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Here I am doing magic in San Diego

2008-11-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

For You Tube click:

HERE

For a slightly higher fidelity version on the Internet Archive: HERE

Shouts go out to Tom Munnecke for making this video possible.

For a Picture of My New Book on Real Magic Click

2007-07-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

HERE ....

The Book examines age-old mysteries of existence including:

• Why does life exist?
• Why do we drink water?
• Can we save the Earth from global warming?
• Are human beings central and special?
• Is it possible that we’ve arisen by pure chance?
• Is the Earth an organism?
• Are we part of its exobrain?
• If Earth is alive, can it reproduce?
• Can the universe?
• What does the future hold in store for us?
• Does God exist?
• What is the nature of ultimate reality?

I examine these real-life mysteries using not just science, and philosophy, but also a knowledge of sleight-of-hand magic. For example I apply Dai Vernon's The Trick that Cannot Be Explained to the question of determining the chances of our existence in such an unusual cosmos as this one, which has observers as well as many other quirks. Among the magicians mentioned in the book are Jerry Andrus and James Randi.

Think of a Card,

2006-01-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

any card ....

cheers

Further Notes on the Longitudinal Double Lift

2005-08-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

It's funny--I once got stopped for not having an inspection sticker, showed the cop some card stuff (that magic didn't work), and he started a conversation about double lifts! Still wrote me the ticket, though. A propos of which, I received an email from a Jimmy Wong (no relation I presume to Stanford Wong, the blackjack expert, no doubt a pseudonym anyway). Wong read my post about (my) longitudinal double lift and, while saying it's "quite cool and I think that was the one that David Blaine used" (I don't know about that), remains "quite confused on the technique," asking me for some pictures or a DVD. This I do not have but, to reiterate and synopsize what can be found below on this blog, I explained: "You push off two as one and, taking the cards by the ends (short sides), snap them face up. Like I say...the cards can't be too new--they must be a little 'gritty'--and it takes practice, a 'knack.'" I actually can't remember anyone else using this move, so maybe it's pretty hard. But, once you get it, it is the best double lift, bar none, for a borrowed, used (but not dog-eared) pack. I use it for the finale of a mental location based on a trick done by a different method that Persi Diaconis (who ran away with Dai Vernon as a boy, and now is a well-known statistician and winner of the MacArthur "genius" award) showed at a poker game attended by my stepfather, the late MIT mathematician Nez Ankony, and myself about twelve years old. Some day perhaps it will maked it to DVD but for now this verbal description will have to suffice. One more, perhaps important, detail. The second (middle) finger of the right hand (if you are right-handed) comes quickly and stiffly to the back of the longitudinally snap-displayed card, which is bevelled to make a slight concavity toward the viewers (magician and spectators) by pressure of the thumb on the face of the card; the thumb presses down between the first and second fingers on the back, keeping the snapped card aligned.

In my next entry I will give a "magic marker" routine based on my modification of Dutch magician Flip's drumbstick move (itself a version of a cigarette move).

Forget About the Money

2005-07-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Effect: Saying he will simplify three card monte, the performer does two card monte, putting the queen of spades, which he calls "the money card" under a half dollar (or casino chip) and showing a contrasting card, say the three of diamonds. The performer spins the latter on the close up pad showing it to be the queen: only two cards, which never even touched each other, and already the spectator would have apparently lost. Simplifying further, the performer does "one card monte," snapping the indifferent card as he says it is just to distract you, at which point it is again the queen, the three of diamonds under the coin. Matching actions to the comment that if "you don't want to put your money on the card, you should put your card on the money," the performer puts the half beneath the queen in the left hand. He then picks up the three of diamonds and turns over both hands, doing what he calls "the Siberian slide" to make the coin seemingly slip through an invisible column of air, sliding down from under the queen to drop magically off the three. "Forget about the money," the performer says, pushing it away a little bit. He very cleanly puts the queen on the table, again puts the half on it, but then does a suspicious move. At this point he says "let's bring the money back into it. Knowing what you know now, you should be able to play. Let's hypothetically wager fifty dollars. Where would you bet the queen is?" Whether the spectator says "in your hand" or not, the performer shows the three to have again changed to the queen and says, "And you would have been right--except for one thing." Clicking the queen on the coin, he then turns it over to show it is a three, and picks up the coin. "You forgot about the money." The queen, just shown in the right hand, is now displayed on the table.

Prerequisites: an ordinary, not brand new deck of cards and half dollar, and the ability to do a top change, snap change, Curry turnover change, and convincing double lift (preferably by various methods).

