Mailbag #120
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Your posts about examination (a topic magicians don't think about enough) reminds me of something I might have mentioned before.
There are lots of simple sleight-of-hand ways to apparently show a deck of cards all consisting of the same card. And then you turn everything back to normal by spreading the deck face-up.
I always thought it would be interesting to do a Svengali deck routine.
Then switch in the regular deck - and apparently continue the Svengali routine with some all-alike displays.
And then finish by showing the deck is back to normal.
You then leave the deck out to be examined - as you leave to go the bathroom.
A Svengali deck is one of the few routines where you can shift the focus by still apparently having the gaffed deck in play AFTER the deck has been switched out.
That is a powerful place to be.
I think what often confuses magicians about examinability is this. If a magic dealer (or another magician) shows you a trick - it is considered rude to examine the deck before asking. Particularly when in a magic shop - since it can lead to the magician learning the secret for "free" and thus ruining a potential sale.
Laypeople don't think like that. Why would they?—JM
Yeah, I like this, especially if you have someone in your life who is hyper-interested in the secrets to tricks.
You tell them you got a new “Trick Deck” in the mail. You demonstrate how the deck can be shown normal, or how it can be shown to be all the same cards. Don’t get into the details (short cards/long cards) just show how it can switch back and forth.
“Of course, you wouldn’t want to just do it like that, or they’ll know it’s a trick deck. But you can use it in more subtle ways too. Like always knowing what card they cut to.”
Have them cut the deck. Slide off the top card toward them. As they take a look at the card they cut to, switch the deck for a duplicate deck in your lap that doesn’t have the Svengali force card in it.
Put the card back on the deck, overhand shuffle it to the bottom, then cut the deck and riffle force it on yourself, showing how convenient it is because the card is “anywhere you cut to”. Then do the Hindu shuffle thing or one of those other proving techniques, casually, as you talk about the coolest part of the deck. It’s voice activated. “Hey Deck. Normal Mode,” you say, as if you’re speaking to a Siri or Alexa.
The deck can now be immediately handed out for examination. While that happens, you jam the deck in your lap in your pocket or whatever.
Two downsides:
There’s one short-card in the normal deck. I don’t know how much of an issue that is. It doesn’t really explain much of anything. But you can buy a reverse Svengali, and figure out a handling with that, and you wouldn’t have that issue.
If they genuinely buy what you show them, they’ll never trust any deck you do something with ever again.
I really like the 30-Day Challenge idea and how it gives laypeople a glimpse into a totally fake process of learning magic.
You mentioned using it for something like vanishing a coin. What kind of steps would you use along that process other than the shrinking coins? —HF
Hmmm… it’s going to depend on how “mechanical” you imagine vanishing a coin to be. In my mind, it’s sort of a process of visualization and then being able to lay that visualization on top of the real world.
So the first steps can just be holding a coin for increasingly long periods of time. As if you need to train your hand to memorize the feel of a coin.
The next step may involve carrying a coin with you in your hand until you forget you’re holding onto it for longer and longer periods of time. As if part of vanishing a coin is “forgetting” about it.
Then there would be steps where you do visualization exercises of the coin shrinking or dissolving or whatever.
Then there would be steps where you’re trying to vanish smaller, less dense objects. A tiny tab of paper. A drop of water.
Finally, you move onto coins. And you would build up to vanishing a piece of a coin, or shrinking a coin, or vanishing some of the mass of the coin (so it weighs slightly less). And so on.
That’s the type of trajectory I’d use.