Everyone, I think, likes to see a good trick performed. Many times, though, I have seen a clever performer, who could do the most difficult things with ease, fail to intrigue his audience for the reason that the tricks didn’t join each other smoothly. The subconscious impression left behind was that his act lacked direction. In the theatrical profession good direction is necessary always in order that one’s talents be brought out to best advantage. In the history of the business very few people ever have been able to direct themselves.
I have liked magic since I was old enough to know that it meant, roughly, something vanishing or appearing. It is the challenge of it all that holds my attention and thought. Not having the time, and quite possibly the digital agility, the tricks requiring skilled action have eluded me. However, at parties and little get-togethers, my fancy for bewildering and puzzling people has given me a few simple tricks which I have gleaned from one place or another. They may not sound so mysterious to your readers, but I can assure you that they are veterans in use and have made many well known thinkers worry about how they might be done. And, after all, isn’t that what a legerdemainist is supposed to do? Loot a spectator’s mind of all his reasoning powers?
One of the first little cheating mysteries with which I upset not a few was a stunt where someone touched an article while I was out of the room behind a closed door. On my return a grand display of thought would be climaxed by getting the article and locating he who had touched it. Of course, this isn’t to be performed any time or place. And that’s pertinent. Most talked of tricks flourish under impromptu circumstances. Take advantage of what is at hand and make the most of it. A bunch of loose articles, eight or ten, were taken from around a room and put on a card table. But the keyhole in the door was my secret. I had set the table in range and called for lots of gadgets. Then I made much ado about being escorted into the other room.
And could I locate a chosen card under impossible circumstances? Anyone took any deck into another room, put it face down on the table, took out any card and put it with its face up next to the deck. He was to repeat the name of the chosen card three times and wind up with “Abracadabra.” Replacing the card he would shuffle them well. I would go into the room after him and return holding the very same card selected by the astonished spectator. Was everybody bewildered? All but one. That one was always a close friend who had left the room a few minutes before unnoticed by the party. He or she simply and literally stowed away in the room to be used and spied upon the proceedings, telling me the name of the card when I went in. More times than not this can be done in strange homes. The person who does the selecting is all wrapped up in the trick and doesn’t consider searching the corners. I’ve even used the keyhole idea again, having my secret operative get the information from an adjoining room. But it fooled a great many guests.
Someone gave me a cute card once with a fortune teller’s head and a dial arrangement which could be set at one’s birthdate. In an adjacent slot a number showed up which represented the person’s fortune. (I’ll have to look these up. Ed.) I’d leave the card on a dressing table and set it for January 1. After someone would be in and out of the room I’d check and better than half of the time the card would be set at a new date. That meant but one thing. The birth date of that person. Later, during the party, I’d turn over a fish bowl and have someone (but always the one I knew) write the month of birth on a piece of paper and the day of birth on another. They would twist and fold aplenty but after each piece was burned I would reveal the contents correctly. A miracle? No. Just taking advantage of a weakness within everybody. When it comes to fortune telling of any kind, people will always be interested. Especially if alone!
If I’m not using too much space or time, I would like to explain my best card trick. (For your first paragraph you can say anything. Ed.) Before I came to Los Angeles I had a game which used three dice. At one time or another someone explained that the most common total with the three dice was either 10 or 11. I remembered this and mentioned it to an amateur magician who said it was good for a trick. Someone takes a card, looks at it, and puts it back. While the card is away, the magician fans the deck and counts ten cards, holding them open so the selected card is replaced eleventh from the top. It was also shown to me that if one uses the interlacing shuffle it can be made so as not to interfere with these eleven cards.
Now the dice are shown. The magician shakes them and rolls them out, quickly adding the spots in his mind. If 10 or 11, the trick is done right then and there. The spectator counts off ten cards and turns over the next one, or counts to the eleventh and turns that up. But, if 10 or 11 do not turn up on that roll, the magician merely calls the total and asks one of the spectators to try. If it turns up on the second roll, that does it. But if not, the performer calls the new total and says that that is proof that a different number turns up each time and that the dice are not fixed. This paves the way for a third roll. In about eight years I don’t think I’ve failed more than twice. The percentage is very strong. When I have not succeeded in getting 10 or 11 by the third roll I have had to give up. Perhaps some of your readers, Mr. Annemann, those much more acquainted with the tricks of the trade than I, can figure out what to do after the third roll. I would like to know myself.
I hope I haven’t given you tricks which are old and well known to those who make a profession of magic. On occasion I have fooled a number of well-read and active tricksters. And I am going to try and keep on doing it, too.
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