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The Book That Doesn’t Exist: January, 2002 - December, 2003

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7KH%RRN7KDW'RHVQ·W([LVW -DQXDU\²'HFHPEHU 7DEOH2I&RQWHQWV (Click topics to go to specific pages)

Chapter 1 – Twistin’ The Night Away – A New Twist to Card Twisting Effects.................................. 7 Slowly I Turn – Thoughts on Quick Moves Vs. Smooth Moves ..................................................... 9 Johnny CardTrickSeeds – A Short Story....................................................................................... 9 Brian Higgins Alternative to the Rub-A-Dub Vanish – A Different Card Vanish ........................... 10 Old Business – Thoughts on Stigmata Effects ............................................................................ 11 Chapter 2 – The No-Gimmick Sound Gimmick............................................................................... 12 Precursors – Two Coin Routines Without Sound ........................................................................ 12 No-Gimmick Sound Gimmick – A Coin Routine With Sound Effects ........................................... 13 The Library – Thoughts on Books ............................................................................................... 14 Silent Blasphemy – Another Story............................................................................................... 14 Chapter 3 – One Gambler Vs. Three Magicians............................................................................. 16 One Gambler Vs. Three Magicians – Progessive Ace Assembly With Different Color Backs .... 17 Olinksy’s Treasure – A True Story ..............................................................................................20 The Library – Thoughts On Paul Curry's Worlds Beyond ............................................................ 21 Chapter 4 – Okito Box Routine That Doesn’t Exist – Original Okito Box Routine ........................... 22 The Library – Current Magic Books............................................................................................. 25 Addendum – Patter Spin on One Gambler Vs. Three Magicians................................................. 26 HP Wand Design – New Look for Magic Wands......................................................................... 26 State of The Onion – Thoughts on TV Magic .............................................................................. 27 Chapter 5 – Card Magic: Blindfold Poker Deal ............................................................................... 30 Pseudo Center – A Pseudo Center for Blindfolded Dealing ........................................................ 31 The Library – Current Magic Books............................................................................................. 32 Slowly I Turn – Thoughts on Trick Photography in TV Magic ...................................................... 32 Dark Frickin Humor – The New York Scene................................................................................ 33

The Book That Doesn’t Exist: January, 2002 - December, 2003

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Addendum – Additional Notes on the Pseudo Center Deal ......................................................... 34 Super Addendum – Looking Back on One Gambler Vs. Three Magicians .................................. 34 Chapter 6 – Speaking of Monie: Out Thru the Side of Purse – Coin Production............................. 35 The Unseen Force – A Card Force by Cushing Strout ................................................................ 37 The Library – Thoughts on The Lost Notebooks of John Hilliard................................................. 38 Pro Fun Ditties – Thoughts on Magic .......................................................................................... 38 More From The Library – About Genii Magazine, Magic Books, Videos...................................... 38 Pottered – Thoughts on Developing a Wizard Theme................................................................. 39 Chapter 7 – Special Issue: No Cards – No Coins........................................................................... 42 Multiplication Trick With Small Balls............................................................................................ 42 Jacks or Better – A Trick Using Children’s Gaming Jacks........................................................... 43 Another Poor Man’s Raven – A New Vanisher Without a Magnet ............................................... 44 The Library – Denny & Lee ......................................................................................................... 45 Slowly I – Thoughts on New Format............................................................................................ 45 Chapter 8 – The Mysterious Letter ................................................................................................. 47 4 Signed Aces Vanish and Reappear in a Sealed Letter............................................................. 47 The Trick That Fooled Houdin – In Depth! (An Ambitious Card Move) ........................................ 49 For The Cost of Two Rubber Bands – A Packet Trick................................................................. 49 Zen In The Art of Magic Illustration – Thoughts on Packaging DVDs.......................................... 51 The Library – Books, Videos, and Magazines ............................................................................. 51 Dark Frickin’ Humor .................................................................................................................... 52 Review -- The Encyclopedia of Egg Magic .................................................................................. 53 Chapter 9 – Ipso Facto................................................................................................................... 54 The Best New Coin Trick in the World (Introducing Skid HPC) ................................................... 54 The Library – The Magic Mirror (Review), Misc. Thoughts .......................................................... 56 Special Bonus Issue – Let’s Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer (Packet Card Trick) .............. 59 Chapter 10 – Four Bikers of the Apocalypse (Robert E. Neale/Halloween Issue)........................... 62 A New Packet Trick!.................................................................................................................... 63 The Library – Writings on Ancient Sacred Magic ........................................................................ 65 Chapter 11 – Countact Deluxe ....................................................................................................... 67 Countact Deluxe – A Variation on a T. A. Waters Effect ............................................................. 67 Webb’s 5 Card Psych Force Deck .............................................................................................. 68

The Book That Doesn’t Exist: January, 2002 - December, 2003

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Future 5 Psych Force.................................................................................................................. 68 Combined 5 and Hobson’s Choice – Mentalism With Cards ....................................................... 69 Chapter 12 – Back to Ever Lovin’ Cards......................................................................................... 71 Jack Chanin’s Top Change – An Unusual Top Change .............................................................. 71 Webb’s Center – A Center Deal.................................................................................................. 73 Thoughts on the Bart Harding Stack – Mental Feats With a Stacked Deck................................. 75 Special Bonus: Cheat Sheet For The Harding Stack................................................................... 78 Special Holiday Bonus.................................................................................................................... 79 Jumpin’ Gemini – Variations on a Trick by Darwin Ortiz.............................................................. 79 Hitchcock Aces – Variations on Another Ortiz Trick .................................................................... 79 Touches That Help Performing Paul Harris’ Anything Deck ........................................................ 79 A Tip for Monte ........................................................................................................................... 80 Thoughts on Paul Curry’s Cider .................................................................................................. 80 Bob Cassidy’s Art Of Mentalism.................................................................................................. 80 Kudos – Max Maven’s Mentalism With Batteries......................................................................... 80 On The Demise of Hartumim The Great ..................................................................................... 81 On Jongling Vs. Manipulation...................................................................................................... 81 A Xmas Story.............................................................................................................................. 82 Chapter 13 – My Lucky Number ..................................................................................................... 84 Webb’s ”My Magic Card” Revisited – Selected Cards to Pocket and Case ................................. 84 Hobson’s Living & Dead – A Living and Dead Test ..................................................................... 87 The Afterburner – Thoughts on Derren Brown & Aaron Fisher.................................................... 90 The BTDE Special New Year Issue................................................................................................91 Reds Progress – A Card Trick Featuring a Kicker by Brian Higgins ............................................ 91 The Patter for Reds Progress ..................................................................................................... 92 Afterimages – Final Thoughts on Reds Progress........................................................................ 94 Book Review – Aaron Fisher’s The Paper Engine....................................................................... 95 The Fix-It Shop – Thoughts on Max Maven’s Caffeinomenon ..................................................... 95 Dark Frickin Humor ..................................................................................................................... 96 Extra Options for Reds Progress ................................................................................................97 Bonus Chapter – A Book That Doesn’t Exist Publication................................................................ 98 Webb / Marlo / Leipzig Punch Deal – Dealing a Royal Flush Blindfolded .................................... 98 On the Use of Lucid Dreaming.................................................................................................... 99

The Book That Doesn’t Exist: January, 2002 - December, 2003

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Feel My Aura – Mentalism With Invisible Thread ........................................................................ 99 Feel My Aura – Additional Credits ............................................................................................. 100 On Debunking Nostradamus..................................................................................................... 100 The Cusp – Review of Darwin Ortiz’ Scams and Fantasies....................................................... 100 Chapter 15 – Spell Check Bee – Spelling to Selected Card ......................................................... 102 The Afterburner – Razzle-Dazzle Vs. Magic.............................................................................. 104 Bonus 2 – A Book That Doesn’t Exist Publication ........................................................................ 107 The Addendum Move Strikes Back – A New Copper-Silver-Brass Coin Routine....................... 107 The No-Punch Punch – Blindfolded Dealing Without a Punch .................................................. 109 Stargate GW – A Signed Card Vanishes and Reappears in Case ............................................ 110 Jonathan Townsend Returns .................................................................................................... 112 The Afterburner – Final Tips on Webb’s No-Punch Deal and Stargate GW .............................. 114 Further Adventures of the No-Punch Deal – More Tips............................................................. 115 Bonus 3 – Hey! Don’t Expect One Of These Every Time! ............................................................ 116 Coin and Bill Vignette – A Dollar Bill Turns Into Coins............................................................... 116 Best Poker Deal – Getting a Royal Flush in Spades ................................................................. 116 Chapter 15 – Geller Coin.............................................................................................................. 118 Bending a Coin With Your Mind ................................................................................................ 119 2 A-Heads – Variations With Copper and Silver Coins.............................................................. 120 From the Backroom – The NY Scene ....................................................................................... 121 Gregg Webb Newsflash! ........................................................................................................... 122 Chapter 16 – Herb Zarrow Tribute................................................................................................ 123 Using The ”Z” – The Zarrow Shuffle.......................................................................................... 124 I Wouldn’t Want to Play Cards With You – A Poker Demonstration .......................................... 124 Experimental – A Psych Card Force ......................................................................................... 126 Rumblings And Grumblings – Thoughts on Making Magic Clean.............................................. 127 Chapter 17 – Changes, Not Twists............................................................................................... 129 Fixing Weak Spots in Tricks...................................................................................................... 129 Waist Level 3-Fly – In Hands Coins Across .............................................................................. 130 On The Origin of Kaps' Subtlety................................................................................................ 131 One-Handed 3-Way Spellbound – New Variation on a Great Coin Trick................................... 132 Rumblings And Grumblings – Pausing at the Right Spots......................................................... 133

The Book That Doesn’t Exist: January, 2002 - December, 2003

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Chapter 18 – Best Frickin’ Poker (Or, Best Poker Routine Revisited) .......................................... 134 On The Selection Process – Tips on Having Cards Selected.................................................... 135 For Magic Only – A Sucker 21 Cent Trick ................................................................................. 136 The Vortex – Origin of the Word Sleight ................................................................................... 137 Chapter 19 – The Fix-It Shop ....................................................................................................... 138 Red Hot Ma-Ma – Variations on a Card Trick............................................................................ 138 Webb’s Color Stun – Variations on Color Stunner..................................................................... 140 Chapter 20 – Coin Issue!.............................................................................................................. 142 Kicker For One-Hand Three-Way – Variations for a Copper-Silver-Brass Routine.................... 142 Kicker For Webb O. Box Routine – Kickers for an Okito Coin Box Routine............................... 143 On Bending Rubber – More For Webb’s Bent Coin Routine ..................................................... 145 Dark Frickin’ Humor – A Story (Slydini’s Impromptu 1 Coin Routine) ........................................ 146 Pro Fun Ditties – Thoughts on Watching Other Magicians........................................................ 146 Chapter 21 – Give Us A Sign! ...................................................................................................... 148 Mentalism With Stamps and Pendulum .................................................................................... 149 Heads I Win - Tails I Win (Calling a Tossed Coin) .................................................................... 150 Continous Ace Palm-Off Production.......................................................................................... 151 Chapter 22 – Coin Magic.............................................................................................................. 153 Shotglass Milagro – Coins Through Shotglass.......................................................................... 153 Bottlecaps Magic – Chink-a-Chink and Matrix........................................................................... 156 Bonus Halloween Present ............................................................................................................ 158 Hamman Count With Coins! – And a Coin Routine ................................................................... 158 Chapter 23 – A Card Trick & A Coin Trick .................................................................................... 160 The Card Trick .......................................................................................................................... 160 Palming 2 Coins of a Group – On Palming Technique .............................................................. 162 Coin Routine Using 2-Palm Technique ..................................................................................... 163 Bonus – Chop Shuffle For Coins – A False Shuffle-False Count.................................................. 164 False Counting in Coin Tricks ................................................................................................... 165 Bonus – Let’s Pretend (a Card Trick) ........................................................................................... 166 Bonus Challenge – Signed Selected Card Appears in Book......................................................... 168 Chapter 24 – Final Edition – Final Card Tricks ............................................................................. 170

The Book That Doesn’t Exist: January, 2002 - December, 2003

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Further Adventures of the Dupe Signature in Card Tricks......................................................... 170 The Final Afterburner – Selected Card at Any Number ............................................................. 171 Bonus Xmas Present – One Hand Bank Night (Coins And Coffee Cup) ...................................... 173 Final Bonus – Impersonation Aces, a Card Trick.......................................................................... 175

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WHEN I see everyone jumping on a bandwagon, I go the other way. Yet, obviously, most would be the ones following. Eventually comes a time when a fad ends. Then what? Then it is time for an old idea (aren't they all, really?) to become new again. Everyone has been learning a progressive twisting effect using quick half-passes. A while back I began developing a similar seeming effect using Vernon and Elmsley thinking. I believe the timing is right now for the release of this routine. It fools laymen because it is good magic. It fools and impresses magicians because they are expecting the quick half-pass method. EFFECT: Four cards that are face down, turn face up One-by-One. After all are face UP, one is turned face down and THEY ALL TURN FACE DOWN. There is a slower motion to this routine because of the method. Required: FOUR regular Jokers. Four of any matching card will do, so for example you could get two pinochle decks and have enough sets to give away afterwards, as souvenirs, for awhile.

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The reason that we need four IDENTICAL CARDS (Jokers making more sense for some reason) is the number of Elmsley counts we'll be using, and the Paint Brush Move. in these techniques you see certain cards more than one time AS IF they were different cards. So, more of the "trade off" involves carrying a packet besides your deck. I like to put the deck away occasionally, do coins, do a few packet tricks, then back to the full deck later. This doesn't bother me at all. In fact I often use these four Jokers as my cover cards for Matrix stuff. Set-up: in a face-down packet, the two middle cards are face-up but secretly so. Any examining is done at the end! Performance. "Magic Jokers.” Turn packet over. Slide out the lowermost card slightly, briefly. Square. Turn packet over again. Now it will seem face down. Say, "I HAVE FOUR OF THEM." To make the first turn face up, snap your right fingers ( I don't do the twisting gesture - I save that for Vernon's Twisting the Aces…which I still like and do.) Perform a regular Elmsley Count. One Joker will be seen, and supposedly three backs. Now, another Elmsley Count has to happen to keep the math cycle correct, but I've found that this one actually is a plus to the routine, reinforcing that only one is face up. This one doesn't imply magic - so don't snap your fingers before this count. AND, during this count OUTJOG the Joker that shows. Your patter here is ..."IF ONE IS FACE UP..." Use your LEFT first finger to push the outjogged Joker flush and now snap your right fingers as you finish, "...and I do THIS ( the snap ), ...ANOTHER TURNS FACE UP!" Perform an Underground Elmsley (This means the last card counted goes BENEATH) and TWO of the Jokers are seen to be face up. When done, the upper two cards are face up. Take these with your right. Say, "Two and two," as you wiggle the cards in each hand. Put the right's two face up cards beneath the left's two face down cards. Square. For the next, we'll be using two moves. The first is known as pulling a Double from the Middle! Buckle to get a break over the lowest card. Right hand in Biddle Grip grasps the upper three. As you move away, the left thumb uses friction to keep the top card from moving. Therefore, the right now has only two, but the viewers perceive it as ONE since you keep them square. Do the paintbrush move, sliding the double away from yourself and onto the left packet until flush. Pull back the top card only and you've effected a color change. A face down card seems to have changed to face-up! Patter - "A slight rub and another turns." Here is a nice convincer and a very subtle thing! Spread the three in you left with a one-handed fan action. Use the card in your right as a pointer to point at the face down card in the left's group. By virtue of a slight wrist turn, have the RIGHT'S card by now on EDGE, neither face up or face down. Say, "One to go!" Put the right's card at your right of the spread, FACE UP, and everything seems right as rain! Casual. Square. Do a regular Elmsley count after snapping your fingers. Four seem face-up! As you do the count you must also catch a left pinkie break under the last two. Not hard.

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Now, turn the top two as one Face Down. "If I turn One face down..." (Elmsley Count) "...they ALL turn face down!" - FIN Ironically, to clean up, the best way is to do a half-pass with the lowermost card. Square, buckle, get break. Right in Biddle Grip grips upper three, left does HALF of a half pass and then drop everything to your mat. Air does the rest of the half-pass as the cards fall in this Drop Half-Pass. Bring out coins. Do Matrix.

SLOWLY I TURN There is more than one way to skin a cat. If you are always playing "catch up" with methods that are the bandwagons all jump on, you miss out on the fun of the other ways of skinning. Another reason that I am against quick moves that take place at the same instant as the "effect" is that if someone concluded that you "turned a card over real fast", they'd be right! For the same reason I don't use the Striking Vanish in ball and small object work. It is JONGLING. Jongleurs (French...pardon my French) were a school half-way between magicians and jugglers. I hope to have brought this effect home to the "getting ahead of the viewers" school - magic. Not JONGLING.

short story JOHNNY CardTrickSeeds There was once a magician who wondered if his life had been wasted on tricks. Gee, with such dexterity he could have been a surgeon and saved many lives. Alas, he was too old to start again. Was there any worth really, to stupid card tricks? Even comedy could heal, laughter being the best medicine. But, Johnny did not want to mix comedy with his card tricks. Remembering something David Devant said, to remember to be kind with magic, and more, Johnny realized that the very most important thing magic did for the public was to remind them that they can in fact be fooled. That they don't know everything. Johnny realized that this must be disguised as entertainment, and done kindly. He wrote detailed instructions about how to do this. He folded each into a paper airplane and threw his paper airplanes to the four winds. When they landed, and after the bumbly bees came by, plants sprouted that grew and instead of flowers, a page of code would bloom that only magicians could read. Knowing that magicians around the world were finally doing his kind of magic made Johnny feel he had done something special, and while not making people who saw the tricks paranoid, had just the right effect of keeping them on their toes and alert to a world of lies, and cons, and seams, and half-truths. And that in the future magicians would eventually come to be seen as important for this above just being entertainers and doers of tricks. Reminders to the public that they can be fooled and that this is not a bad thing.

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BRIAN HIGGINS is a New York close-up man, good with spoon bending, invisible thread. Giant Coins, but mainly cards. He has a stunning table Faro. This move, like a Rub a Dub, is something else entirely in Brian's hands. I'm learning it. I'll substitute it into my Open Traveler's ending, and for the tent vanishes in Streamlined Even Farther, instead of a rub down onto the mat, it looks more like you pick it up. Therefore, if a spectator has his or her hand on a few cards, and you have a packet, and you want to vanish one from your packet (it will appear under their hand by some one-ahead procedure, of which there are many) this is BETTER. You'll have to practice. After about 100 trials while watching TV, you'll be getting it. For one thing, the card is out over the rest of the packet very far, both to the right and out. The fingers of the right are spread. One difference is that the hand moves forward. The fingers close and it seems as if you took the card into a kind of front palm. It also LIFTS as you go forward and the right fingers close. You can move to ABOVE the spectator's hand and crumble "the card" to nothingness.

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Other details are this, regarding right hand action. When the right fingers are still spread, the inner edge of R first finger and inner edge of pinkie touch the card, which is about in palming position. The timing of when to close the fingers and when to lift and move forward is what you must experiment with as you practice. The left hand action is fairly standard. The left thumb pulls the card back flush at the appropriate time AND does a wrist turn palm down, AND points with the first finger at the right hand. Time well spent. It can look real. O L D B U S I N E S S - In regards to STIGMATA… I had one other idea using TATOOS … I recommend using a good TEMPORARY tatoo, because then you can apply a different tatoo whenever you want and you ARE NOT “stuck” with actually having a tatoo. You can acquire a “library” of different TEMPORARY tatoos that can be used for different puposes - forcing different cards, numbers, symbols, etc. (Some TEMPORARY tatoos use special vegetable colorings, are fairly durable, and look quite “real.”) Cover the TEMPORARY tatoo with water based flesh color paint, or makeup, and somehow rub the flesh color off to reveal the TEMPORARY tattoo. This is a different effect from stigmatadepending on your tattoo, and instead is more of a magical tattoo appearing from nowhere. ----Next month's issue will focus on coins, and mainly a way to get a sound-gimmick (rattle device) sound - WITH NO RATTLE DEVICE! On another front, am looking forward to HERMETIC PRESS BOOK ON Paul Curry's life work. Also…a book on the history of magic with EGGS! I want it! Till next time.....

Copyright

©

2001 & 2002. Gregg Webb

The Book That Doesn’t Exist: 2002

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THIS is the culmination of a long line of thought. Interestingly, the missing link of an idea just hit me at an odd moment. If I don't write these flashes down, I sometimes forget them. Luckily, I remembered it - it CAME BACK, and then I took notes. SEMINAL ROUTINE These early stages will hardly be recognizable in version, in other words, there is NO sound effects yet. I want you to see the lineage of the routine to come. If I didn't have these routines, the final with sound would have made no sense. This one appeared in New Pabular. Effect: HPC with the odd coin appearing in the OTHER HAND at the end. Method: After doing regular HPC as Coins Across (not below the table) and the coins are spilled from the right hand, a Benzais Friction Move was used to cause the ODD COIN to stay on Right Fingertip Rest. Under cover of pretending to grab something from the air with the empty left hand, the right hand classic palmed its hidden odd coin, and pointing with the right first finger at the left hand, to give an excuse for getting into position to classic palm.

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Blow on the left fist, which only holds air, but then do a L'Homme Masque Load, dropping the coin into the left thumbhole under cover of a mystical "pass" around the left fist. Show the appearance of odd coin in left (a kicker), to end. THE NEXT ROUTINE Next, and also in New Pabular, the same effect with a better method of having dupe Odd Coins. One is in classic palm in the left hand from the start. This doesn't interfere with HPC because when I pick up the left three coins BEFORE HPC, I don't really take them INTO the hand, but lever them up where they are held by the left pinkie and already half out of the left hand, so they don't talk to the dupe odd coin in left classic. Proceed as before, but no L'Homme Masque Load needed – just show the dupe in left. Do a David Roth Shuttle Pass to end. ADDING SOUND - Our main attraction! I had been experimenting with using a sound gimmick so that as a convincer you could rattle your left hand and the audience would perceive coins right up to the last instant before the left coins vanish. Always do this vanish of the left's coins as a separate effect. ("They vanish from HERE ... pause... and reappear over HERE;") I liked the use of the sound gimmick up until I thought of what I am about to describe. Required: THREE MATCHING ODD COINS. SIX MATCHING HALF DOLLARS. Set-up: Normal HPC layout, two secret dupe odd coins in left classic Performance: Pick up three half dollars with your left hand. Pick up the three coins AND odd coin with your right hand and classic palm the three and leave the odd one loose. Use fingerpalm for the three if you use "pitch" technology. Proceed with HPC. GENTLY slap down the three from the left. Pick up again as taught. As you supposedly GENTLY slap down the right's four coins, really only the odd one GOES. At the same time, the left releases its three, and the left moves a little to your left, out of the way (it still conceals two dupe odd coins). The right picks up the four from the table, and we're way ahead. SOUND EFFECTS The left hand now relaxes and lets the dupes loose, and jingles them! Then, it has to re-classic palm them as the fingers do a sort of "pulverizing-the-molecules" acting and then makes a slight toss to YOUR right, tossing air - which on a good night sometimes looks a little like pixie dust. Grab with your right in the air - jingle all and when you spill out the coins to mat, retain the ODD ONE by Benzais Friction.

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Produce one of the dupe odd coins from your left. First let t fall to Fingertip Rest and then produce it. During this misdirection by the left hand, classic palm the odd coin that was on Fingertip Rest. Using the right first finger to point to the producing left hand helps. Let the odd coin just produced fall to the mat. You now have an odd in left classic, another in right classic, and one on the mat. What seems to happen next is that the odd coin from the mat seems to be placed by the right hand on the left hand for display to some folks on YOUR left. What happens really is that the odd from the mat is picked up by the right hand and fingerpalmed as it is supposedly set on the left hand, which turns palm up under shade, and what is seen when the right moves away is the other dupe from left classic from the start of the routine. Finally, pick this odd coin up again with the right which now has this one and two secret odd dupes. Scoop up the half-dollars with your left. Both hands go to their respective pockets to ditch all and end. The sound of the half dollars settling in the left pocket screens any talk by the dupe odds in your right ditch. - fin -

Get and read anything on Edward Victor you can find. He was really the precursor of a lot we do. Get Meir Yedid's tape on the ZARROW Shuffle. The "Z." BY Herb Zarrow! "The Z." You'll find secret uses of the great shuffle not many of us knew about. Get the new book on Paul Curry - "Worlds Beyond" from Hermetic Press. Look forward to a tape on Sol Stone's magic soon from, again, Meir Yedid. For a book on the mood of real magic - Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" outdoes King and Straub and Barker. Also, the main character likes coin tricks.

"Silent Blasphemy" - The “Mad Magician of the North opens his Big Mouth Yet Again.” He isn't really mad, you know. it is just hard to live backwards in time the way He does. Like Merlin, Mr. Blasphemy was born or "created" already very old. Very. He is getting younger all time and will eventually die or just vanish, as a tot. The first time SB expressed an opinion to magicians was at a convention in the Catskills, about ten years ago. He normally does not speak much if at all. That day he started to twitch, and came out loud with…"Ya bunch a’ JONGLERS ya!" Immediately some of the near great at card tricks and fake magic started to hate him and had SB unceremoniously deposited in the parking lot. "You should have done that thing with the seed that sprouts and then buds and blooms and turns to dust," I said. "That would be like casting Pearls before Swine", He said.

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“By-the-way, you should call that rag you'll produce - Pearls Before Swine!" No, I protested, there are some people who care. I’ll make sure only THEY get it. How did he know? That's right, he’s lived through the future and is moving the OTHER DIRECTION IN TIME. The next incident was recently - for us - when SB had words with a publisher. "There are an infinite number of ways to do magic. "Not all of them can be good!", tut-tutted the publisher. Twitching, SB came out loudly with "ALL THE TRICKS THAT DON T EXIST ARE BETTER THAN THOSE THAT do!" "YOU'LL SEE!" Now SB is magician non-grata at conventions, the GENII headquarters, and Ruben's Deli. He seems pleased. "Watch this," he said, and took out ONE GRAIN of salt. “Taste it,” he ordered. Salt! "Put it on your fingertip." It started to glow and then a little rainbow formed and left. Now it was a dark grain. "Pepper. Taste it." Pepper. I hate him. He won't teach me any of his tricks – oops…magic.

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he great and kindly Mr. Minch, of HERMETIC PRESS, and David Regal, the kindly and great creator of BLUES PROGRESSION, from CLOSE UP AND PERSONAL, both agreed to let me describe a packet trick version of the routine in my humble rag. When I first read the original, I immediately noticed that the meat of the routine was in the center. To get into it from just having a red deck and a blue deck, in performance, was just too much for my abilities. News Flash from my subconscious – incoming! Why not do it as a packet trick? I realized that it WAS a trick that I could use if I had the correct cards already set as a separate packet. I like packet tricks. Not too many in one night - but they can add variety. I also changed, over time, the color change moves to paintbrush moves (which are followed by Elmsley Counts making everything look very fair). I get less nervous this way, and have more fun. Important to a decent presentation. Finally, the third packet used to be "thick" having an extra card in it. I found a way to eliminate this and also a way to avoid the lengthy cleanup of the original. Effect: Progressive Ace Ass'y with different color backs on the Aces. Complete patter will be supplied at the end. Required: 12 red spot cards. 8 have red backs. 4 have blue backs. 4 Aces. 1 has a blue back. 3 have red backs. Set-up: Red spot cards with blue backs are at face of red-spot pile. Turn this packet face down. Blue back Ace is at back of Ace pile. Turn this packet face down. Then put spot card pile ON Ace pile. Performance: Bring out packet set up as stated, and turn it face UP. Spread over the Aces into the right hand and square them one-handedly and place them FACE DOWN onto the mat to YOUR right. Spread the spot cards so no dupe aces or anything fishy like that is clearly seen to be the case. 12 spot cards show. As you close the spread, get a left pinkie break under the three face cards. Put the Ace pile back where it was face up on the face up spot cards, and again spread them, but this time just let them stay spread on the left's spot packet. Square. You have a break under 7 now. Lift with your right, at the break. Flip left hand's 9 cards face down using left thumb so cards turn to your right. Set the right hand's group onto the left's, but both side jogged and out-jogged just long enough to change your right hand's grip to the outer right corner and now flip this group quickly and lightly face down (cards turning towards your LEFT this time). Square. Now, use your left thumb to deal four face down blue back cards into a square. This use of a one-hand deal is very disarming and takes off the curse of why the cards went back on the talon only to be removed. Our implication is that it was necessary because of the one-handed deal. I use the square because I use this in the same set as Matrix coin routines. Feel free to use the "T" formation. I'll give patter at the end, as I said, but you'll probably change the patter to suit yourself.

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YOUR VIEW Next, push over the next three cards of the talon. These are the red-backed aces. Don't flash the faces. Square them and use your right hand to slip them under the ace on the table at spot ff4. Push over three more from talon, in a fanned condition and on this group, you do flash the faces (spots) and return them face down and square and slip them under the card at spot #1. Repeat with the next three, going to spot #2, and on the final three we have a change in procedure. One (the lowest-bottom-card) is blue backed. In the original version this group was "thick." It had four cards and you hid one. I eliminated that extra card. Because of THAT change, I had to modify the procedure here with a subtlety. Turn this group face up BEFORE you spread and flash spots. Then square BEFORE turning face down and slipping under card at spot #3. That is all. THE MAGIC PILE #1. Pick up pile 1, spread to show 1 blue and 3 red backs. As you close the spread, catch a L. pinkie break above the bottom card. We are about to pull a double from the center. Right, with Biddle grip, takes the 3 cards above the break, but L. thumb holds top card in place by friction. Use the double in the R., to do a Paint Brush Move on the L.'s packet. When you draw back a single, a color change from blue to red will have been effected. Drop the Red-back from the R. onto packet. Do an Elmsley Count to show Blue Back really gone! Then turn packet face up, spread to show clearly NO ACE there, and drop cards still face up to the mat. SECOND PI LE This one is similar, except do one Elmsley Count first which seems to show quite fairly TWO blue backers if you have a smooth Elmsley! Really the first card counted gets seen again. To magi and laymen alike it LOOKS good and you'll lose even magi now by doing a L. pinkie pull down or Buckle to get a break over lower card and repeat the Double from Middle, Paintbrush and then they experience a change from blue to red, and follow with another Elmsley which "proves" "both" blues done gone! Turn packet face up & spread to show "both" aces truly gone. Drop cards face up to mat. THIRD PILE This one is different. Pick up pile and still start with an ELMSLEY to seem to show 3 blues. The false count shows one of the two blues present - TWICE giving you a total of 3 supposed blues. BUT - you catch a break with L. pinkie under the last two cards counted. This is because you pull out a double, but these are the two cards below your break - not from the middle. Again Paint Brush but we can't do another Elmsley here.

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Turn packet face up. We will do a double wrist turn Flushtration variation. Face up cards in R. Biddle. Left hand draws out the BACK card of face up packet. (Lowest). Wrist turn both hands to flash red backs. Return to normal. Left thumb draws FACE card of R.'s packet onto card already in L. Again double wrist turn & return to normal. And Again, and then finally drop R.'s single on left's group and SPREAD to clearly show NO ACES. Drop cards face up to mat. THE DENEAUMENT Pick up packet #4, and perform a Vallerino Count. I was using a Flushtration Count but my friend Brian Higgins reminded me that the Vallerino could be better. It is. The mechanics are: Hold packet in left hand. Blue back showing. Place right hand palm down on packet, fingers on top, thumb below. Turn packet face up and your R. hand palm up - cards turning away from yourself. Use your right thumb to pull face ace to YOUR RIGHT and use tips of right fingers to flip 3 card block face down to your left and back into left hand. Drop face up ace held by right hand face up on mat. Blue card still shows on left hand's packet. This count is in the family of Flushtration style counts. Repeat. After dropping card to mat, again blue shows on left's two card packet. Repeat again, and finally use final card to scoop the other aces after clearly showing its blue back. – FIN – To clean up gather red spot cards so a red back is at the back and turn block face down - square aces so blue back is at back and turn block face down and drop on top of red backed cards. Too bad, but the trick doesn't reset. Patter: I love the absurdity because it clearly lets the folks know not to take me too seriously. You'll probably change the patter which is as it should be. "Back in 1840, before I became a magician, I was a Mississippi Riverboat gambler. I guess magic has helped keep me young." "Once, I was in a game of Spanky with three magicians. I didn't know anything of magic at the time. By-the-way, Spanky is a four card game like poker but with pairs, two-pairs, three-of-a-kind and four-of-a-kind being the only hand. "At the start each of us only had one good card. I knew this because I was only a gambler, but a good one." "The first magician made his good card vanish and change with one of the second magician's spot cards. Now the second guy had two good cards. Good enough to open but probably not good enough to win. He made the two good cards go to the third wizard in exchange for two spots." "The third magician thought he had a pretty good hand, but even though I knew no magic, I knew a gambler's move called distract and swipe…and ended up with four good cards." "Never play cards with magicians…or I guess with gamblers either, for that matter."

*

*

*

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A TRUE STORY FROM THE PRIVATE FILES OF GREGG WEBB OLINSKY'S TREASURE by Gregg Webb The last time I saw Jackie Flosso, he helped me solve a long time mystery. It all concerns a cache of magic in Binghamton, NY, in about 1965. I was all of 15. I knew how to spring cards (well) and could do a dynamite pressure fan, and an Elmsley Count and Twisting the Aces. And, I could back palm 5 cards…one at a time AND front & back palm and bring them out one at a time or in a fan. That's it. in the paper was a collection of magic for sale. I think this guy Olinsky who had gone by Olin at one time, was, I suspected, being forced to sell his stuff by his wife. Price? $100.00. A lot for a kid, yes, but the collection was…sub-trunk, top hat, cane to table for use with said top hat, broom suspension, a, weird antique harness that had metal flanges that swung out from under the vest to do some kind of suspension, big guillotine, two bowl producing tables, blooming rose bush, black art act, all sorts of small magic. Die Box for Lucky Strike cigarette packs. P&L reels, tons of silks and gimmicks, Connie Haden trick coins, and books books books including some good ones, and all the back issues of every magazine in existence. Well, I put my way through part of college (I had a partial scholarship, too) by selling this stuff off at conventions. I read every book and took notes before selling…magazines too. Anyway, Jackie Flosso remembered Olinsky coming in regularly to buy the stuff from his father Al Flosso. What a memory. Also, if I had waited a few years till the big boom in magic interest, I could have made more than I did on each piece. Hindsight. I did learn a lot from playing with all the props - instructions were included…and from reading the books and magazines. What fun. I still like my Elmsley Count the best, though.

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I have just received Paul Curry's WORLDS BEYOND. I would have to say it is maybe the most important book since Annemann's PRACTICAL MENTAL EFFECTS. I would have said Paul Curry invented Out of This World and the Turnover Change, if asked, before this. Many of the principles in his many other inventions I have heard of, but without credit because I was seeing variations and handlings that drifted over time into other tricks. If you were to track down all the sources where his ideas did appear, it would take you years. Seeing them all together is staggering. You won't digest the material overnight. in fact, it is a book to study the rest of your life. "Touch" is new to me. I should have come across it or seen it done or referred to. It got by me and now I love it and will use it I It is unbelievable. I never read the original instructions for Out of this World, and I must say the variations don't come close (or pirate versions) in the number of subtleties in the original. But there are MANY MANY very great things in the book besides and not just cards. Mentalism, coins, rope tricks…I'm amazed that I only thought he did OOTW and the Turnover. If you never get another book, you owe yourself this one.

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THIS routine has been under wraps for a while. It is the only box routine I do. It takes a purist approach - a regular ungaffed un-Boston'd, unslotted (regular) 0. box. There are at least three original secrets…maybe four. By-the-by, ROTH fools me to this day with his techniques and routines. I've carefully read and re-re-re-read his material, but then came the day that I realized that I wanted to create my own material that fit ME instead of always playing "catch-up" with pieces of material that fit their authors and yet may NOT fit me. The "secrets" are: A) The hands alternate in what they do in the early phase, to remain ahead yet remain efficient and also this helps fool the mind trying to backtrack. You'll understand. B) Something called "Coin Screen" which hides an angle that most often flashes when I watch lesser magi do 0. box. C) An original turnover move that has already seen print in Charles Reynolds’ book from MAGICO, Inc. "Observations and Effects." D) Finally a clean-up concept that is based on the little known fact that 5 English pennies EXACTLY fill to the brim a regular 0. box. 4 half dollars exactly fill the same box to said brim. Required: Okito's Box. Five English pennies. Ability to learn magic from words instead of video tape.

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Set-up: Four E. pennies in box. Box and fifth loose E. penny are in a left pocket. Performance: Reach in the pocket with the left hand, and classic the loose E. Penny. Bring out box and as you open it dump downwards. This movement, called by Richard Kaufman "breaking an egg" is designed (by Roth) to prevent the view of the fact that 4 E. Pennies do NOT fill the box. At the end of dump, the box and lid are in your hands mouth down and four coins on table. Put box mouth up on table and lid mouth down after a brief flash of mouth and the lid goes to your left of box. Use left hand to put coins on outstretched right hand. Turn right hand palm down in a loose fist and classic palm one of a group. Drop three coins into box and reach over box to get lid (this keeps box in the shade) and put lid on box. After a pause, produce the coin from your LEFT hand and drop on table. Pick up box and remove lid dumping downwards as before to reveal three coins from box. Next coin escapes… Set box mouth up and have lid to your RIGHT of box. Use the Right hand to put coins on left hand. Turn left hand palm down and classic one of its group and drop two coins in box. Reach for lid with your left (screening box) and return to put lid on box. Pause and then produce the coin from RIGHT hand and drop to table. Pick up box and remove lid AS you dump two coins downwards. Put box mouth up and lid to your left* Third Coin Escapes… Here we will use the move taught in FEEN-X called "What Is The Sound Of One Coin Clapping." Put the two coins dumped onto the right hand with the left hand. Classic one of the group as the right turns palm down. Drop the single loose coin onto the rim of the box. This gives the first sound, and is part of David Roth's RIM STEAL. Here we won't really steal, but use it to get the first clink. The second clink comes as the crooked right thumb, hidden under right fingers, kicks this coin off the rim and into the box. Then reach across and get lid and put it on box.