Method: With the queen of spades second and the three of diamonds (say) third from top of the pack you double lift to show queen. Place top card on table, put coin on card, pattering about finding the money card, the queen. Do another double lift to display three and place top card (queen) next to it on pad. "With two cards it should be easier, although sometimes you see a move like this." Spin card on pad and show it to be queen. Lift half dollar off left hand card, switched in act of turning over by Curry or Marlo one-hand turnover change. This is a transposition presented as two card monte, a distinct effect of the card being lost although there are only two cards. Pattering about making it easier to watch by using only one card, show the queen, deal it to surface and do top change as left hand picks up coin and right card slides under it. Display three face up on deck in left hand, getting a break under second card. Lift two cards as one at edges in position for snap change. "This card is just to distract you," say as right hand waves doubled card over table card, snapping and reversing cards above coin to show queen again. Lift coin with right hand for misdirection while left hand does turnover change to show three. Queen has now been placed directly under money twice, only to be lost track of by spectator. Saying that if you don't want to play one card monte, you shouldn't put your money on a card at all, but rather, put the card on the money. Matching actions to words you show the queen of spades face up on left outstretched fingers. Right coin in production grip goes to left hand and allows coin to delicately drop to left palm hiding the coin, which is seemingly placed there but actually removed under cover of falling card via a retention pass. Right hand palms retained coin on way to three on table. Pick card up so back is facing you and audience. "You should put your card on the money" you were saying, "unless you see a move like this know as 'the Siberian slide'..." To do the Siberian slide, you align your hands outstretched about a foot apart. Each holds one of the two monte cards, and the spectator think the coin is under the face down queen. To make the effect of a card secretly sliding down a chute to the other hand, keep your arms roughly parallel but your left hand (with queen) apparently higher. Now you do two things simultaneously (both are easy). You turn your left hand with card face down and keep turning as far as you can as you push card through hand with left thumb. Meanwhile you do much the same thing with the right hand except there is no need to turn. You simply push the card through as you drop the palmed coin on the back of the three and let it slide off to the mat. Done right, this looks like the coin is invisibly traveling through some sort of money-sucking conduit. Continuing you patter, "...in which case you may be dealing with a hustler."
"Forget about the money," you say as the strange move registers. You match action to words, moving coin a couple of inches away. Now you will do a feint/sucker move. Mimick a double lift motion but completely cleanly and very cleanly (because you have only one card) put the queen on the mat, covering with the half. I now twirl-display the other card and pretend to do a noisy top change (grabbing with left thumb) as card moves to table and peformer leans on hand with suspiciously moved card. As instructed, the spectator has "forgotten about the money" (about playing for real money) so whether he falls for the sucker move or not (the queen is where it's supposed to be)tell him he seems a little more confident now. "Let's bring the money back into it," say, moving the half dollar back closer to the cards. "Knowing what you know now, you should be ready to play. Hypothetically, lets bet fifty dollars." Again you double lift, show queen, place random card on table, and put coin on seeming queen. Do final double lift, show three, push off and hold in right hand. "Where is the queen?" Spectator indicates where he thinks money card is. "And you would be right," say, showing queen (which was just previously seen to be three), turn queen face down and move both hands toward coin on back of tabled card, doing a top change as they come together. "Except for one thing." Click what they thought was queen (but is now, because of top change, again the three of diamonds) on edge of card. Turn over card to show it is no longer queen. Set aside and remove with right fingers the coin which is held up in gesture as left hand does final turnover change, showing the queen. "You forgot about the money." The effect is that the queen just shown in right hand as spectator finally gets right card is also instantaneously in other position.

Afterthoughts: this "ultra-gambling" routine distills pure visual effects with coins and cards and organizes them in mock education fashion around the dangers of getting cheated. "Forget about the money" is potentially both comic and educational, as such things as "one-card monte" and the "Siberian Slide" mock the idea of betting on sure things or even keeping your money; and the perormer's explanations are each further hustles. The using-less-cards-to-make-things easier to watch is taken from Derek Dingle patter for ambitious classic, but strengthened by the idea of doing minimalist "two" and "one" card monte, as if there could be such a thing. The patter "put your card on the money" is not only a natural segue for an object retention pass a la Silent Mora (who used to "tip" waiters expensive coins that disappeared within the folds of dinner napkins) but also a neurolinguistic trick as it is "literal" compared to the figure of speech, "putting your money on" something, which is often only metaphorical. The patter thus reinforces the false reality of the coin beneath the queen. The illusion of sliding teleportation jokingly called the Siberian Slide is greatly enhanced by correct hand (and arm) position and a little timing. Remember the appearance is audible because the coin slides off card as right (lower hand) tilts. The retention vanish beneath the card in hand is Andreis Suarez's idea and the first part of a trick is an application to the gambling demonstration of two-card monte of moves first worked out for doing a transposition with ordinary cards. I was motivated by a television commercial in the early seventies that showed cards placed beneath and above a Budweiser beer can that changed places. That trick may have been done by Francis Carlyle or Frank Garcia using a double card. Timing is important in the double change at the climax; the trick should appear to be over with the comment, "And you would have been right," in which the performer shakes the queen. "Except for one thing," you add as an afterthought, as you look up again (it is a good idea to make eye contact during this last phase of the routine at least twice), "you forgot about the money." This again is humorous because you told the spectator to forget about the money when you weren't betting, which you never really were, for good reason. This routine requires acting and is comic and educational as well as magical. The Siberian Slide, such as it is, appears to be a new effect as the coin is seemingly "poured" down an invisible pipe reminiscent of the casino tubes that suck greenbacks from the table to the "sky." Finally, note that the patter about two cards is belied by the presence of three objects, the third being the coin whose presence under the coin in the Siberian slide move suggests the shell game (brief respite from monte) with just two shells.

Mirror Cards

2005-06-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

Effect: A card is selected at random and returned to the pack. Feigning lack of confidence, the performer selects four cards, one of which, he suggests, will definitely be the lovely spectator’s card. Neither of the first two cards, nor either of the second two, however, is the spectator’s card. Seemingly distressed, the performer turns the cards face down and shuffles the pack, which he then sets aside to gather up the four cards. Showing them again, showing the cards (all except one) and reiterating his question. He seems dumbfounded that “even with a one-out-of-thirteen” chance he has not found the right card. However, upon laying the cards out once again it is seen that one of the four is indeed the spectator’s card, suggesting perceptual problems on his (or her) part. “Wanna know how I did it?” the magician asks. Before the spectator can answer he shows the four cards again, one by one, twice: each card is now not a printed playing card at all but has a shiny reflective surface. “It’s all done with mirrors,” explains the magus.

Method: It is necessary first to peel a standard playing card into its two layers, and then to affix a piece of Mylar cut to match to the thusly prepared card. This card will be found to be slightly thicker and can thus be used as a key card similar to cards in a stripper pack. Contrive to have said mirror card with ordinary back on the bottom of pack. (Be careful not to flash its reflective surface.) Have a card selected and returned to pack after cutting off a couple of packets with right forefinger. Place rest of pack on top and square up cards. Because the Mylar card is thicker you will be able to see and feel where it is on the edge of the squared-up pack. You can even lightly overhand or Hindu shuffle, as long as the relationship between the chosen card and the Mylar card, on top of it, is not disturbed.
“I’m going to try to find your card,” you say, looking through them face up and immediately taking note of the chosen card. Take out another one and put it on the table. “I am going to try to find your card,” say. At this point, since you know the card, you can turn the pack face down and shuffle to your heart’s content. “But since it is so thoroughly buried,” I will give myself more than one chance. Look through and pick out another indifferent card, placing the two cards at the lower left and upper right of an imaginary square you will presently complete. Now cut the Mylar card to the top and keep it there by gently applying pressure with your left fingers. (This is a standard and easy overhand shuffle technique.) Shuffle face up. The flashing of many cards, none of which are mirrored, creates the impression that all the cards are perfectly normal and aboveboard.

