Write No Write- Wayne Dobson

DTRIK THE MAGIC OF WAYNE DOBSON PRESENTS

Some ten years ago I was experimenting with a doubleended pen for my ECHO routine, but for one reason or another I didnʻt run with the idea at that time. Then recently ‘Britainʻs Got Talentʻ finalist Marc Spelmann (or is he Mr X?!) reminded me of the principle, and it was Marc who prodded me to revisit the apparatus. The application of a dry pencil was included in ‘Thurston's Book Of Magicʻ as far back as 1933! Iʻm delighted that Marc has let us have one of his prized hints on how to make use of this utility device, alongside a couple of routines of my own.

Wayne ~1~

Take A Seat DTRIK THE MAGIC OF WAYNE DOBSON PRESENTS

Wayne turns his attention to mentalism, and has developed a brilliant yet simple utility device for the working mentalist. It is a double-ended Sharpie: one end writes normally, the other does not write at all. It gets better though... unlike many other gimmicked sharpies on the market you can show the pen writes as normal at the outset, then switch it to hand the spectator a pen that will not write. Or, if it suits your working practice, you can do it the other way round. You can even end up with the pen back to writing again if you so wish. Experienced mentalists will immediately recognise the value of such a tool, and will also welcome the simplicity of the manufacture and working. Each Sharpie is carefully and lovingly hand-made. It’s another dtrik exclusive for discerning mentalists everywhere.

© Wayne Dobson, UK, 2019. All rights strictly reserved and protected.

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The Sharpie This won’t take long: it is a Sharpie pen that has been made with a sharpie nib at each end. One nib writes as normal... the other is dry and so will not write at all. The pen cap is placed on one end or the other to conceal the existence of the second nib - Figure 1:

The Drummer’s Twirl Mike Sullivan discovered a neat way to switch the pen nibs under cover of capping and uncapping the pen. It’s not a sleight as such - it is similar to the twirl drummers use to revolve their drumsticks - in their case it is an open flourish. Mike took that and adapted it to a natural sequence of events with the pen. In essence, as you go to cap the pen on its back end, you revolve the pen end-for-end. To begin with, the pen is in your hand between the thumb and fingertips, the end bearing the lid protruding upwards, the presence of the second tip concealed in your curled fingers - Figure 2. As you go to replace the cap on the top nib of the pen, the hand gripping the pen quickly revolves the pen around the middle, ring and forefingers, just like a drummer twirling his drumstick; Figure 3 freezes this twirling action half-way.

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WRITE NOT RIGHT TWO FACED

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Handling As a performing mentalist you will already be aware of the many routines in the literature that use this principle. For the purposes of description, in advance of performing circle a word with the Sharpie on a page of the book, directory or magazine you are using for the test. Let’s assume this circling appears on page 35 of the magazine; pick a couple of words near the centre of the page, one long word next to a short word, and draw the circle roughly. Don’t make it too neat, since in practice they will be making their circle very roughly as it is unseen to them; in fact Wayne would draw the circle so it cuts into the final letter of the word to make it look realistic. Remember the two words. Cut page 33 short along its long length, by around a quarter of an inch. Have the pen cap over the writing end, and place this in your breast pocket, allowing the cap to stick up out of the mouth of the pocket. Hold the magazine open on your opened right hand, your left fingers and thumb gripping the outer long edge of the magazine so you can riffle through the pages with your thumb. Riffle briefly as you introduce the effect, glancing through the contents as the pages fly by.

Stop the riffling at the short page - which it will do automatically, just like using a short key card in a deck. Open to show pages 32 and 33, folding back the cover on itself so page 32 is uppermost. Take out the pen from your pocket, concealing the hidden nib. Grip the body of the Sharpie as in Figure 2; take off the cap, clipping it between your fore-and middle fingers (like holding a cigarette) and continue to grip the pen with the nib now protruding from the top of your loose fist. Pick up the folded magazine, invert it so page 32 is beneath the horizontal magazine facing downwards, and with the hand holding the pen draw a circle on the page. Emphasise that the page is face-down and you have no idea where the circle is being drawn, so it is a random positioning. Turn the magazine over to show where your circle landed, and that it envelopes a small number of words.