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Produce the coin that has been in left classic. I produce all coins right above box as if it is escaping from box. Dump the one coin out of box. This concludes the first phase. You still have a coin in right classic palm. NEXT PHASE Put the three coins that escaped into box and leave the one coin that DIDN'T escape out of box, on the table. Now we are ready for my original 0. box turnover move that was taught in Observations and Effects by Charles Reynolds and published by Magico, inc.. Hold the box with its three coins in left French Drop Position, Mouth towards the viewers. Pick up lid with right hand and secretly hold it in front palm. Keep the right thumb hidden by keeping it crook 'd and under right fingers, in other words, we want the audience to think we're holding the lid by the right thumb against the right fingers. Using front palm instead wherein the lid is held between right pinkie and first finger secretly frees the right thumb for dirty work.

As the right hand moves in front of the left, supposedly to put the lid on, and when the right hand screens the box, the tip of that crook 'd right thumb pushes the right side of box down. It being held between the left thumb tip and middle fingertip, allows the box to rotate clockwise from your own POV. As soon as it has rotated a little more than halfway mouth down, the lid makes contact and now with a slight squeezing action between right fingers and thumb causes box to become completely mouth down and with the lid in place on the bottom of inverted box. The right thumb tip has been keeping the coins from falling out. Lower box onto the left hand which straightens. Box should be resting at about left low fingerpalm position (closer to pinkie).

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COIN SCREEN CONCEPT When taking a box out of hand (inverted box), and yet leaving coins behind in (low) fingerpalm, which is supposed to be secret, more often than not I see a flash of the coins when I watch someone do it. This is an attempt, successful, to fix this. Before taking the box away, the single coin from the table, which was left out of the box, is propped between the left thumb and first finger in a modified French Drop Position. By modified I mean that the axis of the face of the coin is in line with the left thumb and first finger, and the hand is oriented so that the left fingers point to YOUR right. This causes the FACE of coin to be facing the audience. NOW remove the box from left hand, with your right, and leave the coins in left low fingerpalm. The propped coin helps screen the coins in left low fingerpalm until the box is set on table. What helps here is snapping the left thumb tip off of the edge of coin into position at the lower edge instead which is now pinched between L. thumb and fingers. This allows the left hand to conceal the secret coins better and display the known coin better. This tip came from Charles Reynolds. Remember, you have a coin in right classic palm. Don't flash it as you indicate three quick little tossing actions from above the box towards the left hand, which now spills out four coins to the table. CLEANUP Pick up the box. Bring it above the left palm and let the box drop from lid onto left palm, doing a half-turn as it falls mouth up. This is a standard move. The box trips over a little flesh of the right second finger to cause the half turn to happen. This is a secret move, and is screened from view by the back of right hand. Then set lid on left fingers. Pick up the four coins from table and as you jingle them in your right fist, let the fifth coin join the others, the one that was in right classic. Drop all coins into box, and here is where we take advantage of the fact that five English Pennies exactly fill to the brim a standard 0. Box. - fin THE LIBRARY I am still re-re-re-reading the Paul Curry book. There is so much good to digest. It will take a while. Usually I make notes as to which tricks AREN'T for me on the first time through. Then when I go back to the book, I can focus on the ones that MIGHT be for me. (I'll know after learning them better and testing them). With "Worlds Beyond," there is little I've been able to rule out (for myself ...others will like or not possibly other items), yet. To me, this is the sign of a GREAT book. Another book I've been INTO is "Destroyers" about Troy Hooser’s magic. About half the book is coins, and about half Cards. I got four routines out of it that I really love. Two are close-up and two standup. I'll cover the standup in SOSOHA. For close-up, and very interesting and magical is A Charming Chinese Challenge - a routine with four Chinese coins and a ribbon.

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Large washers would work. Also East Africa pennies (with holes) or large Chinese coins with holes. I will keep honing this one because it is a very different use of coins, and good. The other close-up item that I really love is a card item - "Triumph Display." It could have been called “The Zillionth Triumph" but it is maybe the dark horse of the book. Most of the other card pieces had too many flourishes for me, but if you like robot cuts which is what we used to call those cuts where many cards swivel out and around and back into a deck, you might like those. I like flourishes but not during tricks. I do some between tricks, but during the tricks I tend to want to stay more natural. As for the rest of the coin work, two variations on 3-Fly were the reason I got the book-handling variations on 3-Fly. Note: I knew Jonathan Townsend and saw him do 3-Fly long ago. Being to me a standup piece, I'll cover the two routines of variations with normal coins in SOSOHA. The rest of the coin work feature gaffs or stick-urn and a little too much dropping of something down the shirt collar while rubbing something into your elbow, which I feel has been exposed in many many children's books and I don't dare use it anymore and also just isn't my standup style. I'm a purist in my standup work, so it is probable that you'll like even more than I do. The book is derivative, but almost all we do is, and I don't mind because that's how we get cleaner routines. They always say if you get one routine from a book, you have gotten your money's worth. So I got four routines. That's good! AND, a book that is getting a great BUZZ here at the vortex is the LOST NOTEBOOKS OF JOHN NORTHERN HILLIARD, by Kaufman and Co. I can't wait for mine to arrive and will report after I've been able to start assimilating. ADDENDUM In the patter for “1 Gambler vs. 3 Magicians” I mentioned 4-card Spanky, and you might want to add to the patter that this game is like Spit-ln-The-Ocean but without the common fifth card.

We should all be cognizant of the fact that a new looking wand was debuted in the Harry Potter movie. It has a handle at one end and the rest is narrow with a bit of taper. Think chopstick inserted in a dowel that is bigger, with a hole in it. Oh, and inside the handle is a phoenix feather of course, to imbue the wand with its power.

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Perhaps time to bid adieux to the regular trite wand with the two cliche white tips. If you make one up, kick it around and rub some dirt into it to make it look old. You know atmosphere. STATE OF THE ONION by Gregg Webb On to a topic of great import to our futures as lesser magicians I can remember doing magic shows so far back that we didn't have Doug Henning even, yet, for audiences to compare us to. Only an occasional magician on TV, on Ed Sullivan. I saw some good ones, but the point is, no one magician was visible enough for people to know their names. Then came Henning, and people would come up after a show and instead of commenting on my performance, they'd start in with, "I saw this guy (the public has always had trouble with magician's names) on TV blah blah blah." TV validates. You can almost hear them think…"Why aren't YOU on TV?" I did have a young lady tell me that I was better looking than what's-his-name. (We then dated for about five years.) I guess I was flattered. (That doesn't happen as much anymore.) Then came along the next great TV illusionist. I was doing manipulation, and can remember several times when people came up and said, I saw "So and so" at the arena, and I LIKED WHAT YOU JUST DID BETTER, meaning that they noticed that I was doing something different and could tell that classical sleight-of-hand was maybe harder and maybe more artistic, but those folk were few and far between. TV validates. Most would say something like, "I heard he's dating a supermodel I". You could almost hear them think, "YOU AREN'T DATING A SUPERMODEL…are you!" Next on the scene comes a young man doing tricks off of the shelf of any magic shop, and a few tricks that are with cards and feature the double-lift. An old friend of mine, not a magician, asks me "Is he real?" Notice the lack of memory as to the guy's name. (This guy I saw on TV.) And - the trick that made my friend wonder if he was REAL was - get ready - "He bit off a coin and spit it back on." Since this was a friend, I tried to explain. I told him that some of the show was digitally retouched. My friend understood. I told him part of his method was to shoot thousands of hours of video and that trick editing alone made up for how amazing some of the tricks seemed. My friend understood the concept. Next talk drifted back to the big illusionist of our day. I explained that in the TV specials SOME digital retouching occurs. I also explained that in his live shows there are about thirty stooges, and that in his TV specials ALL audience members may be stooges. My friend understood the ideas. I concluded that there are many very good magicians around "out there" who can perform without resorting to these techniques, who in effect are the real magicians and can actually do a trick from start to finish in "one take" for live audiences, and that these magicians aren't very happy about how the "big 2" got on top.

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Back when the Beatles were fab, a group called the Monkeys almost hit it big, but the public found out they all didn't really play instruments and that it was faked by studio musicians. They faded pretty quickly after this tidbit got out. Also remember a duo called Millie Vanillie who won some music award and then had to give it back when it was uncovered that they overdubbed or lipsynced because they really couldn't sing? Did I really tell my friend too much? I say no, that the public in fact already understands what a stooge is, and already understand what trick editing is, and what digital retouching is, but just didn't think that would be used in a magic show. I began thinking that if a magician uses those techniques, that they really aren't as good as someone who doesn't have to, AND I feel that they have forfeited their positions. Where does this lead us? Is there anything we can do? I believe the stage is set for a new idea. A show that does NOT EXPOSE much more than the idea of stooges, yet educates the public about the fact that the real workers who can do magic without stooges and digital retouching and trick editing COULD be produced as a TV Special. I envision either Dick Cavitt or Ricky Jay as the host. The opening monologue would run something like this: “Good evening. Years ago, in TV's infancy and the infancy also of magic done for TV, it was always considered to be an unfair practice to use trick photography. Well, in recent years the very top names in magic have begun to use trick photography, digital retouching, trick editing and also a wide use of stooges, to make themselves look better than they really are, and the magicians who don't use these techniques take this decision as a forfeiture of sorts of the top places in magic by the supposed best. Tonight you are going to see the magicians that can actually perform before real audiences, without using stooges or digital enhancement or needing trick editing and many many "takes" to get footage for a special. These magicians can do, in the jargon of the business, THE REAL WORK, and are actually the best in the business…” NOW FOR WHO I THINK SHOULD BE ON THE SPECIAL: Ricky Jay, John Carney, Rene Levand, Lennert Green, Juan Tamariz, David Roth, Aurellio Paviatto, Vallerino, David Williamson doing classical magic which he can do beautifully, and not his zany stuff, Bernard Billis, and Darwin Ortiz. These would all be candidates for close-up. For larger magic, the Pendragons and Joe Gabrielle would be my picks. For mental magic, Max Maven or Barrie Richardson or Kreskin or Mark Salem, or Tim Conover would fit the bill.

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Attention magic producers. A special like this for TV need not be blatant. Perhaps what would work would be a return to the disclaimer of yesteryear about not using trick camera work, and extending this to include digital retouching and trick editing. Again, magic producers, when using talent that doesn't need the aforementioned special effects to work, these techniques should be scrupulously avoided to distance themselves from those who do not see anything wrong with the use of said techniques. During each introduction by the MC, repeated allusions to this issue could be subtly made, for example, "This next performer has abilities that will make you feel as if you were watching a special effects movie, but be reminded that what you see at home is exactly what we are seeing here." Run a slightly larger than normal disclaimer at the beginning and end of the special, and after each commercial. No actual exposure will occur except for possible references to stooges, which the audience understands, and the use of digital retouching and trick editing, which the audiences understand but didn't believe were allowed to be used in a magic special because of the old covenant. I predict that if this advice is not heeded, that very soon almost anyone could come along and be better than us in the public's eyes. The two top guys made a choice to discard the old covenant and I think the public should be educated about this.

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I always wanted to do a blindfolded poker deal. My problem for years was which one to use. There are many poker deals in print. I always liked the Marlo/Gardner routine, but it had an expose in the first part. I tried to solve that by learning a real bottom deal, but it just wasn't burnable enough. Then I came up with a stack that eliminated the expose or bottom. Set-up: From top: A-A-A-A-Joker … 4 X cards … K-4 X cards … K-4 X cards … K-4 X cards … Krest of deck. Performance: Figure out what your best false shuffles and false cuts are that can be done blindfolded. Remember, you CAN look down next to your nose and see a little. Learn this. Deal a round of five hands after your false shuffle and cut sequence. The first four hands get an ace each, and you get a Joker face down. Keep dealing around until each hand has five cards. Show that you got four Kings and a Joker. Display this hand on the audience side of table.

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Gather up the four OTHER hands as casually as possible in ANY order and put on top of deck. This stacks the Aces for the next phase. Pick up the K's hand. Thumb the Joker onto the deck. Well use it. Get a break under kings and double undercut them to bottom and remember to not flash them for the rest of routine. Next, we need to add four cards on top of stack. I do two Herb Zarrow type shuffles to add four cards, two in each of two "Z" shuffles. Here's how. Cut the upper half to YOUR right. Hold back two with your left thumb as you "Z." This adds two odd cards above your stack. Again cut to your right and hold back two with left hand which are "Z'd" under, giving you your 4. False cut, and deal five hands. Show the losing hands first, which you can because we lost the K's. Then show your winning hand of 4 Aces and I like the fact that the Joker shows up again in case of the rare straight-flush showing up in a losing hand. You have really 5 Aces!

Losing the Aces face up in a face down deck and then shuffling and dealing so that on my hand I second deal a face up Ace to myself each time has always appealed to me. I have many routines with different methods. This is the most practical yet, so can be done with blindfold. In all methods this requires that the aces get stacked to arrive to me but one extra card is added on top so that when I get to myself a face down card is seen, but by virtue of face-up ace being NEXT, the appearance is perceived as a center deal. The Aces were supposedly lost at random during losing and shuffling. Performance: Take out aces. Shuffle deck. Put on blindfold. Put Aces face up on face down deck. Buckle and get break above bottom card. Double cut this to the top. Aces are now covered by this face down card and already seem lost. This tip was given to me by MARC KISSEL, the CEO of the NYU magic club. It was a very astute observation. The stacking takes place during two Faro shuffles that don't have to be perfect except in the ACE ZONE. I'll explain. Take the upper half with your right and lower stays put. When you but the right's half against left's half, aim low. We're going to lose the extra cards that are above ace stack with some cuts. Illustrations are coming up on the next page so don't worry. This procedure, which I'll explain in more detail, is better than trying for a perfect weave at the top of deck and whether it is IN or OUT. The drawings to come show edge of deck - your view.

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After your Faro, when you are ready to telescope the halves together, a little pressure down with right hand causes an opening to form under the extra cards of left hand's half and left pinkie is inserted there keeping a break after cards are squared. Then lose these extra cards with a doublecut. Repeat that entire "aiming low Faro,” and obtaining break at spot above stack where extra cards are, and cutting those extra cards to bottom. If you want, you can add two Add-On type "Z" shuffles, adding two odd cards each time for a total of four X cards added. False cut and deal 4 hands. The first card to yourself will be an odd card, and then each time you get to yourself deal a SECOND and a face up ace will slide from "nowhere." Or skip the 2 "Z's" and just false cut and go right into it, dealing seconds to yourself the first 4 times.

THE LIBRARY Am enjoying very much the Lost Notebooks of John Northern Hilliard. Get it. Looking forward to The EGGcyclopedia from Hermetic Press. Boo! Uri Geller has new book out on medical healing with the mind. A positive attitude is important so you don't fall apart over a medical procedure, but beyond that …

SLOWLY I TURN To continue a bit with the theme I started last issue, I want to recollect about when trick photography crept into magic specials.

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I think it was the Statue of Liberty. I can remember not knowing for sure how it was done. I can remember also the buzz that it got from laymen. As a magician, people would ask me how it was done. It was always in that tone of, "you can't do that - right?" It set me to thinking. And asking around. When I found out how it was done, I concluded that THAT was in fact "trick photography." I spent ten years as an art director and effects animator in a special effects studio, and guess what. Manipulating the camera as in THAT illusion AND in the one with the airplane would fall in the category of trick photography. Also, this is when I first understood about stooges. What do laymen think? It is hard to tell. I certainly do not recall people saying "You know - it must have been trick photography." We know a lot of people thought Uri Geller was real. What magicians do is NOT real - what a PSYCHIC does is REAL. I can remember that people did and still do believe Kreskin was and is REAL. Of course the guy on Sci-Fi channel is taken by many laymen to be real. What is amazing is that even the news media is reluctant to say, "There are no real psychics" because they fear that the religions will complain that THAT should be interpreted as "powers" don't exist. There is some good news on this front. I watched a UFO show and was pleasantly surprised to see that the thrust was that UFO's are NOT real and that what is at play are three causes. One-a near earthquake situation causes an effect in people's brains - some kind of electrical disturbance they see aliens! Two-to make up for a loss of faith in religion they grab onto this as a modern myth. Three-they grab onto a belief in UFO's to subconsciously show they fit in with modern popular culture. Also touched on were that some may be just plain coo-coo, or dreaming. Yay! DARK FRICKIN HUMOR It seems that a member of the New York scene, which meets in the BACKROOM of a deli, was showing someone an act he'd been working on with a trained cockroach and a mouse. Well, the health inspector just walked in and the deli was BUSTED! Now, with no place to gather, the NY magic SCENE has been DECIMATED.

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To my loyal subscribers, this is just a note that SOSOHA will be delayed on purpose because I am too far ahead with it. Next time you'll get both, and both will be the same #. I'll be "on count." ADDENDUM: The issue you have in your hands - even as we speak - contains an item called 'Pseudo Center' as one of the poker deals. It is fast becoming a favorite and has received favorable comment from all over the globe…but, you may want to know that a broken-in deck that is almost new but not "brand new" works best and especially so if you follow this tiny advice. The deck you use for that trick (I should have called it 'I wouldn't want to play cards with YOU') should be kept special for that trick AND store the deck with the ACES face up in the middle of the deck IN the card box'. You'll be glad you did. PS - don't do crimp tricks with this deck or they won't Faro right. SUPER ADDENDUM: Going back to "One Gambler VS Three Magicians," again, you may want to alter the patter to actually refer to the game SPIT IN THE OCEAN, because it is a real game and Spanky is NOT unless you have a sense of humor and like "Spanky." To imply SPIT IN THE OCEAN, put down a face down Joker in the middle of the table. It could be any card, and whatever you choose, this card has to be added to the packet. The Joker face down - blue backed is interesting considering the ending. Red backed is also good. Face UP in the middle is truer to the game, making the back color moot. Lacking the Joker, any two is good. Say "two's are wild." Or one-eyed jacks, and use one of these for the common fifth card. How SPIT the OCEAN works is everyone gets four and there is one card in the middle face up that everyone uses for their fifth card. OK. I hope you enjoy the special issue of SOSOHA, a big one, next month.

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A NEW PLOT! (Yay!)... Effect: A magic coin and some regular coins are in a purse. The magic coin pushes the regular coins out of the side of the purse one-by-one. In other words, they magically penetrate out of the side (leather part-bag) of purse. When you finally show the odd coin whose powers caused this magic, you are ready for any routine with coins & odd coin.

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Required: Three half dollars. One odd coin. One purse with the bag part of a dark color. Note: I'll show ways to do more coins at the end. Set-up: Two coins in right classic. One at R. Fingertip Rest COVERED by purse. Odd coin is IN the purse. Performance: Toss the purse AND coin below it AS ONE to your left hand. This is the famous "Purse Swindle" move and easier than it sounds. Left hand is palm up with fingers slightly cupped. Coin lands on left fingers and is still covered by purse. It is a very disarming move when done smoothly and will take a tad of practice like riding a bike, and once you have it down, its yours. Mention premise and wave your right hand held as flat as is possible, let one coin fall ON purse from right classic. A pretty picture. Pretend to dump this coin onto R hand. Really hold back coin on purse with LEFT thumb as you dump, turning R palm up under the shade of purse and then reveal coin on R. palm and then put this coin on table. The next coin is easy. Put the right hand flat and wave it over purse. Under this shade, turn purse so left hand is palm up. Release left thumb's hold on coin held back before, and remove the flat right hand to reveal a second coin. Really dump this to right hand which tables it. Remember there is a coin under purse from the "toss" move at start. Turn left hand and purse with it, palm DOWN. Grip a protruding edge of purse with R. hand. Make LEFT hand flat and raise it about an inch above purse and wave it back and forth and then remove it to reveal third coin resting on the black leather bag part of purse. Dump to RH and table third coin. Open purse and take out odd magic coin. To produce four coins, you could begin with three in right classic, and do one more drop from classic at the beginning. Or, you could have the fourth coin IN the purse with the odd coin - it didn't come out yet - OR you could wait till you put purse away to mention you need a fourth and get it out of a pocket (and you could also palm out an extra secret fifth coin). Finally, you could have an extra coin or two in LEFT classic from the start and hide it with KAPS subtlety even during the purse toss. EPILOGUE: When finally taking odd coin out of purse, refer to it as the coin that actually had the power to repel the others out of the purse. This brings up an interesting interpretation of the type of power of an "odd" coin in magic. Often they are shown to attract other coins to "it," as in one-by-one coins across to join the odd (and magical) coin. This leads us to a possibility of a set of tricks after this where the odd coin REPELS coins out of one hand and away from "itself" to appear in the other hand. A different "take" on the power of the odd coin. This leads us to my idea, already in print, of the idea of having several odd coins - old and from different exotic countries and each has a different kind of power. Putting one away and getting a different one, for a different kind of trick, allows you to either ditch something, or pick up something extra, palmed, from a pocket, or both.

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by CUSHING STROUT Mr. Strout, from Ithaca, NY, and who used to correspond with Stewart James, submits this card force for your approval. The idea of using a setup of a sequence in descending order from K to A to force a 14th card is a very old one. A number from 1-12 is chosen; it is counted to a card; and its value is counted to the force card. For a brief history of the principle and many ingenious uses of it, see Allan Slaight's The James File , I, chap. 25, "Extension Ladder." Stewart James made an improvement by suggesting that a larger range of numbers could be used if any numbers larger than 14 were dealt into two piles, one for each of the two digits of the larger number. The spectator could then choose to use the top of either of the dealt piles, or the top of the talon, and the count of the card's value would lead to the force. A spectator could choose the number of dice to be used for rolling a number, and the sum could be dealt with in this same way. The same thing could be done for any number named between I and 52. The highest number that a spectator could name in terms of the number of cards used would be 49, and 4+9 =13 would still be in the range of the setup. In all these cases, however, the faces of the other setup cards have to be kept from being seen both before and after the selection. I wanted to invent a setup that would be "invisible" even if all its faces were seen by the spectator before and after the counting. That would represent a considerable improvement. I haven't seen it suggested anywhere in the literature of card magic. I solved the problem by interleaving odd-numbered cards (13,11,9,7,5,3,1) with 6 indifferent cards: KxJx9x7x5x3xAF. The sequence is not linear because it is only the odd cards that are in order, and their suits are random. Both the values and suits of the indifferent cards are random. With this setup on top of the deck, it can be spread without revealing any discernible order-unless the spectator studies it for while, which he never gets to do. The dealing can even be done by turning the faces up singly during the counts, or it can be done by turning up all the dealt cards after the choice of the force card to make it clear that the cards are all different and in no special order. This subtle arrangement makes the force card seem to have been fairly chosen beyond any reasonable doubt. To use it with numbers larger than 14 in the style of James you have to remember that two odds add up to an even. Only an odd and an even add up to an odd number. That tells you how to proceed. With the cards in two piles for a two-digit number, named by the spectator, the left pile must have an odd number and the right pile an even number, if both top cards are to be available as "indicators" for counting onwards. Only in this case are both top cards odd in value. When both digits of the spectator's number are even, only the top of the talon can be used to count to the force. If the digits are both odd, only the top of the left pile is usable. You could have the spectator put a ring or a coin on either of the dealt piles, and then you interpret it by equivoque to indicate which one to eliminate and which one to use for the count. If you do use the top of the left pile, you have to put the right pile back on the talon before you count the indicator's value. This odd-number principle can also be used in "clock" layouts where some device is spun to point to a position on the "clock" of cards. Suppose there are four duplicate force cards at 12, 3, 6, and 9 on the "clock." In between these cards are four odd-numbered cards, 1,3,5,7.

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Suppose the device doesn't point to one of the force cards: you turn up the pointed-at card and use its value to count, either clockwise or counter- clockwise, and you will always end on one of the force cards. You can then turn over the two cards flanking the force card to show that they are different. If the device points at a force card, you also show the flanking cards are different. Al Baker said "to keep a secret, publish it in a magic magazine." I have tried to take his advice. THE

LIBRARY

Even though I have not digested much, yet, from "The Lost Notebooks of John Northern Hilliard," because of the overwhelming amount of material - mostly cards - I can say that it gives one a feeling of history of our field of study. One can sense the process that Hilliard went through, but more importantly, you can tell that all the great names out of magic's past either corresponded or knew each other or at least what each other was working on, because each had their own spins on everyone else’s advances and it is all there in the book. The non-card items are interesting, but many many mental card items. I've always been a fan of Annemann. Hilliard spells his name wrong, and part of the charm is that this is all exact facsimile copies so you get all the typos and handwritten notes and crude first-draft drawings. Vernon is still "Dave," and if he was the Professor, Baker was the DEAN. His section is filled with amazing thoughts and ideas. Stuart Judah. Zens. Read the ad in GENII. Some of the more exotic names are often tricks being recalled by someone else, such as Baker or Judah, but plenty of names are the actual contributors to sections. The section on prearranged packs and mnemonic stacks is great. The section on trick decks of the day is wonderful and so is the section on set-ups for poker deals, of which there are many. I've never favored the complete deck being setup, but I may try a few out. The advent of the Zarrow shuffle would turn many of these deals into miracle stuff. The section on living and dead tests will give any of you ammo in case anyone asks about John Edwards show on Sci-Fi called Crossing Over. I'll come back to this book again as I've only been through it twice. I don't have it memorized yet. I already have many bookmarks in place flagging tricks I think could actually be used. More than just a history book, although I'm interested in that angle too. PRO FUN DITTIES Did you ever notice how every single magician has a different body of knowledge from any other? Even in cases where a student is said to be a carbon copy of the master, like Slydini and his students…or Neil Foster and his Foster children, it is not really so. No student learns everything the master knew, but then they go on to learn from other sources. In most cases we are all even more varied. We are attracted to different tricks in books to try to master and tinker with. MORE from the LIBRARY In GENII Feb. there appeared a great routine by Giovanni Livera called SHAKER and SILVER which is coins and the plot is Free and Unlimited Coinage. Look it up. Learn it.

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The only thing I didn't like was the ending. I wrote a letter to editor to GENII stating that reproducing the coins somehow after final vanish would give better closure. I wrote that instead of just dropping the palming hand to lap, the coins could be pulled from different pockets. I gave two methods. I don't know if Mr. Kaufman will even run my letter, but I have since thought that a good ending would be to find the missing coins IN the saltshaker. During the routine, coins are found under and ON the shaker a la Goshman, but ending with them INSIDE would be nice. From the pockets (one dupe coin and the others by sleights still more DO-able). While on the subject of GENII, my complete cups and balls routine - very different - 30 years of tinkering with the routine and which was slated to run there in three separate issues - serialized with the beginning one month, the middle another time, and the ending yet another time…well, now it will run in April ALL at once! Many many illustrations. It is just hitting me that this is very good. It may be my most original thinking and it is such a classic - and I realize some people will complain that it isn't as good as Vernon's etc. I started with the Vernon and it changed so much over time that maybe one move in the middle is still there from the Vernon. It will be interesting to see how the critics at large view it. On to Sol Stone's tape QUICK & CASUAL from Meir Yedid, is a tape I definitely want. Besides some of the coin material I want to learn. Sol's ring and stick moves, and his three-balls with the balls all DIFFERENT COLORS making it much more of a mystery, and in this and other tricks Sol's patter is exactly the kind of class we all need. His version of Linking Pins fooled me (live) and I want this tape. I want it, I want it, I want it! Again, Hermetic Press is coming out with EGGCYCLOPEDIA which I want mainly because I was allowed to do the most ambitious piece of artwork I've ever done for the cover, but really beyond that I am always interested in non-card magic. Eggs are organic, almost alive, and a symbol for life. Very powerful stuff. A great coffee table book. Go on! Judge a book by its cover. Over the phone. Richard Robinson made a very astute observation. in Houdini's case he used ESCAPES to get publicity. David Blain has completely changed this. For his stunts it is about how long he can stay INSIDE - the antithesis of escaping. Now that I know this I may rent a cell in the Bastille for a month as publicity and catch up on my reading. How long can you stay in a straight-jacket?

I brought up this topic in my writings and finally the big boys have picked up on this. Let me also be the first to suggest actual ways to Potter-Up your show. Robes not tuxes! Dig up a Santa beard from a costume shop. Get some antique-looking tables and get rid of the chrome. Put little cauldrons of dry ice on your table. Attach little wads of flash paper to objects and props with a tiny piece of double-stick tape and set this off with stick incense a la wand (low tech).

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As an example, before vanishing a billiard ball with the wad of flash paper hidden by fingers can vanish as usual, but right before it goes, it starts to flare up -.and then it's GONE! Learn some Latin, or even Pig-Latin or look up words in the Potter books. More emphasis on cause and effect. Ceremony! Things just don't happen, the wiz causes them to happen with a word, a wand, a gesture, a potion, a SPELL. Everyone gets this wrong even Potter. To cause something SPELL its name letter by letter maybe in Latin. Chinese - Yut, Yee, Sahm, Say, Um, Lo, Chut, Buht, Kow, Sup are numbers. Anything to make the ceremonies or spells exotic and have ATMOSPHERE. Get a pet mouse or rat. Bob Elliott says rats make great pets and always clean themselves. Look to the old books - in fact have a BIG OLD LOOKING BOOK ON YOUR TABLE. They used to hollow out a deck-box with a few loose cards with the edge of box doctored with pencil lines to look like the side of deck and pet mouse in the box. The mouse appears at end of failed card trick - line: My assistant ate it! Tarot cards, gypsy curse. Remember think Ink? Get it. A simple clock reaction that looks like "powers." Many classic tricks ok too. Rings ropes silks liquid tricks EGG TRICKS (see-try to get away from an overabundance of card tricks) HERMETIC PRESS is coming out with EGGCYCLOPEDIA and tricks with eggs are perfectly organic. Don't forget FISM FLASH, flash pots with smoke - remember it is the atmosphere we're trying to improve. One idea worth a lot to someone trying to mount a true theatrical production comes from another movie with a wizard Gandalph of the TOLKEIN trilogy. Remember the fireworks scene? Collect pictures of fireworks from magazine adds - a little research. Take slides of these and have lighting man project these at you and the stage & backdrop at key moments. Yes you do a turnover box vanish of a dove, but also there is a big image (and maybe SOUND) of a fireworks explosion that appears at the magical moment. Hint-don't just do the vanish- have a big piece of flash paper crumpled into generally the shape of a dove. Put this with some tissue paper confetti inside the box proper. When you do the tip-over move, out falls this white thing and the confetti falling is nice, too. Assistant takes box away and you pick up the oblong wad of flashpaper and set it off on a piece of burning stick incense. This delays the vanish with a transition. First the dove changes and THEN vanishes completely! Produce another dove some other way because this gives closure (same color dove-taken to be the same one. So carve a chopstick into a Potter style wand, and rub some dirt into it. Wash your hands but not the wand.

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FRICKIN PATHETIC HUMOR "Why can't Johnny classic palm?" DEEP DARK FRICKIN HUMOR "Why can't Johnny FINGERPALM?" bleeding IN DEPTH SORRY HUMOR "Why can't Johnny do a no-fumble double lift?"

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IMAGINE being able to do a different trick with your 3-Ball Trick balls, which actually uses four! ? ! Great, huh? What this routine is, is a multiplication - but with small silicon or rubber balls common to the OTHER TRICK. It doesn't go WITH the other one, but INSTEAD OF, so that on certain occasions you can do this routine and not the other, for some variety in your life. The reason you can't do them in the same show is that this one shows four at the end, and in the three-b. version you want to keep the fourth one secret. The illustration shows the start position. One in classic, one in pinkie curl-palm, one between the ball of thumb and the ball held in pinkie curl-palm - by friction - and the last which is at the fingertips IN VIEW. If you have all in a right pocket, you can easily get in position before bringing out hand.

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When you come out, you can't pause too long. instead drop the visible ball into the open left hand which pulls the audience's eye off of your right hand temporarily. Next, pretend to take this visible ball with your right, but it is a fake take. The left hand ball gets kept in the left hand and is now in LEFT pinkie curl-palm, and the left hand does a wrist turn and settles into a loose fist with thumbhole up. Pretend to set the ball "taken" by right hand onto left thumbhole, but it is actually the ball that was held by friction between ball of R. thumb and the ball in pinkie curl. Let this ball settle down into the L. fist thru thumbhole, make a shake and open hand to show two balls! Pretend to pick up both from L., but really only take one and the other goes again to L. PCP and left wrist turns as before. Drop two thru left thumbhole. The first to go is the one you really pickup from L. The other is the ball from R. PCP from the start. Open left to reveal three! Here procedure changes to a Utility Move. Pretend to dump all into R. What actually happens is that one stays in L. PCP and really two go. Time the way your R. turns up to accept, release the R.'s ball from classic, and there you have your 3. Drop these very cleanly into the left fist and open to show FOUR. This is a very enjoyable routine for walk-around when you are letting your deck of cards cool off. - fin -

AND THIS IS NOT A CARD TRICK! Ha Ha! It is the game kids play with a ball and the little metal 3-D criss-cross things. You bounce the ball and then pick up a certain number of the Jacks and catch the ball again before it lands.

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I'm always looking for props that might be good for a trick but just aren't – yet! I never heard of a Jacks trick. Imagine. A bag to carry them and the ball, maybe an extra ball. Let's see. The ball has applications as we know. What can be done with the JACKS? As you see, I have no solution, but am offering up one "MOVE" I've come up with and that is the ability to clip or pinch one of the prongs between two fingers as a way of "palming". Doing this near the base of fingers I call Conus Grip. Farther up the fingers can be called clipping or pinching. Another idea is that if a group of Jacks were soldered together in a group that looked like a loose group - but not, you'd be able to lap the unit soundlessly and have a loose group in the other hand you'd have Jacks Across. How about Chink-A-Chink with Jacks? What I'm trying to show here is the brainstorming process of figuring out something to do with a prop after you identify it as having possibilities. The game of Jacks is known, but what would be the best plot that would say something about the prop. Effect: From the pile of Jacks on your left and ball in your right, pass your left hand over Jacks and one disappears - stolen clipped between certain digits. The right hand which seems empty but really has four Jacks (one clipped between each finger, and one thumb palmed by the little ball shape on the end of 4 of the prongs) bounces the ball and lays down ball and one Jack. Jack taken into R. loosely. Bounce ball and catch it, meanwhile clipping another off table with left and produce ball and two Jacks from right. Try to continue this till 4 have gone across to join ball. That's my best guess for a possible Modus. Try to come up with methodology on this yourself.

I RAN AN IDEA in FEEN-X that was a palm magnet made from a bottle cap with a magnet attached, and some felt, to do a coin penetration, because I hate pulls! I hope you made one up and tried it because it is perfect walk-around fare as an ice-breaker. Looks like real magic whisking the silk away to reveal the dupe non-shimmed coin gave your right hand something to do (hold silk or pocket it) - REMEMBER?

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Well, here is another idea without a magnet. BLUE TACK or FUN TACK is wadded up into a ball about three-quarters of an inch in diameter.

Classic palm the wad of Blue Tack, and it STAYS THERE! It's tacky. Must note that THAT isn't the trick. That's the method. The trick IS whatever you want to vanish - no elephants please - will adhere to the Blue Stuff which adheres to your flat hand. A coin will...with no shim. A small ball, a miniature card, a billet, and the list goes on. IN FACT a Jack from a child's game of Jacks ...the funny metal criss-cross thingee mentioned in this issue, can VANISH. Still the best routine is - Blue Tack on RIGHT palm this time. Coin on left palm. Opaque hank over left hand. Dupe coin ON top of hank, which should be a dark color. Wave right palm over the coin and only slightest pressure causes coin to adhere to BLUE TACK and a vanish is perceived. Use R. hand to pull silk away and the SECOND coin is seen on left palm and now the perception changes to a PENETRATION. THE LIBRARY - My attention has been drawn at long last to DENNY & LEE magic studios, and it should have happened sooner. I really think they have the best approach to this business, and the knowledge, and they can get you what you need. That can't be said of at least some of the rest. Baltimore, MD. See their ads. See the Web site. Notice that they are expanding to a new additional branch in Las Vegas! Slowly I I hope my regular readers don't mind the new format. I know I'm doing fewer illustrations, but I always said I was looking for people who could READ magic and I must confess that part of the reason is so that my subtle differences are NOT obvious unless you read, and I'm finding that people skim and just look at the pictures.

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I often show pieces from these pages to subscribers and FOOL them and realize they didn't really read the material. Sure – videos are easier. I just love the Sol Stone "Quick and Casual" by Meir is wonderful. I feel the complaints by some about camera work to be a non-issue. I had no trouble learning the material which is worth learning! But…Reading is FUNdamental and fundaMENTAL.