Now turn over the two cards, neither of which will be the selected one. Admitting incomplete success, fan the cards toward yourself and lay out two more indifferent cards face down, completing the little square of four cards. As you pick out these cards make sure that the selected card winds up on the pack’s bottom. With deck now in the left hand with selected card at the bottom and Mylar card at the top perform the Paul Curry one-handed turnover change (the Marlo version may may be substituted; consult Expert Card Technique or The Cardician for descriptions) as you turn face down incorrect cards (secretly substituting correct card for incorrect one at lower left corner); immediately turn over new cards in upper left and lower right corners. Neither of these will be correct either. “Are you sure,” you inquire, seeming perturbed as you nervously shuffle cards, bringing Mylar card to bottom. “Neither the first two,” you say, pointing to the face down cards, “nor the second pair,” you say, performing another turnover change as you simultaneously turn over face up cards in upper left and lower right corners of square. “That’s weird. Let’s see what we can do.” Gather the cards up so that the chosen card is second from bottom and Mylar card is at top. Overhand shuffle the packet by simply drawing off each card individually, then quickly repeat, reestablishing original order. Show the bottom of the four-card packet in the left hand. “That’s not your card?” you say of the indifferent card. Pretend to place face down but take the second card from the bottom via the glide (see any decent card text for this utility move). Rub the indifferent card and show that it has turned into the chosen card. Replace on bottom of packet. Repeat the glide twice more flashing bottom of remaining cards to show the chosen card three times in a row. With two cards you won’t be able to do a glide but just remove the top card in a similar, smooth motion, flashing the remaining card. The effect is that all the indifferent cards have turned into the chosen one.

Put chosen card on bottom and repeat as follows. Turn packet face up in left palm (to show chosen card). Turn packet face down, push off top card and bottom card via the ring finger of the left hand as in the classic bottom deal. Take top and bottom cards as one, turning both as one face up on top of packet, showing again the chosen card. Deal off top (indifferent) card. Show top card, again the chosen card. Apparently deal off but really strike second deal off an indifferent card. Show “third” card (again chosen card). Bottom (which is the same here as a second deal since you only have two cards) deal final indifferent card. Show fourth and final example of chosen card. You now seem to have shown twice that all the cards have turned into chosen card. Lay “final” card on top of tabled packet.
You now have four cards at the bottom of which is the heretofore-unseen Mylar mirror card. “Want to know how I do it?” you ask. The answer should be yes. At which point you pick up tabled packet by the ends and, stripping off card with left thumb, you show the bottom of the right remaining cards—each time the mirror face—four times in rapid succession. When you are left with one card, add it to the bottom of the cards in the left hand, flashing Mylar card one final time. “It’s all done with mirrors,” you explain.

Afterthoughts: When I showed this to Meir Yedid at the Pittsburgh IBM convention in ’78 he exclaimed, “You invented that?” Yedid became famous for his amazing ability to make his fingers appear to disappear, one by one—a feat amazing in that the magician’s “objects” are here his body parts themselves, with apparently no place to hide. Of course, like most magic the tricks are dependent upon angles of vision; indeed, they are really just very sophisticated versions of the uncles trick of substituting a thumb for a nose between his clenched fingers as he tells the child “I got your nose.” Yedid, who ironically and tragically later actually lost one of his own fingers, taught Mohammed Ali in the use of a thumb tip, a flesh-colored magician’s gimmick that in the great fighter’s case had to be colored somewhat darker than those found usually in magic stores. I did and do take credit for this trick, although the theme—“explaining” by turning everything in the end into mirrors—was lifted from Frank Garcia’s money paddle routine, in which money (coins) double on a small wooden paddle, from which there then appears a twenty dollar bill, after which the surface of the paddle is seen to have become reflective on both sides. Similar trick “explaining” by producing or featuring some metaphor of magic itself include Slydini’s Purse of Fortunatus, David Roth’s Portable Hole, and other tricks in which small objects are doubled after being reflected in pocket mirrors.

Update

2005-06-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

For those (few) of you who have been checking here (ever more irregularly, no doubt), I have not been able to add as often as would be ideal, in part because of my new coauthored

book

just out (June, '05). This book has been in the works for over a decade. University of Chicago did a great job on the production. The book is not about magic, however, except in the overarching sense of explaining how many seemingly disparate parts of the world--complex systems, living beings, economic markets--work. In a sense this is to do with magic, as creationists like to suggest that certain things (mainly life or humans) are so inexplicable they could only have been done by supernatural means. In any case, I urge you, if you are interested in such, to buy a copy. It will help support me do things like reveal all my card tricks on this here blog.

Since my last April post, I received a welcome and complementary letter from amateur magician Derrick Chung informing me that the match trick in fact has appeared in print in Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic. Also since my last visit I knocked some stuff around with prestidigitorian Nico Suarez. Both Nico and his brother Andreis are accomplished sleight of hand artists. I pat myself on the back (a difficult move by any stretch) because I got Nico interested in magic when I used the Flip (of Holland) vanishing drumstick move on a pen while he was working take out in a Moroccan restaurant; now he is the official magician for the city of Albany. Nico and Andreis have an unpublished book of original material sitting around and I will ask him if he will release a couple of samples exclusively (hah hah) to this site. In the meantime, I will post something I wrote a while ago, developed years ago, but that has never been published. The effect is modification of a Frank Garcia trick to apply to playing cards. The biggest obstacles in performing it are two fold: the Curry Turnover Change, and Mylar, which doesn't seem so easy to procure as it used to be. When I made this trick up in the 1970s I was in possession of sticky backed sheet of Mylar from which I could make the cards.

More Psychokinesis: The Wooden Match Vibration Enigma

2005-04-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have never seen this following, relatively easy, bit of "mind control" business published--which perhaps makes it more valuable. In fact, I learned it from an Alex Lob, the younger brother of a friend and classmate at Murray Road High School, the oldest alternative high school east of the Mississippi river. Lob worked in a gas station and wowed me, who was supposed to be the expert (between us), as follows: he held one match perpendicularly in his right hand, which was palm up, the wooden match's head to the left of the performer. Gripping tightly he then balanced another match lightly on his upturned left forefinger. This second match merely rested on his forefinger; the other end was supported by the match in his right hand. Affecting intense concentration (not exactly an affectation, as we shall see shortly), Alex then made the balanced match, without any direct contact, jump repeatedly. It vibrated, then stopped, like a Geiger counter or medical instrument detector. There were no wires or threads. I was mystified.

