Here is one of those "what you make them think you do" ideas that carries its potential wallop in the presentation. It is impromptu and simple. "For ages the mind and its little known capabilities have been investigated by delvers into the mental and psychic field. I would like to show you one of these strange mind perceptions." A card is chosen, noted and returned to the deck. After a shuffle the performer explains that he wants someone to take the cards and retire to a far corner where he is to fan them slowly before his eyes. This is…
A freely selected card, placed between two reversed cards in the center of one-half of the pack, is later found between two reversed cards of opposite color in the other half. Follow the instructions with a pack at hand. It is an impromptu effect and excellent for the card table interlude. Sitting opposite to your watchers, hand the pack to a person and ask him to shuffle, then cut the pack about in half. Turn up the top card of the lower half of the cut and call its denomination, throwing it face up on the table. Suppose it to…
Most card magicians have their pasteboards selected singly and watch with great care over the replacements. This is one instance in which the "master" allows the picking and putting back to be done very freely while he uses both hands separately in the process. It is probably the fairest appearing location trick, for not one but the masses, yet devised. The performer breaks open a deck, divides it in half, and, with one portion in his left hand and one in his right steps into the aisle. A spectator on each side of the aisle is asked to shuffle the…
Dear Ted: Some years ago, I believe at the Batavia, N.Y. I.B.M. convention, I showed you a card trick and you admitted that it puzzled you. In fact, it has fooled most magi to whom I've ever shown it, so I thought perhaps you could use it some time to fill space. Sixteen cards are counted off the deck, one is freely selected, replaced, AND LEGITIMATELY shuffled among the others. The cards are dealt into 4 piles of 4 cards each, as in the typed diagram. By elimination all cards are picked up except the one selected. Why this effect…
A modern war scare story told to the tune of an old time card trick, with several new and subversive elements. "We read a lot nowadays about propaganda, fifth columnists, Trojan horses and the like," begins the conjuror. "I wonder what would happen if two enemies tried to out-propagandize and out-fifth-columnize each other ?" So saying, the performer exhibits a pack of playing cards, fans it, and shows the red cards separated from the blacks. "For example," he continues, "the red cards could represent the Communists, and the blacks could be the Fascists or black shirts." And the magician lays…
Card tricks are a dime a dozen. At least eighty percent of the 6,854,989 card tricks extant are calculated to put an audience to sleep quicker than any other single form of entertainment. This is because so many of them are little more than complicated puzzles that merely confuse an audience. Confusion is not entertainment. Card tricks should be short, sweet, and to the point; the surprises should come thick and fast; and each surprise should out do the one before it. Pardon the lecture, but we wanted to accent that last statement. It is the whole point of the…
From "A Matter of Policy", a political effect to appear here five years ago, comes this idea for a modern story. It seems very timely in English speaking countries as well as in South America. Tell about Rep. Martin Dies and his Committee on Unamerican Activities. In other countries he may be substituted for an equivalent investigating group. Someone had the happy thought that if people in each community were lined up at random and every fifth person deported or confined, the country would be rid of fifth columnists. You shuffle a deck of cards and deal a face down…
When more than one person helps in a card effect and the revelations are different from each other, there seems to be a better reaction from the onlookers, that is, as long as things aren't drawn out too much. Borrow someone's deck, have it shuffled, and offer it to spectator #1 for a selection. Turn your back while he shows it to the others, and at this moment peek at the deck's top card and remember it. Undercut the deck, have the card returned to the top of the original upper half, place the lower half on top of all,…
The Three Card Monte effect has stood the brunt of many variations. Without boasting I consider this one of the cleaner, quicker, and more convincing ways which a performer may use impromptu at any time with any cards. From a deck being used the performer asks that three cards be removed, preferably two spot cards and one picture card. They are handed him, and he uses nothing more. If the magician is adept at this game he may "throw" the cards several times in the regular method and then resort to the following idea as a climax, saying that perhaps…
Many card effects have a sound beginning and weak ending while others are built just oppositely. For that reason this pair of ideas should be found welcome. Together they make for a clean and complete novel discovery. Separately they may be used either for a force, or for a finale, in conjunction with other effects. The performer has a card selected in a quite fair manner and it is shuffled back by the spectator himself. The deck is dropped into an unprepared goblet, back to the audience. A silk handkerchief is thrown over them. The spectator is now requested to…