is made up entirely of letters from the second card. So if you see them put down five of the first card, you know the word is BLINK. If they put five of the second card, the word is TRADE. The word BUILD is made up with the first four cards from the first pile, and the last from the second. Each word has just such a unique combination, each word can ONLY be made one way. If you could learn all these combinations you would be able to do this effect, but let’s face it a. that would be super hard and b. all that remembering would probably displace some other more important information like what colour hat Orco wore or which weapon each turtle used.

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The beauty of this method is that you don’t need to memorise any of these unique combinations, because the combinations generate a number. To learn this, put down five cards, and imagine that the five positions are numbered like this, from left to right: 16 8 4 2 1 The two letter cards are either a 1 or a 0. All the cards with a V on them are a 1 (imagine a tick for the V) and the ones with the O on are the 0 (picture the O as a zero, it’s not hard). If the card at one of the positions is a 1, you add that position’s number to your total. If it is a 0, you skip it. In this way, each of the possible combinations is numbered, and that number corresponds to the numbers in the word list. So, if you see this: 16 8 4 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 The number is 16 + 4 (since those numbered positions are the ones with 1 cards on) = 20. So this particular combination is 20, so the word would be CURLY. OK you try: 16 8 4 2 1 0 1 1 1 1 By now the word you just got should be beating pretty loudly with excitement at this method. So, you know how to get the number. The way that you determine the word from this number in a real performance is very easy - write down the word list on six business cards, like this (the numbers are written on the BACKS of the cards):

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1 Blink Build Lousy Moist Plank Blame

3 Hands Prank Masks Pasty Heart

5 Tudor Vocal Rover Sting Trout

2 Model Place Lanky Orbit Bagel

4 Sling Coins Cloth White Curly

6 Camel Tried Drank Crepe Raven Trade

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You have these six cards in your pocket with the letter cards and when you set the effect up you lay them down in the above three column arrangement (letter sides up obviously, the numbers are just there as a check when you are setting up and are never shown). This way the first column is numbers 0 - 10, the second 11 - 20 and the third 21-31 - basically although the words aren’t numbered it is facile to locate any number. 17: second word on 4. 24: fourth word on 5. It sounds a little convoluted but it is easy. Remember the first word of the first card is number 0, and the last word of the last card is 31 - these are the odd ones you have to watch out for. So, here’s the full detail:

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PHASE ONE: You watch them set up and very easily get to count as they are doing so. It’s an easy lead in. You simply watch, get the number in your head, find that number on the word cards and note that word. Then, you concentrate hard like you are really solving the puzzle, and CHECK THAT THE WORD IS THERE. This is easy mode, you get to actually check. If there is a problem, you know now if the word you think they have picked is really on the cards. Then you reveal.

PHASE T WO: This is fluff, it is exactly the same - when you are memorising the deck, you are just doing the above again. That’s it, the method and process are identical.

PHASE T HREE: This is slightly harder, but only very slightly. Actually, not really even that. The backs of the letter cards are marked subtly with a pencil dot in the corners of the 1 cards, and this is what you look for when you turn back to the table. That’s it.

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CUSTOM WORDS: One of the things I particularly like about Stego is the ease with which you can swap in custom words for your word list. I originally had this plan of writing a custom set of Excel spreadsheets with these rules etc in place to help generate placings for words as they are input, then realised that it is FAR simpler than this. Let’s say we have got a gig coming up for a company called QUARK, and we want to use that word in our word list. Just use your letter cards to make up the word, as if you had picked it and were doing the first phase of the routine. When you have done this, and made up the word with the five cards, you simply convert the cards to the number, as you would in the actual routine, and that’s the number for that word. Just replace whatever word is in that position in the existing wordlist with that word, and you are done. In Quark’s case it’s 22, so bin VOCAL and add in QUARK.

COMPLETE LISTS: The Excel avenue of exploration wasn’t a complete bust. I made up a list of all 8,000+ 5 letter words in the English language and worked out a way to allocate the right numbers to the words (thanks to Simon Scott for the notion) and that list is available on my website at: http://www.phillsmiff.com/stegosaurus-reference/ Making a word list is now painfully easy. You can either search for each word (using the find functino of your web browser) to learn the numbers, or you can simply go through

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each list to find appropriate words. I made a list of horror movie themed words in about 10 minutes. Here it is, more as proof than anything else: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

ghoul blind golem knife murky burnt lurch bleed grill haunt organ gross brain yetis mercy beast

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

spook skins alien alive ricin toxic witch claws cabin fangs crush sword stalk razor death dread

I guess you would just have believed me but there you go. You can imagine building lists with all kinds of themes and meanings and applying them to all kinds of different situations. It’s pretty simple and because the effect requires no memorisation, you can change to new lists without worrying about losing your mental investment in the existing lists.

INTERLACED LISTS If you want to perform for a couple of people, or if you fancy using a MUCH larger list then you might like the Interlaced Lists idea. Essentially you have two lists that are interlaced, such that each card has twice the number of words on. One list could be

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made up of living things, one of inanimate objects. If you have two spectators, you can ask the first to think of an inanimate object, the other to think of a living thing, “just to make sure that you don’t both accidentally pick the same word.” Now you treat the two lists completely separately. If you have one person, you have them pick a word freely, then show how hard it is to work out what they have picked: “Without organising how you are thinking about this, it’s almost impossible for me to deduce what you are thinking of. For example, you’re thinking of a... living thing? No? YOU SEE? Not a chance.” You now know what list to use. BOOM.

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CREDITS: This methodology, commonly referred to as the binary method, is an old thing that goes back to the old Guess Your Age magic cards, and further. A number such things are explained in Martin Gardner’s wonderful Mathematics, Magic and Mystery. Jeez, I just looked on Amazon and you can get a copy for 75p. Go and do that. The modern day master of such methods is without a doubt Leo Boudreau, whose works are well worth checking out and which explore this concept with a relentless creativity that will amaze you.

Copyright © 2015 Phill Smith All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The information in this ebook is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. Design by Phillip Smith at Sushi Design ( www.sushidesign.net )

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