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Wow! I did this on television in about 1968 and promptly forgot it till now, even though it went very well and people came up to me on the street and said, "I seen some card tricks in my day but not nuthin’ like THAT one. Damn!" At the time I only knew my manipulation act and Twisting the Aces so this was my first attempt at creating a close-up showpiece.

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Effect: Four signed Aces disappear from a deck and then a letter is shown in its envelope, addressed to me, with cancelled stamp etc. and when torn open a letter states - I think you are looking for these! Signed, the Wizard of the North, inside the envelope is found the missing signed Aces! Wow! Required: Before we start I must say this uses an idea I still like which takes liberties with the signing of the Aces. Follow me on this! LAYMEN don't understand the way magicians do WHO does the signing. In other words - I do the signing. I still use this idea in a trick called My Magic Card. No spectator has ever said A SPECTATOR was supposed to sign! Needed are? Four double-faced Aces with spot cards on back. I just glued cards back to back. Also needed are four regular aces from a matching pack. Discard the rest to your spare drawer. Sign these aces on the face and put in the envelope, along with a note from the wizard. Put on a stamp and mail it to yourself well before the show - so you get it back, postmarked, in time. Or, make several up at a time. Set-up: Put double face aces in deck face up. Put in box. Envelope in hand. Performance: "I got this letter from an old wizard I know. He told me it has to do with the card trick I'm going to show you, when we spoke on the phone." Take deck out of box, flash the back (normal) and turn deck face up. and spread. Take out the aces as you come to them. Next, sign each one across the face with a Sharpie trying to match the look of how you signed the regular aces in the envelope. Turn the deck face down and drop the signed aces face UP on the top. Give the deck a cut and turn deck FACE UP! "I can feel the deck getting lighter. Yes, and even lighter! Something is happening. Let's see. A deck has 52 cards. Let's count." Count the cards into a face up pile. Here is a trick where counting actually builds suspense. There will be 48 because of the glued gaffs. "The Aces have VANISHED!" "And - there are only 48!" Now notice the envelope. Tear off an end and fish out the note and read it. Then cleanly fish out the aces from the envelope and show them cleanly - hint ...don't even mention the signed aspect but just let it be noticed. Call them 49, 50, 51, and 52! This helps them tie it together. "I used to lose four aces each time I did that trick." Pick up the note. 'I'll have to write and thank him.” - fin I think I realized at that time that a good presentation on this would play in a charming kind of way. Think of this as an alternative to McDonald's. Everyone does that one. It is good but this one is good in a different way.

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And HOUDINI was a better man for it! This is the kind of thing someone must have thought of before this, but we can't trace it. What this is, is the addition of the depth illusion to the old thing by Baker and Vernon (and Annemann fiddled with it). It changes the effect, in the way that fooled Harry H. the selected card was placed second from the top in an open way and it kept coming to the top. in this way it is the same trick but by use of Tilt or Depth Illusion it SEEMS like selection goes way down in the deck only to come to top Ambitiously and cleanly. Details. A double-backer on top. Card selected from middle and signed. Tilt D/B and use all your subtleties on Tilt to seem to stick card in LOW in pack. Double turnover and selection is seen face up on top. Thumb a single off and audience sees OTHER back of the D/B! ! Cool as the breeze and stands repetition, and builds with the repetition! Each time imply the card is going lower and lower in deck by use of more tilt and judicious use of other Tilt subtleties Enjoy!

I LOVE PACKET TRICKS!! I love THIS packet trick. This started out in the Apocalypse yet I'm sorry to say I can't remember whose idea. I'll find it and report in the back page in the future. I changed this trick radically, and now the inner dynamic is totally changed. It is also easier, so you can focus on the presentation. You can have multiple climaxes with my revised method. Effect: Two packets of thirteen cards are shown. Two spectators select a card, one from one packet and one from the other. A rubber band is placed around each packet after its card is lost back in. The banded packets are dropped to the table after being crisscross stacked, and the jolt SEPARATES the colors! Reds jump to one packet, blacks to the other! Actually TWO drops with jolts works best. "When I do THIS the red cards jump to this packet, and when I do THIS the black cards jump to this one here!" The rubber bands are removed and one packet and then the other are spread to show respectively all red and all blacks. The rubber bands are put back in place and the packets stacked again and dropped. "That causes ONE RED CARD to jump to the other packet!" Put the lower packet on top and drop again, "And THAT causes the BLACK card to jump to the other packet."

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Remove the rubber-bands and spread each group face up and pull the lone black card in the red spread partway out of the spread. The same is done with the lone red card in the black spread. They are the selections! Required: 13 red spot cards. 13 black spot cards. Two rubber bands. Setup: Put one black card at face of red packet and one red at face of black packet. Put a rubber band around each. Performance: Take out packets and keep face down. Remove rubber bands. Get a spectator. Take one packet and false cut. Do a Hindu shuffle and have her say "stop". Instead of just flashing the force card on face of right's talon, do this. Place talon on left's group but both out and side jogged. Pause then ask "Do you have a good memory?". Then, "I don't!" Then pick up talon and show the face card force. Have her remember it. Replace talon on left's group but keep a break. Double-cut to the break. Buckle bottom card and get new break. Double cut force card to top. Good! They think card is lost. It is on top. Put on rubberband. Repeat with a different spectator with the other packet after removing other rubberband. Act out the dropping and colors separating. Take off rubber band and turn packet face up. Riffle ends of packet and as you do get a break above bottom two cards. Riffle all the way up the packet after you get your break. This means the spectators take the riffle to be an obvious flourish and not a secret move, yet you got your break openly and covered it with a larger action. Spread packet into a fanned out condition quickly as you say all the cards of one color have jumped to one packet. Close the spread before they see if their card is there or not. All they see is a bunch of cards all the same color. The pinkie break keeps the last two together and the force card hidden. Turn packet face down and cut. Put on rubber band. Repeat with other packet. They'll see cards of the other color but not long enough to spot their card or not (not). Turn face down and cut and put on band. By-the-way, this phase is subtly tongue-in-cheek... but sets you up for the next phase. Drop the packets - one card jumps to other packet. Repeat with other packet on top and another card jumps to OTHER packet. Finally have cards named and go into your ending picture with two ribbon spreads and contrasting selections. ___ The original routine had cards separated by color and shown. To get to the condition of one odd card to be forced in each group a bottom deal of sorts was used during counting.

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I've left it nebulous as to plot and just had two packets of cards. A selection from each. I added the middle phase as a way of getting them used to the procedure, and keeping the odd card in each group hidden. The middle phase is fun, too. They don't even really know if they should take it seriously or not. This leaves them in a good psychological state for ending. To reiterate, I have the odd card to force in place from the start, but don't talk about separate segregated colors till the middle phase, creating a new phase. Spectators are left in a kind of "I'm in the Twilight Zone TV show" experience. They can't back track and the forces were VERY subtle, and the dropping twice in each phase and switching which one was on top confuses them but just enough to not follow a particular color. Again, when spreading out one color but not flashing the odd one, but closing up before they have time to hunt is the most important part to make casual.

I believe that DVDs should show performance only, and that a booklet accompany the DVD which teaches HOW, but with no illustrations to give an advantage to those that can read magic. This will keep new ideas out of the hands of bozos and exposers.

I believe the best future of magic instruction to be DVDs but performance only. Accompanying would be lecture style notes that teach HOW but with NO ILLUSTRATIONS except maybe the cover to give an advantage to those who can READ not just skim and look at pictures…MAGIC. Too much good magic has gotten out. New good ideas will be kept under wraps easier.

I'm on my eighth time thru the PAUL CURRY book from Hermetic Press, and I now consider it not only Book of the Year, but my favorite book of all time! Kid I You Not! Second place for the Book of the Year is Hilliard's Lost Notebooks from GENII Corp.

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Triangle - Stuart Judah's version on Devant's trick. Roughe Et Noire - Stuart Judah's version. Suitability and all the poker tricks and more more more! Videos - looking forward to Meir Yedid's tape on new work on Torn & Restored Card by the French guy. Mike Bornstein raves about the material - already does it. Magazines - GENII ran some nice ideas by Ben Harris. The marker on the coins goes back to a Meir Yedid item TOTAL DESTINY. A good -very- trick from Jay Sankey is IN A FLASH, which derives from a Meir Yedid item PacMan Caper which all the heavy hitters knew and praised. Or is it parallel universes? Sankey's is easier and has more flash and is a hip new stunt!

Hopefully you saw my Cups and Balls routine. I wrote it AND those were my illustrations that got credited to Earl. Note: I'm currently working on writing and illustrating Ade Duval's 8 ball act with patter and all. Slated for GENII. I'm working from an old tape, courtesy of Charles Reynolds.

One day a surgeon decided to give a lecture on a new technique so he rented a lecture hall at a convention center and advertised the event. On the day of the lecture he accidentally went to the wrong lecture hall. There, in attendance, were members of the Clown's Union, but all dressed in their civvies. Meanwhile the clown that was going to lecture also went to the wrong lecture hall. He was where the surgeons were gathered. What is fascinating is that both men went over well with their respective albeit wrong audiences. The surgeons felt they learned a great deal about improving their "bedside manners," and the clowns felt they had seen a great new deadpan delivery style demonstrated. No one ever suspected the mix-up, and everyone lived happily ever after.

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READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Stop the presses! I just received my copy of “The Encyclopedia of Egg Magic,” by Donato Colucci and published by Hermetic Press. I've been through it one time, and will keep studying it and report as I come closer to choosing which routines to work on myself, but can already tell you why it is a great book for magic. Granted, we all love card tricks, but how many can you do? The thing is, the public rather divides MAGIC and CARD TRICKS. Much as we think cards are the coolest, the general public does not. In fact, any trick with something other than cards says MAGIC to the public and cards say CARD TRICKS GUY! Because eggs are from nature, and alive sort of - they are where life comes from - they have the same effect on audiences as when fruit are produced at the end of Cups & Balls instead of rubber balls or baseballs or crocheted balls. Something alive and from nature. Beyond the great magic with eggs, there is a whole education on other props such as silk, ribbons, fezzes, glasses, hats even CARDS!, and hats and how to do live chicks as an ending as well as doves. The list goes on and on. The book is terrific for the art. I love cards! I've got enough material on cards to last me several lifetimes. What this book accomplishes is to point the art back at magic like when you go to a "magic show." (Not all cards. Even Ricky Jay knows this!") Much, even most, of this egg material is for standup. I often hear guys who only did close-up thinking about trying to learn how to do standup (after they find out how hard it is) to get a buck from close-up when most laypeople think is good but only to be the "life of the party" - not get PAID! They'll buy you a drink but MONEY? Well. With standup magic (not cards…well maybe a few ) you CAN earn money. For getting into MAGIC for money (you know - doing SHOWS) this book goes a long long way. It's all there in an egg shell. Even if you just like to read and vicariously imagine you are out performing magic, this is for you. One fact alone that to me is remarkable about Colucci's book is that he dug up the real names of all the famous magicians he mentions. Again, about cards, you won't outdo the Paul Curry book in a long while. So stop already on the search for the perfect card trick and buy this book on real magic. Judge a book by the cover!

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I P S O F A C T 0. A culmination of a lot of ideas. It is easy but requires two C/S coins. You should have these anyway. Effect: Three half dollars are shown, and a copper English penny is explained to be the magic coin that affects the effect - it draws silver coins through thin air from one hand to the other. On the last coin across, after the silver arrives, the ODD coin the English, jumps to the left hand. It's done! I call this kind of rebound effect Transpo Across…for the ending. Required: Two C/S coins and two regular half dollars. Set-up: From bottom of stack up, C/S showing copper, C/S showing silver, silver coin, silver coin. Performance: Drop lowest coin, the C/S showing copper, onto the outstretched left hand. "This is the magic coin that controls and CAUSES the magic to come." Next, drop the next C/S coin onto and overlapping towards your left wrist the first. Open your right hand which has two regulars and use the right thumb to pull the top coin back towards yourself. You have the same picture in both hands, except the left just has one copper.

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Do a turnover of all coins this way. Curl your middle fingers of each hand to cause each group of coins to do a ribbon spread turnover towards yourself. Open the hands. You still see one copper and one silver in the left, and two silvers on the right. If this is done as you patter, it goes by well. Don't pause here. Drop the right's silvers on the left's coins and square AND pick up stack with the right. Classic palm one coin of a group, the top silver regular coin, with the right hand, using the ROTH method. Drop remaining coins into the slightly cupped left hand. Work the lower coin (C/S) out of left fist - showing copper, and take it into right hand. Now magic. MAKE one GO across with your best acting and gestures. Let right hand's coins clink to show the arrival. Display the right's coins this way, as a feint for the next phase. Don't put them out at once, but one by one. First work the silver coin out of R. fist and onto table and then pick it up. Then work the C/S coin out showing copper and then pick it back up. Patter is, "The first silver coin jumps over to join the copper magic coin." The first part of the next phase is a bluff. Act out another "across,” and clink the coins in the right (still two). Work one coin, the regular silver, out and onto mat. Work the C/S coin out but SILVER side up AND HERE YOU MUST ACT LIKE YOU STILL HAVE A COIN IN THE RIGHT. Pick up the two coins from table STILL ACTING LIKE YOU ALSO STILL HAVE A THIRD COIN IN THE RIGHT. NOW work out of fist the C/S coin AGAIN, but contrive to have it come out of R. fist COPPER side up. Patter here is, "Now two silvers have joined the magic coin." During this you have also maneuvered the regular silver in the left hand partly out of heel area of hand in readiness for HPC. Right hand picks up Copper up C/S coin from table so it is under the coin that is regular silver, in readiness for SKID HPC. Note the grip and study the drawings to see the sliding action of this HPC variation designed to keep the C/S coin from bouncing or talking funny.

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Back to our routine, as the right does Skid HPC to the left, and towards the left fist, the left fist lets its protruding regular coin drop AS L. fist moves to YOUR left, as if to get out of the way. The two coins from right meld with the coin leaked from left hand - actually bumps them, and makes a total of 3 coins. You need to practice this move and experiment with how close the hands come together at their closest point, and the timing. Moreover, AS SOON AS YOU FINISH THIS MOVE, OPEN YOUR LEFT HAND TO SHOW THE SILVER SIDE OF THE LAST COIN IT HOLDS - a C/S coin. Make this coin and left hand the focus of attention. The whole HPC thing means nothing except setting down the coins they already thought were in the right hand. The END GAME. We're already done with the real work. Now to milk as much mileage out of the ending. Pick up coins with right and close both hands and do your gesture for "across" and now we'll use that same dodge as before, putting out on table three silvers (C/S showing silver) and ACT like there is still a coin in right hand. Pick up coins and work the C/S coin out of R. fist with the COPPER side showing - and pick it up again with R. Patter here is that "the last silver has joined the magic coin." During that whole sequence the Left's c/s coin has been in a loose fingerpalm. The left hand ACTS “EMPTY." "After the magic coin has done its job, it likes to jump back to my left hand." Make a little grab in the air with your left and open to show COPPER; Open the R. hand to show all SILVER. Cleanup: Put the R.'s C/S coin showing silver ON the left's C/S coin that shows copper. Display two coins on each hand and repeat the ribbon spread type turnover with each hand's two coins. and then show the right hand’s coins again both sides as you put them one-by-one onto left's coins to END. - fin -

LIBRARY * And now, “THE MAGIC MIRROR,” by Bob Neale, also from Hermetic Press. I was expecting theory. I like theory. But it is much more than that: About the theory, Mr. Neale gives us some history about myths and about shamanism and religion - our roots. I love magic history! But, then Bob goes on to explain how our collective history has gone on to become today's dilemma. If our magic is too good, and believable…we risk being charlatans! To avoid this approach we have developed a modern style that too often is just "eye candy" which has no emotional hook to our roots at all. Quite simply put, Mr. Neale has explained how to find a middle ground between these two extreme styles. We all need to get better at this to avoid being classified as either children's performers or the sterile choreographed Las Vegas acts that too often seem to be flash with no artistic meaning other than to dazzle and maybe distract. Other art forms seem to recognize the need to address humanity's concerns. Magic has avoided this as a way of bending over backwards to avoid being called charlatanism or worse, some kind of devil worship.

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But now, thanks to Mr. Neal’s work, we CAN put symbols of life and death, and taxes and powers that be and love and MAGICK and shamanism...if we want to…so we don't seem like the kind of magician of whom people might say "Tricks are for KIDS." Or the other kind…glorified sideshow style performers. I'm only getting warmed up. The middle of the "Magic Mirror" is TRICKS. I wasn't expecting that, so those routines are gravy and very very good. I count twelve tricks, with cards and coins and origami crows and rings and a miniature brick wall and fortune and tarot telling. There's a surreal jail item and a ball and box trick. All very good magic. All examples of having the patter be about deeper meaning! Hidden in the middle is a trick to RAVE RAVE RAVE about no end. "The Last Dream" - recurring nightmare really, in which blank cards represent headstones in a graveyard, is fast becoming one of my favorite packet tricks of all time! I love packet tricks! There are two routines given. My favorite one is the one with a Shigeo Takagi count. I knew Takagi pretty well from conventions long ago, and really liked him - so I personally favor that version as worked out by Max Maven. AND, the patter by Neale and the premise makes me "get" what all this talk about adding meaning to magic is for! This card trick alone could sell for the price of the book. The trick is perfect technically, in the construction of "moves" and counts, the premise is perfect…a recurring dream about death and headstones. It is perfectly surreal. The patter is perfect. There is no room for improvement. Very few magic tricks can make that promise! A masterpiece of magic with cards that doesn't even come across as a card trick. It is a headstone trick and don't miss this! Finally in the book Neale gives us some famous lists of how a few great minds like Sharpe, Freer, Fitzke, Blackstone Jr., and Reynolds categorized the effects of magic. Then Neale shows how Fitzkee's list fits as subsets into Neale's own division of magic effects into three major categories having to do more with meaning so you get a tool that is very very valuable in helping us all get what the issues at hand really are! Thank you Robert E. Neale. *

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Next on the list is the new tape from Meir Yedid! RIPPED & RESTORED is about three great routines by Yves Doumergue that are all better than the preexisting methods on the piece-by-piece restoration of a torn card. This is a MUST for close-up and standup alike. The first method is closest to what we know of in effect but different in the M.0. The second routine is like MISMADE FLAG in that the pieces seem put together wrong but then INSTANTLY becomes right! ! The third method is the best for close-up for a number of people in that FOUR PEOPLE each sign the four quadrants and this is really audience involvement in the magic!

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Finally, since I consider this a stage stunt every bit as good as diminishing cards in a manipulative act, I'll also cover this in SOSOHA. -

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Finally, my best source tells me "51 Faces North" - the solution to Stewart James' challenge was found by Alien Slaight - he had it all along ...( it was lost ) ...it will appear in PENUMBRA. BOOS AND HISSES To Dr. Gary Schwartz for his book "THE AFTERLIFE EXPERIMENTS," about supposedly labcontrolled tests of John Edward and other "psychics." I felt it was just sloppy science. Also to Paula Zahn, whom I used to watch, for not asking ANY tough questions when she had John Edward of Sci-Fi's Crossing Over on CNN. (By the way, I had a dream about a fictitious interview between Barbarella of sci-fi movie fame and a Masked Psychic!) Barbarella: Some reports and articles have said you use hidden microphones. Is that true? Masked Psychic: No, Barbarella! B: Well, I'm glad we got THAT cleared up. Now, I’ve also heard that you use "cold reading.” Do you? MP: No, Barbarella. B: Well, I'm glad we got THAT cleared up. Also heard that you edit the tape to make yourself look better. Is THAT true? MP: No, Barbarella…now let me plug my next book “Talking to Dead Pets.” *

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From the Grapevine I hear Ricky Jay's show is really good and DIFFERENT from the previous show. More power to him and very good for magic to have a man with real theatrical presentation for the public to see after Copperfield and Blain. Also, I hear the new book on Marked Cards from HERMETIC PRESS is good! Next issue - A really worthwhile MENTALISM piece that you can use. A meld of ideas from Vernon, Waters, Elmsley, and Webb (a-hem).

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A BOOK THAT DOESN'T EXIST publication What this is IS a new handling of the trick from last summer TWISTING THE NIGHT AWAY by Gregg Webb. That trick was an effort to reintroduce Elmsley technology into twisting, especially progressive twisting, effects, long marred by a belief in instant half-pass methodology. The weak points of the above mentioned version have been solved I'll briefly explain how. The first part, the opening gambit, in my original was weak. It took a bluff, but then the rest of the trick flowed fine. Therefore, the middle has not changed. The ending was weak in that it didn't reset. That has been solved! The solution to the opening, creating a logical way to begin instead of just a bluff, was created by one of my most loyal and enthusiastic subscribers, Doug MacGeorge. He saw something that I just didn't see. Even out-did the Webbmaster! So his name goes on the creation. Getting the ending to reset to begin again was just logical after I learned Doug's opening gambit. Meaning, what you have to have as your starting situation for Doug's now logical beginning is exactly the same as our end position if you give the packet one simple cut. This means that instead of a cleanup move you do one straight cut and are reset to begin again! It really is the way to go. The routine bears repetition, especially if you are mingling and so you turn to some new people but if some of the last group of people see it again, it stands up just fine. Or, you could pocket the cards reset and bring them out later ready to go.

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All in all I feel this is the best strolling, mingling, in the hands packet trick that features non-stop visual magic of just the right nature and that has no angle problems. Do it surrounded. I know I'll never again invent something as good in this category of trick. Required: Four matching Jokers. 4 Aces of Spades, or any four identical cards will work. Set-up: Faceup packet - in which the third card from the FACE is actually face down, unbeknownst to anyone but you. Performance: "Did you see my magic Jokers?" Underground Elmsley Count. That means the last card goes to BOTTOM of packet, but left injogged slightly. Audience "sees" four supposed Jokers face up. The "count" hides the one face down card. "If I turn one face down...," you say as the face up Joker on face of packet is taken, turned face DOWN and inserted into the packet above the lowermost injogged card. Square the packet and TURN THE ENTIRE PACKET FACE DOWN. Do a regular Elmsley count which will show three face down Jokers and one face up. (one is "hidden" by the count) As you do this, finish your sentence, "...and insert it between the others..." Here you have to do ANOTHER regular Elmsley count. This may sound redundant, and in a way we HAVE to do this second count in a row to keep the math right, but luckily this also plays well at reinforcing the idea that ONE Joker is face up. Still only one shows. That is the nature of the Elmsley, if two cards are face up. First one shows, then the other the next time. Since we are using dupe cards, a difference isn't detected because the second Joker to show seems to be in the correct spot in the packet, also. To add variety, on this second count, OUTJOG the Joker that shows but the final face down card of the count is not outjogged. Tack on an afterthought, "...and I do this...," and now you extend your left first finger and onehandedly squeeze the outjogged Joker flush, "...and snap my fingers," (do so with the right hand) "...ANOTHER JOKER TURNS FACE UP!" Perform an underground Elmsley and two Jokers show face up, and when you put the last card of the count to the bottom, a face down card, you have two face up cards above two face down cards. Next comes a simple displacement which looks totally fair and logical, and is. Take the two face up Jokers with your right hand and keep the two face down cards with your left. Wiggle each hand's cards to-and-fro and then put the right's FACE UP cards to the BOTTOM of the left's cards. Spread the packet showing two face down cards above two face up cards. Close the packet and get a L. pinkie break above the lowest card of the group. We are about to draw a double from the center in preparation for a paintbrush move to come. Here's how. Grip the three cards above break between R. thumb and third fingertip and draw to the right but left thumb holds back top card on left hand. Right now holds two cards as one. This double is placed injogged on left's group which consists of two while audience believes there are three.

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Do the Paintbrush Move. Push double flush and then pull back just the top card. Audience perceives a "change" of a card from face down to face up. The accompanying patter is, "With a little rub... " The card you just pulled back, a face down one, is used by the right hand as a pointer to point at the left hand's three cards. Hold this pointer so that it is on edge, that is neither face up or face down. Spread the left's three with the left thumb to reveal one face down card between two face up. Finish your line by adding, "...there is now one to go." Set the right hand's card face up at YOUR right side of spread. A discrepancy did occur but it goes by lay and magic audiences both, because of the beauty of the paintbrush move, which causes them to "see" another turn and the math is right - there IS one to go. Trust this. It will become your favorite spot in the trick! Square and do a regular Elmsley, with the exception of keeping a left pinkie break under the last two counted. Audience sees four face up. Turn the two above the break, AS ONE, face down - the break prevents fumbling. Do ANOTHER Elmsley Count as you show what looks like four face down cards. BUT, catch a left pinkie break AGAIN below the final two counted! The patter here is, "And if I turn ONE face down, they ALL turn face down!" The reason for that last "break" is so that now, if you give the packet one straight cut at the break, you are RESET to begin again...sure, do it more than once. It can take it! Or put the cards away and when you want to do this later - its ready for you! This card trick will remove warts, relieve poison ivy, prevent blindness, and grow hair. It will win the Lottery. IT WILL FIND OSAMA BIN LADEN! No other card trick makes this claim! It will heal the sick, raise the dead, and make little girls go out of their head! - fin -

NEWSFLASH JUST IN! Let's say you do repeat this feat. You should if you have a realistic Elmsley. Anyway, after you've repeated it at least once, on the second time through STOP and let the cards be examined AFTER TWO have turned face up. Two up and two down. That's the best place to stop and let them feel for extra cards or trap doors - without saying so. This way they have touched and examined them! Nuf said. Just get the cards back, put the two face up below the two face down and continue. Paintbrush etc.

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN. It is for me, because Bob NEALE liked my trick TWISTING THE NIGHT AWAY, and then when Doug MacGEORGE came up with a better beginning and then Doug's idea inspired me to come up with a better ending that reset. Doctor NEALE liked it even more. As Bob worked on the trick (the improved version being called “Let's Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer”) he first made a technical change. He decided that by secretly, instead of openly, putting the first card to be turned face down into the packet second from the bottom (by using a pull-down technique) the audience wouldn't know where in the packet the card went, so that instead of turning the whole packet over, you proceed with the trick with packet as is. This causes the effect to change from cards turning face UP one by one, to turning face DOWN one by one. Then ending with "If I turn one face UP - THEY ALL TURN FACE UP - they're back!” In this form the plot began to gel. NEXT, I asked Bob if he could come up with some patter for the trick. We had a lively debate about clowns and clones and acrobats and people who’ll turn their back on you - you know, searching for MEANING beyond "Look at what I can do with these here cards!" When I told Doug MacGEORGE that Bob NEALE was writing patter for the trick, he said, "Wow! He's probably the greatest mind out there!" I couldn't agree more, and herewith - for the best Halloween present I could possibly give… THE FOUR BIKERS OF THE APOCALYPSE - Trick by yours truly, Doug MacGEORGE, and BOB NEALE. Presentation and patter by BOB NEALE. ROBERT E. NEALE.

THE FOUR BIKERS OF THE APOCALYPSE “Remember the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bringing destruction to humanity at the end of the world? They have become angels.” (Four Jokers are shown one at a time.) “They are ex-horsemen because now they are bikers. Hell's Angels, that is. Let us try to get rid of them.” (One Joker is turned face down.) “We remove War.” (The cards are shown with one Joker face down.) “Can this be done so easily?” (The cards are shown again with one Joker face down.) “Is it really gone?” (The cards are shown with two Jokers face down.) “Yes, and so is Plague.” (The face up cards are separated and then brought back together with the face down cards.) “That leaves? Correct, Famine and Death.” (The third Joker is rubbed and turns face down.) “Famine does not go easily. But it goes.” (All the cards are shown to be face down.) “Lastly, Death Itself is removed. Is this really possible? No.” (The top card is turned face up on the packet.)

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“Because we will seek out Death for one reason or another.” (All the cards are shown to be face up) “And it brings the other angels along with it. On horses or bikes or maybe on something else next time.”

Construction Use four Jokers from Bicycle brand playing cards. Color face, hands and feet (even though they are shod) black with a Sharpie fine point marker.

Sources "Let's Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer" (Gregg Webb & MacGeorge) is a wonderful routine in the special issue of “A Book That Doesn't Exist.” After the first Elmsley Count and insertion of the top card face down next to the bottom, we are told to turn the entire packet over. To me, this seems to be quite confusing and quite unnecessary. Why not just leave the packet just as it is and continue with the routine just as it is? It all remains the same. Furthermore, the ending is cleaner. One ends exactly as one begins—with the cards apparently all face up. So, eliminating the cutting, one simply concludes with underground Elmsley Count and the cards are both shown to be all face up and the packet is reset.

Note The Four Horsemen occur in the New Testament vision of the opening of the Seals in the sixth chapter of the Apocalypse of St. John. The most celebrated visual image of them is the fourth of a set of fifteen pictures in Albrecht Durer's illustration of the Book of Revelation. The biblical images present the horsemen separately, while Durer shows them together. Those who prefer a more optimistic outcome might consider the fact that the image of Death was changed to be the image of Faith during the Reformation.

AFTERIMAGES - As you'll recall, this twisting trick began as a way to do progressive twisting without the quick half-pass method so in vogue, and to instead go back to Elmsley counts as in Vernon's original Twisting the Aces, which is still a classic and you should use it elsewhere in your program. The reason packet tricks are so useful is that they seem different from full deck card magic. Let your deck cool off. Coin tricks are good for this also. A line an aside - you might like is "you can see I'm not playing with a full deck."

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Perhaps I am only a technician, a routine constructionist. THAT PART OF CREATING A NEW TRICK IS IMPORTANT - why add cool patter to an imperfect card trick? But, here, by virtue of teamwork, you have a trick that is catching on (as much happens in quick succession as in any trick I can think of with ungaffed cards - with the exception of Ortiz's JUMPING GEMINII) AND NOW THE PATTER IS ABOUT SOMETHING besides "watch this great card trick!" AND, the choice that Bob made is very powerful - I mean…WE ARE AT WAR! This makes this trick more of a high art than just a piece of fluff. For fun you should reread the book of Revelation! AFTERAFTERIMAGES - This idea just in (incoming…from my subconscious) IF YOU USED DOUBLE FACE CARDS, and because of Elmsley counts you need only 3, plus one regular card that has a back, you could do the same trick but not have to turn over and insert - just insert. In other words, the first count shows three of one kind and one different. This adds Wild Card aspects to this new plot which is that cards don't turn over one-by-one but CHANGE ONE-BY-ONE! And, if the cards were specially printed with pictures and not playing cards, who knows what kind of storytelling could be possible!

The book I’m reporting on has to do with our roots. Gather round. The Sacred Magic of Abramelin by Abraham the Jew is the real deal. Translated from Egyptian Coptic to Hebrew, and then into French where the manuscript in French resides in a museum, and then into English. My Coptic is a little rusty. Abraham the Jew learned the magic from Abra-melin in the 1300's and wrote it down in the 1400's. Not the same as the Q'uabalah which he also knew and refers to, the sacred magic system taught is really the source of our history of wizards and wands and magic circles and pentagrams and potions and pacts and spells and even the costume. One even finds the Faust story in a figure called Anthony who let the demons get the upper hand. Then, the man who did the translation into French claims to have known the real Faust. Among the most interesting things I've learned so far is that one of the potions (perfumes) listed is Mhyrr mixed with olive oil and some other things. I happened to have some mhyrr on hand and you can get it (and frankincense - among other things) if you know where to go and dare go there). Well, I must report that the potion alone rubbed on the wrists causes an instant dizzy kind of "high." Another thing, part of the ceremony involves weeks and weeks of purification and praying and astrology all designed to insure that the demons don't get the upper hand. I hate it when that happens! Well, when ready to begin you need tons of sand brought in. You need an alter, and costume and the perfumes and the right incense for the astrological day and hour - don't err here. Finally, drawing the magic circle with the wand, you then march around the circle UNTIL YOU COLLAPSE, and it is real real important that when you fall that you fall inside and not outside the circle. This state brought about partly by fatigue is similar to shamanism in that shamans danced to a drum till they fell down in a "trance" (left their body).

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So I am supposing the experience happens in a kind of dream state, semi-unconscious…that through training one may perhaps somewhat control. HOW TO KEEP THE DEMONS IN CONTROL, OR ...THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK MAGIC. This part I found to be the newest information to me. The process of getting something to happen involves invoking the angels first. The angels outrank the devil and demons and elementals. Nevertheless, the actual "work" (the REAL work) of magic is done by lesser demons and elementals under the control of the principle devils (there are four). So, the angels summon them. They in turn summon the lesser demons and determine which one or ones have the specialty of the feat in question. If you want a phantom army to appear at the gates of your enemy, it would be a certain specialist and their names and specialties are all given. The only difference between white and black magic is that in black magic the angels aren't called first, to control the demons and the Faustian mage deals directly with the devils and demons and elementals (and loses his soul in the process). After the ceremony is over, one must get the angels to send the devils and demons away, with instructions to return if summoned. What fun! The other main difference I found from my stereotypical image is that we've all been misusing the term "pentagram." We thought it was the five pointed star thing in a circle. That's a pentacle which I've also heard of, but the real pentagram is the name of the lesser demon who specializes in the task at hand (give me GOLD, let's say) and the name is written in a kind of magic square so the demon's name reads front and back and crosswise in what looks like and I guess IS a crossword puzzle from hell. Scores of tasks magical for the demons to do for you and your angels are given with all particulars given. That is what is so amazing about the book is that every detail is covered. Allistair Crowley knew this manuscript in French, but somewhere along the way he allowed the demons to get the upper hand. Everything you do with the spells has to be with a pure motive or the angels won't come to help out. But, the demons will. Happy Halloween. Pleasant Dreams. Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name. What's confusing you is the nature of my game.

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COUNTACT is a routine by T. A. Waters, the late, great mentalism thinker and inventor and writer. This appeared in the BIG TOME Mind, Myth, and Magic from Hermetic Press. It also appeared in his video.

Waters’ original two-phase miracle used an Elmsley Count for the dirty work, and I thought that was brilliant, and unfortunately I had to lose it during my mucking around to make a variation, and had to substitute a Biddle Move. In trade, I think some of my ideas make this worth it. In my version we still have two phases. One, the first one in the choosing part (not the revelation of my prediction) is a mental choice of any card at all. The next choice by a different spectator is a one-in-five choice and involves the bulk of this article because it involves Vernon's 5 Card Psychological Force which I'll have a lot to say. Then, when revealing my predictions, the order is reversed for better theater. Stated differently, this means that I reveal my prediction of the 1 in 5 card first, and the any-cardat-all is revealed last. This is because the one in five has more risk and CAN bomb…but is followed by the more impossible seeming but really surer "any card". This means that on a good day you get both. On a bad day you get the more improbable one at the end…saving the day and actually going well theatrically BECAUSE of the one failure.

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This is the perfect use for the Vernon 5 card psych force. You can convince yourself that it doesn't matter and thereby relax. Thoughts and Variations on the VERNON 5: I noticed a columnist for a glossy magic magazine recently state that the Vernon 5-card psychological force doesn’t work! He tried to make light of how unreliable the "5" force is. But, there was a bite to the article in which he concluded that this feat is obsolete. He reveals enough as to his handling to tell me he was doing it WRONG. As per all the differences between the cards that lead a spectator to feel they are choosing in a “safe way,” he made the same mistake that Gary Oulette got yelled at for by Vernon on tape. "You don't say it! They THINK IT!” What I'm referring to is the mistake of pointing out the differences between the various cards. This is completely wrong. It gives away the method (they make a choice based on the different "look" of the cards). As in all cons, it is very important that they notice these things themselves. By prodding, you tip that you are trying to lead them somewhere. I maintain that the major technique is to get them to not rush, and urging them to try to make it hard for YOU, but you NEVER indulge in "See there is only one black card. Notice there is only one ace. Gee, look at all the diamonds." I’ve been able to rely on this force with great success, and can attest to the entire beauty of the methodology described above. Other important things to clarify about the correct working of the "5," are, you can't EVER fish the cards out of the deck in view of the spectators. This gives away that you need certain cards. The other is that this doesn't work on magicians. Even magicians that don't know it! You must have the five cards on top and when you begin you false shuffle and false cut to seem like the cards you deal off are random and could be ANY cards. This is important. Set up ahead of time. Don't just hunt for the five from a mixed deck. It won't work. The jig will be up! Having covered those basics, I want to cover variations that also work. Having the five on top, and having false shuffled and false cut, you can use the "crossing the cut" procedure. I don't think it is necessary, but could work having the spectator cut. Cross the cut to mark the spot (!) and patter to let some time elapse.

WEBB'S 5 CARD PSYCH FORCE DECK While not necessary, I've been using this idea I had. I like it. I made up a deck of 50 cards with 10 sets of the five cards for the "5" repeated - 5 card group, 5 card group, 5 card group, etc. This way, wherever they cut, you take the next five cards fairly. Chances are they won't be in the right order, depending where they cut, but you will have all 5 needed, so fan them to yourself as you patter and as you casually put them to the table in the face up row is when you (casually) put them in the right order. Act nonchalant.

FUTURE "5" PSYCH FORCE - Gregg Webb Since we determined that in a two phase routine it doesn't REALLY hurt to fail on the first phase, this idea came to me from the aether. I believe that ANY five cards fairly taken by spectators can be used! ! !

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They point to five cards in a face down spread and you take them in a fan towards yourself. This gives you time to determine which card looks the most innocent or unobtrusive. When and as you lay the cards down, make sure the card you noted goes second from their left. Since we've already decided that it doesn't matter if the first phase fails, we can be as confident here as before and still have a better than 20% chance because of the second from left place in the row which has a long tradition for success.

