The performer picks up a fair size ball of wool with a pair of knitting needles through it, saying, “My grandmother used to be quite renowned in our village because of her ability to tell fortunes. I never could get her to read the cards for me because she said I was too young to understand. That she did possess some weird powers was believable, though, for night after night, at bed time, and while she was knitting, she’d call me to her, ask if I had studied my school lessons, and then do the very thing I’m going to try for you now. Several years ago we cleaned out a lot of accumulated boxes at home and I found this wool and set of needles. Memory of those mysterious nights came back, and in the same box I found some of the tags she had used. I also discovered the secret of that childhood miracle.”
The performer has replaced the ball of wool on his table, and from his pocket has taken a blank card and a lead pencil. He selects two persons as subjects. One is asked to name a number from 1 to 1,000,000. The other is asked to name any color. The performer writes both the number and color on the card, leaving it with the spectators as a check.
Returning to the table he picks up the ball of wool, withdraws the needles, and hands it to a third spectator together with a glass bowl or dish. The spectator puts the ball into the bowl and unreels the wool. In the center of the ball is discovered a cardboard key tag. On one side is written the chosen number, and on the other side is found the selected color! As the performer says, “Every night I’d wind up a brand new skein of wool into a ball. The next night my grandmother would use what was left of it to mystify me completely. Not until years later did I realize that she had effectively gotten me to wind her wool without complaint.”
Of course, the reader has beaten me to the denouement, at least part of it. The coin slide comes back into a somewhat new use, but instead of a coin, Dennison or stationery store circular tags about quarter or shilling size (with metal edge) are used. The knitting needle part is an effective cover for the chicanery.
The ball of wool is first wound around the tube in the regular way, leaving a good inch of the tube sticking out. The needles are now pushed through the ball just against the flat side of the tube and about a half inch apart. Such a prepared ball may be picked up and shown for a minute, the fingers on one hand hiding the tube which would hardly be seen anyway, for the yarn is dark red or blue, the needles white, and the tube black. The cardboard disc is also white.
The wool is returned to the table and the card and pencil taken from pocket. As they are taken out with the left hand, the disc is finger palmed out also. The card may carelessly be shown both sides with the disc concealed, but it isn’t necessary. When a number is named you hold the card in front of yourself and put it down. The disc is held against the card and the number is written on that, too. You stall a bit for action by asking the number to be repeated. Then the disc is turned over while asking a color of the second person. This, too, is written on both the disc and card.
The card is taken in right hand and given to someone, the disc remaining right finger palmed. The performer steps up to the table, lets his left fingers touch the top of the ball (which holds it steadily) and the right fingers then pick up the ball from the back, which action allows the finger palmed disc to slide through the tube. With the ball picked up, the performer swings to the left to face the audience. The right fingers curl around the protruding tube AND THE NEEDLES. With one move, the needles, AND the tube, are withdrawn from ball and put aside.
From here on, the mechanics of the effect are over. It depends entirely upon the individual performer’s showmanship and sincerity to make the watchers believe in grandma’s prowess.
Immediately following that last oddity (I like them together) the performer relates that, as time went on, and the seed of mystery grew within himself and he developed a strange idea to perfection, he always looked back to wish that he might have astonished grandmother immediately after she had bewildered him.
The performer shows a piece of white tissue to be clean and blank on both sides. It is held at the fingertips, the hands seen to be otherwise undoubtedly empty, and rolled into a ball which is dropped, with unmistakably no exchange, into the bowl or dish used previously to hold the ball of yarn.
A spectator is brought forward, and from a pack of well shuffled cards one is chosen in as fair a way as possible. Climax. The performer opens the rolled paper at his fingertips to reveal in large black letters the name of the selected pasteboard.
The two parts of this test are, of course, the choice (?) of a card and the appearance of writing on the paper. Both are exceedingly subtle. Let’s start with the paper. Harlan Tarbell once devised a torn and restored paper effect titled Phanteario. We are using that principle without tearing the paper. Take two pieces of white tissue about 3 by 6 inches. Place them together.
At a spot 1 1/2 inches from one end, and at the center of the width, put a daub of library paste the size of a tack head between the two papers. Press them together and let dry. Next crumple one of the papers from all corners into a tight and compact ball resting at its pasted point. Hold the finished product in the left hand with second finger in front and thumb behind directly on top and pressing down on the crumpled ball. The other fingers are kept open and, in this way, the single sheet of paper can be shown freely on both sides and against a light.
In working, the open sheet was torn and balled up. The two pieces could then be tossed into the air to appear as but one bundle, and, finally, the whole sheet was opened. The left thumb covered the torn and balled pieces while the restored (?) paper was shown both sides as at first.
There is no tearing done here, however. Before crumpling up the first sheet behind, the name of a card is crayoned heavily upon it. It can be seen now, that, after showing the blank piece, the performer can very openly and cleanly wad it up and toss it, without exchange, into a glass or bowl. Then, when he opens out the other paper, the wordage makes its appearance.
The force is excellently provided by HERB. RUNGIE, who has termed it A ‘TWO-FACED’ FORCE. It is a simplified version of that behind the back force commonly thought of as “The Magic Thrust” but allows of further definite angles. Suppose you want to force the Ace of Spades. Two are needed, one being 2nd from the bottom of the deck and the other on top. Dovetail mixing allows them to be left in place.
The deck is spread on table or chair for the selection of a card. Of course, if one of the Aces is taken, you just quit right there. Otherwise the deck is picked up and the spectator’s chosen card placed on top FACE UP.
The spectator stands at your side facing the audience. He puts his hands behind his back and is told that, after he has the cards in his hands he is to take off the face up card from the top and push it into the middle.
As you place the cards behind his back you merely turn them over. Thus he puts what he thinks to be the top face up card into the center, but it really is the bottom card of the pack going in correctly faced with the others. Then he is told to cut the deck completely several times, still behind his back.
You reach behind for the cards, and turn them over before they get into view. The pack is spread face down, and the spectator’s face up card. TELL THE AUDIENCE YOU WILL USE THE CARD EITHER ABOVE OR BELOW THE FACE UP CARD. Either is chosen and your card is forced, due to the fact that both are the same.
The handling of the paper might be varied by use of Al Baker’s idea of flash paper being torn and the bits fired to leave the restored tissue. Use a sheet of each. Write on the tissue and crumple behind. Show the flash paper and crumple. When ready for the finish, just touch the flash ball with a lighted cigarette. It flares away to leave the ball of written on tissue which anyone can open. I haven’t tried this. Perhaps the tissue should be fireproofed.
And thus you have unfolded another mystery. If you proceed with any others at this time, you can leave your grandmother out of them.
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