The secret to this simple trick, which can have an astounding effect if done correctly, is the fingernail of the middle right finger. Contact of the nail against the right hand's match--not the jumping match mind you, but the match on which it's balanced--transfers to the other match, making it slightly jump. The tightness of the right hand grip is important. You want to press the second fingernail out against the wood and then drag it--ever so slightly--down. Because of the texture of the nail in interaction with the soft wood, the nail will "skip" moving down not smoothly but in little jumps. These little jumps, which you can feel but which are invisible to the naked eye, cause the match to appear to jump in a startling fashion. The effect is indeed as if you are a creature out of Philip K. Dick--gifted, although only slightly, with superhuman powers. This simple trick is a lot of fun and, although it seems that it must have been published before, I am unaware of it ever having previously appeared in print.

Telekinesis for Dummies

2005-04-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

As promised I here offer a trick that requires no sleight of hand--yet was the major miracle performed by a man once featured on the TV show "That's Incredible" and billed as "the world's top psychic" by the tabloid newspaper The Star. His trick? Making a pencil, balanced precariously on the edge of a table, mysteriously turn by seeming mental powers alone. No hidden threads or wires were used and Hydrick apparently appeared to use some weird martial arts technique to make the pencil move. He also could make telephone book pages mysteriously turn. The secret? He literally blew it. Not metaphorically--literally: he used gusts of breath, not directly at the object, but on the table top, to make the pencil move through seeming mental power. Stephen King would be proud, maybe. Magician James Randi foiled Hydrick, who practiced in jail, by arranging Styrofoam pellets around the pencil so that when Hydrick blew they would move too. On the TV show That's My Line with Bob Barker Hydrick failed to do this simple trick, claiming his mental powers had temporarily departed them. Too bad because there was a check waiting for him for $10,000 if he could make the pages turn. (Although a scientist and electrical engineer from Utah had already concluded that Hydrick's powers were real, Randi was prepared to offer the check because his crew had put a "shotgun" mike, which picks up sound from a very small angle area, in place during the rehearsals, so they knew in the control room what Hydrick was doing, having heard Hydrick's propulsive bursts of air come in loud and clear. But Hydrick detected the mike and wouldn't allow its use of course.) As Randi explains, "What of the pencil and page tricks? Well, my jaundiced eye recognized these as rather tired old tricks...Hydrick was simply blowing the page over, and he spun the pencil around by the same means. Not immediately evident are these facts, however: First, the blast of air from a half-open mouth takes time to get to the props, and Hydrick made sure he turned his head away from the pencil and the page after giving a sharp puff of air, so that he was facing away when the action occurred. Second, one blows not directly at the prop but at the table surface." When Randi did the pencil trick for me it was impressive. You have to keep your mouth from moving, like a ventriloquist or, well, dummy. (It also helps to have a beard, n'est ce pas?) Not exactly savory, Hydrick was an interesting character. "My whole idea behind this in the first place was to see how dumb America was. How dumb the world is....Air currents...from my mouth. But you can't tell it because it took so many years of practicing to get this down pat to where you can't see it. I'm not just puffing out the air because that can be seen. I am taking the air from my inside and making it come out in a way in which it doesn't show. I can direct the air in a way that it hits head on every time. I spent one year and six months in solitary confinement...I had spent hours and hours. I'd hold by breath. Different breathing controls. So many ways. I could make deputies think someone touched them on their neck because I could breath in a certain way on their neck. They would feel something and say 'That's a ghost!' They would piss on the floor and go running out of there! It was something that was fascinating to me and it got me recognition. I mean every deputy in that jail was so frightened of me. 'That guy is possessed!' I remember when I was in the Chaplin's office. He taught me how to read and write. And I would convert people from bad to good. He told me that you had to turn them onto Jesus, the Lord. And he gave me a Bible and I'd read it. Then I got an idea! Now, I've never told Brother Joe this, and I've never told anyone this, but I would convert twenty inmates a day. That was my limit. I would have to convert twenty inmates a day. I'd get up there and start telling them about Jesus and stuff. And when I'd see that they were beginning to get turned off--I'd stop and say 'You don't believe that it exists?--I'd take a Bible and open it up and say, 'If the Lord is here with me make these pages move!' or I'd open the Bible and say 'Hold the Bible. Father in the name of Jesus Christ make these pages move.' And the pages would move! And the guys are going 'Oh my God!!!' Everytime it worked. Then I would say 'It's in you.' Or I take a pencil and put it there and say I've got to call the Lord; but you are going to have the power to do this if you accept the Lord. The next thing you know you would see them with this big cross and handing Bibles out to people!" Hmmm--banking on dumb Americans and God's will--reminds us of a certain administration and their corporate backers!

Politics aside, the use of air currents to make things move at a distance has other applications. An easy trick is to lay a cigarette on the table. You can pretend to polarize your finger with static electricity by vigorously rubbing it on your sleeve. Then leaning down move it above a cigarette on the table--at a certain point you secretly blow and the cigarette rolls. The effect is of an impossible static electricity--not exactly telekinesis but is easier because of the misdirection. And more noble than trying to snooker people into a belief in God or trying to take over the world. (And yet, one wonders, did Jesus do any such tricks? Madame Blavatsky of the theosophists was known to use sleight of hand to apparently produce flowers from the Himalayas--really they came from her palm. Houdini went after spiritualism no less than Randi after Hydrick) Speaking of the invisible powers of air currents, with Columbia paleontologist Jessica H. Whiteside I wrote an article critical of complexity theory and showing that what some people think are ghosts can really be traced to natural gusts of trying to escape through openings in old houses. When such a gust slips by you, literally beneath a window or through a keyhole, it can give the impression of being a live being scurrying past you and into another room!

If you want to get a glimpse at the political wool over our eyes, check out:

and especially: The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions

and The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 two amazingly clear-headed books by a true patriot that will give you "backstage passes" to see how the American body politic is being tricked by the media in much the same way that a spectators are tricked at a magic show. This scam blows worse than Hydrick. But, like the man with the stovepipe hat said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time: but you can't fool all the people all of the time."