COMBINED "5" and HOBSON's CHOICE A more sure thing is combining the Vernon "5" card psych force with Hobson technology make for a sure thing with just a better chance for early success. Lessening the chance of having to go through the long Hobson eliminations. A word to the wise is sufficient. (This is a good idea. It seems to sparkle at me) Effect: About 10 double blank cards, or even business cards can be used. One spectator thinks of any card at all while you write a prediction and you use one of the blanks or business cards. You then slip this prediction face down low into the packet. Now have the spectator who thought of any card write it on another card and this goes face down low into the packet. Next, a different spectator looks at a row of playing cards ( five of them ) and mentally chooses one as you write a different prediction and put it low into the packet. Finally, they write a card, the one they chose of the "5" and this gets slid into packet. Spreading the blank cards or business cards you show your prediction for the l-in-5. Then find the spectator's card where he wrote his l-in-5. Either you'll be right or wrong. Chances are better than average that you are right, but rehearse what to say if wrong "ESP is not an exact science," is a good one. Then find your prediction of the "any" card of the other spectator and then find the spectator's own card and these will MATCH. You end on a success. Impossible yet true. Required: 10 blank cards or business cards, blank sides down. A deck. A Sharpie if you use double blanks, a pencil if you use business cards. A deck of playing cards. Set-up: The blanks or business cards are unprepared. The deck of playing cards are set up for your "5" psych force. Performance: As spectator thinks of "any" card, you thumb off one business card and write on face - necktied - the card to be later used in the five card force. 4H. This is slid into the blanks/business packet very low. The exact details are, have the whole packet in left and (prediction is now face down on table) lift all but one or two with right. Use left to scoop prediction on top of the one or two extras in left. Run off some cards from right onto the prediction to get them used to seeing Biddle-style handling. Hand the top blank to same spectator and the pencil. They write their card. Lift about two-thirds of the packet with your right. Offer your left hand for the spectator to put their written-on card and while pattering, get a left pinkie break below their business card in readiness for a Biddle Move.

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Do the move as you run some cards into left hand. Stop when you still have a few left in R. While still holding the packet in L. dealing grip, use left fingers to take the top blank or business card to give to the second spectator. THIS IS WHEN YOU USE OUR FRIEND THE GLIMPSE BY TILTING FACE OF RIGHT'S TALON AS YOU SLIDE OFF TOP CARD AND TOSS IN FRONT OF SECOND SPECTATOR. Since they didn't know you did a Biddle Move, they think their writing is in left's packet, buried. Make this glimpse of the face of right's talon as subtle and casual as possible. Put the right's talon on the left's cards. Thumb off top blank card and write the same thing you just saw, the "any" card. Pick up blank packet, put your written card on top and swing cut into left and Biddle-style shuffle off to bury/mix. Bring out deck of playing cards. Go through the "5" card force procedure, and have them write on the blank you gave them have replaced on blanks/business packet. Swing cut and Biddle-style shuffle off again. You are done except for the making a mountain out of a molehill, or mole/hill and making light of one failure (“ESP - not an exact science”). All in all, the original Countact by T. A. Waters is great. I always wanted to tinker with it so that both phases had predictions written the same way. I write, they write. And to use this to allow the cards (blanks and business cards - whichever you choose) to be unprepared in the beginning. It also allowed me to cover some thoughts on the Vernon "5" Psych Force. Which, by the way, never fails me.

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I HEARD that there will be a book on Jack Chanin. He was the genuine article, a real magician, if you ask me. The only two people who made magic look really real, in my lifetime, has been Jack and David Roth. Jack didn't fool me, or should I say JUST fool me, but went actually farther by making it seem like real magic. I never caught him sleeve something although that would be the only explanation in some cases and of course he had a book out on the sleeve.

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When he took something from his right hand with his left, a cigar or cig or short pencil or pen…you'd bet your life he really had it in his left…no "tells" whatsoever. Well, he had his own style with everything. Coins became for him these huge discs called flying saucers. His kid show rope routine had some things not even in George Sands' at that time. And of course cards were somehow different in his hands. Jack's handling of the top change is unusual and everyone I've shown it to agrees. You don't have to wear a gypsy hoop earring but it can't hurt! I'll try to describe this very carefully. Our starting place will be with deck in FACE UP dealing position in your left hand. The face of the deck will be towards yourself throughout. After a selection and control the selected card is second from the face of the necktied deck. Take the face card, an indifferent card, with your right and hold it at about chest level. The viewers see the back of your left hand and what they can see of the deck is the back. In your right they see a card with its back towards them. Turn your right palm, and the face of card towards the audience and say, "Is this your card?" Of course it is not, you've failed briefly, but the actual card is facing you on the face of the left hand's cards which I repeat is held close to your vest so no one can see it.

Turn your right hand back to the palm towards yourself, face of card towards yourself, position, held at about neck level. We're ready for this unusual top change application. It will happen on the upstroke, followed by a down stroke, followed by a smaller tap that is kind of just a pointing gesture, in detail, the right hand holds the card between thumb and 1st. As the left hand moves up to do the change, it pushes the face selection really way over with the thumb. At the instant of the switch, the right stays stationary but accepts the selection between R. 1st and 2nd. The left thumb pins the card originally in R., to the deck, and keeps going to above your head. At this point, the switch has happened.

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It is noisy, so to justify it, the L. comes down briskly and smacks the card in the R. (now the selection) again, and then change grip with the left so you can end with a pointing tap with the L. forefinger. These noisy smacks on the card are in no way supposed to be magic - these don't CAUSE the magic to happen. You are saying, a little upset, "THIS IS NOT YOUR CARD?" Smack smack point. The audience will say "No it isn't their card." THEN comes your magical moment after you ask what their card WAS, and now with the card well away from anything you blow on it, and give it a shake, and slowly it changes (do this with acting) and then reveal the card to be their card. "I thought you said this wasn't your card." The exact delivery is "This-smack-is-smack-not-point-your card?” Imagine a two card transpo using just two cards. Instead of a whole deck in the left, you just have one card. Your mechanics are the same. Remember, the audience is seeing the BACK of the card during the whole thing except during that brief wrist turn and then at the end! Because of this. Jack favored blue BEE back cards, because there is no white border to flicker!

I just CAN'T do the Kennedy Center Deal! But, for years I've been working at an idea of using my left pinkie to push out the card just above the break. It didn't work. Then several tidbits came from various sources until now it works. If, like me, you can't do the Kennedy, consider this. Gene Maze taught me a bottom deal that was designed to be only on the deal to yourself, so the action is TOWARDS YOURSELF ONLY. The corner of the card that the right hand grabs to deal towards yourself is shown by the X if you use a normal left hand dealing position and deal with the right hand.

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Therefore, to make all the other cards look similar, they all are taken at the same near right corner. Of course the ones to the other hands as you deal around don't come towards yourself, after they clear the deck, but the ones that come to yourself do, even when dealing normal - to establish this style of dealing. Note: I've seen normal people deal this way. The next tidbit of a missing piece of the puzzle came from Stephen MINCH, the great writer and publisher and thinker and friend. Perhaps you'll recall his contribution to this humble rag in conjunction with Chanin's Disarrange, a ruse to use after a bluff shift to make it look like you REPLACED A HALF DECK - not just one card. So, with deck in left hand dealing position WITH A L. PINKIE BREAK, just has to relax, and as particularly the pinkie straightens, the entire block as a unit, above the break, rides to the right.

Of course this deal can't be viewed from above. There has to be some necktie action. The details of the deal is that the right 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fingertips contact the card at the bottom of the block, with the R. palm up. The ball of R. thumb lands right on corner of the block. As the fingertips pull center card free towards yourself, the thumb pushes block back into flush. Continue towards yourself to finish deal. I don't really intend this for cheating at cards, or even as a poker routine. I find magic tricks more powerful than poker demo tricks because poker tricks smack of skill and cheating techniques which register as less "magical" than magic…you sort of told them how it was done (skill). I showed this to the cardman Doug Edwards and he didn't know of this method. Gee, guys, sorry I couldn't do the Kennedy.

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PS - I think the best use in a card trick would be to have card replaced in center. Keep break. Do some trick where you need several cards…four, let's say. Deal three back to yourself off the top and the fourth one comes from the center back towards yourself Duck and deal or some other kind of packet trick. Or, ask for a small number, maybe under ten. Deal all normal towards yourself until you get to the number, and use the center.

The BART HARDING STACK appeared in The Magic Circular, the house organ of THE MAGIC CIRCLE of London, about five years ago. It was taught to me by Charles Reynolds and I liked it right away. It works not by memory but by a fairly simple calculation you do in your head. The mental effort required serves as a method acting method for acting like what you are doing is hard! Making a mental feat look hard is important, or the audience will sense that there is some simple secret that makes it work. What this essay attempts to do is explore a way to USE it. The first is a three-phase routine. The first two phases are that the audience gives you any number from I to 52 and you name the card at that location. "What Card at Any Number." The third phase is that they give a card…and you tell where it is - and in the first two phases you work from the top of a face down deck. The last phase works with the deck face up. The concept behind the stack is easy if I explain it. You have two decks in play, but ONE IS IMAGINARY. This imaginary one is in new deck order, or use your favorite suit rotation. CHSD is the one I use. With simple math you can IMAGINE the number of any card in the deck. The 8C would be at position 08. Note the zero. 2H would be at position 15 - all 13 clubs followed by 2 heart cards. 5S would be at position 26 all clubs and hearts, plus 5…giving a total of 31. 10D would be 39 plus 10 ...or 49. You've got to be able to do that in your head. WELL, the REAL DECK is in an order based on reversing the digits of the position in the "new deck order…really 1-13 clubs, 1-13 hearts 1-13 spades and 1-13 diamonds…in order."

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Wherever the card is in the imaginary deck - which you can figure out - if you reverse the digits THAT will be the location in the set-up deck. For example, 2C would be at location 02. If I reverse the digits I get 20. That is where the 2C is in the setup deck. If you do that with all the cards, you get a random looking order - very deceptive. Exceptions to the rule. The 6 and 7 of clubs don't work. They have to be memorized as being at position 7 and 6 in the set-up. The other exception is that after you reverse the digits you get more than 52, you have to do some mental math. As an example if we use 29, and reverse it getting 92-it is more than 52. So our rule here is that if it is more than 52 when reversed, subtract 5 from the "tens" column and add that 5 onto the "ones" column. In other words, after that process, 92 becomes 47. That is our position in our stacked deck. The application of these rules creates a deck that looks mixed yet we can know the location by calculation rather than memorization. Work on putting a deck in this order. First time will be hard but will help you learn the process. When done, write a list for future use. (Or, see the “Special Bonus Harding Stack Cheat Sheet” that follows this chapter in TBTDE for a cut-and-carry reference for stacking a deck.) How to use it? Three phases. Phase 1: False cut only. Have a number called out from 1-52. Push cards over face down into your right hand, cleanly and one by one NOT CHANGING THEIR ORDER. Cards go one by one to bottom of the right's packet. This way you don't destroy the stack. When you get to the number, turn this card face up. If the mental math was right, card should match your prediction. I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT AFTER CUTS AND SPECTATOR GIVES NUMBER, YOU STATE THE CARD AT THAT NUMBER BEFORE YOUR COUNTING BEGINS. This goes well, I think because the nature of trick rules out the use of marked cards. I use a Darwin Ortiz false cut. Phase 2: Right the card from phase 1, and put right hand cards on top and do a Zarrow shuffle. Then another false cut. Again ask for a number from 1-to-52. State the card at that number after your mental conversion. This time deal into a face up pile stud fashion from the face down deck to the number. The card you stated is there. The Zarrow adds the idea of mixing. Luckily I have a good Zarrow shuffle. Dealing face UP allows the viewers to see the cards are (apparently) random. This gets noticed. It seems impossible. Phase 3: Put face up pile from table onto deck all face down. Another "Z" shuffle and another false cut. This time for variety ask for any card in deck to be named. Again, mentally reverse the digits for where it would be in a "new" deck order and do the extra thing with the five subtraction and addition if needed. This gives a number. Example - they call 7C. That's 07 in new deck. reverse digits. That is 70. Subtract 5 from 7 and add 5 to 0 equals 25. BUT - this time we want to deal from a face UP deck (and from the original bottom of deck where the cards in play won't have

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been seen) so to get THIS position from bottom, subtract your number 25 from 53 and 53 is necessary so we land ON the card. Believe me, if you use 52 you'll be off by one card. To end, give deck away: One real riffle shuffle can't hurt. Afterimages: Think about doctoring the bottom cellophane to get into deck and set up, so you can do the opening of a new deck thing in which case you have to remove Jokers and advertising cards and then do a Zarrow shuffle even before the first phase. A final thought is doing ALL the above blindfolded. Killer. ANOTHER STUNT WITH THIS SET-UP: This is not me at all, but for a BIG SHOW, you can do ANY CARD AT ANY NUMBER by having a regular spectator call a number from 1-52. Then have an IRREGULAR SPECTATOR (a STOOGE) who knows this system call not any old card, but the card that would be at the number called by the first spectator. All in all, figuring the location of a card in a hypothetical deck in perfect order is not hard. Reversing the digits is not hard. If the result is under 52 you are done. If it is more than 52 you have to subtract 5 from the "tens" digit and add 5 to the "ones" digit and this isn't bad. Remember the 6 and 7 of clubs are 7th and 6th in your stack. All not that hard. When you work this out, do it on paper not with cards, first. You'll thank me. In other words, as you figure out the whole order for your stack. For my taste the Bart Harding stack is perfect. The "mental strain" looks like good acting. I'd rather use this than try to memorize a deck. I just don't have that kind of memory, yet these calculations in my head are easy. See you on the other side, and Happy New Year!

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B O N U S:

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CHEAT SHEET

FOR

THE

HARDING

STACK

The two tables shown below contain the Harding Stack as a copy-and-carry reference. They are intended to fit on a business card. You may want to carry them as “flash” cards in your wallet to help you learn the stack until you become comfortable free-wheeling it during actual use. Three columns on the cards include: “Pos” – which refers to the counted position of any card. “Image” – which refers to the value of the card in your IMAGINARY deck. “Stack” – which refers to the value of the card in your actual stacked deck. Follow instructions in Chapter 12 of “The Book That Doesn’t Exist” for tips and tricks using the Bart Harding Stack… Enjoy!

Pos 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13

Image AC 2C 3C 4C 5C 6C 7C 8C 9C 10C JC QC KC

Stack 10C 7H 4S AD JD 6C 7C 9S 6D AC JC 8H 5S

Pos 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Image AH 2H 3H 4H 5H 6H 7H 8H 9H 10H JH QH KH

Stack 2D QD 3H KH 10S 7D 2C QC 9H 6S 3D KD 4H

Pos 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Image AS 2S 3S 4S 5S 6S 7S 8S 9S 10S JS QS KS

Stack AS JS 8D 3C KC 10H 7S 4D 8C 5H 2S QS 9D

Pos 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Image AD 2D 3D 4D 5D 6D 7D 8D 9D 10D JD QD KD

Stack 4C AH JH 8S 5D 9C 6H 3S KS 10D 5C 2H QH

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MERRY MERRY MERRY XMAS or whichever holiday you celebrate: Consider this my Xmas present to YOU. You'll also learn more about the tricks that I consider ol' standby's. What I'll do is give my slight variations that have worked for me. 1) Jumping Gemini - Darwin Ortiz. I really consider this one of the best there is. To make it even stronger for myself, is to use two exactly matching Jokers and two selected cards. I'll explain, in any given deck the two Jokers DO NOT match…they're different. Discard one and then crib one from a matching deck so that your "show" deck has two identical Jokers - ON TOP. Have two cards selected from middle of deck. Swing cut for the return and have one replaced. Put talon on top with break. Lift at break for other selection. Drop right hand group on and this time you don't have to even keep a break. The two selections are above the two Jokers. Take out four cards for Jumping Gemini and you of course take out the two selections and two Jokers. The first phase uses one selected card, although you make it look like all are the first selection. The middle phase is when you seem to show four of the SECOND spectator's selection. Finally, all change to Jokers, which I favor over kings with varying suits. True to the established theme, four identical Jokers (seem) to appear. That's it! 2) Hitchcock Aces - Darwin Ortiz. A-hah! Another D. Ortiz trick! As written you perform the assembly with aces and a kicker hand shows up at the end. Kings! What I changed is to do any old ace trick first - Vernon's Twisting the Aces is fine. Then I say "enough with the aces. I'll do something different" as I supposedly lose the aces with a multiple shift. They seem lost - really they're on top. So I take the kings out of the deck for Hitchcock aces, using KINGS for the assembly and trick ending. Then everything is put aside except the "cover cards" used in the assembly, that seem to be indifferent cards, and when these are revealed as the kicker, they are the missing aces AND Aces outrank Kings so theatrically it is stronger to end higher than lower. Try this - you'll like. 3) Twisting the Aces Ending with Cardbox - Darwin Ortiz. At the end of twisting the aces, before the revelation of the A-S, Darwin puts the cards in the cardbox, has someone twist the box a la the swivel move from twisting the aces, and THEY take out the cards to find the A-S reversed. Like it. Like it! 4) A touch that helps on Paul Harris' ANYTHING DECK. This trick was re-released recently as DEEP ASTONISHMENT. This is about the same as "Anything Deck" with minor changes, in either case, Paul has someone pick a personal magic word. He conveniently uses ROSE as the example. But, what if they pick a long word like ABRACADABRA? You probably could but it would lengthen the presentation in a fatal way or you could talk them out of it and have them pick a shorter word. Gulp. What works, since the stunt involves a card trick, is to have one spectator mentally choose then name any card - disregard the suit. Any denomination spells with less than six cards. Five or less.

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For example, an "eight" spells with five letters. Ace is of course three. This procedure keeps us in the right ballpark of the number of letters without worry about some odd request. "Rumplestiltsken." Thanks, lady. The force card bit is done with a different spectator. So we end up with two cards, two different methods of selections, and the theme is CARDS! Works for me! During that selection, if they say Ace of Spades, just say something like, we'll just use the Ace part. 5) Note that the exact duplicate Jokers for the Ortiz trick will also enhance Monte. Use Q-Hearts! 6) Refer to the trick in Paul Curry's WORLDS BEYOND by Hermetic Press, called CIDER. It is a 11 card version of the 10 card deal. My handling variation is instead of putting the group back on deck to unload one of the TWO Jonah cards, to instead do the show of your hand "in the hands". I at first explored some Ascanio ideas, but arrived at the ol' reverse count as what works for me. You end with a "double" in your right paddie. You end with a reverse spread of your cards in your hands. I recommend not letting "go" with your R. hand here. Show, then finally square up. Woid to da wise. 7) Refer to Bob Cassidy's THE ART OF MENTALISM 2, or his tape from Meir Yedid, for his NAME/PLACE routine (also the opening gambit and how "volunteers" are chosen, and his THREE ENVELOPES routine. Here I offer no variations because these two things are for all intents just perfect. Just thought you'd enjoy the nudge in their direction. KUDOS To Max Maven for some of his new plots in the world of supposedly real "powers." He has given the frat house the kind of original thinking that rarely happens. New premises about the nature of the Uri Gelleresque mojo that could bend metal, cause seeds to sprout, spin compass needles, cause stopped clocks to start, etc. Now Max has expanded this "power" to include draining off the power of a magnet just by working one's aura over the magnet. Instead of just inventing new handlings on old tricks like the rest of us, he has added a new category to the nature of "powers.” Next, two ideas with batteries! Draining a battery of its power, and the reverse, giving power to a dead battery, when used in tandem, gives a power TRANSFERRANCE, from one to the other, and this appeared in PENUMBRA. Another battery idea ran in GENII called Electrovoiance, involving being able to tell how much charge is in a battery chosen from a group consisting of varying degrees of charge. Max uses the test strip that glows that comes with some batteries that come with allows customers to be sure the batteries are good when buying. I am assured that this idea has been around, but I haven't heard of it so at the VERY least we can credit Max with improving and promoting the idea. My interest is in palming with the magnets and batteries and using sleight-of-hand switches to accomplish the feat which isn't new but I'm trying to decide which techniques work best for ME.

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K U D O S - There is a version of Telekinetic Timber on the market made with a PEN that I want to get. This strikes me as a very good idea because of "Who carries a block of wood around" ? yet pens are cool. I hate thread, so here's a telekinesis effect with no hookup and no magnet to wipe out your bank card with! ON THE UNTIMELY DEMISE OF HARTUMIM THE GREAT a.k.a. Hartumim the Conveyor, and a.k.a. Hartumim the Warlock, a.k.a. Hartumim the guy who did that coin trick, a.k.a. The Great Hartumim. I was recently re-reading The DISCOVERIE by Reginald Scot, and I made a great discoverie myself. At the top of each page in the section on tricks is the word HARTUMIM! ! My imagination leapt into high gear. Gentlemen, start your SEARCH ENGINES! What if this were a name, perhaps that of someone who taught Scot all those tricks! (He does mention a John Cautares - but there could have been others!) Or, could this be the author of an unknown book that predates Scot from which he learned the tricks? ? I started calling people! Has anybody searched for the man HARTUMIM? Author or magic teacher? Scot does mention a book that was three hundred years old in his day (probably a manuscript) so did Scot in fact acquire this book and was its author our HARTUMIM ? My mind reeled at the possibility of having a new lead! Watson, the game's afoot! HOW I WAS VERILIE THE BUTTE OF A JOAK ON MIE BIE MIE Hartumim the great didn't live very long, and in fact only in my imagination, because Stephen Minch was able to discover in about ten seconds that Hartumim wasn't even a person! It is a Hebrew word that means a certain category of a kind of deception, which includes trickery so the tricks section falls within the Hartumim heading. Hartumim. R.I.P. ON

Jongling

VS

Manipulative

Magic

Thanks to Jeremy Medows for noticing at a convention some of the points I try to make in SOSOHA about some of the bad aspects of manipulation for magicians, also known as the FISM mentality. Jongling is an Americanized version I coined based on the French word for an operator of performer of a style BETWEEN magic and Juggling. This word is Jongleur. So, the art of THAT, when Anglicized is JONGLING. To me what we are seeing with a few exceptions is jongling and not manipulative magic. I recently was asked by one of the better manipulators in the world, "Is it supposed to look like manipulation or magic?" I was and still am horrified by that! It is as if no one realizes that if the better "moves" and techniques can be made to look like magic. It is as if everyone thinks manipulation is SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE MANIPULATION!

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Let me get back to Mr. Medows' observations. He told me he was at a convention where an Asian lady did manipulation that was VERY obvious, flashed all the time, and wasn't deceptive at all (he claims you could always see how it was done) and yet the magicians gave her a standing ovation: I can understand why but I am worried about what it means. Sure, a good juggler gets applause, but none of it is supposed to be SECRET. Jonglers (who don't know they are jonglers) seem to not understand what things audiences are supposed to see and what they're not supposed to see. So they don't worry about it, go fast, and hope for the same KIND of applause a juggler can get. I don't think going and performing for magicians will work, if they like it so much when manipulators flash all the while. I think they'd think "He had his hands turned all wrong so I couldn't see how he was doing "it." In short, I think audiences of magicians applaud jongling because they realize it is a skill ( like juggling ). This quandary is why I'll continue SOSOHA, and try to convince would-be manipulative magicians that it does matter when you flash. Once you've decided not to flash ALL the time, you have to get to the point when you NEVER FLASH. There is no "in-between zone". A good understanding of basics and acting go a long way. Many techniques that are angly have to be eliminated. To make up for less moves being angle proof, better acting ( and an understanding through analysis of what magic SHOULD look like ) has to be striven for. More about this in SOSOHA. Thank you Mr. Medows. Note: Jeremy Medows is the head of the magic club at NYU. Merry merry merry A XMAS STORY A true story. One only magicians could appreciate. It involves a short-change con I've been observing as a rail passenger. EVERY SINGLE TIME I've bought a ticket at a certain terminal, they try it. Here is how it works. My ticket costs $3.75. The amount matters. What they do when I give a $5.00 bill is to hand me the ticket and a quarter and then act done. Almost saying with their body language "next," and they realize that a certain number of patrons will walk away because of the rush of trying to catch a train, and the professional manner in which the ticket and the quarter are dispatched. When you don't walk away but stand right there, they go for the dollar and you are of course expected to take it for an honest mistake. I got "taken" this way several times when I first started taking the train several years ago. Now, I stand and wait or say "Hit me!" When they act dull like "what?," I say "the dollar." They give it up and act like it was just a mistake - not very apologetic. That is the crucial thing about short-change cons…they can always claim it was "just a mistake." We all know that train people are smart. They all know a lot of trivia - the schedule of trains in Moscow or Japan. How many switches between the stops along their tracks and things like that. Not dumb.

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Not all passengers buy a single ticket. Not all fares are a dollar and change away from a common bill. Do they pocket the extra money at the end of the night? Do they just do it to seem like a good moneymaker for the railroad. Does the RR condone or teach this style of change giving? Maybe they're just bored. Or maybe just maybe these are "honest mistakes." I think I'm seeing a very practiced version of an age old con. I'll let you know if I can figure out what to do about this. No wonder there is strong Plexiglas protecting each teller. Again, Happy Holidays from,

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There are tricks that are too good, as students of the Too Perfect Theory realize, and there are tricks that aren't good at all. This one is "Just Right." There are harder tricks than this one, and easier tricks. This one is "Just Right.”

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It came about by accident, yet through testing this has proven out to be what will probably be my best invention for a walk around card trick with a whole deck, not a packet tricks, that doesn’t need a table. That is an important consideration for that venue. "My Magic Card" ran in FEEN-X. As luck would have it, my good friend Charles Reynolds is also a world class magic consultant, and he noticed a way to make "My Magic Card" even better than it was, and it always went over beyond expectations, but with Mr. Reynolds's improvements this now ranks as a really special piece and one with an interesting lesson hidden in it. A TRICK DOESN'T HAVE TO BE HARD TO BE GOOD WHEN INTENDED FOR LAYMEN! And yet just the right kind of chemistry is created between you and the trick and the audience so that you have fun, the audience has fun, and the trick seems fair and clean to the point that at the climax women scream as a general rule. People don't backtrack or try to backtrack... the chemistry is so right; Effect: Performer shows his "magic card," and I always use the 2-C. Magician signs this card across the face. A spectator selects any other card and signs their name across that card's face. Magician loses his magic card in the deck. Next, the magician loses the spectators card in the deck also. Saying, "I can't find your card. It's lost in the deck - BUT I can always find my Magic Card because it always comes to the top of the deck." The 2-C is turned up to show that this is true and now the "Magic 2-C Card" is placed in the empty card box. The box is held by the spectator. Snapping his fingers over the box, the mage says, "Do you know what happens to my Magic Card when I do that?" "Why, it makes my Magic Card jump to my pocket", he says as he shows his EMPTY right hand which then proceeds to produce the signed 2-C from his pocket as promised. Continuing, the mage says, "And when my Magic Card jumps to my pocket ...GUESS WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CARD IN THE BOX." Here the spectator is encouraged to open the box…and finds THEIR SIGNED SELECTED CARD! And the audience response is always JUST RIGHT! Required: A deck. A card box that holds your deck. A duplicate 2-C. A Sharpie pen. Set-up: Sign you name across one 2-C and put in your pocket. A right pants pocket is just right. Have the other 2-C at the face of the deck. The Sharpie is anywhere handy. Performance: Take deck out of box and have anyone hold the box. Call attention to your 2-C Magic Card, and take out the Sharpie and sign it. Get a different spectator to take any other card and sign it. This is done from a face up deck and eliminates any need for turning away. Get a break between your 2-C and rest of face up deck. The spectator still holds their signed card. Double cut the Magic Card to the back of deck and turn deck face down. The Magic Card is now on top. Swing cut half the deck to your left hand and have the spectator put their card there. It goes right on top of the Magic Card. Place right hand's talon on top of all in the left hand but keep a break. Double undercut to the break and our setup is now on top.

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'I can’t find your card, but I can always find my Magic Card," you say as you push over two, point to the top card and square getting a break under two. Continue, ''My Magic Card always comes to the top." Double turnover, keeping a break under the now face-up double which shows the 2-C. Turn the double down, the previous break keeping you from any fumbling at this point. As you retrieve the box with your right hand, thumb way over the top card only (their signed selection) and now feed this card into the box very cleanly and give to the person who chose a card, after closing box. Snap your fingers over the box and say, "Do you know what happens when I do THAT?" Show your right hand empty and go to your right pocket and withdraw the duplicate signed Magic Card. Then put it back in the pocket. Snap your fingers over the box and say, "Do you know what happens when MY card jumps to my pocket, to the CARD IN THE BOX?" Have spectator open the box and she will find her SIGNED CARD! Merriment ensues! This always comes as a great surprise. Afterimages: This is essentially a transposition, but not exactly. It implies that the 2-C jumped from the box to the pocket AND that their card jumped from middle of deck to the box. I used to do this with just the Magic 2-C signed with my own signature. The Charles Reynolds addition of having the spectator card signed ALSO is a very strong bit of business that I just overlooked. It makes it even more powerful by eliminating any doubt that their card is the very same one, thereby cutting off any thoughts beginning about dupes. Once again, I only realized how strong this is by using it and noticing how the reaction is more than I as a magician would expect. We forget what it is like to be laymen, and therefore we tend to think like magicians about our work. There are more difficult tricks, but the extra difficulty causes undue strain that gets in the way of having fun with the spectators. History of the Trick: I think there is a valuable lesson in this trick, or I wouldn't be spending so much time on this analysis. First incarnation: I would double lift and show "Your card isn't on top." Turning the double face down. I'd take the real top card which was their selection, and put it face down on their hand, snap my fingers, and reveal that it changed INTO their card. Second Incarnation: I later learned to remember the indifferent card that showed during the double lift, and at the end of the trick I'd palm that indifferent card to my pocket. Third Incarnation: I learned to emphasize the name of the indifferent card during the double lift, and to palm it out of my pocket FIRST, then reveal the card on their hand had changed to their card AFTERWARDS! Here I began to realize which effect was primary and which was secondary. Leave the primary effect for last.

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Fourth Incarnation: Well, one day I dropped the card from my palm on the way to my pocket. I realized after the show that I could have a duplicate card in my pocket and contrive to have the matching card ON TOP of deck from the start. At first I felt embarrassed that I went the "dupe" route because I didn't have enough confidence in my palming. Then I realized that showing the hand EMPTY before going to the pocket was the DISCONNECT for the viewers. Here was when I got the idea for the Sharpie, to take the curse off the dupe, and hoped viewers didn't notice that it wasn't true to form for ME to sign MY NAME. Also at this time I realized that I could lay the Sharpie on the face down card on their hand to prevent them peeking. Fifth Incarnation: I got the idea of using the card box from New York Cardman Doug Edwards. Sixth Incarnation: I got the idea of having the spectator sign HER card AND I'd sign MY card from Charles Reynolds. CLEANUP and OTHER DETAILS. Note that after showing the dupe Magic Card from my pocket that I put it back in the pocket. After the trick is completely over is when I palm the original 2-C from the top of deck and go to my pocket and bring it out AS IF getting that card from the pocket to return it to the deck. Actually the dupe stays in the pocket. Leaving the signed card with the spectator is good! The deck gets a little smaller but workable. You need to carry extra 2-C cards, and discard the signed one each time so you start with a fresh one to sign each time, if you want to repeat this trick a number of times during your mingling. In conclusion, for laymen you don't have to do the long multiphase routines you might want to do for magicians. Study this trick to learn the kind of directness laymen in party mode need to be able to follow the plot and experience a bit of impossibility!

I doubt if many magicians realize how powerful an impact the show CROSSING OVER on the SciFi Channel, starring John Edward, is having on the public. Many magicians I speak to haven't even heard of the show, or they have heard of it but don't think it is any big deal…but they haven't watched it or asked non-magicians what they think of the show. As it turns out, many laymen think Mr. Edward is REAL - even more real than David Blain! They take what Mr. Edward "claims" to do as a given - the ability to contact the dead and departed. I think the movie The Sixth Sense got the ball rolling and then Mr. Edward stepped in to fill a need.

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I've spoken of this at length is some of my writings. And so far TIME magazine did a story. TIME’s editor Leon Jarroff being someone "in the know" about magic, but so far I haven't been able to get many magicians interested in the idea that John Edward is taken to be the "real thing" and of course most magicians are NOT. In fact, most acts don't want to be seen as more than just entertainers. But, if you are not a comedy magician, or kid show performer, and try at all for a serious approach to good magic, Crossing Over will come up! Non-magicians divide the whole area we call magic into "real" and "tricks". The Amazing Jonathan is "tricks" and "jokes" yet Kreskin and Max Maven are taken for real. Newsweek just ran that 76% of people believe in the afterlife. Last year they stated 80% of people believe they've seen an angel. These are big numbers! I'm not sure it's that high, really. Polls. Particularly women see card tricks and immediately assume "tricks." Do the same trick with a Tarot Lower Arcanna, or a stronger trick with the Upper Arcanna and the same viewer will think it's real! If you see a woman walk away when you are doing card tricks, you may assume she watches Crossing Over. On with the topic at hand. I'm not saying you should claim to be "real," but I am saying that if the topic comes up, don't say John Edward is a fake. The believers will hate you. Of course as magicians we want to say, "He wouldn't know an Elmsley Count if it bit him!" Yet, it is better for magic if people DO believe some "powers" exist. So don't fall into the trap of saying, "He's no good - watch ME !" See? By-the-way, I don't call Edward's method 'COLD READING' as some have. His method is more that of what Max ( MAVEN ) calls "CHANGING THE TARGET." But that's a different story for another day. LIVING and DEAD - This category of trick has a long long history. There was a time when every book and mag you picked up had a new variation on L & D. Now is a good time to revive it. Halloween is not that far off, and of course SciFi's CROSSING OVER. Effect: Five slips of paper are handed out. Four get living names - one gets the Dead name. These are wadded up and put in a row and the SPECTATOR finds the dead relative! This is good policy because you act as guide and show how everyone is psychic to some degree. I maintain that that is our best stance anyway. Required: A piece of paper. Several pencils speed the process & get more people involved. Set-up: Tear the sheet by folding and then tearing, into six slips and then get rid of one of the end ones. Don't make a sleight of this. Just crumple loosely, show it and put in a pocket. Performance: Get the people to write the names. Have them wad their slips in loose wads and your earlier demo serves to help them get that part right.

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Have someone collect them and put on table. Now you put the slips - don't call them billets or pellets, in a row so the Dead name is second from the left of the correct spectator. The secret very very old but good - is that 4 slips have all ragged edges and the one with the long straight edge is the one handed to the person to write the dead name. Even when loosely wadded you can tell this slip. Magician's force and Hobson - Have the helper use her left hand to point to any slip. If she hits, you have a miracle. If not continue. Have her point to one more with her right hand. Lets say she hits now. Push the other three aside. Have her mix the two left and hand you one. If she hands you the right slip, act like the trick is over. Sweep aside the other one and reveal that SHE IS INDEED PSYCHIC. If she hands you the wrong one, toss it into the discard heap and act like the ending is that the one she chose (the remaining) is how the stunt is supposed to end. Interestingly, this is "Changing the Target," and I state here that that is what Edward is doing on SciFi, except not with slips of paper but with pieces of information! Let's think. If she misses with both hands, you'll still win. Discard both misses and have her continue. Left hand points. If she HITS, you still have to do the other hand for consistency. Discard the fifth untouched wad. Have her mix and hand you one and end as before. Let's say she misses both yet AGAIN! This is a very strong ending. Four have been eliminated and the final one - never touched, is the one she knew to remain standing alone at the end. If you get this clever game down pat so that you don't have to fumble for the right procedure to do next, you have one of the real pieces that has not much to catch.

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Watching Derren Brown's video “The Devil's Picturebook,” I divided it up into two sections. The first half is sleight of hand and the second part is mentalism with cards. I'll cover this in two sections also. On the video Derren reveals that he has entirely gotten away from cards, even the mental card work, in favor of mentalism with no cards at all. I'll say this. He handles cards very very well, so you can assume that a lifetime of work with cards is now gone from his life. You can almost hear "since I don't need this stuff anymore - maybe someone can use it.” All the lessons are indeed wonderful and several years ago I'd be working like mad to master them. I too, however, have had a change of heart and while I do retain a few packet tricks that take non-stop technique, I have opted for close-up with a full deck to items that seem hard rather than are actually hard. On the other hand, in the area of stand-up manipulation I do work on the hard stuff. This gets interesting. So - from the first section I liked his impromptu Haunted Pack with bridge. Also from the first section is a cards to pocket, or I should say Repeat Card To Pocket that ends with the last card disintegrating into rose petals. He does this as a close-up item and yet I see promise for it in a standup manipulation act and will cover this in detail in SOSOHA. In the second part of the tape, Derren shows some very experimental psychological forces. Barrie Richardson has written about one of these in GENII. I have always had luck with Vernon's 5 Card Psych Force, so I'm interested in these things and will try to "get" them. I'll report soon. I found it interesting that one of his (Brown's) methods yields a 4-H, same as Vernon's, yet from a whole deck. He gives ways on J-S, from an imaginary complete deck...all mental. Also, a way to force a 5, as well as the old Q-H. Brown is young. I want to see what he does now that he has given up on cards in mentalism as too much like "tricks." So if you like finger-flinging and hard card work, but good ideas, you'll like this. Anyone in magic should be aware of the really interesting ploys he uses in his psych forces. *

*

*

Welcome back! Stay tuned for more stuff that works for me on laymen. One last note, I think the Aaron Fisher book THE PAPER ENGINE from Hermetic Press is very good but very hard. I'll try to read it and report. My own inventions seem to be taking the tack of getting easy in method yet strong in reaction - yet with moves, but well hidden. Do-able magic that you can really use without devoting your entire life to a certain trick. It is tough to play catch-up. These guys make their work look easy but it's not. Sometimes it is fun to wade through a tough routine at home or at the magic club. For laymen - direct and easy!

