Monday Mailbag #41
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Is there any chance you would ever do a collaboration with Phill Smith? You are two of my favorite magic creators and I really love your thoughts on Stegosaurus and especially Quinta, which I think are game-changing. I’d love to see the two of you collaborate in some way in the future. —DH
Hmmm… okay, sure! I mean, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. But I suppose anything is possible. I too am a big fan of Phill’s work. And I have some further concepts to be used with Quinta that I will likely share in some form someday.
By the way, Phill has a kickstarter that is ending in a couple days that I would recommend you sign up for. I will definitely be doing so myself. It’s a special deck of cards and a wrist band that creates a neural link between one’s mind and the deck of cards. (That’s the presentation, I mean. Not the reality.) You can see more details on the kickstarter page.
Now, if I had one trick to show someone, and I wanted to leave them as amazed as possible, this is probably not the trick I would show them. However I think it’s a good trick/presentation to have in your repertoire in order to keep your audience off balance. This is something that’s on the edge of believability. It’s the sort of thing you can perform in such a way that they are forever in a state of limbo in regards to whether they believe it or not. Or you can perform it in such a way that it feels quite legitimate, and then you ramp it up at the end and do something that seems beyond impossible. So just when they think they have an understanding on what might be real, you mess with them a little more. I think it will be a lot of fun. At the very least it will be a change of pace, as I don’t have any other tricks with this particular premise. Get in on it before the kickstarter ends.
Do you collect decks of cards? If so, do you display them in your home or are they stored away? —EC
There was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when I tried to collect every new deck I heard about. It was actually kind of feasible at the time. Or at least it felt that way. There weren’t a bunch of different companies releasing decks constantly. There was no kickstarter. Bicycle would release green Rider Backs and that seemed like a big deal. So every couple of months I might hear about a new deck and then pick it up for my collection whether I liked it or not.
Then, as more decks got released, I started only buying ones that I liked aesthetically. Usually they had some kind of mid-century design element to them.
However, these days, I really only buy and display decks that I feel I can attach a story to. The Phill Smith deck mentioned above would be such a deck. Or the Jerx Deck #4. Ideally I want people to be able to pick up any of the decks I have out at my place and for me to have something interesting to say about it other than, “I bought it cause I liked it.”
[Update 4/23 - I’ve removed a question and answer from this edition of the Mailbag because it mentioned a product in a not 100% flattering light. And the guy behind the product emailed me and was all defensive about it. Normally I would post such emails for you all to get a kick out of, but these weren’t the funny kind of angry emails. They were the sad, depressing kind.
However, I received a number of nice emails about the simple routine mentioned below. So I want to keep that there and the method to do the routine with a normal deck.
The subject of the original question was what justification I would use to do a peek of a word written on a playing card.]
Here’s what I’d do… I’d remove the joker from the deck. I’d note the fact the joker is often used as a replacement card for lost or damaged cards by writing that card’s value on the joker. I’d talk about my mom’s extended Italian family and how playing cards was always a big part of our interaction when I was growing up. I’d have them imagine a deck of cards spread face up on the table and a big dollop of marinara sauce falling on one of them, ruining the card. I’d have them write the name of whatever card they’re thinking of on the joker and slide it into the middle of the deck, which I would case and set aside. Then I’d reveal the card the wrote in some way.
Cards justified. Writing justified.
But…
Having the ability to peek writing and then using that to reveal a playing card could be seen as uninspiring, considering we already have so many ways to reveal a playing card.
So I would probably add another element to it. I’d have them write down the card and another piece of information. How do we naturally involve another piece of information. Hmm… I’d probably say something like, “Whenever I would alter one of the jokers in this way. I’d always write a little message on it to. For whoever’s deck it was. So I might write, ‘Hi Grandma!’ or ‘Hi, Uncle Bill!’ And that always made the card weirdly special to them. I know my grandma held onto a couple of these jokers long after the deck itself had been replaced with a newer one. So I want you to also think of a favorite relative of yours and write a greeting to them on the card as well.”
Then I’d have them put the card in the deck, cull it to the bottom, and case the deck (peeking the information in the process of casing the deck). If I was at a table I might cull it and then cop it or just drop it off the bottom of the deck into my lap and give the deck to the spectator. This may seem somewhat bold, but as I believe I’ve written about before, culling is a somewhat underrated sleight. Laymen see a card that’s put in the middle of the deck as a card that’s trapped by a bunch of cards on either side. In testing, when we asked people about how they would go about getting a card from the middle to the bottom without someone seeing, they had the concept of pulling the card free from the deck and placing it on the bottom “sneakily”, and they had the idea of cutting the deck very quickly (essentially a pass). But there was no real understanding in laypeople of the concept that a card in the middle can be easily extracted from a spread and slid to the bottom.
Next I’d ask them to imagine playing a card game with this relative and them needing one particular card to complete their hand. Blah, blah, blah. Eventually I name the card they’re thinking of and after some thought the person they imagined playing the game with as well.
The nice thing about this is you could go into it anytime, anywhere so long as you had a deck of cards and a marker. No special gimmicks needed. You could even use a borrowed deck since you’re just writing on the joker.