Card to Glass Routine

2005-04-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

Here is my original routine for card to glass. Although a difficult routine that requires substantial knowledge of sleight of hand, I hope to offer some easier tricks in the future. This one makes use of Dai Vernon's thinking on the top change as well as the classic palm. The effect is that a card is selected (by riffling and asking the spectator to stop), and that that card then winds up under an object at the bar or the table--not once but three times. With deck in mechanic's grip in left hand (reverse if you're a leftie) riffle with left thumb then ask spectator to say stop. Separate cards and show him face of deck with right hand then, as you replace pack on offbeat, direct side steal card into right palm. The left hand with pack immediately turns palm down and spreads cards on bar counter or table, asking spectator if he sees his card; at the same time the right hand, in the act of lifting up an object in front of but slightly to the right of the performer (glass, but this can be another object), introduces palm card under it. Since all eyes are on the spread face up portion of pack, and body language suggests this object (the glass or whatever) is (so far) just "in the way," it is easy to make card go beneath it. This first phase I learned at the Magic Bar in Chicago. Now have the spectator look under glass. To his surprise there is his card. Pick it up in right hand, gather deck in left. Ask if he saw you put card beneath glass. Accompany question by physical placement of card under glass. You show the card in right hand then your left hand (with deck) moves toward glass to pick it up so card can be inserted beneath glass. As it does right hand turns and top change occurs as left hand picks up glass. Right hand immediately puts (now indifferent) card beneath glass. Don't actually leave it there but pick it up and insert into the middle of the pack--the whole thing is just a gesture to accompany the words, "Did you see me put it under the glass?" They say no and you put the card back in the pack, turning to the left and up (away from the tabled object). Leave the card protruding half way. Cut to the pack to show the card still sticking out. One-hand top palm the card in the right hand. Drop the right and cards on the left. Push flush the protruding supposedly chosen card with left forefinger. Loudly riffle cards with left thumb and then, in one motion, follow imaginary flight of playing card to glass, introduce card beneath glass, and lift glass to show card has arrived there. They just saw card sticking out of deck in left hand so there seems to be no moment in which it could have flown. Plus this is now the second time card has arrived there, increasing effect. I then make the card rise before it arrives the third time. This is done by showing card has arrived. When you put it back in the pack this time riffle with the left thumb but, as you introduce card into space created by pressure of left thumb after riffling midway through pack, riffle off one more card. Card-to-glass card is put back in pack not above, but beneath, this card. This time when you use your left forefinger to push card in, push it (and card above it which you riffled off) not just flush but a little further, so that it is injogged. Now you want to give the impression that the deck is squared although it really has a double injog. I do this by using a multiple shift square move that involves the fingers smoothing the cards along each side and end of the pack as the cards are apparently squared up. I believe this is from Marlo's The Cardician in one of the multiple shifts. Now, using the left hand pinky, with the left side of the performer facing audience, and back of his left hand facing audience, by slowly lifting lower outer corner of injogged card, the chosen card (actually two cards) will be seen to rise. A standard bit of byplay here is to pluck an imaginary hair and attach it to pack, then pull, as if that were causing card to rise. Slight motion of left pinky is obscured by back of hand and slight rise of whole hand as card rises. I have altered this standard impromptu card rise to make it a double rise, which doesn't add to the rise effect but sets up the climax for card to glass. Remove the doubled card and display as one on top of pack. Turn over double card and display on top of pack. Push off double card and let fall on face of pack. Grab double card as one and insert into middle of pack. Turn hand with cards over to show that (doubled) card "really is" in middle of pack (this reinforces idea that it was "really there" when you did it previously). Turn palm back up thus showing backs of cards and do the push-in change. This involves slightly separating top of doubled card with right thumb by pushing it in a tiny arc up and to the right, a motion which, in turn, allows left forefinger, operating secretly beneath cards, to pull actual card-to-glass card down beneath the upper card of the double and add to lower portion of the pack. Forerfinger doesn't stop but pushes off entire lower portion of the pack which takes cards by ends as per Hindu shuffle. With lower cards jutting inwards by about half an inch right hand cuts upper half of lower cards along with a few cards above the break (these will be outjogged relative to bottom cards) in Hindu shuffle position in right hand. Shuffle off top outjogged section per Hindu shuffle until you get to injogged portion that came from bottom of the pack (the top of this will be the card-to-glass card. Then throw the remaining cards onto pack. The situation now is this: the selected card, appparently still jutting out at end of pack, is in fact on top. As the previous moves are performed you want to say something like: "This time I'll really bury it in the pack." This part of the routine can be, if not really sloppy, a little casual-looking. The reason is that the cards should not end up to neatly in the left hand. As you (once again) apparently push the card that has travelled to the glass flush with the left cards you palm the top card. There is natural misdirection here due to the uneven pack that needs to be squared up before "anything can happen"--this is not something you say; it's just your body language: you're squaring up the cards after the card-to-glass card, which has already popped beneath glass twice, and risen once, can do whatever its going to do next. But of course by then its already done. All you have to do is riffle with left thumb and show that the card has (despite being thoroughly "buried" this time) once again gone to the glass. This you do using the same technique you used in part two of the routine--riffling deck, following imaginary flight with eyes, and introducing card beneath glass in the act of lifting it to reveal that very card.

Riddle of the Sphinx: Honing in on the Biggest Secret of All

2005-04-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

In the mission statement for this blog I mention that it is not just about magic, but how magic relates to the real world. As stated in the Michael Powers section, magicians were involved in some of the earliest forays in movie making. Magicians tend to present themselves as entertainers (perhaps David Blaine, Kreskin, and Uri Geller are exceptions, in different ways and with different levels of propriety). But the theory of magic stretches far beyond making coins disappear or ladies in glitter costumes float in mid air. A winner of the Nobel Prize, physicist Sheldon Glashow, has argued that for scientists the entire universe is a magic show--and that the object is not just to take it all in and be entertained, but to figure it out. Look at this list and see if you can figure out what it is.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
The Great Pyramid of Giza
The Colossus of Rhodes
The Lighthouse of Alexandria

If you guessed "The Seven Wonders of the World," you are correct. But notice everthing on this list is a thing. And, although some try to argue that the Pyramids required the building skills of ancient astronauts, everything on this list can be explained as the result of architecture and hard work (with slave labor). But science investigates mysteries that are more difficult to explain. Perhaps none of these is greater than the secret of life: why does it behave as it does? Specifically, why does it become more complex while most things tend to (according to the second law of thermodynamics) become less organized over time. Life itself seems like a magic trick in a world of inanimate matter. It is so amazing, so statistically unlikely, that it suggests to many (not necessarily scientists or intellectual detectives) that life requires a miraculous explanation.