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A SPECIAL Book That Doesn't Exist PUBLICATION

I JUST HAD TO RE-VISIT my handling of BLUES PROGRESSION by David Regal from CLOSE UP AND PERSONAL (Hermetic Press) after Brian Higgins partially worked out a Royal Flush kicker ending. Over the years Doug Edwards has been helping me learn to shorten tricks so they don't run on too long. I guess I'm getting the hang of this because I was able to figure out how to go directly into the Royal Flush after my version of Blues Progression. When I did show the whole routine to Mr. Edwards, he said two words. "Publish it!" Brief history. After learning the REGAL method, I felt I wanted to turn the trick into a packet trick to eliminate all the boring procedure of getting all the right cards out of a red AND blue deck right in front of the audience. As a packet I could launch into the strong part right away. The next thing I changed was to have the Aces seem to have RED backs amidst a group of blue cards since the eye goes to the few reds among blues more readily than vice versa and while which color is where might seem minor, as an artist I knew that claiming the reds are the aces is a bit stronger. While Mr. Regal's title is catchier, my use of red backs to represent aces is based on how the eye works beyond just trying to be different.

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Next, I found a way to eliminate an extra fifth card from the third pile and this really helps. Magicians always sensed the third pile was "funny", right away. My elimination proved to be an improvement. Finally, I showed the aces to be assembled at the end, and when I showed them to seemingly have all red backs, I used a count that was recommended to me by the same Brian Higgins, and that is the VALLERINO COUNT. Finally I got permission from Hermetic Press and Steve MINCH and David Regal, to publish my handling changes. I recommend you go back to the March 2002 issue of The Book That Doesn't. I called that treatment 3 Magicians VS 1 Gambler. What we are doing today is almost the exact same routine with the exception that instead of 4 odd cards with red backs ( which by virtue of a switch masquerade as three of the aces - one ace really has a red back…they are the cards needed, with the A-S, to make up a Royal Flush ending…our kicker, and at this time all the cards really do in fact have red backs so they can be examined. I'm really excited by this, obviously, making a special extra issue for it, and I think you'll be able to use it and also I think you'll like the patter. I think it is more mature than my previous attempt. Cheers ! THE PATTER By using these blue cards and some red cards I can demonstrate what happened in the strangest card game I was ever in. The game had four people in it, three gamblers and me, a magician. The red cards are the aces so you can follow what happened that night. Every player got an ace, but that wasn't enough for the first gambler. He passed off to the second gambler so fast it almost looked like magic. It wasn't. Just fast hands. I was the only magician there. The second gambler had two aces but that wasn't enough for him so he passed off to the gambler on the right, so fast that it almost looked like magic. The third gambler had three aces and thought this was pretty good, but I made them jump to my hand by magic and I had all four aces…which will beat almost any hand. In poker there are really five cards used, so I could make one blue card turn red if I wanted to have a ten, and a jack, and a queen, and a king and the ace. ..a Royal Flush, ..which DOES beat any hand. Required: No gaffs. A Royal Flush in Spades from a red deck. and 11 cards from a blue deck that has no duplicates of any of the royal flush, but must have A-C, A-H, A-D, and as many face cards as possible without duplicates, to make up your 11. With the reds you have a total of 16 cards. Setup: From top down, four red cards…with the A-S fourth. Next, three blue aces followed by rest of blue cards. On bottom is the last, fifth, red card. I use the 10-S here.

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Performance: With the packet face down, spread to reveal reds and blues and manage to keep the lowermost red back hidden. Close spread but catch a break under top seven cards. Turn top block face up but get a break under it as you do. Spread 3 cards to show 4 Aces on deck. Square and flip block face down. Deal a round, to yourself last ( A-S ). Spread over 3 blue backers (3 Aces) and take them with R. and slide them under YOUR red card (A-S) and you can turn L. palm down to assist. Return to normal and push over three more blues, take and flash them face up - no aces AND they see lots of face cards which to them means they can readily see no aces but also the abundance of face cards disguises your flush to come. Return to normal and slide these face down under red card #1. ( Actually you went out of order - you loaded #4 first - it doesn't matter. Repeat with the next 3 cards from packet going after a flash to beneath red card #2. On the last group of three we change procedure. When your left was assisting as you slid the last 3 cards under red backer #2, you keep left palm down, which causes last 3 cards to remain face up, and you spread them face UP to show no aces and this hides the one extra red back card. Square while still face up and turn the block face down hiding red back again, and slide these under red card #3. And, as stated, #4 is already loaded - you did that one first. 1st vanish: Pick up pile #1 (to your left) and spread face down. Close and get break above bottom card. Pull a double from the middle - all above your break except one on top you hold back with left thumb pad. Use the double to do a paintbrush move, sliding forward on left's cards with the double then pull back a single. An easy color change from red to blue has occurred! Drop the single on top. Do an Underground Elmsley (last one goes to bottom) and turn packet face up and spread to show NO ACES. Square. Now, do an Olram Subtlety to supposedly prove no aces and no red backs. Study this part well so you manage to get the red backer to the mat first. ( After first take and double wrist turns, thumb the face one from left first and drop the right's next. This way we are sure the red backer goes on mat first. (We're stacking for later.) Repeat Olram with the remaining two cards. We have a face up pile. Red backer at bottom. 2nd pile: First do an Elmsley to seem to show two red backs, but they see the same one twice. Buckle or pinkie pulldown to get break over bottom card. Repeat now all as before, pulling a double from center and paintbrush move to effect a color change, etc. Do an Underground Elmsley to show no reds, and turn packet face up and spread to show no aces. Olram subtlety again but RIGHT ONTO THE FIRST FACE UP PACKET, again making sure first one down is the red back card from left packet's face, then the loose one from right hand. Follow up with the remaining two cards. (Any questions on the Olram - just write me. I'll go into detail in a letter to you. I'm on a roll.) 3rd pile: This one is quite different. First Elmsley to show 3 red backs. They see one of the reds twice. But, you have to catch a left pinkie break under the last two counted. Practice this. You have to plan ahead to do this in performance. Angle over the two top reds so your R. thumb and ring finger can pull the bottom 2 blues as one out to paintbrush with. Do that and you get your color change. Drop R.'s single on top.

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Turn packet face up and spread to show no aces. Square. With packet face up we're about to do a double wrist turns Flushtration count. But, the first one taken by left is different. It is the lowermost card from the face up packet that is slid out by L. ! Double wrist turns to flash blues and return to normal. Now more normally peel top card of R.'s cards to left hand, flush, and again double wrist turns to flash blues and return to normal. Keep this procedure up till all are apparently shown and in left. Return to palms up and cards face up. Spread cards. There will be two cards in the center of packet from your Royal Flush. Square and get a break between them and then cut packet at that spot. That puts one at the back and one at the face. Drop cards face up on the face up pile on table. Assembly ending: Pickup #4, your pile - red back on top, and it should be quite squared from the start to show no blue backs, only the red back on top. Turn face up without leaking blue and spread to show aces faces. This is the big ending to phase one. As an afterthought do a Vallerino count to show aces apparently all have red backs. Spread and square getting break over the lowermost A, the A-S still face up. Transfer packet and break to R. Pick up face up pile from table with L. Add R.'s cards to L's group still keeping break. Double undercut to break and turn cards face down. Flush ending: We are now stacked to deal around four times and the red backers all go to you each round. On the last round all you have to remember is this. When there are only two cards left to deal they both will be red. Separate them, one in each hand. Drop the left one on your reds pile, the other one just hold and don't deal it to the #3 pile. This is where the patter says "I could turn a blue card red and have five red cards", ..which you now reveal to have the Royal Flush in Spades! AFTERIMAGES: Bob Neale always says it is good to be able to turn a weakness into not only a strength, but an effect! That is what happens here. We secretly had a fifth red backer. We make magic with it. One blue has turned red! All red backers weren't really aces - only 1. So now in the royal flush we only need one ace to have a red back. There are other things to like in the trick. For a while we are only showing magic with the aces moving pile to pile by showing red backs. The magic all happens based on how many red backs are seen and magical stuff indeed, but at the end of the ace assembly it is the FACES of ACES, all 4, that heralds the big event but it was the vanishes and "proofs" ( the Olrams and all ) that makes it seem possible. Then doing the Vallerino as an afterthought is clever. Even so, don't say "see all red"...just do it as if showing the aces again and let them notice all backs seem red. I personally never felt MacDonald's $100.00 was worth the gaffs and used Ortiz's Hitchcock Aces as my assembly. Now I really like this as my showpiece assembly because of the color angle and the kicker ending has me floored. Again, thanks to Brian Higgins for the Flush idea. His routine is longer, but will probably appear in print as well. I'll notify you.

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BOOK REVIEW: Aaron Fisher's THE PAPER ENGINE from Hermetic Press was very thought provoking. Beautifully written and illustrated with very good photography. It is mostly about very good applications and fine points on the half pass, but there are other good sleights too. His top card cover half-pass is very good. His Out jog Herrmann Pass is fast becoming my favorite. My half pass is already much better by following Fisher's advice. I got about four routines and assorted touches and sleights, so that would make this book qualify as a success. The theories of magic in the book alone are very valuable. My only question about the book is that there are about three sleights taught only to be told Jennings didn't like it, and then follows an attempt, an admitted failed one, to correct the sleight and then a third attempt to salvage it...which again doesn't work. So you learn three sleights in a row that all are not really workable but at least he tells you why and makes a lesson in magic out of it all. I guess it is "how to tell if a sleight you invent is not good." Then follows a very difficult and to me "if-fy" move that I can't do. But then follows more good stuff. Like I said, I got 4 full routines and various sleights and touches that I will use. Overall I recommend it. The writing style makes our art seem important and deep, which I think it is. Also remember. I'm losing interest in close-up, or is it in learning hard new close up? I have so much material that I already developed for myself that I can relate to and can remember because I wrote them. Am I getting lazy in my old age. I try to keep up. Maybe you younger guys will find even more to like in this book than I did.

A new department, in which I'll give my ideas to improve other tricks in print, if I think my idea might be good, or different or even controversial. For today's installment I'd like to dissect Max Maven's Caffeinomenon which ran a very short time ago in GENII. It is a three-way prediction where you work one ahead and mis-number two billets and the third has to be a force, an old sequence T. A. Waters called a Cerberic routine. Well, I liked Maven's whole theme of things to do with coffee, what kind of bean, what kind of sweetener, and what kind of creamer. Well again, he even worked out a nice Han Ping Chien thing with the coffee cup and one billet - except I'm fussy about mentalism for ME. Here goes. Rather than switch with a move, in a mental feat ...I would rather guess and be wrong - and reveal that one first, in which case the other two are right. But on a good night if you follow this reasoning you can "get" all three more often than not. Everyone knows ESP is not foolproof: So, go for MILK on the type of creamer for this reason. Not so many drink black. It gives you acid stomach or something. Not many use cream - watching their cholesterol. Half and Half? Not as many as would say "milk" because of the availability of milk. Open the fridge and there is the milk. Non-dairy creamer or the powder taste like crap. So say Milk on the correct billet and most of the time you'll be 3 for 3 and at worst 2 for 3.

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I'd rather be wrong than have to do a "move" at the end in mentalism. Call me crazy. (I can always blame it nicely on the spectator for not concentrating enough.) ESP - not an exact science. DARK FRICKIN HUMOR I thought of a cure for West Nile Virus. Breed zillions of bats. Bats eat mosquitoes! Maybe build mobile homes for the bats that are mobile, so they can be pulled around the country to wherever it is worst at a given time. Wow. Bats everywhere. Great, huh? Am I bats? Am I bats, man? Should I call CNN? Write to TIME magazine? Mobile bat caves on wheels. Don't bats get rabies? Not very often. Don't bats get West Nile? Let's find out!

ON NOT JUDGING A RAG BY ITS COVER Thanks, guys for not concluding by virtue of the lack of gloss to my newsletters that the material is no good. Has anyone noticed some material in the glossy mags is not that great? Yet, many want the gloss. For not falling for that thinking I salute your bravery, and thanks again and Happy New Year.

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Read All About It !

The routine in hand. Reds Progress, just got more endings and options! I was lucky to have been able to show the trick to David Roth, who to my mind is THE expert on routine construction. As it turns out, David preferred the trick to end at the revelation of the Aces, and skip the Royal Flush ending, in general David feels kickers muddy the impact of the first phase in any kind of assembly. Also, David advised me to go from the Vallerino count to the Bro. Hamman count in this way. I'm referring to the Flushtration Count, and the best way to use it is to show the aces faces in your hand at the end of the basic assembly, and just use bluff to act like the 4 aces all together is the end of the trick. Then after relaxing, the Flushtration Count is done with low energy, and casually, not calling attention to "all red backs" but just as if showing the aces again and they HAPPEN to see red backs. Then put everything down. Trick over. During the earlier vanishes and the "proving" with both Elmsley Counts and Olram subtleties, the Aces seem gone, and the cards all LOOK to have blue backs, setting up the possibility that all COULD be magically in the last hand. So, our options now include, doing the Higgins Royal Flush end, but still use Flushtration rather than Vallerino count after the assembly phase. I think the kicker is still a good ending because the flush has all red backs that are truly examinable. Just ending after the ace assembly part, as already stated, above. OR The INGENIUS COLOR CHANGE by DAVID ROTH I am humbled by how quickly David came up with this. AFTER the ACES assemble in your hand, and you show, relax, and Flushtration Count, you say "We really wouldn't want marked cards in a game, so I can magically change these aces back to all blue!" The aces are really 3blue-1 red. You displace with a cut to get the one red card into position so that it remains hidden during a regular Elmsley Count and you show all BLUES! YAY! P A T T E R - Patter can be about Poker, especially about poker if using the Royal Flush, if ending with the aces assembling you could refer to all being about MAGIC (not gambling). If about gambling, the patter can contain references to extraordinary feats of PALMING to get the red cards to move pile to pile. All in all I think this trick is fun to do, and is in the vein of MacDonald's $100.00, with no gaffs, and the added interest of the color backs making the trick very visual. Mr. Steve MINCH is going to report his take on the credits, etc., when he has time, so this trick may change again. Nailing magic down is hard. It keeps changing! its like trying to tie a hair ribbon around a bolt of lightning.

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A BOOK THAT DOESN'T EXIST Publication WEBB / MARLO / LEIPZIG PUNCH DEAL Inspired by Mr. Ortiz’ punch routine in his new book, I came up with this different effect which has some antecedents in Marlo and Leipzig precursors - which relied not on the blister but on key numbers to know when to deal seconds. These routines were that each spectator (5) thought of one card in their hand. The trick was to get all selections into YOUR hand on the next round. Darwin's version allowed you to get a royal flush but they were not selections. It is just each spectator was given a group of cards to shuffle and then the hands assembled. Hint: each group has one card of the Royal in it from the get-go. EFFECT: Each of 5 spectators remembers a card. Forces - I'll explain Four more cards given each spec. and they shuffle hand. Hands assembled. Blindfold deal. YOU deal out five hands and get Royal F. in Spades. All other (4) hands have losers and PLUS ...ALL THEIR CARDS ARE RED SPOTS to contrast theatrically with your R. Flush! Set-up: I use my thumbnail to press a blister in the Royal F. These are at face. That's it. Performance: I'm using a simple Hindu force with time delay on each spec. What takes the curse off is - Don't call these selections! Just ask each spectator to remember a card. Therefore...Hindu off and stop (at random)...pause, and put right hand group WAY outjogged and sidejogged from left hand group while you stress the importance of remembering their card ( time delay ) and then raise the out & side-jogged group AIMING IT AT JUST ONE OF THE HELPERS so they all don't see each other's cards! Set down left hand cards and lower right hand's group and draw out lower card a la GLIDE action, FACE DOWN in front of the correct spectator. Reassemble deck so your punched cards (flush) is at the bottom, false cut, and repeat this all four more times. Note there are other force procedures you could use. Now, spread through deck faces to yourself and take out and give face down to each spec. FOUR RED SPOT CARDS EACH. Have them shuffle their hand - assemble the cards and put on rest of deck. In every group of 5 there is a punched card. Either use blindfold angle or not - deal out five hands, using a second deal when you feel the blister each round. BOOM! You get royal F. and all other hands have all red spot cards for contrast. A pretty picture. Thank you Darwin, Ed, Nate and Greg!

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Lucid Dreaming is something I talk to my animation students about to improve the imagination. It sounds mystical but it isn't really. I studied all kinds of meditation, read many mystical books only to find that if I set my alarm early so that I can go back to bed but not sleep. Let's call that state (before coffee) half-awake. IF I use that time to visualize my day's projects, I found I could be more creative because some small part of the subconscious is still in gear. Also waking up inadvertently in the middle of the night can be even better. I use that time to - instead of complaining about not being able to get back to sleep to invent a magic trick or visualize a drawing or painting or piece of animation that I have to do. Other applications can be how to make a repair about which I have no knowledge (plumbing perhaps) ...well, things follow natural law. ..I can understand the principles involved. What I've found is that I'm not good at things because I don't enjoy thinking about them (such as plumbing) but that if I have to I can visualize and solve problems BETTER in this half-awake state. But, it takes a bit of practice and USE! So when I may say I dream ideas up. ..I really mean I use lucid dreaming when I'm half-awake. Just keep the body relaxed but the mind is VERY able to do creative work. I visualize myself doing a trick I think has a problem spot and try to solve it. Or I picture something I'm supposed to draw or paint. In other words, I don't wait till I'm at the easel or drawing board or typewriter - for that matter, to begin THINKING UP what I'm supposed to do. No. I have a special session just for THAT PARTI Meditation tries to get to the same state but from the opposite direction. From being AWAKE and going closer and closer to the dream state that lies between awake and asleep. All I say is the one when you've just woken up (just coming out of the dream state) can be prolonged and is better and more natural at least for me. So. ..set that alarm early and begin today! I hope this takes some of the mystery out of what this is all about because most books on the subject tend to make it out to be complicated. Coaches call it positive visualization. I'm just pointing out the best time to do it. Also, you need to write ideas down or you'll forget. There is a name for a notebook that you keep by your bed - Noctuary. F E E L M Y A U R A Here is a trick that came out of lucid dreaming and I almost forgot it...it came back. ..and I'm writing it down. Effect: "Not everyone can SEE auras. Most can FEEL them more easily and you've all felt hairs prickle or goosebumps, or a spine tingle... well those are often the result of feeling someone's aura - which extends way beyond the physical self at times. Hold out your hand. My hand is nowhere near you but my AURA extends BEYOND my hand. See if you can FEEL MY AURA!" Required: 7" piece of invisible thread. Oval shaped piece of Scotch Magic (Frosted kind) TAPE.

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Performance: The big secret is to have the end of the inv. thread attached with the frosted tape to your middle fingernail. When the victim puts her hand out, have her do so with the BACK of hand UP! This is because there are tiny hairs on the back of hand. As you make mystical passes over the "helper," manage to let the thread trail across the back of her hand! -finNEWS FLASH ! Whoops! It turns out Finn Jon had a similar idea but using the elastic loop invisible thread (I guess around both thumbs so hands are separated and thread stretches across) SO I can't claim credit for the effect but only handling…that the thread hangs down and held by one end only…to tickle her fancy. NOSTRADAMUS Martha Stewart. Yay!

By the way, John Edward was voted 2nd most annoying person behind

Anyway, if you are ever in a debunking mood about Nostradamus who is holding great sway with young people, say this. "Not even one copy of the first edition even EXISTS! One version of the 2nd edition exists which most likely had changes from the 1st and it is in a French museum. The copy that was translated into English that is AVAILABLE to us is bogus because it was translated from the one that was first translated into German by an astrologer who was going to be killed but who was temporarily spared when he showed Hitler the phony translation into German that was EMBELLISHED to impress Hitler enough to spare the translator. If you read the translation from the old French 2nd edition you will see why the real one is not popular. Nothing predicted came true! ! And by-the-way…they weren't PREdictions, they were POSTdictions because he (N) was really writing about mundane things that already happened. In poetry form. And, the best book on the subject is “The Mask of Nostradamus” by James Randi - Prometheus Books. T H E C U S P - l am really enjoying Darwin Ortiz' new book SCAMS AND FANTASIES With Cards. At first I was a little nervous because I saw a lot of tricks asking for Faros and I don't do Faro work when they have to be perfect. Also he asks for a riffle stack for 5 hands. HE can. I can't. But, upon wading in anyway, I found there to be truly something and probably more than one thing - for everyone! Plus, even on items I know I can't do I enjoy reading Darwin's writing and thinking as he is a scholar. I always learn new moves if I don't learn a whole routine. And, his credits are very interesting. I'm most interested for now…l report again soon…his new handling on All Backs, The Last Laugh - any card called for appears between two red aces after they vanish into deck.

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Cannibal Holocaust - about which I’ll speak about later. Raw Deal - the punch deal solved for performance. (Good in a real game - over an entire night but iffy for show - solved.) It inspired me to create one of the items in hand, Marlo / Webb Punch Deal. Ace In the Pocket is clever but I think my (ahem) My Magic Card is better, and I think the real credit on this feat is a Ken Krenzel COIN stunt where copper and silver coins placed in pocket of spectator and they bring out one and you do a transpo ... is the closest to Darwin's transpo. Of course there are many many routines I haven't digested yet but I can state that the story for Appointment at Samara is the best story for a magic trick EVER. Truly great. CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST - a Webb analysis. A very very good trick: Three selections vanish one by one CLEANLY when placed amongst the Kings. Then they come back. This is the part I disagree with. I think the trick is SO STRONG at the end of the last vanish that I have decided for my OWN work to have pocketed the deck and you seem to hold 5 cards - the K's and outjogged face down selection and then the last selection disappears leaving only the K's -really-that making them reappear is an anticlimax: The root of my thinking goes back as far as one time in the linking routine for the RINGS I was using I realized it could be better to link them and end - PUT THEM AWAY LINKED rather than unlink them…which is just the same thing all over again in reverse. Why REPRODUCE the selections? Is it regurgitation? What? While most tricks end stronger with a production or reproduction than a vanish…there are no rules really…here - if you pocket the deck so everyone can concentrate on the final vanish which looks so impossible…END THERE! All in all - the book is highly recommended. I've always had three Ortiz routines in my repertoire and now will have more. Also the material on memorized deck dodges are very interesting and his essay on flourishes being OK is a nice piece of writing and thinking. BUY ONE!

Next I'll get John Carney's new book.

NEWSFLASH

BREAKING NEWS

More on Darwin's book. His new version of Back Off is very much improved and is terrific! Alone worth the price of admission! Let's not forget Derek's full deck ALL BACKS as maybe a trick for a formal show and then when close up and mingling AFTER the SHOW do the Ortiz packet trick miracle. Note: Both tricks should end with handing out the props - in the DINGLE, give the deck or they'll swear trick deck and in the new Ortiz packet BACK OFF it is also a must.

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I think we have dreamed of being as good at the "real work" with cards as a Darwin Ortiz or a Derren Brown, whose video I've been studying. But, you know what? Most of us are not quite good enough to make lots of real hard sleights look effortless. Another thing is that laymen, at a party, don't want to have to concentrate on real complex plots. That is why I've been hard at work cleaning up various items so that they are so direct that it seems like I did nothing - but something happens.

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This article has to do with an old old spelling spell. The way I've always seen this is confusing and I'll tell you why and describe my FIX and recommend that you use this and get in on the fun. It is only a good thing to change a trick for the better. This is easier AND stronger magic than before, so read on. Effect: If you use a BEE back deck, the Joker or "bug" is a picture of a Bee. Or use any Joker from any deck. Lay the Joker on the table while saying something about him being the Spelling Champion. A card is selected and lost, and the deck cut and Joker inserted face up and deck completed. Spectator does the above. Spreading out the deck, the Bee is seen. Asking the name of the selection, you state that the Bee can spell and find the card! Performance: In earlier incarnations of this trick, a second card is selected, cut in, and by spelling THIS second card, the FIRST card is found. See how confusing. By using the Joker - a non-card, almost - and setting it out on the table, we eliminate that confusion with the second card. And we spell the name of the selection, not the name of the SECOND card to find the first card, so. It makes it all much clearer. I also changed the handling so it is a joy to do. Have a card selected. Bring it to the top. Add three cards. I show a fan of three from the bottom to be "not yours" and when I replace them on the bottom I keep a break and soon double undercut them to the top, making the selection 4th from top. Have layman or laylady cut deck, put Joker on original top, and complete the cut. They did the cutting which means a lot to laymen and layladies. You are done. The secret is that the name (only) such as Jack or Ace, of ANY card is spelled with three or four or five letters. There are no extra moves…just where you START your spell. If a 3 letter word, such as Ace, just start the spell one card below Joker in the spread, and use the very next card as the one you mean. It'll be the selection. For 4 letters like the "Five" - start one below the Joker and the very card you land on will be the selection. If 5 letters such as the word "Eight," start your count on the Joker, and end right on the selection. A very important consideration is to remind the spectator that, "I didn't put the Joker in, YOU DID!" - and this is what sells the trick. What is fun about performing for laymen is that they don't know that Darwin Ortiz or Derren Brown do more complex tricks than this. If you act like this is a miracle - they will too. The laymen. By all means work on your complex routines at the magic club, but realize that laymen need something they can follow, when performing for laymen.

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In conclusion, realize that your friends and family no longer react like laymen because they have seen your development with the ol' pasteboards. Get out to Kiwanis Club meetings or whatever it takes to be working for real people who haven't lived with a young magician in their midst. And try this trick. Then you'll believe me and not until. AFTERIMAGES: When you spread the deck out and the face up BEE is seen, it works best with the simple plot to take the BEE (Joker) OUT of the spread and make a small separation in the spread to make it clear where it WAS, and do the SPELLING while holding the BEE and using it like a pointer! This way it is more as if the BEE was doing the spelling to find their card'. Thank you.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "RAZZLE - DAZZLE" and MAGIC There are so many tapes out with very difficult moves on them. In many cases the performer on the tape or DVD is very good, showing routines they spent part of their lives on. Of course it looks ok when they do it! What bothers me is this. When someone else tries to do them, they just don't look the same. A young magician will flash on almost every move - even though the inventor and star of the video / DVD did not (at least on the good "take" after the edit) yet the young Turks have found that if they go very FAST that the spectator doesn't have time to understand what each 'flash' means and there are so many many that the spectator is either overpowered and still can't follow what is happening, even though they see flicker and flash non-stop. The other outcome is that, not knowing that a lot of what they are seeing is supposed to be SECRET, they assume that this is how the art is supposed to look.

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So, I refer to doing the angly moves badly (or not substituting other cleaner sleights) because soand-so does it that way, and doing moves that CAN be clean BADLY so they show - but by going real fast the spectator can't follow what's going on…I refer to this as razzle-dazzle. It can still get applause because people give credit for the skill - "I wouldn't want to play cards with YOU!" Ha-Ha! The same way they'll applaud a juggler. Exactly the same way. Therefore, I guess this piece is about the fact that this style could by called Jongling Close-Up, jongling being my term, from jongleur, for when a stand-up manipulator flashes so often the audience thinks this is what the art is supposed to look like and politely applaud the way they would a juggler. How to work clean? This is becoming almost an alien idea, and is the opposite end of the spectrum. Once you become concerned with working clean, attempting to get magic and not jongling, even one flash is a disaster. When someone flashes all the time, it doesn't matter because they're jongling and will get applause for juggling. Throw in a few jokes and you've got entertainment. But, it isn't magic in the strict usage. To work clean and get magic, not confusion, as to what it's all about, one must at least understand the difference. THEN and only THEN can some progress be made. I think some would rather stay as jonglers or jugglers (or comedians). Anyone hoping to transcend into magic needs to be willing to give up certain moves that flash and substitute moves that don't. To edit out whole sections that can't be fixed so they don't flash. To realize that the cleaner you get, that THEN even one flash MATTERS. Honing a routine means finding a way to eliminate even that last flash. Sometimes that very last sticking point can take years. Then one day you find, in a trick you don't even like in some book, the idea that will complete your pet routine. That is what is meant by polishing not just practicing, but tweaking the routine itself so that it stands a chance of being seamless one day. As I pause, I have to wonder if some of the young guys even realize that some moves are only good one-on-one. You are only trying to fool one person, one angle. When you do a paid show, you have to fool a whole group, and they often gather 'round. You have to substitute less angly moves - but work this out in practice - not on the spot. So, it is possible to get applause by flashing all the time and just go fast so the viewers can't catch up. Tell some jokes as you go. Fine. What about applause for MAGIC? This is tricky. The cleaner your magic, the more difference you'll HEAR in the audience reaction. Polite applause sounds one way. On the other hand, many magicians claim that when they hear "stunned silence" that that means the audience experienced magic! I disagree. If someone only gets silence, it means something is wrong. After a beat or two of silence you'll get gasps, and murmurs, and whispers of "No," etc. if they experienced "magic," but to turn this into applause one needs to understand some stagecraft. There are correct ways to bow, correct ending poses before the bow, and then once applause starts there are ways to sustain it.

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Most beginners get flustered at the first short silence, and don't have the confidence to hold still. The go into some new effect and "step on" the applause that was about to come. If you get applause during a routine for the moves that are to be secret, something's wrong. Flashing. People don't go out as much as in yesteryear, so don't know how to react to live performance anymore. You have to be really clear about when a trick is done! In conclusion, the trick I offered at the start. “Spell Check Bee” is meant to give you an example of a trick you should be able to do with no "tells" at all. Your only job besides a simple control and the double undercuts, is to make the viewers think you did nothing and they did it all, yet there is a finale that SHOULD defy any easy explanation. This allows you to ENJOY the people you are working for, and I maintain that that is where the good vibes come from when they'll want to applaud. I don't like completely self working tricks. I like moves that can be secret. You older guys that know what I mean should help the young guys see the difference between the two schools of thought. And, if any decide they LIKE jongling, look into the branch of our art called FLOURISHES, and please don't think flashing on moves that are supposed to be secret moves is the same thing.

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A BOOK THAT DOESN'T EXIST Publication

Hey - don't expect one of these EVERY time! What this first one is IS that I developed a new routine for a coin trick called Copper Silver Brass which is a gaff trick. How this started is that a dealer asked me if I had a better routine than the one that comes with the trick. After you do the supplied routine several times you find that there are too many trips to the pocket (to ring gaffs in and out. ..start and end clean. Well, once I decide to change something I want to change it a lot, and so I decided not to go to the pocket AT ALL but to rely on "The Addendum" Move and brass balls. Said move appeared in FEEN-X and is a false turnover with a double-face coin. C-S-B is a gaff that allows a faux Chinese brass coin (a shell) and a copper Mexican coin (a double face insert) to look like a silver American half dollar when nested and turned over. You are supplied with a real (or 'ungaffed' Mex. and Chinese coins) but I decided to NOT USE THOSE but to "prove" with my sleight that the copper and brass had two sides and the silver coin in view at the start is a real half dollar. ( In other words, when the gaffs are nested and turned over, they look like a half dollar, too. The trick is a transpo of one coin and a GROUP of two coins. An earlier and perhaps better trick was Two Coppers and One Silver. An English Penny is substituted on the gaff for the Chinese. That's all. I do want to say that when I showed my version to a very well posted New York pro, he said, " IT'S GOOD. BRILLIANT, IN FACT."

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What is good about the "proving" sequence is that you turn a gaff (with the move - which I’ll review ) with one hand and turn the regular half with the other hand, WITHOUT THE MOVE. In other words, do a real turnover which mimics the move. Then do the OTHER GAFF with one hand and the real half with the other hand. Because both hands are in play, this can look real fair. So, believing they saw all coins fairly they rule out the M.0. and can enjoy the magic. It looks like magic. Effect: A half dollar changes places with two odd coins, seemingly fairly - and with the soft touch. Required: Mat. Half dollar. Gaff Chinese shell. Gaff Mex. copper. Setup: None to speak of. All can be in one pocket…NOT nested. Performance: Bring out coins and put on mat proper side up. Lay Silver then copper then brass on left hand overlapping and then close left and turn it palm down. Reach thru L. thumbhole and bring out nested gaffs showing silver, with R. and arrange it one handedly on palm up R. in position for a Downs Front Palm. As you turn R. palm down near Mat, use R. 1st & pinkie to hold shell so copper coin falls to mat first (but R. shades this) and then move flat R. forward so Chinese (shell) can de deposited on mat next to and not overlapping copper. Keep flat R. on these now. * Audience thinks the two odd coins are in L. Actually there is the REAL silver coin. I'll give patter later, but now open L. to show the silver coin and turn L. palm down. ..pinning silver to mat under L. Right hand is also palm down on mat. (Note: Probably why I like this is that I do a lot of HPC variations. These moves are reminiscent of HPC but the trick is NOT HPC.) Lift both hands to show the complete situation - silver on the left and copper and brass on the right. Here do the false turnovers. Addendum Move reviewed. Pick up a gaff and show it correct side up on palm. As you turn hand palm down close it into a loose fist. The gaff falls on Fingertip Rest and now get thumb in there and pin gaff to fingers. As you straighten hand out flat, this is when coin turns correct side up again. Deposit on mat. In this context, you seem to do the same with the other hand at the same time with normal silver - just do a regular turnover. Repeat with the other gaff AND the regular silver with other hand AGAIN. NEXT. ..I REPEAT THE WHOLE TRICK. You will too when you get a light, casual touch to the fake turnover sequence! Patter: "Copper Silver Brass. Most know copper and silver MAKE brass.” “Not many know copper and brass make SILVER…and we already knew silver is made of…copper and brass!"

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Afterimages: I think this trick is one that may be gathering dust or in some drawer, for many magi. It is fun to play with but the supplied routine not that great. I think I've breathed more life into the prop. As I said, works with the Two Copper-1 Silver too. One ending I'm playing with is to end by putting the gaffs in a right pocket and have the silver examined. Now - ON YOUR LEFT ELBOW IS A SOUND GIMMICK! ! Take the EXAMINED SILVER WITH YOUR LEFT HAND AND ASK, "What kind of metal is this?" They'll say silver. Without opening the hand , shake the fist and the sound gimmick sounds - proving nothing except that you now have NOT ONE COIN BUT "more" than one coin (which is enough since they saw your hand and examined the coin) and you reinforce this into magic by ending with "But, silver is made of copper and brass" as you pocket the silver without showing it. As with all gilding, this ending is probably not necessary. Try it out and report back to me. Depends on the crowd. Reportedly, Slydini had multiple endings not in print for all his tricks for lay shows…and he'd choose based on the audience. (In other words, if they say "Oh SHELLS" with the first part, the subtle ending won't save your day, either. They'll just think you have shell coins that they can examine yet YOU can get them apart again. Not magic. If they loved the first part and were gushing - maybe try the ending with rattle device.

Sounds like a Bruce Lee Kung Fu technique: No, it is a different way to get the tactile cue (and clue) from the back of a card to know when to start dealing seconds and therefore "holding back the goodie" in a punch-deal - best as a blindfold routine. What this IS is a different method than the bump as discussed in the last issue of BONUS…the punch deal routine wherein you forced the cards for a Royal Flush on each of 5 spectators and then gave each 4 red cards. They mix their hand and you gather them up. This meant that you would deal five hands and hold back the selections and get all the spectators' selections (?) into YOUR hand but the gravy is that the Royal Flush comes as a surprise - and the red cards in the other four hands just adds contrast to the R. Flush in Spades. Today I'm pioneering an original way to FEEL the flush instead of the bump (punch). I PUT KRYLON MATTE FINISH SPRAY, which I discovered and now is quite well known as the best roughing fluid, on the back only of the 5 R. flush cards.

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NOTE: This is NOT for any Rough and Smooth principle! It is just to make the card FEEL different. ROUGHING FLUID, when dry, IS NOT STICKY! If a roughed card is next to a regular card, as in this case, THERE IS NO ROUGH and SMOOTH effect whatsoever! In other words, you only get the pairs as in a Ultra-Mental, because a rough surface is next to ANOTHER ROUGH SURFACE, followed by a regular surface next to another regular surface, etc. In our case, one side only (the back) of five cards will never be next to another rough surface…so don't worry the cards will stick to ANYTHING. NO. All we want is to be able to feel the rough dry feel to know when to deal seconds instead of the "blister." Note: You'll recall I used this idea in FEEN-X in BLINDED BY THE LACK OF LIGHT, with ESP cards and not with the second deal. So the ROUTINE is the same. Just switch to this instead of the punch and add a blindfold deal to your act. I use Bee Back cards with no borders because second dealing looks better. - GO AFTERIMAGES: I don't want to forget that when you "force" the flush, DON"T MAKE OUT THAT THE CARDS ARE truly fair selections but instead just ask people to "Help me by remembering this card!" Each time. I'm alternating now between Hindu forces and J.K. Hartman's Outjog force, just don't say anything about selections or "You could have picked any card" etc. Just refer to them as "The card you are remembering for me." This may seem minor but it actually is important.

THIS IS BIG! Just when I thought I was getting out of ideas. As you know I was toying with the Cannibal Cards plot. You'll understand a lot about my nature when you read what I've done with the trick. At first I didn't like that the selections came back. Then I decided that I didn't want to use three selections and to use just one BUT TO COMBINE ALL THE BEST ELEMENTS OF THE 3 VANISHES INTO ONE SPECTACULAR VANISH! Yay! Next, I decided to use Jokers and not Kings. 4 Jokers and a packet of about 20 regular cards (so I could do slower Elmsley Count, the Jokers being identical). I don't worry that there aren't 4 Jokers in a real deck. I'm a magician. I don't usually go for the gambler approach and favor magic.

