Think Nguyen - Signs

SIGNS, Copyright © by Think Nguyen First edition PDF, April 2020 All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be recorded, reproduced, transmitted, translated, distributed or communicated in any form without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Print for personal use only

QUICK DESCRIPTION A casual demonstration of the interconnected signs that we see around us. Using a deck of cards (lol)

THE EXPERIENCE The magician (M) The spectator (S)

M : Signs are everywhere around us. The moment we pay attention to it, we start to see them. If I ask you a number between 1 and 10 ?

S:3

M : Well, if I ask you why 3 ? you would have no idea why right ? Let’s try this. You’ll see that somehow, there is a reason why 3. Start shuffling the cards. And actually let’s shuffle the cards face up and face down. While you are doing this. Do you want the red cards or the black cards ?

S : Red cards

M : Alright, I don’t want to touch. Keep the cards in your hands and start taking out all the red cards you can see. I will take out the black cards out for myself. Let’s count your red cards and my black ones. 1,2,3,…

Oh, wait, you have more cards than me. How many more ? 3 ?! Was it not the number you mentioned earlier ?

THE SECRET It’s totally impromptu It’s based on a Self-working principle You don’t really need to touch the cards It can be any number between one and ten Spectators can shuffle at any moment during the process

THE PRINCIPLE1 Cut the cards in 26/26 and shuffle half of it face up into the face down pile. Pile 1 : Choose any two suits (let’s say Diamonds and Clubs) from one face and take them out of the deck. Pile 2 : Turn the deck over. And take out from the other face of the deck the cards from the suits you have not chosen. (thus, Hearts and Spades). You should have the exact same number of cards in pile 1 and 2 . It’s self-working !

TWITCHING THE PRINCIPLE In the routine, to make it less confusing, I prefer for the spectator to choose either red cards or black cards. In doing so, they are automatically choosing two suits.

At the moment of shuffling the cards face up and face down. If your S says 3, all you have to do is 26-3= 23. You shuffle 23 cards face up into the face down pile. 26-spectator’number = the number of cards you have to turn over

For the Pile 2 you need to turn the deck over, remember ? In order to do that I like to throw in a shuffle which looks very deceptive when the cards are face up and face down (that shuffle can be done by your spectator if you wish…). And all it does is actually turning the whole deck over while retaining the whole order. (You can use it when doing mem-deck work. You welcome ;) )

1

In the routine Chomatic caper. More Self-working card tricks. Karl Fulves.

THE FALSE SHUFFLE2 Hold the cards in mechanics grip and start spreading a few cards in your hands. step 1 : Take a few cards, turn your hand palm down (directed towards the table) and leave the cards on the table. step 2 : Always with your hand palm down, grab another bunch of cards. Turn this time your palm upwards and throw this bunch of cards on the pile already on the table. step3 : repeat step 1 and 2 till you have no cards in your hands anymore.

As I’ve said earlier, this mixing procedure retain the whole order(even though it’s not needed here) and flip the deck the other way. This mixing also justify and solve the discrepancy that shows that there are still red cards in the deck (if the spectator chose red) while you take out the black cards.

2

You can find a description of that false mixing in Tangled Web, by Eric Mead.

QUESTIONS and ANSWERS Is it similar to Karl Fulves’s routine ? Nop, not at all. In my opinion it’s more streamlined and usually magicians don’t recognize the principle anymore.

Any other details I should know ? Yeh, during the whole process, you can let the spectator shuffle or switch his choice to red or black cards. Cause in the end, there will always be 3 cards less or 3 cards more (depending on your spectator’s choice of number).

Any idea for a follow up to the routine ? If your spectators are hungry for more (magic hungry b*tches !), of course you can follow up with other routines. If they said 3 at the start. You can imagine culling the 3’s and find them using skills. Or you can make them touch 4 cards from a shuffle deck and it’s the 3’s ! (check CARRE in the coffee series.)