In fact there is a new answer to this ancient question of why life exists, or life's purpose. It has to do with energy and, while scientific, it does not take away the possibility for spirituality. While great architecture represented the wonders of the ancient world, then as now no mystery is greater than that of life. What is its purpose? I think you will find the answer, proferred here intriguing. In my mind it qualifies as a possible eighth wonder of the world--a wonder based on revealing the workings (which go beyond genetics) of life as a complex process, rather than, as in the case of the seven earlier wonders, based on the observation of a magnificent thing.

As Madame Curie, one of the first scientists to work with radioactivity said, "Nothing in life is to be feared, only understood."

Silent Mora and the Double Sucker Coin Vanish

2005-04-09T04:29:00.000-07:00

Ring 122 of the International Brotherhood of Magicians in Boston is known as the Silent Mora Ring after an old timer named, you guessed it, Silent Mora. Although I was not around to see that prestidigitator's performances, I heard that one of his most striking impromptu moves was at a restaurant where, apparently leaving a nice tip for the waiter or waitress, he would pull up a piece of table cloth and introduce a large coin, a half dollar or silver dollar, into the fold of cloth. Of course, before the the hapless waiter could collect, it vanished, like money found in a dream. All Mora did was a retention pass of some sort, using the tablecloth instead of the hand. Experimenting with these principles, I came up with a different angle. Standing with his right side toward the audience, the performer displays a half dollar in a production grip (pinched at the tips of the forefinger and thumb) in the right hand. Showing his left hand completely empty, he then puts the coin not so much in the hand as between the left thumb and forefinger, seeming to shove it home. The activity mimicked is to obviously place a coin in the a left reverse thumb palm. Because many amateurs know that you can hide coins by clipping them behind your fingers, the audience thinks it has "figured it out"--you are putting the coin behind, not in, your hand. I do this with two coins. After apparently inserting the first one, as stated, between in the back of the left thumb crotch--but secretly spinning it via the "whirl" vanish to the right fingertips--I pretend to crumble-vanish it. I open all my fingers but keep my thumb clipped so that it looks like I am hiding the coin. Of course you should act a little suspicious to enhance the illusion. Then what I do is open and close my left hand while moving my left thumb still more suspiciously back and forth in a hokey, rhythmic movement--the motions are based on the old transfer of backpalmed playing card to the front in the (closing and opening) and displaying of both sides of the hand. In other words, just make it look like you are somehow showing both sides of your hand without them glimpsing the back (and then front) thumb palmed coin. Meanwhile in the right hand....the coin goes not into a normal palm, but into an oblique Downs angle palm. The reason this is done is so that, when you repeat the procedure, pretending to (which would be extremely difficult) put a second coin behind the left thumb, you can slide this second coin, which as also been stolen in the act of pretending to put it behind the thumb, and smoothly add it to the underside of the first obliquely palmed coin. Any noise from the addition of the second coin sliding from the right fingertips to join its comrade will be attributed by spectators to the addition of the second coin to the back left thumb palm. Then you repeat the bit of business simulating a reversal of the thumb palm. For the trick's denoument, you look at the spectators, as if suddenly realizing they are suspicious, and slowly open both your left hand all the way, showing both sides. Then, eyes darting, you can pretend to locate the missing coins and produce them. I usually pluck one out of the cloth of my shirt, and produce the other from beneath a jacket or under a lapel.

The Whirl: A Coin Retention Sleight and Flourish

2005-04-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Another sleight of handster I hung around that summer in Pittsburgh was card mechanic and trick inventor Gary Plants, who asks that I describe a coin flourish I did. In "the whirl" as I'll call it a half dollar, held parallel to the floor, spins slowly around the fulcrum of the ball of the thumb. The way it works is that the right forefinger, on top of the coin on its edge, pushes forward, sending the coin inward, then pulls backward, moving the coin outward; by continuing these motions the coing slowly spins, or "whirls," in a plane. The main procedural point is that the ball of the right thumb, on which the coin sits, is not exactly at the center of the coin, but slightly near the edge; this, combined with the forefinger, pushing slightly down and riding the edge, allows for the coin's eccentric, rather than perfect orbit. Remember, the coin whirls in a position parallel to the floor.

This move is really only secondarily adapted as a flourish. The idea to use it for a flourish came from none other than Ed Marlo whom I must have met in Chicago earlier, although this seems impossible, because I was showing him a reconstruction of a David Williamson coin production I had learned at the convention. Oh well, another time trick! In any case the move itself I invented as a way to refine the classic coin retentions pass, first published in a somewhat strange version by Dai Vernon. (In Vernon's original version the right hand moves forward, bent at the wrist, after apparently putting the coin in the left hand.) David Roth's retention pass is essentially the same move but with the right hand moving more laterally and naturally to the left. Another excellent version (attributed to Steve Freeman) include using the left thumb pad to help squeeze the coin into the right fingertips as the left hand closes. You can also use the "whirl" or, indeed, a combination of the above methods. With the whirl used in this way the coin does spin around and around but only part of one rotation, and it does so not parallel to the floor but more perpendicularly as the right hand places the coin in the outstretched left fingers. Remember, in all coin or small object retention passes, the illusion depends upon as little movement as possible to accomplish the goal: making the coin arrive gently on the right finger tips rather than in the left palm where it is "seen" to be through persistence of version.

With a little practice you will find that the whirl can be reversed to produce a coin. Finally, the whirl makes an excellent method for disappearing a coin in a piece of cloth such as a handkerchief or the performer's shirt (in which case the left hand takes the coin from beneath through the shirt).