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Well, and lo and behold…after I went to the ONE strong vanish approach, I realized I DID WANT THE CARD TO REAPPEAR IN THE CARDBOX. This changed the patter away from Cannibals into Sci-Fi and a thought of Stargate. The Jokers don't represent people but a teleportation device! And last but not least I found a solution to use a signed card! Charles Reynolds and I were kicking around the idea of how to use a signed card in this kind of situation but neither of us came up with a good answer - till NOW! Yay! I must say that even though the card will be signed in the final version I'll explain, IT ISN'T a selection - it doesn't need to be - the vanish of a card so clean it can be any card...but the signed feature helps in the reproduction from the box! BASIC ROUTINE: Begin with 4 matching Jokers on top of an incomplete deck (You made the rest of them teleport earlier in the day). Spread the deck face up and indicate the 4 Jokers and begin your Stargate teleportation patter. Don't mention the cardbox yet. It is just off to one side with A DUPLICATE OF THE CARD THAT IS JUST BELOW THE JOKERS WHEN YOU GATHER DECK AND TURN IT FACE DOWN. Let's say it is the A-D. Now, spread over four face down cards and as you square, get the left pinkie in there so you really only lift three Jokers and they are square, with right hand. One Joker remains on deck. Set packet of 3 aside to your right and deck to your left. Pick up the Jokers and turn face up and false count as 4 with a Stanyon count, like an Elmsley but making 3 look like 4. Set them face down. Pick up deck. Do a double turnover to show the A-D and turn the double back down and thumb off the 4th Joker face down. PUT THE DECK AWAY IN A LEFT POCKET. Insert the 4th Joker face down, still miscalling it the A-D, into the packet of 3, they think 4, which you picked up with R. False count the packet as 5. This is easy. ..same as Elmsley but the first one peeled goes back below packet as you peel the second card and then keep peeling singles for 3, 4, 5. Face down. Then patter more about Stargate, show A-D gone and only 4 Jokers only…finally pick up card box and drop out the dupe A-D. THE SIGNATURE WORK Early in the evening attempt this trick for a small group and it FAILS. Mention it is a new piece. Have the A-D signed and really put it between 4 Jokers ...and say it is supposed to vanish. It doesn't. In a set of good tricks, you CAN pull this off. Just say, "Back to the drawing board."

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Later in the evening, either in the bathroom or your car…it doesn't matter, FORGE their signature on a dupe A-D. Work upside-down because this is how real forgers don't let their own hand get into the letters. You aren't copying letters but CURVES, instead I used to do a Dr. Jaks signature, blindfolded, thing. You can do this! We're going to repeat the trick but this time it will work! Set up so the real signature A-D is in the box for big ending and examination. Your forgery is on top of deck covered by 4 Jokers. You've been working for a different group. Call the original signer over…"I want you to see this…I got the bugs worked out." Note: In the failed attempt you never mentioned cardbox. Just the vanish…which failed. Do the trick for real now, and don't leave the A-D with your forgery up long at all before turning it down (a double) and thumb off the Joker. In fact don't even mention the signature part till after you have this original person pick up box and remove card, They ask, "Is that your signature?" The deck proper is long ago in your pocket. Out of sight and out of mind. Conclusion: Instead of doing a trick just as written, look how far I've gone from the original. Original was too long and the packet kissed the deck too often. Also, note that laymen don't know about magician's procedures to the point that they understand that it matters (it doesn't except to magicians) that the signed card wasn't selected. A card with someone's signature VANISHED CLEANLY and later they found out who's signature it was. It is ok to do this. Not a sin of any kind. Enjoy working this out. JONATHAN TOWNSEND Returns At long last I met with Jonathan Townsend after his recent return to magic. I would have to say early 70's is when I last saw him. He was one of the few people who could make coins look like magic. At the time I was solely a manipulator and just getting interested in close-up. Since those days, you had Danny Korem being credited for the Jumping Shuttle Pass (actually Jonathan's in the Apocalypse) and Three Fly which many were crediting to Chris Kenner yet Jonathan showed it to HIM. I wrote something to this effect on the internet AND JONATHAN SAW IT, so he thanked me for trying to clarify the situation. During this long hiatus, he has kept his hand in magic somewhat but just hasn't hung out with the magic scene. He still can make coins look like magic and he also does cards, which I don't remember and even yesterday we didn't discuss cards. I guess I find good coin workers rare, yet there are a lot of good card guys. So, the popularity of 3-Fly and the use of JSP as by such as Harkey, Sankey, and Regal, to mention a few (plus I like it and mostly apply it to large and small ball magic) has gone to cause Jonathan to be somewhat of a celebrity in magic now.

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He's already had a big influence, he's back and practicing more seriously again, he has the light touch…AND HE'S A VERY NICE and INTELLIGENT GUY. I'm glad I got a chance to sit down with him about coins. I showed him Hit & Run. He appreciated that I have been finding things that fit ME instead of just copying everybody else. As you may know, often if you show magicians something original, they'll go, "That's not what So-and-So does." So, welcome back Jonathan and thanks for the coin session! Lately I have been working on the illustrations for Doug Edwards' next book. In fact, I had retired from instructional drawings for the interior of magic books, but came out of retirement to work on Doug's new material for one reason! Even though there have been many hyped books in recent years…many have been good but HARD! Hard, as in spend the rest of your life trying to catch up with someone's unique style that they've been at THEIR WHOLE LIFE. I'll give an example. I can't do the Kennedy Center Deal. So, Andrew Wimhurst CAN and now everybody is trying to learn his work…The REAL Work, etc. Aaron Fisher publishes some very angly and very difficult stuff and everyone wants to learn it. The trouble is, no one else can make it look good. Too hard. They haven't lived with the style a whole lifetime like the creator. Darwin Ortiz asks me to do perfect Faros and Riffle Stack for 5 hands. I've worked on riffle stack work for 30 years and yet can't really do it as well as Mr. Ortiz who does it full time! Which gets us back to our topic, Doug Edwards' new book, to be called BRASS KNUCKLES. This doesn't mean knuckle-breakers as a few might assume. The title is an extension of Packs a wallop which showed boxing gloves on the cover. This time instead of boxing gloves, we go to brass knuckles. I like the title because Doug collects antique brass knuckles, some of which have interesting designs. Always remember that people use brass knuckles so you DON'T BUST YOUR KNUCKLES. In other words, while Doug's work IS sleights, he uses standard and time tested sleights but strings them together in combinations that no one else thought of to create new effects. The material is GOOD. The material is DO-ABLE! And, while there are a few gambling themed tricks, many are about magic that are FUN to do and indeed put the fun back in magic. Mostly cards, there are other props. The Color Vision Box and a Rope Trick and a Rubber Band thing. All good. All fun. All do-able. While I'm on the subject of books, let me say I DID really like the Paul Curry book. And, I'm glad Al Baker's work is coming out in print. Maybe magicians will learn that you don't have to do hard and angly card sleights to have fun and even create miracles. He wasn't against a gaff or a short card or a wide card, etc.

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After taking a few breaths, I realize there are still a few angles on what I just wrote that I can clarify and also expand upon. In regards to the poker deal, just be aware that you have to flash each force card to just one spectator. You don't want the audience or other players to see what each player got, so as not to give away the ending. Just wanted to make sure that I made that clear. All things considered, that is how I feel we can get the most out of this trick. As for the roughing for just a mark that you can feel, I've been using it for years in mental card tricks and ESP cards. You can slightly "hear" it…a dry scratchy sound as well as feel! It is funny but spectators aren't as tuned to what we can feel and as they, shuffle they don't notice the difference but I must say that rushing them a little through their shuffles is what I do. Certainly don't say "Please examine each card." On the Stargate GW trick, I realized that you don't have to "FAIL" earlier in the night...but that you can SUCCEED at a trick like Ambitious Card with a person who you get to sign their fair selection. Then, just DON'T GIVE THEM THE CARD AS A SOUVENIR. Later take a time out, get a duplicate card from a second deck and do your best forgery. NOW - later in the evening call that person over to watch your big ending trick…and don't have a new card selected. Just say, we'll use your card for this one." Using the owner or treasurer or who hired you for this is ideal. I've been trying to get way away from standard pre-show procedure where you actually say, "Tonight in the show I will ask you to name a card in your mind (think of a card), so let's pick one now so you can have it clearly in mind…,” etc. I can't help thinking mine is better. Anyway, I want to mention that Jim Swain had a great idea of having the dupe card outside the box in the cellophane. This way you can flash the inside of box empty and then at end you do the move where you open box, pretend to reach in, then draw the card from cellophane straight out. David Harkey made this move look real, and I've been complimented on mine also. Still, I don't think it is completely necessary. Try it. P.S. Did I mention J.K. Hartman's SECRET SUBTRACTION to lose one of the Jokers? It is good and how I'm doing it now, right at the start of the trick.

- FIN -

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FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE NO-PUNCH Punch Deal by Gregg Webb As you all know I've been pioneering the use of Roughing Fluid on the backs only of the Royal Flush in Spades cards, not for any Rough and Smooth Principle - there will never be a rough surface next to another rough surface…AND a rough surface next to a normal surface behaves normally…but only for a "mark" of a tactile nature INSTEAD OF THE BLISTER OR PUNCH OR PEG deal. Here you know when to deal seconds by feeling when the rough back comes up. I used this in a mental trick “Blinded by the Lack of Light” in FEEN-X so it is easy for me to feel now. Like night and day. One of the real questions was, "Would laymen - or magi - feel the difference in the context of being given a packet of five cards to shuffle?” Well, I've been out doing the field work and not even magicians felt a difference in the one card in the group of normal cards when shuffled or mixed in their hands. Good. As for the routine, my consultant, the Knowledgeable Meir Yedid came up with this GREAT idea. We call judges The Honorable So-and-So. For magic its "The Knowledgeable So-and-So…" Anyway, in each group of five cards handed out, not only is there only one roughed back (a card from the Royal F), but the other four odd cards are LOWER in value than the Royal F card in that group. So, with the deck stacked with these fife sets of 5 on top, false cut or shuffle, then hand out five groups of 5 to 5 spectators. Ask each to think of the highest card in their hand. This is the YEDID Corollary. Assemble the packets and deal out 5 hands, dealing seconds each time you "feel" and even hear the rough dry scratchy feel AND sound of the rough back. You get the Royal Flush. I forgot to mention that EACH of the spectators shuffles their group of 5 before packets are assembled. As Darwin Ortiz mentions in his book, using random selected cards is good for card players and magicians, but the HAND YOU GET MAY NOT BE A GOOD POKER HAND. They'll assume you COULD, by extension, give yourself a good poker hand since you did it with 5 selections. This way...since it is a poker trick, you get a GOOD POKER HAND. I had suggested forcing, earlier, to accomplish this, and MEIR's idea is a force too, but his is much better and way more subtle and deserves notice. Thanks, MEIR!

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HEY - Don't expect one of these every time! COIN AND BILL VIGNETTE by Greggy WEBB. Hold a bill with thumbs on top and fingers below. UNDER bill, with just one hand, you hold some coins stacked and in Fingertip Rest position. These coins are a secret. Fold the bill in half, then again, then again WITHOUT giving away the secret of the hidden coins yet. THE MAGIC - Turn hand palm down, and now both coins and folded bill are classic palmed. Coins are in a true Fingertip Rest. Classic palm the folded bill! This is easiest with a crisp bill. NOW, LET THE COINS DRIBBLE TO TABLE! I like this! It is fun and it is the kind of thing that can look like magic IF you have a good classic palm! So often we classic palm coins - here it is a folded bill! Afterimage: Why it is good is that if the bill vanished, spectators want to know WHERE? Since it CHANGES to change, and should you feel compelled to use 4 quarters, GO FOR IT because there is still a dollar and the psychology of the human beast is that this makes a kind of sense giving you a beat of safety during which you clean up by picking up the coins with the PALMING hand, jingle them as they go south to your most convenient pocket. Or leave one on the table for a trick with one coin and ditch the others and bill - OR come out with one coin classic palmed for a trick with an EXTRA quarter when they THINK you put all the others in your pocket. -fin-

BEST POKER

DEAL

In case anyone didn't appreciate the second deal / punch deal stuff, I offer this which is a Karl Fulves idea based on a real old idea, and combined with the Zarrow Shuffle. The Fulves idea was a self-working trick, and very good, but by modifying it by use of a Zarrow shuffle as ADD ON, and a Zarrow sequence later as true false shuffle, I've really satisfied myself with a real practical routine. EFFECT: Again the Royal Flush in Spades comes up. This is based on the principle that if you are stacked so that when you deal around and give five cards to five players (one card each - each time around - you know, regular poker dealing procedure) so that the THIRD CARD IN in each hand is one of the ROYAL FLUSH…easy…and then gather the hands in any order really…the cards are now stacked to deliver the Royal to the third hand! How to make it play? How to make it a real blockbuster?

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In the Fulves original routine with this very old principle, there were already in place much of what makes this "play." He began with the flush on top of deck. We need to add 10 cards. In his, he took out a random hand, any five cards, from lower in the deck, pattering about how hard it is to get a good poker hand. After showing a random mediocre hand obtained that way, he dropped these on top of deck. Then he did that again. The required 10 have been added. Dealing out five hands, he picked the third hand and showed it. The third card in the third hand is the, let's say, Q S. What Karl did next is great. Turning the Q face up and outjogged to the same third position, he could turn the hand over and show the OTHER CARDS to be random…not a good hand. The other cards in the other hands aren't shown at this time...one card from the Royal would show too soon, one each in each hand. The Q pile is returned face down with the face UP Q still outjogged. Gather up the hands in order and put on remainder of deck. If you now deal around 5 hands, the Q still shows in the third hand. This alone is amazing. After showing all OTHER hands now to be poor, finally the Q pile is revealed to have the ROYAL F. Zarrow Shuffle as ADD ON - I start with the Royal 5 on top. To add I cut the top half to the right and Zarrow under 2 held back by L. thumb. Then I repeat…cutting top to R and Zarrow under 3. Now I've added 5. I repeat that sequence giving me a total of 10 in four Z shuffles as add ons. Then proceed as stated. After gathering hands do a 2 Zarrow False shuffle. This time take the Bottom half to the right and Z shuffle under 2. (Left thumb stops at 2.) As square, get a ball of thumb break between halves. Again take LOWER half to right and Zarrow under two held back by L. thumb. Square. False Cut. This sequence, IF YOU HAVE A GOOD "Z," turns this into a miracle! Finish trick as stated. Afterimage: You could do this with Aces since there are lots of ace tricks. Pretend to lose aces (multiple shift) or just drop on top and proceed with Z add-ons. And of course you could already have the 10 above the aces or Royal and begin with this.

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A

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BOOK THAT DOESN'T EXIST Publication

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WELCOME to the new format. What this is about is a simple expedient to turn an old standard of a coin ending into POWERSful telepsychokinetic real mojo. The first part of our transition is to realize that after some coin vanishes and reproductions that turning the coin into a GIANT coin usually falls flat on laymen - although magicians don't seem

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to notice. And here's why! A giant coin is obviously a toy - a fake - it has no real value. You might say producing a shower of real coins would be better than one (fake) giant coin. But what else can we do with the same routine? Ahah! For many years I have been making quarters that are slightly bent or warped. I use a vise and heavy leather around the quarter to prevent scratches, because a warped coin with scratches gives away that it wasn't done with GELLER-ish powers. Make up a number. We want to give these away for souvenirs and having borrowed a quarter to use anyway, you should give the warped (IN THEIR HAND) coin out. If you act like you have to keep it, it seems like it is one of your props. Giving it out makes it seem like you can do it at will. RIGHT OFF I should mention that the coin shouldn't be bent MUCH, just slightly, because we do this in the spectator's hand and if bent a lot they feel it too soon. I'll be giving several routines. The first one is very much the same as David Roth's giant coin at the end of a few vanishes and reproductions of a regular coin, with the exception that in the belt at your back, near one side depending on which hand you steal with, is our bent quarter and not the monster coin. So proceed to vanish and reproduce and L'Homme Masque Load etc., you know the drill. On the last reproduction, produce from a spectator's elbow while you steal bent coin with other hand. The real work is put your fists on your hips just before this. Say, "Ah, there it is" as you point to said spectator elbow with non-stealing hand. The other (stealing) hand stays on hip, near enough the vicinity of bent quarter in belt, so as you lean and pluck from her elbow, your stealing hand doesn't have to go far. In the giant coin you go right into the change to big toy coin but we're going to use stealth for a while. They don't know we have a bent quarter in the left hand. Now, pretend to put the from-herelbow coin into your left, but really keep it palmed in R. Offer to do a "VANISH" in someone's hand. Get them to hold a hand out and put bent coin on their hand and use both hands now to close their hand into a fist. Be more controlling and forceful here than you may at first think. Also, manhandle their fist to a palm DOWN orientation (this prevents them opening for a peek too soon) and exhort her to not move till you say. Step away, say it is getting warm, ask if they felt it GO. By claiming you will make the coin vanish while in their hand you distract them from feeling the slightly bent condition. Then when the coin doesn't vanish you get an interesting series of emotions. First they think you failed. Then when someone notices the warped condition it changes to an understanding that whatever power was going to make the coin vanish only worked partially, yet it did cause SOME change to the physical structure…the evidence is in their hands.

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If you want to use some humor in the presentation, after you ask "Did you feel it GO?," no matter what they say, continue by saying "Now I'll make it reappear" with no pause. NO STEAL METHOD: In this version, closer to real psychic power, you have the gaff in left low fingerpalm. After borrowing the regular quarter, don't do ANY vanishes or reproductions. Those are almost certainly taken to be NOT psychic power, instead rub the quarter, say it is getting warm. Rub more, and say it is getting soft. Do the old gag of pretending to bend the coin back and forth a little just with acting and there is some "give" to your fingers then put it into your left, seemingly, but keep it in R. FP as you pretend to "put" it into your left. Then put the bent coin into their hand as before, have her squeeze it tight. "Feel it getting warmer again?," and then "Think bend bend bend." Go for the best Uri Geller impression. Play this one as real. Downplaying helps. Say "I wanted it to bend more." Yet, THEY'LL be very intrigued by the warped coin. Believe me.

NO STEALS and lots of unusual ideas. The idea is to use R. low fingerpalm for coin vanishes pretending to "put" into the L., which acts out the envanishment, BUT ALL THE WHILE YOU HAVE A SILVER DOLLAR IN R. classic. For a finale later! Variations galore. Let's say the coin at the start is a copper English penny. For contrast. After the vanish, reproduce it from the L. elbow. Repeat, "finding" it again at say L. knee. Finally do a variation on Spellbound to reveal large silver! Copper in L. French Drop position. Pass R. over it, it falls into L. fingerpalm and deposit dollar from R. classic in its place to end. Next variation: Have an extra dupe copper in L. FP also. For the vanish after the fake "put" into L., you have to bring L. near the mouth and blow. You can't really open out left hand, but you can separate the thumb and straighten 1st finger a little. Follow an imaginary object upwards with the EYES to move focus from L. The extra work allows more variety of where you reproduce copper FROM. Sometimes L. produces, other times R. When you do the Spellbound you'll still have 1 in R. fingerpalm when you release silver from R. classic. Kaps called this use of FP (like at the end when you display dollar - "Hold and Hide", in other words, if you aim the FP coppers at your own eyes, the viewers can't see them.).

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Another variation: If one copper is really a C/S coin (the left one ...on the Spellbound you can get an extra change by just rotating the c/s with R. crook 'd thumb to change to half-dollar which then changes to big silver dollar." hold and hide and act cool. Relaxing at that spot is a big part of breaking tension. Walkaround stuff. From the Back Room to the Basement: The NY "scene" has moved from RUBIN's Deli to the basement of Maui Tacos. This past Saturday, the names included Jamy Ian Swiss, Eugene Burger, Harry Lorayne, Ken Krenzel David Roth, Doug Edwards, Oscar Weigle, Sol Stone, and GREGG WEBB, and Jeff Sheridan! JOE RINDFLEISH, of Rubber Band fame for his two books and Apocalypse contributions is going to do another, but I convinced him that his coin ideas and card ideas and even other items, are so good the book should be on all this magic - a big tome - maybe L&L, not just rubber bands. And, I will probably write it and illustrate it and Oscar Weigle will edit. Lord I need and can use an editor and proofreader. Short Rambles: Am working on the drawings for Doug Edwards' new book BRASS KNUCKLES. The railroad has machines that give out train tickets, and guess what? Just like the tellers, who I told you about, the machines ALSO know what MUST be a longstanding railroad inside joke (con?) where it must be known that in the hustle and bustle people don't have time to wait, or forget to wait because of rushing, for their change. The machines take bills, even big bills and will give dollar coins for change plus the smaller coins for less-than-a-dollar amounts. ANYWAY not to ramble, the machine gives the ticket…then waits and waits and waits to FINALLY give the change. Ex-railroad tellers must have helped program these machines. Without further adieux, see what some nice reporter said about Geller Coin…

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NOT ONLY IS HERB one of the nicest people in magic, his "Z' shuffle is one of the nicest sleights in magic. When I first learned it I practiced it non-stop till I really had it. Also, I decided on the sequence I liked the best, of the many. I'll explain later. What I DO want to mention now is that my personal belief is that it is far superior to the push-thru or strip-out false riffle shuffles.

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The reason to me is that I feel laypeople guess that if you wanted to do a false table shuffle that what one would do is push the cards into each other - but not quite all the way - THEN PULL THEM BACK APART AGAIN, which is too much like what really happens in the stripout. Also, when most, and even the best, do the stripout, there is a "tell." Because I feel that way, when I first learned the Zarrow Shuffle I KNEW I had a treasure and practiced it night and day until it went smooth. I wish everyone would do it justice. Some lift too much. The sequence I always use is two "Zs" in a row. First I pull the entire bottom half to the right and Zarrow under two held back by left thumb of original top half. In other words, I stop when there are two left above ball of left thumb. I can always stop at two. After the first "Z," I keep a break at the middle of deck this way - as I push the halves together there is a slight angle of one half to the other. This causes a step, which I lift up on when I square to get a ball of thumb break at the back (my side) only. Then I take the bottom half to the right again - and here I've found it meaningful to make this move clearly be seen to NOT be the stripout thing - and again "Z" under two of my left's half. Here you can square with no break kept. Done. I always use a false cut, the 2 "Z's", and another false cut.

WHAT THIS IS is the Gardner-Marlo-Webb-Zarrow Poker Routine, in alphabetical order. I first learned it from Marlo In Spades, and this original had a pseudo (expose, really) bottom deal on the first round and with KINGS, to show how a cheat would get the Kings to himself. 5 hands. AND…because there were 4 ACES on top, the first card to the first four hands, face down, is an Ace. When done and having done an exposed "bottom" to yourself - explaining how it works, you gather up the other hands and they are now STACKED to give you the ACES on the next hand. The Kings are put low and out of play in deck - false shuffle and cut - and then deal five hands and this time get the aces. Fine. My first change was to learn to do a real bottom deal and to use that instead of the expose bottom. I did just that for many years. Bee back cards helped - and using a slightly thinner pack by discarding some indifferent cards also helped.

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My next leap came years later when I realized that my "bottom" really wasn't invisible - it just seemed that way because I blinked each time. So - I figured I could have the Kings already stacked and the aces on top and not show the aces or kings at first - just talk about gambling etc. False shuffle and cut and deal and show kings, gather up the hands (stacking the aces) false shuffle and deal and get ACES. This is good and the version I recommend you learn if ever without the special deck I'll teach next. The setup for THIS trick is A,A,A,A,X,X,X,X,X,K,X,X,X,X,K,X,X,X,X,K,X,X,X,X,K, rest of deck. Now onto today's topic and the version I now use for that moment after a show when someone says "I wouldn't want to play cards with you." Note that I can really stack the Aces with Riffle Stack but it is too much strain. Doing that "out" is never the same as at home on my own table and mat. So, I really favor this version and I'll relate an anecdote. I did this recently for a gambler and he was floored - wanted lessons - thought I riffle stacked the aces. That's when I realized how strong this is! ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS ADD FOUR DUPLICATE ACES FROM A MATCHING DECK AND REMOVE 4 odd cards. Keeping the sets segregated so the ones at the top are all different and therefore the ones down in the stack also all different (so we don't get two of the same suit on any given hand) because this trick is designed for repetition and you must do it at least twice. It is the Zarrow shuffle that allows this. Zarrows masquerading for riffle stacks! Someone says, "I wouldn't want to play cards with you!" The spectator, after seeing you do any kind of card trick in your formal show, will say this thinking you've never heard this before. If you keep this set-up and special deck for after a show (and you know I always do), you launch into this. Sometimes they instead say, "with what you know, could you win in a game?" That works fine. False cut, 2 "Zs," false cut and deal five hands and get the aces (that were down in the stack). Pick up the four other hands in random order and this stacks the aces that began on top. Put the odd card from the winning hand on top of deck and make a big thing of showing the aces go on top. Make this seem very fair in your handling. Now false cut, 2 "Zs," and another false cut and deal five hands and "get" the aces. If you want to repeat it again you may - it keeps resetting but I wouldn't unless they pull someone over who hasn't seen it yet…sure, do it a third time. One interesting feature about this routine, is that the fifth card in the stack - an ODD card - will show up in your hand each time although the two sets of aces will actually alternate. At the end of the first hand you put this odd card on the top of deck after gathering the other hands casually (stacking the other aces) and THEN make a "thing" about showing the aces go on top. So since that odd card is 5th again, it will show up in your next hand which is good because it helps dispel the fact that you are showing them different aces each time you repeat. So why not capitalize on it by making it special - I use a one-eyed Jack - known to most as a commonly used wild card. Let's say you just repeat once. Don't call much attention to it on the first round but make a big issue of it on the second demo. Hint: Put the card case in one pocket at the start after removing deck. At end of trick you can leave the aces and Jack on the table but immediately gather up the other hands and rest of deck but don't bother putting them in the box. Go directly to the pocket and put them in the card case later. Believe me - out of sight is out of mind and the time it takes to get box and put cards in box takes too long. Leave box in pocket, put rest of deck LOOSE in a pocket and you are left with the aces and Jack and YOU. Woid.

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experiMENTAL by Gregg Webb Derren Brown has taken card magic into the arena of psych forces, although there have been many in the past. Barrie Richardson praised Derren in GENII for one such feat. So - I studied his video at length and came up with this alternative. Effect: Saying, "Let's not use the Ace of Spades…and some people think of a PICTURE CARD but they're too busy for this type of work, so think of ANY one of the spot cards in the whole deck... just try to not pick something too obvious," the magician then fishes through the deck, and as an AFTERTHOUGHT says, "After you pick one, don't change your mind anymore” (as if they were still changing their mind and YOU COULD TELL) and what the performer then does is put down 2 cards face down. "I'm not sure. Try to concentrate more clearly!" making out as if it is the person's fault. Really the two cards give an out that makes this ever so slightly more reliable. Performer looks at each card as if not sure, then says "I'm not completely sure so I'll stop here with these two possibilities." Card is named and you have more options than just if the card is right or wrong.

*

*

*

The secret here is that you put down the 4-C and the 7-H to give yourself coverage. The opening patter makes them shy away from aces, picture cards, spades, and coerces them to pick not obvious cards. So, with luck, one card might be a HIT, or let's say they say "4-H," you say that you got the 4, but were confused - "so I guess this card meant I wasn't completely ON about suit. But, here's the 4 and here is hearts." You make the card by using the number and suit. This same method can give you 7-C. Afterimages: You can give yourself another option by first taking out three cards, and after cogitation moving one over by the deck. Not ON the deck but almost out of play, but 'not quite.' This card is a 6-H. Some people may realize a 7 is an obvious card, and go for a 6, not the 4. Proceed along the lines of "Gee, I'm not sure...", because everyone knows ESP is not exact. "I almost picked that one!" you say as you reveal the 6-H, or if they pick a different suit you show the correct suit with one of the other cards of your two on the table.

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You might fail! There is some risk! If you can even get close but not ON, end with "You definitely have talent in this area, but you could improve the 'clarity' with maybe meditation.” In every case make it out to be about THEM…not YOU. You're just the guide or 'tester' of THEIR ESP potential. P.S. - One other thing to try is to have your third choice that is over by the deck be a 6-D. This would give you a diamond to use for a different option with one of the two cards you have out in front. "I was THINKING Diamonds!" So you start with three cards, almost eliminate one (reluctantly) and can't eliminate one more so you stay with two out on the center of table. You justify all by patter about how ESP isn't as CRYSTAL CLEAR as some may think. They shouldn't think of a Spade, or an ace or a court card because of your opening spiel, and the "not too obvious" part may make this more safe than the Derren Brown original and this is a trick that should be sold as an attempt at real ESP and not a trick so really be prepared for a miss but if you HIT, enjoy it! I think it is good to experiment with this style. Over time you may decide to substitute other cards for the three. A F T E R I M A G E S - As for the poker pseudo-stack stuff, I realize that the version with the Kings AND Aces, but prestacked is probably more practical. I suggest you try carrying this for AFTER a formal show…or for an opening of a set that is not your first set of the night…you can say yourself, "People ask me if what I know would help me in a REAL card game." But, the version of the trick with the dupe set of aces is very unusual in the reaction you get.. .more like real riffle stacking. Of course you have to pack it with your show. I know I am enjoying this version. As for the mental thing, I think the use of several outs is ok, ESP is not an exact science. I think this approach to mental work is correct, but you don't want to make too many mistakes. A rule of thumb could be to always put your riskiest thing in the center of a set of more sure fire items. Also, incorporate into your patter that it (ESP) is not 100%. Chan Canasta made mistakes, so just plow ahead as if not bothered in the least…or gently chide the spectator for not concentrating hard enough. I have another comment about the Derren Brown video. He has a friend with tattoos (Mike) demonstrate a move (Mike's Move), but the move is really an old one. Jack Chanin showed it to me ages ago and it is Paul Rosini's PHENOMENENAL PASS, which really isn't a pass but slipping one card to the bottom from the middle. It became so popular at one time that in the literature you often saw "slip the card to the bottom, etc.," and this is the move in question. Not new. Not Mike's. RUMBLINGS AND GRUMBLINGS - I saw a young guy doing card juggling, jongling, call it what you will - trying to flip a double in the air and catch it - it always came apart…even if he gets it someday, I don't really get the point. So I said, "I don't recommend that style. It's juggling." Then I asked, "Do you do any card tricks that actually cleanly fool people?". He thought a second. "Yes. One time with a Haunted Pack!" Notice that this is a no-sleight trick.

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"Well, MAYBE you've never experienced "getting away with" a secret sleight. If you want I can teach you Elmsley's POINT OF DEPARTURE." The Biddle move. etc. HE WASN'T INTERESTED and was only interested in razzle dazzle and flourishes and even doing sleights that we consider to be secret sleights OPENLY as if he thought that it was supposed to be like a flourish. What I think is going on with this guy and a whole breed of new "cardmen" is that they have given up after maybe only one try at getting away with a certain move. We know you have to "live" with a trick a while before you decide its not for you. I think these youngsters have tried secret sleights once or twice and gave up on the whole idea of doing a move so it "gets by". But they found out they can get some reaction with razzle dazzle and juggling. But I find it sad how easily they gave up. Or, are WE to blame? Maybe in videos and books and magazines we need to be clearer about when something is supposed to be a secret sleight. I know with coins, and, say one is in view and is supposed to be KNOWN OF by the spectators - you know... IN VIEW and another coin is in fingerpalm (you know…HIDDEN) that I try to make this clear but it isn't that easy. I gave a lecture/workshop on B. Balls and was trying to teach the Cardini grip, which is more like just cradling the ball in a loose fist - rather than classical FINGERPALM technique, but people had a hard time understanding that the idea was to not have it show from the front…you know - THE AUDIENCE! So it is not easy. As we get better and better over time we forget what it was like to not know. I can remember reading BOBO and thinking you HAD to sleeve and show yourself clean THEN RETRIEVE SLEEVED COIN and proceed and in fact believed it ...THEN SAW ROTH AND LATTA using Kaps' Subtlety and it blew my mind. For a while I thought they were just much better at sleeving than I. Where is it all going…what does it all mean? I don't know but it does bother me that with all the material available now, that the young magi are JONGLING instead of creating magical moments and NOT ALL OF COURSE…but many. Maybe we should all read Jamie Swiss's new book, which my friend Charles Reynolds told me is a "must." Jamie's review of the book on card flourishes wherein the author apparently made some inaccurate remarks about magic (and the author is really a card juggler) that appeared in NOV. GENII, touches also on these points. All-in-all, I believe in flourishes between tricks, and yet in the trick itself everything should look clean and natural. I don't believe in the "NEVER FLOURISH" school and offer Nate Leipzig and Cardini as very good examples of "some flourishes are ok," because if you never flourish and fool them with some tricks, they might think self-working, or stooge, or trick deck…and now, enough of this ramble. See you next time!

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This is a discourse on how making a simple change in a routine can change the dynamics of the whole trick. This is about theory and tradeoffs.

Almost any trick has a weak spot that must be glossed over. In trying to fix one weak spot, by making some change, another weak spot often pops up somewhere else. What brought this train of thought about was that I was experimenting with doing the Asher Twist with four double-face cards.

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Let's say four "2's" turn to 4 "K's" - one by one. I like the effect. I feel it is different enough that it changes the dynamic. Using regular cards the effect is that a card turns over each time which is exactly the method, whereas here the effect cannot so easily be tied to the M0 because the method is different than the effect because the effect is no longer that a card turns over. It just CHANGES. It is one step farther removed when it comes to reconstructing. So, happy with my discovery I called David Roth who is very astute at routine construction, and he immediately noted a problem. He felt that though this version is visually good, it invites a spectator to want to "see the cards after the trick." In the more popular version you can hand out the cards immediately if someone demands to feel them. Yet I like this double face version. The fix? The fix: Have four regular Kings face down above a double back card above your double face gaffs...ALL ABOVE A SHORT CARD. Performance: Lift at the short card and get a break with L. pinkie. Spread and show four backs. Square. Turn block of nine over and take the gaffs showing, say, two's, away. A back will show thanx to the D/B card. Proceed with the trick, changing all to K's. Cleanup: Put gaffs on deck which was just retrieved by left hand and lift at the short card and turn block over and the top four cards will be Kings face down if someone just HAS to examine them. Chances are that seeing backs at the start should belie D/F technology, but often spectators don't know specifically how "trick' cards are made ... they just want to "see" them. If no one asks I would say don't offer. Also a snappy patter line should make this entertaining enough so they don't need to ask. Or follow with Matrix or something. Take out four coins, use the ungaffed kings with that trick as covers. - FIN Afterimages - I'm not claiming the idea of D/F gaffs with the Asher Twist…just the method for getting in and out of it, PLUS my recommendation for trying this out yourself to experience a different effect. A "change" each time instead of a "twist."

You all remember Hit and Run, which ran in GENII as Coins Across 2000. I added an extra, 7th, coin hidden in R. classic with the three there from the original version making four in R. classic so as to eliminate a false Biddle count at the end. The three in view at the start, in a stack, did still have to be false counted to the left at the start. Today's offering, doing 3-Fly at waist level and using Kaps/ Malini subtlety, is very much based on Hit and Run. Required: 6 matching coins.

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Set-up: Three in R. classic. Three in a stack at the fingertips of R., held by edges of stack. Performance: Biddle style "peel" the three coins into the L., one by one. No false count is used. Classic palm one of L.'s and let one of R.'s drop. One coin has gone across. Each hand shows its coin or coins that are in view between fingertips and thumbs, and any coins in classic are screened by Kaps/Subtlety. By the way, this all evolved by my thinking of 3-Fly as a standup not closeup trick. For closeup, I decided THIS waist level palms up Kaps/Subtlety method to be the ticket! Proceed to palm another in left and let another drop with right to show two have gone across. Viewers see a fan of two coins held by right thumbtip against right fingertips and one more is still hidden by R. Kaps Subtlety. L looks like it holds one coin in same grip but has two hidden in Kaps. Finally palm the last one in left and let the R's last one fall and then get it into a fan of three. Now, keeping all in L. hidden by Kaps, use left to thumbpeel R's coins onto L. fingers one by one. This is reminiscent of the peeling of coins at the beginning. Three-Fly and Run. While putting all 6 in a left pocket, reach into a R. pocket with R., and bring out a deck of cards. Keep rolling by doing a card trick. - fi n -

On The Origins Of The Kaps' Subtlety Fred Kaps was perhaps the all time best all around magician. How many were as good close up as they were at standup? I ask you. In any case, for a few years we all heard about Kaps Subtlety, and it changed my magic life. Up till then I thought you HAD to sleeve to do coins. Of course, someone figured out Malini used the same technique so it became Kaps/Malini Subtlety. But for all intents and purposes it was Kaps through David Roth that the technique became known. I can remember Geof Latta tossing a coin from hand to hand yet keeping one extra coin in classic palm by watching the angle so as to allow the thanar muscle to screen the coin. Yay! We don't have to sleeve NO MO! Yay!