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WRITE NOT TWO–FACED WRITE NOTRIGHT RIGHT Turn the page over, and page 35 with its pre-drawn circle will show so be careful not to flash - keep the folded magazine with this page facing downwards. During this process you will have had all the time in the world to secretly twirl the pen in your hand to switch the nib ends. Bringing the dry end uppermost. Place the cap on the hidden end in your hand. Now it looks like a normal pen, with a cap on one end, and they have just seen you write with the pen - a real convincer. Hand the pen to the spectator assisting spectator, get him to hold it in his closed fist with the nib sticking up out of your fist opening. Move the magazine above the nib of the pen, and ask him to draw a circle “...not too big, mind” on the page. He will find this slightly awkward, but hand him the magazine as you take the pen from him. He turns the magazine over to see where he placed his circle apparently at random... see Figure 4. In practice he is faced with your pre-drawn circle; “Look for the word or words within your circle. I’m getting more than one word, is that right? Concentrate on the longer of the two words...” Reveal the long word. Then as a small kicker you tell them the other, shorter, word.

If you prefer, you can hand him the magazine behind his back, so again the positioning of his circle is random and unseen. Wayne found that in practice this could be rather awkward and ungainly for the spectator - you do not want him dropping the magazine, or fumbling and ‘drawing’ too large a circle. To reset the pen, under the cover of him reading this out or showing it around to his neighbours, slip the cap off the lower end of the pen, twirl switch the end as you cap the top end of the pen, which you replace in your breast pocket. If you are so inclined you could tear out the magazine page and let him keep it as a souvenir.

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Figure 4

Additional Handling Notes ~ Marc Spelmann I love Wayne’s application of a great principle - it is so versatile. In my pocket I have the ink end capped and the dry end is open facing downwards in my pocket. I bring the pen out hiding the open bottom end within my hand as I remove the cap off of the ink end. The cap is placed over the dry end within my hand and the pen is handled casually as everything is ready for the spectator to use. They can now sign things in the normal way with a fully-functioning pen. To switch to the dry end, I momentarily hold both ends of the pen with both hands. I secretly remove the cap and gesture with the pen in a ‘top change’ kind of action. The cap is now secretly in my left hand and the pen has both ends open but my hand is covering the dry end.

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WRITE NOT RIGHT I now secretly place the ink end of the pen into the cap as I’m speaking; no one remembers the orientation of the pen. I remove the pen from my hand and gesture. It seems as though I have been casually chatting whilst gesturing with the pen and moved it from hand-to-hand but in that action the cap has been removed and placed on the opposite end. When I have apparently finished with the pen I mime/fake-take the cap off one end and place it on the open end. This is so casual as it immediately goes into my pocket, reset for the next performance. In close-up it is so easy to do, if at tables I do the dirty work behind guests’ backs! If they are circling a word blindly or putting an X on a page, I’ll routine it as follows: They have a page or piece of paper they are going to mark. I bring the pen out and they sign the page. I take the pen from them as I countersign the page; this gives me a reason to take back the pen. I use a line where I say, “It’s worth about 20p more on eBay now.” As people laugh I do the switch; it’s such a non-move: it’s all in the attitude and body language. When on stage or parlour, I’ll get someone to sign a page, piece of paper, etc. on one side of the stage and as an afterthought I’ll invite them across the stage towards a live feed camera so everyone can ‘see’. This is when the work is done. If there is no live feed I’ll use another spectator onstage as an excuse to move or to show someone in the audience. There are so many moments when you can switch the cap end-forend. You must simply remember all you are doing is taking a cap off one end of a pen and putting on the other end. There are various rationales for this, justify your movements as you would if you topchanged, switched a lemon or stole a watch. You can also do the dirty work behind a clipboard, or newspaper or something similar. I’ve also done it simply as I’ve turned to talk to someone else.