Card to Fly (Direct Side Steal)

2005-04-02T17:36:00.000-08:00

Although not a family trick or appropriate for all occasions, this is a great quick trick and a perfect example of the direct side steal. I learned the direct side steal as a youth after "overseeing" it performed by David Roth, one of the only two card sleights I've seen him perform. At the time Roth boasted that he didn't even have a deck of cards in the house. In any case the direct card steal is just a thumb riffle and stop, at which point the magus cuts the cards to show the bottom of the right hand (upper) half; upon replacement of this half the left fingertips, jutting out from the mechanic's grip, guide the card into the right palm. The effect of card to the fly, while it seems impossible that it wasn't independently derived, was brought to my attention in summer camp by a young man I taught some sleight of hand, a Mitch Topol. Topol, who played the lead in Camp Kinderland's production of the Music Man (as Constable Locke I had one line), had a flair for the dramatic and came up with this in-retrospect-obvious, if outrageous, card trick. The direct side steal is a perfect sleight for it. After having the spectator say stop and showing him his card, you side steal card most of the way out on the off beat. What I do is move the left hand to the left and up, eyes following it, after making eye contact and saying, "Okay, you'll remember your card, right": when I get an affirmative, I move the deck up and to the left as stated: this allows the left of the selected card (now palmed in right hand) to clear the body of the pack silently as the left hand with cards now loudly thumb riffles the pack's upper left corner. (This is the would-be-magic gesture.) The left hand then immediately either tables the deck, or hands it to a spectator, after which it moves directly to the performer's fly to separate the fabric flap of the fly as the right hand locates the top of the zipper to open it. The right hand then immediately unzips the zipper, plunges into the fly, and, by bringing the card to the tips of the fingers in the process of removing the right hand, creates the illusion that the card has flown to the performer's zipper. What's nice about this steal and production is that the right hand with palmed card is never idle; during the short time the card is palmed there, its position and actions are completely natural, and the grabbing of the zipper top between thumb and forefinger lends subtle credence to the illusion that the hand (which just transfered the pack to the left hand) was empty. In the future I will show my use of the direct steal for an original card-to-glass routine.

Mike Powers' Magic Movies

2005-04-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Shortly after Pittsburgh was renovated, in 1979 or thereabouts, I accompanied modern Houdini (due to his combination, more so at that time, of escapism and psychic debunking) James Randi to a majore IBM (International Brotherhood of Magicians) meeting. There I met a number of notable magicians who would later make their mark on close-up magic: Michael Ammar (who was gathering crowds doing his cardless matrix), David Williamson (developer of the strike vanish and winner of the gold cups first prize in close up that year), Meir Yedid (who was doing a card location using computer patter at a time when computers seemed novel), and Johnny "Ace" Palmer (whose ring retention pass is still one of my favorite effects). Excited by the quality of those attending and the absolute surfeit of magic and things to learn I remember going in the wee hours of the morning across a bridge to a MacDonalds hamburger joint with none other than Mike Powers. There I showed him my handling of open travelers, one of the most novel effects in card magic (in which the four aces, placed one by one in an "invisible palm" are put on the table, where they materialize), invented by Larry Jennings. Never having found a book that described how to do travelers, but understanding the method in principle, I came up with my own handling. Tonight, 26 years later, I can pick up where that late-night McDonald's magic tete-a-tete left off. What is wonderful about Powers' website, apart from the lack of advertising, is the quality of the real player presentations. You can see bona fide close up magic which, much like my original reconstruction of the travelers, obviously is done by sleight of hand--but indetectibly, even on repeated viewings. It is an experience similar to reconstructing a trick from being told the effect and having a clue as to the method, only you can watch again and again as you try to work it out. I notice that two of Powers' tricks, "Impossible Travelers" and "The Invisible Aces" have travelers themes. My favorite trick on his website, however, is what he calls "the amBIGuous card"--the multiple changing of a miniature playing card into a bigger one. There is a similar effect but for coins in J.B. Bobo's classic Coin Magic: a dime (which has Eisenhower's image on it) changes several times into a dollar coin (also with an image of Eisenhower). But the Powers card effect seems easier and more impressive. (He actually has two routines with this effect, by completely different methods: in "The Defective Deck," however, the whole deck turns to miniature cards around the one big card; then they switch so that it is a small card in a big deck). I recommend you watch it and try to figure it out. Even when you know what is happening, and where it is happening, the execution is so flawless you can't see it. Your mind wants to believe that the card really does change size--in large part because of the singular (Powers uses a red seven) identity of the card. Human beings must have some mental algorithm that makes them assume continuity and identity even when they only glimpse a few instances of what appears to be the same object. Much magic depends on this. Indeed, it is the basis for the illusion of movement in the first silent films--whose development was pioneered by magicians. Powers' Real Player tricks refresh that magic-movie connection for the internet age.

April 2 Addendum: Powers reminds me that it was 1980 (25 years--that's quite a vanish!) and that we also went out to breakfast with Johnny Ace Palmer later, an event notable for Powers' impromptu performance of matrix with pancakes and sausage patties. Not only is the work on this unpublished, but the evidence was, I believe, eaten.

Profile: The Wizard of Or: Jerry Andrus

2005-03-27T21:58:00.001-08:00

It must have been a decade now that I was privileged to visit Jerry Andrus at his home, the "Castle of Chaos," in Albany, Oregon. His extremely funky, packed house looked ordinary enough from the outside, but once you stepped in it was like going behind the curtain of Oz's wizard. Only a lot more down home. Having lived there virtually his whole life, there was a quirky place for everything: a vacuum cleaner in the ceiling, a room full of half-finished illusions and, my favorite, an Apple computer with saxophone keys jerry-rigged to it so that common shift-letter combinations could be pushed with a single depression. This special Apple was set atop apparatus beneath which was a treadmill. Combined with a tape recorder that he had arranged to be hands-free, Andrus could exercise while he transcribed his magnum opus, named Scribulations if I remember correctly. As we toured the house young booking agent I was with said more than once, "You're a wonderful man." It was clear no woman lived there and Andrus explained that it was a very rare and beautiful thing for two people really to get along. It is not surprising that such a man, not just a magician but the most prolific and creative deviser of optical illusions in recent history, was so free and easy with the truth: that, too, is a rare thing. I will never forget the off-the-cuff way he told us how he was alerted, as a youngster, to the pervasiveness of illusions. The genesis was geographic. "Everyone said that the United States was the greatest country. I believed them. Then they said Oregon was the greatest state. Okay. But when they started in on Albany being the greatest city in this state, a bell went off. I knew that wasn't true, and backtracked to begin questioning all the other statements I had been fed." (Okay, it's been a decade so this isn't an exact quote, but you get the gist.) Andrus explained to that the Castle was in disrepair. Usually, when you walked into his house, an electric eye rang notice across the way, at his brother's. We visited his brother and creativity apparently ran in the family. We were treated to spectacular fractal-like displays, on a VCR, of colorful shapes. It turned out they were made by filming dishwashing liquid at an oblique angle. Then Andrus's brother was off to a birthday party, as a friend of his was turning 100 that day. Back in the Castle he showed me the work on his color change, in which the hand is shown empty both before and after the card changes, and kindly gave me permission to publish instructions to make his amazing three-dimensional "parabox" (a tower that seems suddenly to flip positions as you watch it with one eye) in my co-authored What is Sex? (review) Just another day in the life of the Wizard of OR.