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I wore a lot of T-shirts and still like short sleeves or sleeves rolled up for sleight of hand because audiences think "it is up his sleeve - or it came out of his sleeve" anyway. If you have sleeves and ARE NOT SLEEVING ... they'll think you are anyway! Kaps' Routine - He had two Chinese coins in classic palm in each hand. Four total. These are kept hidden by HIS Subtlety and Malini's and each hand also held a C/S coin in view. The copper and silver would transpose several times by turning his hands palm down, reversing each C/S coin by turning each over with the thumb, against the inner fingers and turning palm up again. To end he's reputed to have said "I use four coins" and here would do a palm change in each hand, exchanging 2 for 1 in each hand. This causes noise, no way around it, and he' d cover by saying, in addition "Oops, you heard them," but now was holding two Chinese coins with HOLES in each hand and the two C/S were already as good as gone by being in HIS Subtlety and the Chinese coins could be shown on both sides by watching your angles. No sleeving! One of the great gifts.

WEBB Variation on that great trick ! Lately I have been favoring a slight difference. Effect: A one handed version, without the sound problem, so we can avoid the "oops." Required: 1 C/S coin. 1 Chinese coin. Set-up: One Chinese coin in R. classic. One C/S coin at R. fingertips pinned by R. thumb tip. Performance: Show say, the Copper side. Turn hand palm down, turn coin over using thumb and return to palm up Kaps Subtlety position. Now silver side shows. First miracle. Repeat this several times but not too often. Finally do a palm change. Chinese drops FROM R. classic to R. fingerpalm AS R. fingertips push C/S into R. classic. Then, push Chinese out to fingertips and still pinned by R. thumb tip…Kaps Subtlety position. Twaddle the Chinese coin and show coin to-and-fro, watching your angles, to show coin on both sides AND IMPLY R. is empty. This is fun. Try it! No sleeving. - fi n -

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RUMBLINGS AND GRUMBLINGS Bought D. Ortiz's new book. He's such an intelligent writer and researcher and constructionist. I don't even try to do perfect Faro tricks…but everything else I'm really liking and just Darwin's knowledge of credits is an education in itself. His essay on flourishes (flourishes are ok in his book for the same reason I always state...without them they'll think trick magic shop cards or self working math) is very well written. I have sent for the John Carney book. Jamy Ian Swiss really raved, which is rare, so I thought I should get it. Went to Tannen's. Ran into David Williamson and really enjoyed meeting him. I was surprised at how tall he is. Sure he does humor but boy does he know magic! Same day...saw young kids jongling. I groused that they go too fast razzle dazzle...no pauses to allow a spectator to follow even plot. And, by trying moves that are so much like juggling there was a lot of dropping...dropping cards oops dropping coins oops oops, but David Williamson felt I was too hard on them. Hell - in their twenties is old enough to learn dropping every five seconds looks terrible and going too fast on every trick doesn't even make sense! Pauses at the correct spots MAKES IT! ! And yet I saw some interesting sleeving and steals ( and dropping oops ) with the new little cell phones! An interesting prop. Halfway through a coin trick, a cell phone appears and RINGS. "Hello? I'm in the middle of a coin trick. Can I call you back?"

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Some months ago I ran an item based on a Karl Fulves self-working poker trick that I tweaked with adding several types of Zarrow shuffles…which made it useful because you could imply YOU had the chops to riffle stack and cull at the same time to get the Royal F into the chosen hand. A perfect spot for a Zarrow because even if it leaks a tad on a bad day, they won't know exactly what they saw and you ADMIT that you are "shuffling in a special way" to get the other cards of the Royal too. Well, now after several months, I've improved it even more. The handling is easier AND the effect is stronger. Now the effect is they choose ANY hand from 1-4 of a 5 hand game. You clearly indicate that the 5th hand is YOURS. (The hand dealt in front of you!)

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Let's say they pick hand #3. You pick up hand three and take the FACE CARD (Q), the one at the bottom of the hand, and turn it face up. Next, show the other cards to be losers...not a good hand in total. (We’ll call this the “demo” hand.) The patter here is "Let's use the "Q" for an example. Let's imagine that I'd like to get it into MY hand." Now, turn the other four cards face down and place these on top of the FACE UP Queen. A great touch here is to false cut these cards! Gather up the other hands in ANY random order…you can ask the audience to pick the order… all of these go on top of the DEMO hand. Put ALL on top of the deck and false cut and false shuffle (Zarrow - false!). Deal out five hands again and the face up card (Q in our example) will go to YOUR hand. Now show ALL of the other hands to be losers - and then reveal the Royal Flush in YOUR hand! Afterimages: I start with the Royal F cards on TOP. This is an improvement as far as M 0 is concerned. I do a face up Hindu shuffle after pulling cards from the MIDDLE. This SHOWS the cards are different (not a force deck or something stupid) and the audience sees cards mix. Now turn the deck face down and false cut. (Save the Zarrow for the middle of trick.) The Royal F is still on top and we DON’T add 10 as explained in the earlier version (see “Bonus 3”) - we DON’T use the middle card in the 3rd hand (which we picked as explained in Bonus 3). We give the audience a fair 1-4 choice of hands to “demo” – and we use the bottom (face) card which we leave FACE UP. To me, the best feature is whatever hand is chosen to “demo” - AS TAUGHT ABOVE - the R. F will go to your hand, the 5th hand! FRIENDS, this is going to be what I REALLY USE when a poker demo is called for! I even think I can do a Zarrow BLINDFOLDED. (I know I can!) And...I'm still using the "take bottom half to my right.” Shuffle this half UNDER two held back by left thumb. Again, you have to hold a ball of thumb break between halves at the back here. Next, repeat by taking bottom to the right and shuffle under two held back by left thumb and square. (False cut.) As a self-working miracle…this is TOO perfect. But "doing something” - the Zarrow sequence to make it happen IS the perfect solution to make it not TOO PERFECT but JUST RIGHT.

ON THE SELECTION PROCESS Lately I've been using this and it solves some of the standard perceptions of laypeople about card tricks. Instead of saying "Pick a Card" or "Say STOP," try this out and you II never go back. You read it here! Instead say, "CALL OUT ANY CARD IN THE WHOLE DECK .'" Don't say “Think" of any card! Say "CALL OUT..." We're trying to avoid that "You want me to TELL YOU?" moment that comes if you first say "Think of" and then ask what it is.

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(They think you should tell THEM) if you say Think" instead of "CALL OUT..." Anyway, when they do, go through the face up deck and find their card and hand it to her with a SHARPIE to sign. Then take it back and put on face of deck and catch a break under it. Triple Undercut the face up deck and turn the deck face down. Card is on top. In most tricks today it is not the beginning or control that is important, but the ENDING. Afterthoughts: Triple Undercutting, if no one told you, is much more deceptive than Double Undercuts. AND, on the third packet where you go for the break, lift deck to about your face level. Now they see BACKS during the last cut, and this hides the card that was on face of deck before selection was replaced by you in case someone has a good memory and remembers the card that DOES end up at face. Now lower deck and turn it completely face down in the process. You'll never go back - FIN -

Most of what I think up is not designed for the Cardicians to do...or even to show that faction of any magic club. They are for you to do on real people in the real world...but this one is a sucker trick FOR MAGICIANS ONLY! NOT for laymen. You should have no trouble finding some know-it-all at a magic club! Walk up…ask for help…a perfect hook…and act like some poor shmuck beginner (these knowit -alls will fall for this. They don't realize how much SOME guys know that don't JOIN.) These men to focus on are the ones that don't keep up with their magic studies but they do pay their DUES and BELONG! Here's the scam. Put a half-inch square piece of double stick Scotch tape on a dime. Also have a penny and a glass. "Can you help me?" I just got these trick coins at (name local magic or joke store). Put the dime, a real dime with the tape on your palm up hand...anywhere feels best to you. Put the penny on top and press. The penny will hide the dime and the tape is stuck hard to your hand. Dump the penny into a glass in such a way as to avoid flashing the dime stuck to your hand.

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Rattle the glass and say, "To get them apart I should put them in a glass and shake - but I can't get them apart!” The goal is to get the know it all to show you that you aren't shaking the glass right. The double stick tape is so that you don't have to palm a dime which is small to palm well. That's it. Have fun!

THE

VORTEX

So what is the origin of the word "sleight?" There's no sleight of anything else! David Roth points out that the only thing close is "sleigh." So maybe the hand glides or slides in "sleight of hand." I think it may be a case of the thing that always occurs to me when I read Old English. The letter "F" is written or set in type to confuse my eye with an "S," and I think there's something "up" with FL…too. Therefore, I think that through translation error, that it was originally "Flight of Hand." Or - it may be related to the word "SLY." Slyness of hand! Does anybody really know what time it is?

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This is based on the version in “Sonatas for Pasteboards,” from Hermetic Press, about German and Swiss card men. This is only a handling variation…but after a lot of work I got a routine that is clear and easy enough to concentrate on the fun of it all. Effect: First selection gets a red back. That red put on table. Next selection doesn't turn red but you do get it to come to the top ambitiously after being lost in deck. THEN, "it" is used to tap red card which develops a blue back and the now blue backed card has the magic power and you use it to tap the second selection which gets the red back. End clean. It resets. So - all you need is a red backed card. Let's say it is the Q-H. The regular Q-H is placed at face of deck THEN the red backed Q-H. You're set. I take deck out face down, pull from the middle and Hindu off to get them used to the action. Now pull from the bottom and as you Hindu, have them call STOP. Not a force, get them to take the regular card on left's group, ..memorize it and return it. Drop R's group onto left's and square. Spread to show one red back. Put all cards above the red, squared, to the table to your right. (Regular Q-H will be at bottom of this pile) Square group in L., getting pinkie b. under top 2 cards. As you turn red card over it is a double. As you do the double turnover, get a break AS you do so , SO you can turn double back down with no fumble or fidget.

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Thumb red backer to table with left hand. (This being the way to give a reason for turning back down on deck instead of straight to table). Set the left's half deck onto the table to your left. On top is the real first selection. Pick up half deck from table at your right. The blue Q-H is at face. Hindu force the Q-H with this detail. AFTER they say STOP don't just show the R's face card. Instead put R's talon ON the L's group but both out AND sidejogged. Pause to tell 2nd spectator how important it is that they remember! THEN cleanly lift the out & sidejogged group and flash the face force at 2nd spectator. Now a slight displacement subtlety. The left fingers pull the face card from under R's talon onto L's cards face down. Gesture to it with R's block as you say - "Notice it has a blue back...for now." Set R's group ON L's group but keep a break. Then double undercut to break – the force is now on top. NOW, riffle shuffle the two half-decks together in this manner. Hold back one card with L. thumb so the final cards in R go under it. This isn't a Zarrow but the easiest riffle-stack there is. A true shuffle, except you make sure the L's final card lands after the R's final card. Amen. We're ready to get gobs of fun. Spread deck face down to show a lot of blue. Say, "I can't get your card to turn red – yet." Square and get a break under 2 while so doing. I learned this from Paul Harris…casually get a break under two. You don't have to do a pinkie count - too much tension. Double turnover showing Q-H. Say, "But, I can get it to jump to the top." Good trick in itself. Now we'll build on that. Turn double back down and take real top card…the one that they already think is on the table with the red back. Now, an easier than most Mexican Turnover. Many don't like this move, but this is the best spot I've ever seen for it. It was the first move I learned from Erdnase about 40 years ago at age 13. What makes this application easier than most is you end (after THE MOVE) with your R hand palm down, and the face of the card it NOW holds SHOWING. This is what most students try to do when learning the Mexican. TEACHING THEM NOT TO DO THIS, BUT TO KEEP R hand palm up and the card it now holds face DOWN is very hard. So this way is what comes most natural to most. ..good in THIS trick. Situation review - R holds the card it should have been holding, since the spectators don't realize you switched twice in quick succession (the double turnover and the Mexican). They don't realize the Q-H has a RED BACK because of the double turnover way back at the beginning…and the face up card on table now has a blue back which they can't see because card is face up. We're set for two miracles in a row with no moves! Yay ! Say, "But I can use the Q-H to make the (first selection) go back to blue” - turn over tabled card after tapping it with Q-H to be BLUE, then say, "Finally I can use the (first selection) to make the Q-H to turn…RED." After you tap it, SLOWLY turn over Q-H to show red back! To me this is the best way to milk the most out of this popular trick. Yay!

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I always liked Paul Harris' COLOR STUNNER, except for one thing. At the end you had only one red card - the original selection (force) and all the other cards' backs turned blue. Well...that picture, to me, gave away the M 0. (You had a deck with only one red back and somehow made it seem like many or all had red backs.) I made quite a few changes, really, but it is still Paul’s but you'll see my modifications. First, I changed the effect to NOT USE A SELECTION. It is no longer about a selection…it is ONLY about the deck changing color. Also, I added a gaff...a D/B card with red back on one side and blue back on the other. You could even glue two together if you lack same…spectators don't touch it. Required & Setup: Blue b deck R/B double backer Red card box. Put deck face up, put d/b On deck red showing. Put in red box. Performance; Show box. Let it burn to show that it that it is red. Take out deck red backer showing. Turn slightly to your left. Take top half of deck with R., and bottom half with left. Lift and only just let the halves clear. Left does a half rotation. I say rotation because half doesn't turn over at all but instead just rotates 180 degrees and slap R's half on top but stepped (way injogged). The trick here is that you want people to think your left turned its half OVER, but it was unbeknownst already face up (as is all of deck except double backer on top. This seems bold, but is actually very deceptive AND casual and one of Paul's most clever ideas. (Note: During this, the rotation and the slap of the deck goes from about waist level to chest level, and the slight body turn to your left gives right hand and its half deck the ability to screen exactly what the left does.) Pause at this picture…which looks like bottom half is face up and top half is face down (and red). Faro the halves together so D/B card ends on top. In no way is this anything like a perfect Faro. It is just the best way to avoid flashing. To show many face down reds (supposedly) intertwined with face up cards, lift two cards into TILT. Take the top (gaff) by sliding it off and insert under the one card still in tilt. Now take the card in TILT and insert it anywhere in deck for real. Repeat this sequence several times until you end this "proving" sequence with the gaff on top. Get a break under three cards. Hold the gaff in place with the L thumb as you draw out a double (face up) with R. Do a paintbrush move to "paint" a face on the card back that used to show. P.S. You kept a break under gaff before paintbrush move, so now you have pinkie break under 2. Drop single faceup on all. Triple Undercut and this moves the gaff to bottom (face). Your excuse here, the cutting, is to begin to show all faces and indeed that is your patter during the cuts - "All the face down cards turn face up." We're making a separate trick out of the cards being all face up, so mention of color.

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To show this situation even stronger and cleaner, thumb count two from bottom (back) which is the gaff and one more card, so that when you spread through deck to really show conclusively that all are face up, you won't flash the gaff. Pause as if trick is over. Now say something to the effect of wanting to show ANOTHER TRICK. See? Treat it like a separate trick because the first part was good enough to stand as your opener. Now comes your "closing trick". The color changing deck, you announce. "That's right...the RED DECK will TURN BLUE!" Build this and turn deck face DOWN and they of course see blue but to nail the coffin shut, you take blue deck in R overhand shuffle position and run a few singly and then in bunches so as not to take too much time, and with those backs aimed right at their eyes. It also shows a great many blue backs...but not all. Square up and do the same thumbcount off bottom of two, the gaff and one more, and get a pinkie break, so when you spread through deck cleanly to show all blues, you won't inadvertently flash the gaff. On the way through, lift right's group occasionally to show faces, too, AND WHEN DONE PUT BLUE DECK IN RED BOX AND GUESS WHAT? YOU ARE RE-SET! I think the lesson here is that the selection with the trick doesn't help, especially with the red back...but, by just making it into "cards mixed face up and face down, straighten out”…and then as a separate trick, make whole deck change color...for my taste it is better this way! A very well posted magician told me that it was somehow "wrong" somehow to take the selected card idea away from TRIUMPH style tricks. As if it treaded on Vernon's memory somehow. Not true, and not meant to "sully" Vernon's memory - but laymen don't really know who Vernon was! So I dared to tamper with the selected card aspect of Triumph giving me a cleaner Color Change deck at the end. They all turn blue!

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KICKER for ONE-HAND THREE-WAY I ran an item that used a C/S coin and a Chinese brass coin and I hope you remember and have honed it. I came up with an end. Review - Chinese in right classic! Hidden by Malini/Kaps subtlety while SHOWING one side of C/S coin betwixt R thumb and 2nd fingertip. Thanar muscle hides Chinese etc. OK. So coin changes by turning hand palm down, turning coin OVER with thumb, and come back up palm up. THEY SEE SIDE OF C/S coin. Magic! A CHANGE! In fact you can do that several times. First ending. Turn hand palm down, do a Roth PALM CHANGE and turn palm up to reveal CHINESE (with hole in it) and this coin can be shown on both sides. KICKER - Well the left hand hasn't needed to help at all but COULD be ready for a kicker by holding "something" secretly the whole time. What? Well, I have some Chinese coins I got in Chinatown that are about Silver Dollar (old) SIZE. And, lacking these, DO use silver dollars.

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Have three in left low fingerpalm from the start, hanging by your side. In fact, since the proceeding trick is a one-hand thing, your left arm is screened by your body, more specifically, your left thigh. I have three handlings. 1) W Fake put. You have a C/S in R classic. Let the Chinese coin slide into R low fingerpalm as you pretend to put it in cupped left hand. The cupped nature of L keeps load coins hidden. Reveal their growth. Take them away with R to a right pocket and ditch all…or leave one on L for a trick with one and ditch the rest, or ditch all but one LARGE dollar size coin which you palm back out in case your next trick needs a dupe. 2) Using a variation on Gary Kurtz’ "Take Two" move. (Note: I found a Marlo move similar…why am I not surprised. I'll explain.) Hold L in a loose palm-down fist. Push the Chinese through L thumbhole and right into L classic. Then release the load coins onto R fingers (R thanar still doing duty hiding C/S coin in R classic). 9) THINKING MAN'S DODGE - Wow. We forget things sometimes. Easier is better for your acting and performance and delivery...and don't forget that spectators don't think like us. THANK the BIG WIZARD. JUST POKE THE CHINESE THROUGH THE L T-HOLE AND WHEN YOU OPEN THE L, THEY SEE LOAD COINS and THE SMALLER CHINESE. (A different effect...as if the one created the others) By-the-way, it all depends on a casual L fingerpalm. ..relaxed! If this one bothers you, you could let the big Chinese loads fall on top and hide the smaller Chinese. All-in-all, I favor Number 1.

K I C K E R for Webb 0. Box routine I ran my coin box routine, which used 5 English pennies which exactly fill an 0 box...audience not aware of this (E pennies thinner than half dollars) and they think routine is with 4, and the above secret used to clean up clean. Let me digress. I just re-read David Roth's book recently, AND SOMETHING ALWAYS INSPIRES ME. Each time I read it I find some tidbit or other I missed before. That's a sign of a good book…you keep going back to it. Also, doing so reminds me of when David was just making his name and the stuff wasn't in print. Believe me when I say coin magic looked like coin tricks! Nobody's work looked like the real deal except Slydini and Shigeo Takagi…that I saw. Chanin didn't do coins per se. He used Flying Saucers…big metal discs.

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You hear of Ross Bertram and maybe HE could make his routines look like magic, but anyone I saw do Bertram material looked NOT GOOD, sorry to say. Supposedly Kaps way very good. Sawa. Vernon. Suffice to say in New York it was Slydini and his style was very popular for a while. (I still don't favor lapping and was one of the people at the time of Slydini's greatest popularity, ..when EVERYONE and every trick published - was about lapping, that I began to warn people and recommend learning to work from pockets (again) because then you're not tied to the table and therefore can MINGLE. Some of David's work relies on lapping, but not all. Back to the kicker. I FOUND THAT IF I SUBSTITUTED A BOSTON BOX THAT I COULD DO MY WHOLE ROUTINE WITHOUT CHANGING A THING: Except hiding the bottom from time to time with my fingers - when dumping. That way I could ADD A KICKER with BOSTON technology! Also a new BEGINNING. Therefore, the whole routine now (see how magic keeps changing and never sits still?) IS: Reach in right pocket and palm five E. Pennies, and then grasp B. box and COME OUT. Show empty box, put on lid, and make a magic gesture and let bottom of box fall to left palm with a half turn thereby showing the recessed coin in bottom of B. box. (Note: I have a sixth E. penny affixed to recess with double stick tape:) Set down lid and pick up B. box with right so it rests on R's palm up fingers held by R thumb. 5 e. pennies are hidden by Kaps' Subtlety. Now, pretend to dump into left palm and really the coins fall into left hand from R. Classic. The illusion is perfect. This fries laymen. Don't let the number be seen and immediately palm one in L classic and dump the other 4 to table. Under that shade, set B. box down showing empty. Just casually...don't make a move out of it. Now we're ready to do my complete routine as written (see back issue). Proceed at end to put all 5 in box, show both hands empty, and we're ready for the kicker. We're ready to dump coins out again, into R, and you may think it redundant to have put them in box a second ago, but I feel that picture...seeing that when ALL (5) pennies are in box comes exactly up to the lid (top of rim) is very important at the time of showing the hands empty. Also important throughout the whole middle routine is the. screening of box when coins are in it, by reaching over box to get lid (shade) and when putting lid ON hand AND lid screen the mouth of box. So- you never let them see the box BECAUSE THE NUMBER OF COINS IS WRONG MOST OF THE TIME AND IT WOULD BE A 'TELL' IF YOU PUT LID ON ANY OTHER WAY. This process was explained at length by Roth and Kaufman so I've always known it, but am mentioning it again in case someone is starting out. Anyway, NOW is when you can let them BURN box and hands. Almost as an afterthought, dump coins into R. Go to a right pocket and ditch one and classic palm 4. Come out and do any box turnover you want as lid is placed on. Gesture. Lift lid and box SEEMS full (the recessed coin in base shows). Pick up box using Kaps et al Subtlety, and dump to left hand, coins really spilling out of R. Classic.

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To clean up, just casually (no move) set box down looking empty and they are looking at 4 coins in L. Now when you put coins in box you must screen mouth as before as you put on lid. Earlier they saw the E. Pennies filled box to rim. Because there were 5. Now they got to see 4 coins (and before you had to casually hide how many. ..you didn't want them to know of the 5th. But now that you show 4 you can't let them see mouth of box with coins IN so plan the lid placement so when reaching for it and putting it on, that hand shades box. NUF SAID. *

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All this came about SINCE the move published in GENII, which I invented, Kaufman and Roth liked, and which is ever so slightly more open in the action than similar moves that came before, so it was recorded as a bit of 0.& B. box history AND MAYBE SOMEONE CAN USE IT IN THEIR ROUTINE, but to be honest - for my own use I don't work on lapping AT ALL anymore. So, the routine I taught today is tailored to me as the MOST INVOLVED I could get WITHOUT LAPPING. Again - nuf said.

On the new rubber coin that was to revolutionize coin magic! I don't like it and will not buy one. Perhaps someone will come up with the perfect trick for it. As far as bending, I wrote about my old method, but want to add that as magic keeps changing, that I now believe a perfect way to bend a coin is the Palm Change, and if you can do it (see COINMAGIC under Roth section...or Roth's EXPERT COIN MAGIC). Use quarters. Bend one slightly using leather and a vise and hammer, the leather preventing scratches. To clean up I'm using a patter line that the coin gets hot as it happens. I drop bent one on table NOT in a spectator's hand because it isn't hot! I have a pair of tweezers in my pocket to have a reason to ditch, and with now clean hand I pick coin up with the tweezers so they can get a good close look without burning their little paddies! Let me know how this is going. Note: the palm change takes practice. I practice it in my pocket a la pocket pool when standing on the train platform bored and waiting for my train. Do likewise and flourish.

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Dark Frickin Humor by Sol Stone as told to Gregg Webb Slydini was the real deal. His magic looked like real magic. He felt it in his bones. He would go to The Governor's Grill where the magicians used to gather, in hopes of meeting a potential paying student. Remember that this was before videos and DVDs so if you really wanted to learn the real work you had to take lessons. And, at that time there were people who taught for free. Yet, Slydini had high paying students. That was the period when everyone was working on lapping - because of Slydini! One of Slydini's favorite routines to use to "hook" a student was his 1-Coin routine! It would seem impromptu, but look at the lengths he would go to. After meeting someone new in town or visiting or who- just hadn't met the great man yet, Slydini would suggest that they "take a little walk." Strolling through the restaurant, they would find a table with a tablecloth well away from the riff-raff magicians, and Slydini would sit down and invite the new acquaintance to join him. Then he'd do the one-coin magic. But look at what really went on. Sol was Slydini's designated table-cloth guy! He'd have a cloth in his car. Upon getting a signal from Slydini, Sol would run to his car, get the tablecloth, and go back to the restaurant and quietly put it on a table far from the other magicians and in a spot where the angles were good. No other table in the joint had a tablecloth! The prospective students never seemed to notice! So, by the time they were taking their "little stroll," the cloth would be in place and Sol would have blended back into the woodwork. The reason for the cloth was mainly so other onlookers who gathered after he began working on the guy couldn't see under the table if they looked, and catch the lapping and spill the beans. I get a chuckle out of the amount of preparation for an impromptu coin trick. I hope you do too. -finP R O F U N D I T T I E S - I guess what "gets my goat" about hanging out with most magicians is that they think they are qualified to judge another magician's work and really it is a case of what I've talked about many times. Once a magician never again a layman! That means that a magician won't be fooled by time honored tricks because he's at least heard of them. Therefore, to fool a bunch of magicians you have to confuse them by procedures that lose them or they'll go "Oh, that old thing."

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Yet the same trick for laymen would just confuse them and they would be lost as to the effect they were intended to "get." Case in point. I saw a magician working the subway cars, moving and rocking and shaking…he did the soap bubble to solid plastic clear ball. He threw it up to hit the roof of the moving train to make a loud clunk and drive home the concept! Then he did the drawer box to produce Rocky Raccoon and some of the raccoon "moves." Then he did dove pan to produce a real dove! No fire, just had everyone see pan EMPTY…put lid on and had a spectator (in a moving subway car I remind you) wave his wand…produced dove and made it fly…it came back to him two or three times. He worked out of a box with lid and having a stand to put box on. I give him credit. I gave him all my spare change. BUT I DIDN'T SAY "I'M A MAGICIAN TOO, OH ROCKY RACCOON...I KNOW THAT ONE. OH THEY SELL DOVE PANS AT TANNENS. OR "I DO THE SOAP BUBBLE TOO" OR "I DO DOVES." My point being…that is how most magicians seem to act. The ones Ricky calls "The Magic Lumpen." Not us of course…but you probably know someone I mean at one magic club or another. Rumble and Grumble *

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GIVE US A SIGN It isn't all that hard to get ideas. The rub is knowing if an idea already came before ...last week's new DVD or a hundred year old book? All I can say is I haven't seen this although it seems like a natural. It is based on a coin idea I use a lot - Houdini's Key…but altered to use the Houdini STAMPS. Effect: A Houdini stamp, and several other stamps of any kind are hidden under playing cards. Using a pendulum, you find the Houdini stamp while chanting "Oh Great Houdini, GIVE US A SIGN." Required: To hide the weight difference caused by some SHIM MATERIAL (iron or steel foil…razor blade, etc.) I glue a piece of manila paper which looks like envelope paper, to cardboard and both of these are larger than the stamps. In the Houdini one, the shim foil is between the cardboard and manila. The other stamps ( not Houdini ) have NO shim foil. In short, each stamp is affixed to the center of a piece of cardboard with manila paper glued to it…and the Houdini has a shim. Also required is a pendulum with a magnet inside. I used a kind of plastic clay called SCULPEY, which bakes at a low low 200 degrees - any oven, and wrapped it around a magnet and shaped it into a plumb-bob shape complete with hole…and baked it up. SCULPEY is available at art supply stores and comes in an amazing number of colors…including silver and brass colors. When cool, put a string on it. Performance: Taking items out of a purse or box or wallet, you talk about the famous yearly Houdini seances. Bring out playing cards and make a row. Give a person the Houdini stamp and give OTHER PEOPLE non-Houdini stamps and have them hide them under a playing card. ..one stamp to a card. (You'll have the same number of cards as covers as you do stamps).

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You of course turn around during the "hiding.” Bring out the pendulum, ..and explain that contrary to some pendulums, a circular path means yea and a straight or criss-cross path means no. The method is to swing the pendulum over a card, not too high and what you look and feel for is a tiny "wobble"...very tiny, when it passes over the shim. You want to start high enough that there is no wobble and bring it closer so that just you would detect the presence and no one else. Also when not on Houdini, you would get no wobble…and you'd continue the straight swinging and declare it a non-Houdini. I drag out the process and go from card to card until I detect that subtle and secret wobble and then you have to deliberately make the swing change to a circular motion above and around the "HIT” card and stamp. The trick is to work with this until the wobble is seen-and FELT only by you. Start high enough and incrementally bring the swing down until bingo. AFTERIMAGE: I haven't tried ending by patting the pendulum in a spectator's hand and repeating the test and hoping to get a scream when she feels the tug of Houdini's aura…but I think I have to test this someday. Maybe the idea of magnetism won't be as obvious as I think. In that eventuality I'd want to be poised to take the pendulum back immediately, to avoid others wanting to try or the pendulum being allowed to "stick" to the card and stamp and shim. Risky for sure. At the right time it may be spooky. I'll report. But, all things considered, the method given is a nice, but not very deep, interlude between cards and coins which we have too much of.

I INVENTED THIS IN THE 70's - NO - Make that the late 60's! It works best with a Kennedy half dollar. Perhaps you can adapt it to other coins. As you have someone call it in the air, you flip a coin. Usually you have to do this several times. Only those in the gaming crowd know instantly what this means. If they call it too late, start again! It must be IN THE AIR. Saying "You know HEADS or TAILS…WHILE UP IN THE AIR WHERE I am not touching it.” In any case catch with a downward overhand stroke, palm down. Come DOWN on it. Then you can feel just as you close your fist, by the use of the 2nd fingertip whether it is heads or tails. Rough (Rough) feel-tails. Raised and smooth-Heads.

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Lets say you feel rough-tails-and want it to be heads. Smack it straight down onto your left fist...on the back of fist...to "read it." Let's say you wanted "Tails." As you open hand out to slap down on back of left fist, use centrifugal force to let coin do a half turn before being smacked down on left. And vice-versa! You'll love this when you get the knack. PS - Moving the tip of L 2nd tip is what allows you to sense the rough or smooth sides of middle of coin. The rough is the bird and the smooth is Kennedy's cheek. Yes this really works. Whenever I show magicians they say "I never saw that before," and you know that on laymen I can sometimes get my way...every time I use the coin. *

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I invented this six months ago but didn't like it. After sleeping on it for 180 days GUESS WHAT? I like it now! Also it is not like other things in vogue. I'll try to describe it as directly as possible. You need to achieve this situation! From top, face down X card Face up ace, a down X, an UP Ace etc. Or, you could say every other card is a face up ace in a face down deck. What I do is to put the 4 aces face up on deck (to lose them) and do a double under cut to move one card from bottom of deck to top. Aces seem lost in deck but really are only covered by one X card. The I do a slough-off faro. Taking less than half deck and telescoping into the bigger bottom half and losing the extra batch with a slough-off cut before water-falling or squaring the interlace. After this there is an extra X card on top. In other words, there are two and we want 1, so lose 1. Easiest ways are: show top card to not be an ace and insert low in deck. Or, get a break under top card, double-cut it away from there. The WORK on Producing the Aces. Palm off the top X card with R hand and left pushes over ace that seemed to appear by a kind of color change, slightly, so right hand (still palming) can take it from above with a sort of Biddle Grip and set ace on table. While Ace is placed, get a left pinkie break under one with the Ortiz pinkie count. Now set R's palmed card on deck as you patter "The magic happens when I rub (here is where you unload R's palmed card) with my right hand. (Here is where you show right palm before proceeding.) Note: This thinking is probably what I didn't have thought up back when I didn't like this.

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For next Ace, palm the 2 X cards above break. (Note that you kept the break you had after adding 1.) Another Ace is revealed and put on the table. Everything repeats as you produce 4 Aces, with the small difference that each successive time you are palming off 1 more card in a group than before. At the end you unload 4 X cards on top of deck and turn deck over which I associate with Larry Jennings and you are clean. What I like about this is that in most color changes, at least standard ones, you DEPOSIT a card. Here you take away card or cards to make a color change that also registers as an appearance each time *

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THE CUSP - Just finished reading H.P. Lovecraft's “Charles Dexter Ward.” You must read this! Today I want to rant about something my observant eye is spotting more and more. Tricks are being published more and more that are just direct "steals" from (now) The Apocalypse. The act of just "taking" intellectual property and acting like nothing is wrong…not giving the credits…is plagiarism. The mentality is everywhere. I teach drawing and am always pointing out to my students when they just copied from a comic book, etc. Also, music downloading, and I read the music industry is going to track people who download, and sue! Yet, when I mention it to kids, they look at you like you're nuts. Do you know what? The vast majority of kids in college aren't very smart or creative. Well, they haven't lived enough to have original thoughts that are based on their own experiences. Always remember that Norman Mailer tramped around the world on tramp steamers and that is how he saw enough of the world to start making some observations on human nature. In closing, in our field, all you have to do is just write who gets the credit for the original idea, if you know. Magic is very forgiving and no one knows all the credits, but just lifting from the Apocalypse as if no one will notice says a lot to my experienced eye. Harry used to write "If you Xerox this…blah-blah." He should have written...if you publish any of these tricks as if they are your own, then rot in the roots of Ygdrazil.

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once had a great shotglass and coins trick and it ran in BOBO. Unfortunately, it was a “coins thru the table” trick which I don't like, and it involved lapping. My nature is such that I wanted to have it be NOT through the table but from the glass - one by one, to my empty hand. Next, I realized that this was in effect what happens with Okito Box magic. This version of mine ran on the Internet, but by now I already have a different ending and new work on the shell. Required: Shotglass. Shell. 4 coins. Setup: None but having shell on one of 4 coins, and shotglass handy Routine. Spread coins on R hand so shelled coin is lowermost. Palm upper coin of group standard way as hand turns down. As you place coins on table, the first one down is the one that is allowed to drop from the shell, 2 is the shell, placed overlapping the first coin. Then 3 and then 4, making an overlapping row horizontally. Use the shotglass to gather or scoop the coins into a stack. The shell will settle over the lowest coin, and use any production to produce coin from R hand. Put on table. Lift glass and spread coins to show 3. Pick these up and arrange on flat R hand in an overlapping row to show 3.

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(The shell on lowermost coin). As the hand turns palm down, palm the upper coin the regular way. As you put the coins on the table, let coin fall from shell for 1, the shell placed overlapping is 2, and 3 is a regular coin. Again use mouth down glass to gather then cover coins. The shell settles over lower coin. Pick up coin from table that already came out and use your L, so you can do a shuttle pass, place coin down again (switched in coin) and produce with L, so now there are 2 out of glass. Lift glass and spread to show 2 under (really 2 and a shell.) Now the procedure repeats…line up the two and a shell on one of these on R palm. Palm top regular coin as hand turns down and seems to lay out 2 in an overlap row. Really the 1st down in the row is the coin that drops from shell and the next is the shell.. so pick up glass and use it to slide coins ! into a stack and cover. Actually the shell falls onto real coin. L picks up 2 from table. Do a Utility Move and R sets two on table. Produce with L. 3 have emerged. Now the procedure changes: And, notice the difference in the handling of the shell. The plot changes too. Before now, the conventional wisdom was to stack coins, let's say in a spectator's hand, with top coin being the one with shell. You'd lift off the shell while "helping" them close their hand so as not to see the number in hand. You'd vanish shell and ask spec. to open hand. They find 4! Since I'm using the glass, I stack the coins on table and take shell off AS I LOWER shotglass over stack. Vanish shell lift glass and 4 underneath. WELL THAT WAS THE OLD WAY. NEW HANDLING OF SHELL Follow this and you will notice new ideas on how to handle shell AND CLEAN UP. Arrange stack of 4, for finale, with shelled coin on BOTTOM OF STACK. As lower glass over stack, take top REGULAR coin away with other hand. Show both sides! Vanish this coin. Let's say the coin is hidden in R Classic after the vanish! Lift the glass by its top with the Palming Hand. Use clean L to pick up stack letting loose single fall from the shell to table, then put down the shell overlapping, and the 3rd and 4th are regular coins also placed overlapping to make a overlapping row clearly showing 4 coins. After a beat, and after having set down the glass to one side, use right hand to scoop up the row, letting shell nest over the coin below it in the process. Let the palmed coin join the group and you can swivel R palm up and cleanly spread to show 4 coins. Shell is safely on a coin. Resist the urge to palm off the shell and have coins examined. You don't have to. Let the cleanness of the hands at this point be your issue. *

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Put coins and shotglass away - jacket pocket is fine, and bring out cards. Always alternate cards with other props. After Linking Pins for example, put them away in one side pocket of jacket whilst reaching in other side jacket for cards with other hand. When you just plow into a card trick they lose their connection with the previous trick that they might have wanted to bug you to let them ask you embarrassing questions or demand to "see" or touch.