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Spot Card ~ Wayne This is based upon a wonderful card routine that was a favourite of the late, great Ken Brooke, who credited the core effect to Francis Carlyle; it was a sort of forerunner of ‘The Anniversary Card’. It utilised a couple of sleights, as Carlyle was an accomplished card mechanic; in this version the use of the Write/Not Right Sharpie makes it virtually move-free. A spectator signs the back of the top card of the shuffled deck and shuffles it into the deck. Taking the deck behind their back, they’re requested to cut or shuffle the deck, turn it face-up, take the pen behind their back and draw a small cross on the face of whichever face card is randomly found on the face of the shuffled deck. They cut the deck and complete the cut, losing their crossed card somewhere within the deck. Spreading the deck face-up in a wide ribbon, the card bearing the cross is found somewhere in the centre of the spread. Taking it out, you turn it over and guess what? It’s the self-same card they signed at the outset! This is simply told. Have a normal deck; start by scribing a small, roughly-drawn cross on the face of any card. If you want to be truly authentic, you could hold the card behind your pack and draw the cross off-centre! Introduce the deck and give it a shuffle, retaining the top card in place on the top. Take out the Write/Not Right Sharpie, taking off the cap from the writing nib and replacing it on the back end of the pen behind your fingers, thereby covering the blank nib. Invite a hapless spectator to sign the back of the top card with the pen: thus proving it genuinely writes without being so crass as to mention it. Take the pen back from the spectator when they’ve finished signing, switching the ends as you replace the cap (as detailed earlier) and place the pen on the table or in your breast pocket, dry-nib facing upwards. Cut the deck, and shuffle it briefly. Hand the deck to the spectator, and instruct them to place it behind their back and hold it in one hand. Ask them to shuffle or cut the deck behind their back, then to turn it face-up. Hand them the pen and ask them to, “...make a small

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WRITE NOT RIGHT cross the size of a ten pence piece.” Mime this so there is no room for misunderstanding - what you’re asking them to do can be really awkward for the average layperson. Having done so they return the pen to you - and you switch the cap back onto the ‘normal’ nib end as you place it down or pocket it - and get them to cut the deck once and complete the cut. Explain that this places their crossed card, “somewhere in the middle of the deck.” It only remains for you to spread the deck in a wide face-up ribbonspread on the table, and get them to hunt through for the card with the cross; this takes them a few seconds, adding to the suggestion the card is randomly lost somewhere amidst the deck. Turn the card over to show they hit on the same card. If you insist on a final convincer you could take up the pen (which now writes once more) and use it to circle their cross as if by way of emphasis. Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

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Smiley Face ~ Wayne This has a cuteness value that I really like; it also seems an organic type of effect. To set up, draw a prediction on the back of a business card with one eye out of position - see Figure 7. Don’t be tempted to make it a perfect face: to get them to position the pen in just the right spot would be too perfect an effect and just not believable. This way you are predicting what seems a genuinely random result. Have a stack of matching business cards with blank backs. On the rear of the top card of this stack (business-side upwards) draw a nearduplicate of your prediction, this time with a ‘wonky’ second eye Figure 6. This lies, blank-side down, on top of the stack. Introduce your prediction and place it, still face-down, on the table or protruding from your breast pocket. Take out the Sharpie, taking off the cap from the writing nib and replacing it on the back end of the pen behind your fingers, thereby covering the blank nib. Double Lift and turn over the top two business cards, depositing them as one on the stack. Draw a smiley face but missing one eye... Figure 5 on the top surface. In the process you are implicitly demonstrating that it writes as normal. Switch the ends as you replace the cap (as detailed earlier) and hand the (now dry) pen to the spectator. Turn the two cards over as one onto the top of the stack, then peel off the top card (matching your prediction) as you ask them to hold the pen with the nib facing upwards protruding from their closed fist. Hold it out in front of them, with the back of the card bearing the drawing a few centimetres above the nib. Start to move the card in a circular motion over their pen, which they’re holding rigid upwards. Ask them to tell you when to stop, whereupon you freeze the position of the card and ask them to poke the pen nib upwards so it touches the card, making a spot mark, then place the card on the table (or their outstretched palm) as you put the pen away, switching nibs in the process and thereby resetting it. Turn the card over to reveal where they stabbed the pen - and the situation depicted in Figure 6 faces them; they completed the offkilter emoji - as a random stabbing of the card would produce. Finish by showing your prediction matches exactly - a magical and funny climax. If you carry a supply of prediction cards you can quickly reset for walkaround performances.

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