Gravity Drop

2005-03-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

This is a sleight based on the coin roll or steeplechase which I showed to Andreis Suarez (the only other person I know who currently can do it), who showed it to Japanese magician Shoot Ogawa, who gave it this name. In the usual version of the coin roll, the coin (usually a fifty-cent piece) is moved, or rolled, knuckle to knuckle across the back of the performer's fingers in a loosely closed fist. My version, which I independently discovered, but which I later somewhere read was the original and accidental impetus for the coin roll proper, looks easier but is actually more difficult. In the gravity roll the fingers are spaced just the right distance apart so that they don't have to move; rather, the hand just tilts toward the floor and the coin literally rolls all the way to the little finger, which is placed higher up to catch it. The move takes considerable practice. I remember as a twelve year old practicing the coin roll with my hand over the edge of the Empire State Building--not a good idea. So why would anyone want to do something in a way that is more difficult but looks easier? Because this sleight, especially when combined with the original finger-moving coin roll, can be used as a feint or pass: the right hand tilts and the left hand, appearing to catch the coin, tilts downward at the wrist and moves away as the performer follows it. (The tilting touch was taught by Dutch magician Fred Kaps.) The coin can then be made to vanish by traditional crumbling or, what I like to do, slapped against left hip and produced at the right one. Apparently the original coin roll was pieced together by Alan Shaw (one of the two great classical coin magicians after T. Nelson Downs) after, during his show, a coin accidentally fell across his fingers. The gravity roll is a sort of accident on purpose. By the way, I showed this move to Dai Vernon in Waltham, Massachusetts at the Lion's Club in the early eighties. He was drinking a beer.

Longitudinal Snap Double Lift

2005-03-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

My favorite double lift is Dai Vernon's push-off double lift. As "The Professor" said, a playing card is not a brick, and should be handled accordingly. Properly done this double lift seems virtually impossible, because the pressure of the thumb on the top card would tend to spread it if it were more than one card. Of course, the second finger beneath, keeping pace with the pushing thumb, creates the illusion. When the card is turned over and displayed on top of the pack, it should be done delicately, with just the tips of the right fingers guiding the side of the card and allowing it to fall--again for the sake of naturalness. Holding the card tightly here is a giveaway. The snap double lift has been in the books for a long time but only latitudinally. My innovation is to snap the double card the long way. Not only is this more natural and powerful (and louder), but it seems to be definitive proof that there is only one card. It definitely takes practice, but it is well worth it. There are two main tricks to keeping the cards aligned in a longitudinal snap double lift. First, the right hand (if you're right handed) first and second fingers strongly grip the back of the card revealed with the snap, which is beveled, or bent, toward the magician because of the pressure; this helps with the alignment. Finally, and this is crucial, the move can't be used with a brand new or too new deck: the cards are too slick. While this limits the usefulness of the move, it makes it all the more powerful when a borrowed deck contains the slight stickiness from use necessary for the move. Most borrowed decks, unless they are completely dog-eared, are perfect for the longitudinal double lift. I get a break under the top two cards and push off as per the Vernon double lift. This double lift also works great for sucker effects. For example, have a card selected and control to the top. Riffle the cards and boast, "I will now make your card come to the top." Do the snap double lift, dramatically displaying the wrong card. Replace with disappointment on top of the pack. You are now set to push off the correct card. Rub it, blow on it, or, if you know the flourish, spin it to reveal the correct card.

Newbie Note: A flourish is magician's talk for a juggling-like card or coin move that looks cool but isn't itself magic. Card fans and the steeplechase (making a coin roll over the backs of your knuckles) are flourishes. While fun, flourishes can detract from creating the effect of magic because they show the performer has skill. If the performer doesn't seem to have too much dexterity, then her tricks seem more magical.

Magical Reality Check: If you mentally force a card through a riffle peek, bring it to the top and say, "I will try to make the card you are thinking of come to the top," then dramatically reveal the wrong card via the Longitudinal Snap Double Lift, after which you shrug and change it into the right one, you have a mind-blowing card trick. It is very powerful because the magician, after failing to do the impossible (finding AND controlling a thought of card), then must seemingly resort to real magic--changing the wrong card into the thought of one. I will provide my method for this at a later date.

New Patter for Out of this World

2005-03-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

Paul Curry's Out of this World is a classic of card magic. The effect is that a spectator correctly divines the colors of cards without looking at them. The version I do is Harry Lorraine's impromptu version. I use a subtlety Phil Goldstein (Max Maven) showed me as a teenager which (except for one false overhand shuffle) completely eliminates the need for sleight of hand. My contribution to the trick is to present it as "an experiment": after the first part of the trick, in which the magician pulls cards out of the shuffled pack and asks the spectator to figure out if each card is red or black, he admits that, since he (or she) saw the cards, he may have subtly transmitted a message by nonverbal communication. Thus, in the second half of the trick, he lets the spectator himself divide the cards into two piles, red and black. This second part of the trick is presented as the "double blind" part of the trick: since the magician doesn't see the cards, he can't convey his knowledge of their color, even nonverbally. What's nice about this patter, apart from being scientifically authentic, is that it provides a rationale for the switching of the colors of the card piles in the middle of the pack.

Newbie note: "patter" refers to the schtick or talk of a magician while he does his tricks.

Magical reality check: it has long been known that the best way to protect a magic secret, short of taking it to the grave, is to publish it. So this one won't be going to anyone's grave.