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You don't have to prove. Keep that attitude. Act as if their rude requests don't even deserve the dignity of an answer. Also it can wreck your timing and ruin the trick for others. Perhaps the best thing you can learn is to just act as if you didn't even hear the person. I learned this a long time ago when I first moved to New York and crime was up. If a "street person" or panhandler got too aggressive which happened a lot more in those days, I found that the best thing was to just act like you never heard them, never even saw them. Acting like they didn't even exist seemed to work and that is where I learned it and this treatment of a rude spectator amongst a group who enjoyed it…seems to work. That kind of person is actually jealous of your attention and trying to get the attention back on themselves, sometimes in a desperate way…so don't reason with them…don't get forced into always having everything examined and ignoring that person and plowing forward with another trick is best. *

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ANOTHER HANDLING OF LAST COIN Put all coins and shell On the top one, in one of your hands or if you must…a spectator's. (Note: I think more like a filmmaker...I am most interested in it LOOKING like magic and the timing and the flow can be wrecked by the spectator…losing the timing of the flow of the trick which I feel is part of what makes magic. I realize many swear by the "in their hands" approach. Just to let you know you don't have to go that route. So…Take away shell off top of stack just as you close the hand. Set shotglass ON the shell on table (mat). Coin is gone…it returns to hand. All COINS could be shown on all sides to be really clean.

Shown are two versions of a gaffed shotglass you may want to make. Trouble is you need a black mat. You could make one of black felt. In the simple version of shotglass gaff, you glue a circle of felt to rim of mouth of glass and trim.

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I'll explain this handling first. Switch shotglasses in your pocket after first phase. Put regular one away. Arrange coins for ending. Shell has been taken away from fist of really 4 coins…the viewers think 3. Shell placed on table. Now bring out gaff glass, the grip is so that hand hides the gaffed condition. When this is placed over the shell on mat, the circle of felt across the mouth hides coin, but your hand masks this situation till you take hand away. They see through the glass and think they see the mat but it is black art. DELUXE Version - Two circles of felt are used and a small magnet inside, between the 2 layers of the felt. See Fig. This allows you to use a shim or magnetic coin - in this you vanish a coin…use the other dodge with shell. This allows you to pick up shotglass and hidden coin sticks by magnetics! BOTTLECAPS MAGIC First off, I want to mention that I do Chink-a-Chink with the bottlecaps and not coins! There are plenty of good coin tricks. Why not use a different prop for Chink! AND YOU DON"T NEED A MAT BECAUSE YOU PICK UP THE CAPS IN CLASSIC, (caps being mouth up during the trick). I hate having to lap…so this came to me as a natural idea and is one favorite of mine and alone worth the price of admission. *

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This next one is a Matrix with 4 cards and bottlecaps. This ran in an Internet article and they saw it and published it in Swiss, German, and French magic magazines and made me more known in Europe than here! One can't become a phrphet in one's own country, especially if one can't spell prophet. There. Required: A fifth bottlecap is permanently attached mouth to one card. I used cardboard circles and glue and double stick tape. Perform: Put 4 in square. As cover with cards, use action of a GLIDE to pull out bottom card (with the gaff) AS YOU MAKE STEAL of 1 bottlecap under cards. You now have Three cards with 1 real bottlecap below held between thumb tip and 2nd fingertip, the hand sort of circling the three cards from above around the narrow dimension. As you cover the next cap, leave the cap next to the 2nd and cover so there are two under this second card. The remaining two are each covered with a card normally,. First you'll make one of the single caps under a single card seem to vanish. This is like an Al Schneider standard pickup but here you need NO MAT so can even work on a bar, by pressing down on card above outer part of mouth-up cap. The shape of cap allows you to pick up card and with thumb clip bottlecap and lift. The cap tilts automatically with a little pressure.

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Next lift card above the two caps to show 21 Put this loose card on top of the other card with the cap beneath. Put this whole unit on the two caps and now there are secretly 3. Repeat with the next single cap and reveal 3 and add cards to the card and stolen cap. Put three cards square with the hidden cap over the 3 caps and now only the gaff remains. THE MOST INTERESTING THING HERE IS THAT THE EXTRA GAFFED CAP STUCK TO THIS LAST CARD CAUSES CARD TO SEEM TO BE UP OFF THE TABLE BY THE THICKNESS OF A CAP, SO THE FACT THAT WE STOLE ISN'T NOTICED. You can lift this last card daintily by an edge, just don't flash gaff. Cleanup- As you pick up one bottlecap, palm it (always mouth to palm-the rough edge being easy to classic - the easiest object there is. As your hand nears and shades cards, turn cards face up bringing gaff into view as you PRETEND to place cap on cards. Move palming hand away and they take gaff to be cap you placed there. One by one put the other three caps onto stack of cards so I gaff shows and three loose caps…all taken to be the 4 they knew. Take cards to one pocket with the caps. Go to another pocket with the palming hand and ditch the extra bottlecap and grasp your deck and come out with "Pick a Card." An idea I use sometimes is to not always have deck in box, just loose, so there is no time for chit chat like "Can I see those caps ?" You don't even have to take cards out of box. Just begin and they'll come along like a dog on a leash because they think maybe they'll catch you next time but not if they don't pay attention.

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As most of you know I've experimented with my own approaches to false counts with coins, mainly the modified card count The Biddle Move False count with cards applied to coins. See Hit and Run, which used 7 coins, the audience thinking there were 4. By having 4 in the Right classic palm you could False count three in view as four as they were peeled one by one into L, stealing the first counted back under stack to be counted/peeled again as the 4th. Then they seemed to go one by one to R, by successive palming with L and releasing from R from the classic palm. Well, here is another false count based on a card move, the Hamman Count, done with coins. To begin, you show 5 coins. Copper in middle. On R. hand. Steal 2 silvers into R classic, turn remaining stack of 3 over and maneuver to position shown. The face of top coin must be aimed at audience, not the edges. So, seem to peel a silver, a silver, then a copper, then two more silvers into L. Really a switch happens when copper is peeled. Like in the card version of the Hamman, as the copper is peeled, or more accurately, just before the copper is peeled left, the two silvers peeled earlier are stolen under copper coin, THEN copper is peeled and NEXT the two silvers are counted/peeled again as 4 and 5 in the count. I kept this quiet because it works on laymen (not necessarily on magicians. ROUTINE: Work the copper (odd) coin out of L. fist and let it fall to table. Pick up with right hand. Now they think 4 silvers are in left hand. Actually only 2.

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(SHOWING BEFORE COUNT INTO LEFT HAND)

Pretend to make one "go across" and let one fall against the copper, and clink, from R classic. Now for something bold. To imply three in L, do this. Work I silver out of fist to fall to table. Pick it up. Work out the OTHER from fist…it falls to table. Pick it up. Do this a third time - actually the same as the 1st coin - being seen again and implied to be the (nonexistent) 3rd. What can motivate this into a believable action is to now tap this coin with the copper and I silver that went across already. Say "This one next." Pick it up with LEFT hand and pretend to make one more GO. Here is something new…to make the clink of next arriving…use a strong action to classic palm the loose silver in R. AGAINST the one still in R. Classic. Now you have 2 in R. classic AGAIN. Getting a clicking sound on purpose as you classic palm a coin against one already there. (Usually we hope for quiet during this maneuver-and don't achieve it. Here we make as loud a click as possible to signal the arrival 1.) Slap down "gently" the 2 from L. SHOW L. HAND EMPTY! Pick up the two with L in position to be HPCd. Perform HPC, slapping down "gently" only the loose copper from R. onto the 2 that actually fall secretly from L. Audience sees 3 coins. 2 silver and I copper. There are 2 in R. Classic. Right hand picks up coins from table. Pretend to make one more GO and let one fall and clink from R classic. Shake L. fist as if it holds 1, and show 3 silvers and I copper in R by slapping down gently as if miming your HPC action but here you don't come quite as close to L. fist. Last one goes. Show L. empty after R picks up coins from table AND MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS EMPTY LEFT HAND. This trains you to not rush the last clink. Now look at R. hand. NOW let last coin fall from classic to clink. Dribble all from R. hand. Enjoy.

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It is very much like the Kelly Bottom Replacement or Ovette Master Move in application, getting a card from the bottom of the upper half deck to the bottom of lower half of deck, when deck is completed and squared. I always liked the action, which looks different from the Kelly, but there was a problem. You needed a get-ready assist from the tip of a left finger to get it started. If only it could be done one-handedly. So years later I solved the one-handed get-ready for the Bruce Elliott THING by using the early stage of a Kelly, but modified, and then segued into the Elliott Imagine you started a trick by riffling for a called "STOP." You d lift the upper half to the spec's eyes to "Remember this card." On the way down, use the mechanics of Kelly to angle card over with curled R second and third fingers until corner of card hits ball of R thumb.

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Now the right fingers can straighten and a diagonal pressure between ball of thumb and side of pinkie causes the card to curve and open up like a mouth. It can then be controlled to bottom by inserting lower half of deck in this gap. Or, if there is a break held by left pinkie in the bottom half, the card can easily be FED into that break...and everything squared.

A SHORT T R I CK Have the 2 red Jacks out on table. Have deck cut in two piles Cut the face up jacks into the left pile but hold a pinkie break between jacks, in the middle of this face down half deck! Pick up the other half deck with R hand and lift it for spec to remember the card at the face. Do our move on the way down, the card pops open like a mouth. Feed this card into your break between face up jacks, square up…make a magic gesture and spread deck to show card between the jacks to be their card. Direct.

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Angles are best to your right. This is great if you are showing something to someone sitting next to you like at a bar, or on a sofa.

How to best palm 2 coins of a group has been a big problem and the solutions were "iffy." Palming I from a group best solved by Roth and Howie Schwartzman, but how to get two cleanly ? Most liked the Roth best. I favored the Schwartzman method from BOBO. I used it a lot, so I developed a "touch" that led me to my solution for 2. This technique is to be able to spread a stack of coins on your right fingers of palm up hand TOWARDS yourself with the thumb making even the display before the move 1-handed. Let's review how to get I via the Schwartzman method. AS your right is closing AND TURNING PALM DOWN -SIMULTANEOUSLY- the coins do essentially a ribbon spread turnover, and the closest coin flops into classic palm I You can't just do it palm up. ..the move "tells" The fact that the hand is closing and turning palm down in a kind of swiveling action is what hides it. When thinking of this closing and turning palm down action perhaps recall Slydini's REVOLVE VANISH at the table edge. The actions of the hands are similar, but of course the application and outcome are different. So How to get two ? Well, lets review. You have a stack of 4 coins on R fingers. Use R thumb to spread the stack towards yourself. THEN PAUSE but next use the same thumb to move the coin that is second, ..counting AWAY from yourself, ..a tad closer to you. In other words, slightly closer to the coin that is closest to you. In no way do I mean squared...just closer to squared than it was.

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Now when you do the "revolve" and turnover of spread, the two coins closest to yourself will both flop to classic position. At this point they STILL aren't square but an assist from R ringfinger TIP causes them to be pressed square into classic. The others are loose in the loose fist. Hah!

The idea of holding back 2 has been around a long time. It is only now with this new method for how to do it that the best routine for its use comes into its own. Show four on R. Palm two. Drop the loose two into the L. The audience should believe all four are in L. We're 2 ahead. Make a gesture and produce 1 from R. Pick it up again. Another gesture and the SOUND of 2 in R is caused by crisply Classic Palming the 1st produced against the one still in Classic. Webb's Click Classic Palm. Slap the 2 in L down. Pretend to pick them up but manage to have them extending out of heel of hand for upcoming HPC. As pretend to slap 2 down with R, really keep those 2 palmed and during HPC the 2 from L leak out onto table, seeming to be the 2 from R. Pick these 2 up with R. We're 2 ahead again, and now have all 4 coins in R. Make a gesture with left fist, but don't open it. Produce 3 with R. Pick them up. Make a final gesture with L and OPEN IT to show clean. Produce 4 one by one from R to end.

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Variously known as OVERHAND SHUFFLE, and Milk Shuffle, with CARDS, but when we apply this action to a false shuffle with coins we get a subtle COUNT. AS A FALSE COUNT, counting three as four. In cards we call 3 as 4 a Stanyon Count. I've already explored the Biddle Style grip for this and using the moves from a Biddle False Count for cards…WITH COINS. Here is the same concept with a different grip and different "action". Just imagine the overhand shuffle action with cards and that is the position of the coins and the grip. Get three coins and get the basic grip right, with the right hand. Like "running" single cards into the left and using a peeling action with left thumb, "run" one coin into left. Now, as getting ready to run another…the first coin is stolen behind the stack of two remaining in right…making NOW a total of three in right for just a micro-second because now the "second" coin is peeled. If you experiment with pressure of the left thumb, the noise of the second coin being peeled, even though we stole the first coin…is fine! Then, of course peel two more singles into the left. Audience will think 4 coins are in left hand. CONTEXT: I don't think you should count aloud 1, 2, 3, 4 as you do this, but do it casually as if toying with the coins and let THEM subliminally register the idea of 4. Other issues: Important here is to aim the FACE of coin on audience side of stack in right hand AT the viewers…not the edges of stack. Contemplate on this. I'm mainly thinking platform for this, with silver dollars. Other applications - A 4th coin CAN be hidden in Kaps/Malini Subtlety, Fingerpalm if you curve your fingers a lot, and also a Goshman clip, deep backclip or a backclip between R. 1st and 2nd are all possibilities. In all these cases I'm meaning to have a 4th coin hidden in R as I false count into L. Therefore I'm one ahead. I'm using this in a sequence of vanishes, so I only have 3 that the audience thinks is 4 because of a BIDDLE STYLE false count. The first coin to vanish doesn't even exist - there's a whole newsletter there. "The COIN that Doesn't Exist!" Then the rest vanish one-by-one…see your back issues, and then I bring them back and when I've reproduced 3, I steal one in R Classic and false count the 2 AS 3 into L hand using Biddle Technology again and when I produce the one from R Classic, it is seen by audience to be a 4th coin, them seeing one coin twice.

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This is dropped in L. Then stack is taken by R and I end with this new CHOP style overhand shuffle style count of 3 as 4. *

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Since I do this whole trick AFTER 3-Fly, I probably should tell you how I make the transition from a trick with 3 that really uses 4 to a trick with 4 that really uses 3! At the end of the version I do with 3-Fly, I still have 4 coins IN HAND. When done I get them ALL in R for a jingle when they can't see how many. Then I fingerpalm 2 in R as I take 2 away with L (and jingle) and go to my R pocket with R and ditch one and bring out the other AS IF INTRODUCING A NEW COIN. I show this all around without rushing (as if being sure they don't think I'm trying somehow to do something sneaky and sneak in a new coin.) I think and try to act out in mime "4th coin... New coin... Another coin" and drop this into L. Now I take all in right hand stack and do the Biddle Style false count 3 as 4. All in all the idea is "I did a trick with 3” - 3 Fly, and now by adding 1 coin, I now have 4 and will do a trick with 4 coins In case you do some kind of complete vanish of the 4th coin in YOUR 3-Fly routine, you only have 3 left at end, so to do this kind of a transition to a 4 coin trick that really uses 3, you only have to palm off one as the rest are dropped off or false counted into L, and go to right pocket with palmed coin, bring it out, and act as if this is a new (4th) coin… which when added to the 3 (really two) in L makes 4 (really 3). Clear? I like this whole idea of using the wrong number of coins and false counting…and imaginary coins! And it all evolved because standing we can't lap AND I don't like Topits personally...so you see that if I still loved lapping this would have never been invented, and if I liked Topits, this wouldn't have been invented. So the chances of this style of thought…which is gaining a small following…ever having been invented were slim...

YET IT HAPPENED!

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This is one of the few effects I’ve built from the top down instead of from the bottom up! What happens is a card is "freely" selected. Various approaches possible here, but probably has to be some kind of force that SEEMS fair enough. Card is signed on its BACK by spec. Returned and "lost" in deck. Next an old and mysterious book is introduced. I use Nietzche's BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. Almost any book, magic book (Scott's DISCOVERIE would be fine) or even Sci-Fi. A number is arrived at (again, a force because of the effect to come - but there may be other approaches) but for now let's imagine the Annemann thing with the pad. We go to the page at the number arrived at and lo and behold there is the CARD selected. To end, the card is shown to not only be the same value of the selection, but to BE the selection and does indeed have the signature of the picker on the back. Amen This "EFFECT" has been noticed on high where the real experts and historians live because, not necessarily because of my method, but because of the effect on the audience. Somewhat like card to wallet, but "CARD to BOOK." Which is better? Card to Wallet may seem more difficult or impossible, etc. It is just that the BOOK has such SYMBOLISM for KNOWLEDGE which is one major definition of magic. Imagine the patter possibilities! TWO METHODS by Gregg Webb. Stage and Closeup The challenge mentioned means that YOU should try to think of cleaner ways to achieve the same looking effect (from the audience p.o.v.). For stage I'm using a forcing deck with an odd card at the face with a contrasting color. For stage they can see the body language of the selection process seeming very fair, because with a force deck as mentioned the spec. really does have a free choice as to which card of 51 they choose (true, they are all alike, ..but the viewers don't know that. So instead of getting more procedural to do a force of ONE in 52 (or more risky), I'm going on the FAIR LOOKING feature possible with the force deck. Flash the odd face to as many people as possible…of course. The rest of trick is the same whether stage or close-up. For closeup work you should use a regular deck and some kind of sleight force…Riffle or Dribble Force, for examples. I like the J.K. Hartman force.

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Either way…have card signed on BACK and then control selection to bottom (face) of deck. Readjust deck to be so that face card (the selection) faces your belly while left hand is natural…you could say deck is held face up in dealing position but NECKTIED toward your belly to hide the fact of what is at the face. (In other words, don't flash selection.) Everything else is done with deck still in hand and you can use left thumb and first finger to help in any action to come WITH DECK STILL IN HAND. Now introduce pad with no cardboard. This is one of Annemann's great gifts…the pad looks the same whether you turn it over or not. On the bottom page write a row of numbers that when added give you a particular page number. Turn pad face down before the show. During the show, now, pick pad up and show blank side to be blank and get people from row to write a row of numbers. Don't use people all in one group - they may compare notes - but use people from as widely spaced areas of front row as possible. PICKER of card is still on platform. Be as brisk here as is possible. A few jumping jacks each day without fail will speed this process up admirably. As you return to platform, turn pad over casually during a body turn…then have original PICKER tally the row of numbers giving us a FORCE number. Thank you TED! Now, before the show you have secretly placed a DOUBLE/FACED card that has the force card's value on one side and a card that matches the ODD card at the face of deck proper on the other side so the force card side shows when book is opened. So after number is arrived at, open book and THERE IS THE CARD and take it with right hand. Show book page to PICKER for page number confirmation and set book down. Get spectator to confirm that they picked the same card value. Now the move. As you lower card to deck you bring left hand from necktied position to a palm up position just as card (D/F) is landing on deck. Don't make a move of this. A casual wrist turn is all. The selling of the trick lies in these dynamics! ACT like the trick is over. Even though the audience will not all be sure about what they are supposed to believe at this point. (I don't need to remind you I don't invent for audiences of magicians...I don't). But even in an audience of laymen, there will be a divide. Some will be perfectly happy with the trick if you stood nicely, smiled well enough, and delivered your patter that you wrote to fit yourself nicely and yet there will be the slightly more astute who are wondering if it is supposed to be THE card or just a card LIKE the one so "fairly" picked. Yet, even those will be admitting that it was a fairly entertaining bit of business EITHER WAY. After acting like the trick is over can we get away with casually doing a double turnover on the deck which reveals the SIGNATURE and when pushing the one card off and taking it with right hand, the odd card at the face of deck hasn't changed. (It has, but they don't know it because they now see the odd side of D/F card which hides the regular odd card of the same value at the face of deck during the whole trick.) Here, focus on the signed selection...way away from deck by now. March up and down the platform letting everyone see the signature, give to spectator as a souvenir, and get the audience to give a big round of applause for the PICKER which is really to give closure and to drown out any possible comment the spectator may want to make in our increasingly rude world. Escort the spectator off the stage with a firm but professional hand. Ditch deck in pocket or Champaign bucket and do a non-card item next.

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I read a magician’s article about a dupe selection signature idea recently. Not bad. (I still think the one I ran to be better.) By the way, have you noticed that some writers are not all that great with credits? This fellow failed to notice that his idea began as a Jay Sankey idea with coins! Have you noticed that in some hands the Vernon Transfer becomes the Side-Slip Transfer? Have you noticed in others the Vernon Strip Out Addition becomes the Strip Out Addition? (Do these guys have something against Canadians? Are they hoping that someday people will think it is just the Strip Out Addition and the Transfer ? ?) Onward, my good friend Doug MacGeorge sent me this interesting note about Dry Erase markers. If you have one spec. 's signature really ANYWHERE...could be a card, if you put Magic (frosted) or (invisible) tape ON the dry erase signature...the signature comes AWAY ON the tape. Stick the tape somewhere else ! There's their signature! ! Also works with laminating film, big enough to cover a whole card…trim around card. I'm looking to find frosted tape wide enough to cover a card. How to use this idea in a show? I'm not sure yet but am convinced there is something here. Thanks Doug!

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I was ahead of the curve on some things! I was talking about the impact of Harry Potter and that it should be seen as having a connection with OUR work long before anyone even noticed. Then the big boys noticed and of course I wasn't mentioned. C'est la vie! ! I was talking about the impact of Crossing Over SciFi channel show where John Edward "channels" the dead, inspired by the movie The Sixth Sense, before anybody in magic. I wrote letters to every name in magic early on and no one was even interested. I guess it is not good to be ahead of the curve. A final prediction. In the form of a card trick. I predict a big return to the one-way forcing deck! Can you imagine how strong it could be when someone with the boldness to realize that you don't have to switch decks, you don't have to have cards examined etc., just put in your pocket or briefcase when done. But this bold person WOULD have to have a personality and make whatever they use this deck for SEEM to be a GREAT FEAT. Perhaps I'm ahead of the curve again. I'm thinking along the lines I've spoken of at length away from close-up to standup and it is happening in that you see less and less published where you need the closeup MAT. SO, I am thinking at the least PARLOR or walk around (no table no mat) and hopefully platform or stage. Can you imagine this catching on? Then the Masked Guy will get to reveal "LADIES AND GENTLEmen. DO YOU KNOW THAT CARD TRICK THAT YOU SEE ON EVERY CORNER AND BY EVERY BUTCHER BAKER CANDLESTICK MAKER YOUR LAWYER your GYNECOLOGIST the cop on the beat? "Yes friends...can you imagine...every card is the SAME but EVERY DECK USES A DIFFERENT CARD FOR THE WHOLE DECK...so when you see the next door neighbor do it, well his deck is made up with all one card…but when you see the President do it...chances are it is a different card, yet his deck would be all made up of THAT card. When you see the trick done 50 times a day by the milkman the mail man and their cousins, you get the feeling that it could be any card!” (Because you saw the trick 50 times today you saw probably 50 some cards used.) Do you know what the trick is that will take over the world? SELECTED CARD AT ANY NUMBER. Fair (?) selection and fair return and mixing of deck. Another person calls a number from 1-52. Count hand to hand to that NUMBER, hand that card FACE DOWN TO A THIRD PARTY… and then put REST OF DECK AWAY IN A POCKET! This is important - and then say "this woman right here READ YOUR MIND!” (Lots of pointing to the various parties here) and “THIS WOMAN OVER HERE IS TELEKINETIC! NOW (point to original taker) REVEAL THE CARD YOU ARE THINKING OF!” (Do NOT say SELECTED... We are building up something they will be reconstructing in hindsight - and they will tell people about it LATER, over dinner perhaps and when it will have become "Really, the person was only thinking of a card and there it was.") After the effect, immediately take the denouement take selection and put it in same pocket with rest of deck and with the other hand bring out cig through quarter gaff, or if you have The TIME

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MACHINE, DO THAT and then leave…or just walk away after the trick with the cards and mingling (this is great). Just walk away and go to a different group of people. If someone insists on seeing the cards, just stage whisper "Those people are waiting for me" as you point to a different groups. "They want to see a coin trick"…or simply "screw you" all depending on your personality. But the point being…to deliver this card trick with EXTREME conviction and presentation and true bombast because that is what is important…not the trick REALLY and you leave them with the impression that THEY did it! If you sell it like a Peter Popoff they won't want to know how it really works. The key is the moment when you put the deck proper away and only one card is out. YOU ARE HOME FREE because you don't HAVE to show someone the deck if they ask. JUST IGNORE THEM and do whatever you damn please. I'd say walk briskly away to a new group and do the same trick for them. YOUR

B I G E N D I N G. Yes Virginia there is a big ending.

After you have a lynch mob following you, bring out a deck that is normal from a different pocket but which is set up in the Bart Harding stack taught here (see back issue). SHOW cards not in any order (which lets them see cards all DIFFERENT) and false shuffle or cut and ask for any number from 1-52 and you state a card…"2-S," let's say. Count to the number…show 2-S, give deck one shuffle and give it away as a souvenir. Go out for a smoke! Walk away...good mingling strategy because if you get engaged in conversation it always turns to some nerd asking if you believe in Black Holes in space…as you probably all know. In closing…you will find it an interesting comparison of the two tricks. Magicians will tend not to have faith in the force deck as if it is too obvious. Those magicians are simply misinformed and many really believe that laymen in party mode care. They don’t… But in the final analysis the simple Bart Harding stack effect "Call out any number from 1-52" (Webb) would stand alone, and is probably my favorite trick for real (honest). But, if you have a stooge, you could add a third version with a random deck where you know the location of one card AND SO DOES YOUR STOOGE, would give you three tricks that look alike but are different, to use during an event where you mingle. Later, when different people compare notes, various people would have seen different tricks but they'd think they all saw the same one…"No the cards weren't all the same he showed them to us!” The warped real quarter (wrap in leather - put in a vise - and bend it slightly with a leather covered hammer) that you switch with a palm change is also strong for “in their hands” magic during the same night for some isolated small group. Leave the warped quarter with spec. as souvenir. I'm done. Thanks for watching. On to more standup stuff for platform in SOSOHA.

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Based on SAWA's (of Japan) trick that used a paper bag, which was overlooked temporarily since it was in Mike Skinner's intro to the Sawa book (Kaufman) I pointed it out to David Roth who developed some wonderful variations…not to mention great patter, and one of David's brainstorms was to use a coffee cup instead of the paper bag of the original SAWA. Recently I found I could do this with one hand and I favor this commando method good for loud parties where nobody can hear your words They will burn your hands, but all moves are "burnable." Required: Cup, four silver coins, ONE E. Penny, one Chinese coin. Setup: ALL coins in a R. pocket. Performance: Palm in C. Palm the 4 Silvers. Pick up E. Penny and Chinese at the R. fingers and come out. Cup can be in L. Hand as you icebreak into a group at a table…in which case you'll remain standing or a coffee table when you'll kneel on one knee. Show cup and set it down NEAR you. Put the two coins at the fingertips on table between cup and spectators, where most of the hand magic will happen. When we get to the dropping of coins into cup, we'll come closer to ourselves to do this, then move back to a position in front of cup to continue. This procedure is best to guard the view into cup. If cup is too close to spectators there is a chance of them being able to glance down into cup which will spoil the big ending. With R, pick up E. penny and fingerpalm it as you put R. palm down over cup and drop I silver coin in cup from C. palm. Go straight to Chinese, pick it up, let it clink against E. and drop both coins to table. E. has returned! Repeat this procedure until all silvers are in cup. Reach for Chinese, clink, and drop to table. Now for an interesting paradiddle and clean-up as well as the Big Ending. Pick up E. penny and palm it in R. classic as you pretend to put in L. Act out the vanish of E. penny from L. (so sue me…this part takes BOTH hands) and R with c. palmed E. penny goes to pick up Chinese coin and waves it over cup. Now, follow this interesting dodge to cleanup AND perform big ending. R. goes to right pocket and only drop the Chinese coin in pocket.

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IF YOU DROP ALL 2 OF THE COINS, they will CLINK - not a good thing at this time. At this time the Left hand has dumped the silvers out of cup to the table…our BIG ENDING. NOW use both hands to turn over all 4 silvers so the fact can register that they've seen both sides of all. What is interesting here is that since you went to pocket to ditch Chinese, no one even darling magicians, won't think you are still dirty, but you ARE…just act like your hand isn't palming an English penny, still. Now pick up all silvers with R., the palming hand and NOW go to right pocket and ditch ALL 5 coins. Here an extra 5th clink amongst a bunch of expected clinking will go unnoticed. Not only THAT, but the damn trick RESETS. The man is an idiot savant cleanup god, and I want that on my tombstone. Suggested patter: If you ever have to do this at a dull party when everyone can actually HEAR you, I suggest this chant. "Alms for the poor, alms for the poor, alms for the poor... ALMS FOR ME! THANK YOU LORD!” Or not depending on your religious convictions. In closing, I want to thank all of you who have supported my efforts these 4 years, and I want to point out a few high points. My Magic Card Revisited with the Charles Reynolds corollary, Hit and Run with 7 coins, Pseudo HPC, Transpo HPC, and remember TWITCH? Consider this variation which DOESN'T rely on the Vernon 5 card psych force. Use a FORCE deck! Now you are sure what card they chose…I hope! Bring out a separate packet of 5 or 6 cards and one already has invisible thread attached to a dupe of the force card. They concentrate on their card…and it twitches by moving your body. Al Baker would be proud! By now the force deck is safely in some pocket…where you can have a regular deck as well so if you want to do more cards, it can be extricated instead of the Forceroo. Patter when bringing out the packet to the effect of "I can usually come within 5 or 6 cards...but you'll help me find the exact one." What is great here is that we don't use a reel and make the card float. It just twitches to the most minimal amount possible to show ourselves and the world that less is more. Again, thanks, all best wishes to you all, and may you sell your collections of FEEN-X, FEEN-X:2001, and The Book That Doesn't Exist AND ...S.O.S.O.H.A. - on E-Bay someday and make a lot of money when the rest of the magic world finally catches on.

Bayside, NY

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IMPERSONATION ACES by Gregg Webb This is fun the way JUMPING GEMINI by Darwin Ortiz is fun. A lot happens with just a small packet in the hands and there is a big ending! Effect: The four Aces are removed from a normal deck, and the rest of the deck is put in a pocket. It isn't needed. It is announced that the "lesser" Aces are jealous of how fancy the Ace of Spades is, and therefore, the other Aces like to IMPERSONATE the Ace of Spades. ALL FOUR ACES ARE SHOWN TO LOOK JUST LIKE THE ACE OF SPADES. The magician explains that in a poker game, five cards make up a hand. Spreading the packet face down and a fifth card is seen to have appeared. Not showing this card's face, the magician says, "This fifth card...the SEVEN OF HEARTS also likes to IMPERSONATE the Ace of Spades.” The card is shown to also now look just like the Ace of Spades. Counting AND showing FIVE Aces of Spades, the magician continues, "If you are caught with FIVE ACES OF SPADES in a GAME, you are in BIG TROUBLE, so what I do is to convince the Ace of Clubs to impersonate the Ten of Spades." A Ten of Spades is shown. "Then I get the Ace of Hearts to impersonate the Jack of Spades." A Jack of Spades is shown. "Next, I get the Ace of Diamonds to impersonate the Queen of Spades." A queen of Spades is displayed, "and the Seven of Hearts to impersonate the King of Spades." A King of Spades is shown. “And with the addition of the enviable Ace of Spades, played by HIMSELF, we have a Royal Flush, the hand that can't be beat." AND, YOU ARE CLEAN. History: I created this sequence for myself years ago, with different patter. I remember showing it to Shigeo Futagawa at the time and that he was puzzled when the fifth card appeared. Then I forgot it but lately came across it in my notes but decided to improve the patter. While the moves have existed, and similar routines exist, I'm sure, it is the exact sequence AND the patter that makes for a trick that has the right chemistry to qualify as something you'd really do for people. Set-up: Remove the TEN through the ACE of Spades, AND the three other Aces. Lightly bridge the 10 of Spades concave and in the lengthwise direction. Put the 10-thru-King of Spades cards face down on the deck proper, with the 10 of Spades on TOP. Note: this won't be used to pick up a certain amount off the deck in any way, but for later in the trick. Put the Aces face UP on top of deck. The Ace of Spades should be the LOWERMOST of the face up aces.

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Performance: With deck in left dealing position, spread over at least 8 cards. The Aces will be seen face up, followed by the face down deck. I'll give the complete patter at the end. For now we'll concentrate on learning the trick's mechanics. As you square the cards, get a left pinkie break under the top 8 cards. Pick up the packet of 8 by the right hand using Biddle Grip. The audience should think you just have the Aces. We are going to show the Aces one-by-one, and in the process we will unload three aces back onto the deck, keeping the Ace of Spades and the rest of the Royal Flush cards in play. In many tricks we are told to use a move called ATFUS (Anytime Face Up Switch) but instead I favor using J.K. Hartman's SECRET SUBTRACTION, which is the exact opposite of an old famous move called the (Fred) Braue Secret Addition. We'll use the secret subtraction move three times in a row. ATFUS removes the three at one time, but I feel the J.K. Hartman used the way I'll teach is more consistent. Use the left thumb to peel the first Ace off the packet and onto the deck. Use the right hand's packet to lever the Ace face down and then push it UNDER the right hand packet but keep a ball of thumb break with right thumb between this face down Ace and rest of packet. Now you can raise right hand to flash the Ace to the viewers. Next, as you go to peel the next Ace, you unload the "broken" Ace ONTO the deck and then peel the next Ace and proceed to do all the above actions again. Flip Ace face down and push it under packet, keeping a break. Raise right hand to show it. Repeat the above, unloading the third Ace onto deck. At this point the Ace of Spades is face up on a face-down packet that only contains the royal flush. Peel the Ace of Spades, but you don't have to unload anything. Turn it face down and push it under packet. Pocket the deck in a left pocket. We're done with it. SHOWING FOUR ACES OF SPADES The sequence to come is Larry Jennings' handling of an Ed Marlo concept and the use of the longitudinal bridge to help with the "pinkie pull down" technique is my innovation. First off, we want to move the 10 of Spades with the slight crimp to the BOTTOM of the packet, just below the Ace, from the top. I get a break under the top card, the 10, and double undercut it to bottom. We're ready. Pull down the crimped card with left pinkie so you can turn a block of four, squared as if only one card, over faceup onto the one card remaining face down in left mechanic's grip or "dealing position." Turn the quadruple face down with the same technique. Take the TOP single card between right thumb and first finger as if this is the card they were just shown. Repeat the pull down technique to allow your right fingers to turn over a "triple" as one, again showing the Ace. The card in your right hand, which mustn't flash, won't hamper this action much. You'll get it with a bit of practice. Turn the triple face down onto "packet" and take the top card as if it were another Ace UNDER the card in right hand, making a fan of two cards.

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Now, even though you hold two cards with your right thumb and first finger, you must use your other fingers to turn over a double, squared, face up on the left's packet. The Ace shows again. Using the same "pull down" technique always, turn the double face down on the packet and push over only the top card and take it under the two in the right hand, making a fan of three. The two in the left hand must stay squared as if one card. This double is placed on TOP of the right hand's card and all is squared. Turn up the top SINGLE card and show a "fourth" Ace. Turn it face down. We owe a great deal to the memory of the late great Larry Jennings for this beautiful sequence. Now I double undercut the top face down card to the bottom. SHOWING FIVE ACES The next sequence, to show supposedly 5 Aces is the work of Bro. John Hamman, and is called the Flushtration Count. First we must make the fifth card appear. Up until now we've been careful to keep the fifth card squared and hidden. Now simply spread out five face down cards and take the lower one with your left hand and hold it towards yourself and here you'll be miscalling it as the seven of hearts, then saying IT TOO likes to impersonate the Ace of Spades. Then show it to the audience as the Ace. Put this card face down UNDER the other cards in your right hand and square. For the Flushtration Count take the packet in Biddle Grip with the right hand and rotate it so the Ace at the face can be seen by the audience. Return the packet to a face down position and peel the top card into the left hand. Now just repeat this four more times. In between each "peel" into the left hand there is a flash to the audience of the Ace of Spades at the face of the packet. The move has a discrepancy in that the card they are shown and the card peeled are not the same. Yet, when done at the right tempo (briskly) an optical illusion occurs, especially to non-magicians, and it LOOKS like 5 Aces of Spades or whatever card you may use in other tricks. The Flushtration Count is a utility move that is time-honored and a standard technique in card magic. Now all you have to do is reveal the changes to the Royal Flush one card at a time. FULL PATTER “I once got all four aces in a poker game. I want to tell you what happened. I didn't realize that the Ace of Clubs, the Ace of Diamonds, the Ace of Hearts especially, are jealous of how fancy the Ace of Spades is...so they like to IMPERSONATE the Ace of Spades. "When I looked at my hand again, there were one, two, three and four Aces of Spades. "In a poker game you get five cards, ..so when I got my fifth card. ..the Seven of Hearts, it too wanted to impersonate the Ace of Spades. "When I looked at my hand again there were one, two, three, four, and five Aces of Spades.”

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"IF YOU GET CAUGHT WITH FIVE ACES OF SPADES IN YOUR HAND IN A GAME, THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING!” "So I convinced the Ace of Clubs to impersonate a different card, the TEN OF SPADES. Then I convinced the Ace of Hearts to impersonate the Jack of Spades. I talked the Ace of Diamonds into changing to the Queen of Spades, and the Seven of Hearts into looking like the King of Spades instead. "And, with the original enviable Ace of Spades HIMSELF, we have a Royal Flush in Spades… hand that can't be beat!”

THE AFTERBURNER You'll have to practice AND rehearse this to get the patter to "GO" with the moves. The moves aren't hard, especially if you use the longitudinal bow on the bottom card of packet to make pulling one card only down for each block turnover of the Diminishing Lifts (turnovers) Sequence. If you like to write patter, you might want to try a story line about IDENTITY THEFT! - fin Gregg Webb Bayside, NY

Copyright © 2003 Gregg Webb