The boys on the front cover may not be of the best looking calibre, that is, as far as sketches go, but as a clan of conjuror thinking magi they can be depended upon to break down any problem of magic submitted to their collective brains. This elite crew of mystical trouble shooters are engaged in modernizing, by method, some of the classics. In the Jinx #73, the effect of rising cards was rather well taken care of, and in the present issue the effect of a torn and restored strip of paper will be made to look more attractive to magicians than it has generally appeared to the spectators.
Scene : A meeting of the Thirteen. Number Two says : “What this country needs is a really clean-cut torn and restored paper, a method that completely eliminates body moves, a method that allows the performer to pass the restored strip out to his audience immediately with hands that are perfectly empty.”
Scene II. One month later. Another meeting of The Inscrutable Thirteen. Number Five (me) says : “Solution to your torn and restored paper problem coming up, Number Two. Watch it. Here are several strips of paper (30 x 3 inch tissue.). Look them over and give me one.”
N° Five took the strip given him in his obviously empty hands, held it at its ends between thumb and forefinger of each hand, and tore it until it was reduced to two-inch squares.
He took these between his right thumb and finger, showed them on all sides and closed his empty left hand into a fist. Carelessly he stuffed the torn pieces into the fist. “Now all I need to do,” he added, “is make one small cabalistic pass. Like this.”
He pulled the paper from the fist in a long restored strip. Then he reached across to the nearest member of his audience, three feet away, and passed out the restored paper. His left fist remained closed. Then he said “You know, of course, that I must have used two pieces of paper. Except for an occasional tribe of Ubangi savages – and I may get sued for saying even that – there are no audiences in this day and age who believe that the conjuror actually restores the paper. Instead, if they are fooled at all, they wonder how and where he got rid of the torn pieces. I’ll tell you how I do it. I don’t get rid of them at all. I simply make them invisible — like this.” N° Five opened his left hand. It was quite empty. “I’ll pass out these torn but invisible pieces as souvenirs. Here’s one for you, and you and you. You can save them as positive proof of the miracle that you have just witnessed. Don’t mention it at all.”
This method, from the audience point of view (in my opinion the cleanest and fairest method there is) has brought a dazed look to the face of more than one magician. If the method sounds silly on paper just remember that there’s not a single phony move, the hands at all times seem to be quite empty and the paper may be examined before and after. What more do you want ?
When N° Two posed the problem, he said he wanted a pull, but one that he didn’t have to go after. It occurred to me that if the pull was in his hand all the time, BUT INVISIBLE, his prayer would be answered. The customary method of making an object invisible is to disguise it as something else, something so innocent and ordinary that the audience won’t notice it. That being so why not make the pull invisible by disguising it as a thumb – in short, convert a thumb tip into a pull ? Well, why not ?
If you and you want to know : “Why bother ? Why not use a thumb tip as is ?” the answer is : (1) Too damn many laymen know what thumb tips are and when to watch for them. (2) Even if your audience isn’t that well informed, you cannot approach them and show your hands WITH PERFECT FREEDOM without making a getaway, which is what N° Two wanted to eliminate.
And so – I punched a small hole in the end of a loose-fitting thumb tip, threaded in an eight inch length of flesh colored catgut, and secured it on the inside. I tied it to a piece of matchstick and put adhesive in the tip to keep it secure. Or, if you use the pull for a lighted cigarette vanish as you can, you’d better use a metal cross bar and secure it with aluminum cement. The other end of the gut attaches to the usual elastic which leads either up the sleeve or under the coat. Up the sleeve gives you more freedom of movement with the hand — under the coat allows you to get the pull onto the thumb when you go to your vest pocket for the paper. Take your choice according to the conditions under which you are working.
Place the folded paper in the tip beneath the ball of the thumb. Hold the paper with the left thumb and forefinger, thumb behind the paper. The whole routine may be done at very close range; the tip is hidden nearly all the time anyway.
While tearing, allow the palms of the hands to be seen. When the tearing is completed hold the pieces in the left fingers for a moment and then transfer them to the right hand. Double the left thumb into the palm and form a fist around it. Pull the thumb out of the tip bringing the folded paper up over the edge into the hand. A previously moistened thumb aids this move. Poke the torn pieces carelessly into the tip, make your magical pass, reach in and get a corner of the folded strip and start pulling it out. Fold it originally in half-inch accordian-pleat folds so that it unrolls automatically. As the strip’s end clears the hand keep it moving toward the right, follow it with your eyes and let the pull go. YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY OPEN YOUR LEFT HAND, STEP FORWARD AND HAND OUT THE PAPER WITH BOTH HANDS EMPTY, or you can leave the fist closed for a moment and use the patter as given heretofore.
Use a paper of a size and thickness that requires the torn pieces to be forced into the tip. The tip hangs open end down and this prevents the pieces from falling out. Attaching the gut to the thumb tip’s other end is impractical as experiment will show. The thinner the paper, the larger the strip. I use a 30 x 3 inch strip of colored tissue.
This invisible pull also does an extremely neat job of vanishing an 11 inch silk. If you can find a magician who isn’t a Jinx reader, follow your vanish with a couple of phony change over moves as if you were using the usual gimmick. Then show the hands empty !
Gum scotch-tape into the tip, sticky side out, and vanish a cigarette. You can get away with two at once since you don’t have to save room for your thumb, but don’t let the lighted end hit the scotch tape before it is snuffed out. Now make all the usual thumb tip moves except the get-away and watch them eye your thumb at close quarters. It’s just what the doctor ordered for that guy who saw the pitchman selling thumb tips on Broadway and knows all about it. In fact, if enough of you use this pull, we may be able to educate audiences to the fact that magicians have found a better method than the thumb tip. Then we can go back using it again – without the pull !
If you turn up any further uses for this indispensable and curious single gimmick that grew where two grew before, send them in. I suspect the apparatus may have a rosy future. You’re going to see a lot of it on my thumb, at any rate — if you look very very closely.
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