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September 15, 2006


Mike Powers responded favorably to the recent TRICK (“Acid Reflex”) and offered this nice addition:

It could be a transposition effect. The card that ends up under the spectator's
hand could be one (perhaps a Joker) that was thought to be in the card case
as the outset. I like this better than just having a random card under the
spec's hand. Without a transposition, the interpretation of what happened is
strange. I'm not sure what it would be. Did the selection turn into a random
card under the hand and then appear in the case? What exactly happened? A transposition is really clear cut and tidy.

Just a thought.

Also: Steve Reynolds reminded me of a neat idea from Paul Curry that is easily adapted to the “Reflex” trick, using what is essentially sleight-of-tongue. This is also mentioned in a footnote in Stephen Minch’s excellent book Paul Curry’s Worlds Beyond (2001) – “The Miscalled Palm,” pp. 270-271.

Instead of resorting to successive Double Turnovers or D’Amico Spreads, control the selection fifth from the face. Then say, “I’m going to deal cards face down to the table one at a time. If I deal your card, quickly slam your hand onto it.

Hold the deck so that it faces you. Deal the face card face down to the table. As you do, note the next face card and then name it. The spectator will assume that you are naming the card initially dealt. Continue you in this fashion until the spectator slams his hand onto the card he assumes is his. His selection is at the face of the neck-tied deck, ready to be stolen.

Although it may be putting “legs on a snake,” you can apply the beginning mechanics of Marlo’s “Teeter-Totter Change” so that you can ostensibly show the first face card on the deck, which is really the card second from the face.

To wit: Palm any card into a right-hand Classic Palm. Suppose it is the Jack of Diamonds. With the deck held face up in your left hand, showing, say, the Three of Hearts, momentarily place your right hand in a relaxed Biddle Grip, only place it to the right to fully expose the Three of Hearts.

The palmed JD is now partially on top of the exposed 3H. Next flatten your right hand slightly. Your right forefinger should still remain curled on top. The palmed Jack of Diamonds, though now flat and against the deck at an angle, remains concealed beneath your right hand.

Point out the 3H and then tilt back the deck so that the face card just shown is facing you. During this quick, broader action, your left thumb contacts the face of the Jack of Diamonds and instantly drags it flush with the deck by pulling it upward and to the left. The outer right corner of the Jack of Diamonds will pivot against your left pinky (a fulcrum point). The lower end of the card will swing clockwise and flush. The entire action takes a half-second to execute.

When the deck is tilted back in this fashion, the audience sees that your right palm is empty. Everything is copacetic.

Deal the JD face down, stud-fashion. Now you are “good to go”…


THE PENDRAGON’S SUPPOSED MISFIRE

Mishaps, like train wrecks, make news in magicdom. In this age of 24-7, instantaneous, I-can't-wait-for-the-blood-to-dry reportage, factoids tend to rule the day. Readers also tend to relish the "dirt" and the "dish" and use negative events (which they know about second- or third-hand or as fitful hearsay) as a pretext to tsk-tsk, preach, lament, or breathlessly palaver.

I know it's difficult to suppress one's reactionary views...and blogs, like tabloid news, have enormous upsides and downsides.

That being said, perhaps as fellow magicians we should be more eager to empathize and wait for first-hand facts to emerge? In short, we should support what is good about our celebrated colleagues, not trounce on what may turn out to be a lamentable aberration.

When I read the patron letter by the apologist, I was more interested in speculating about his motives and why he so quickly responded without disclosing any extenuating details.

That is the back-story we should be wanting to know.

Although it is unlikely that we will ever see a film or video of the show, to comment on it based on insufficient evidence is risky business.

Side-bar: Many years ago I wrote that the Pendragons aspire to perform Epic Magic, meaning that they raise the bar very high. When they unerringly hit their marks, the results are spectacular. The downside is if there are miscues or mishaps, the effort tends to be equally spectacular in a negative sense.

I considered this praise at the time.

In this light, I think the latest flap (whatever it was) is merely a "speed bump." At least I hope so...

And, yes, I realize I'm adding my palaver to the rest...an irony that is tepid, at best...

Like the others who have commented, I could not resist...


INIMITABLITY?

This hastily drafted ramble merely touches on points worthy of deeper analysis and longer discussions. The enduring problem about “stealing” in magicdom and what may be permissible to use has a long history. A quotation I’ve long used is—“We are parasites of our precursors”—which unfortunately has a pejorative ring to it. How we choose to act in this “parasitic” relation can be telling. When we get support, sustenance, advantage, significant knowledge in such a relation (because of accessibility) and do not equally reciprocate or play by agreed upon rules, the character of this kind of parasitism should be considered selfish and condemnable.

Imitation is a common way anybody learns ANYTHING. Magicians, certainly not being exceptions, as beginners largely learn by seeing other magicians perform or explain. What is seen is based on IDEAS and CONCEPTS, expressed in SCHEMES and PROCEDURES, accompanied by scripted or spontaneous TALK. When considered as strictly being ideas or concepts, they momentarily regarded as ABSTRACT things. They are considered to be FREELY-floating entities (Platonic Ideals?) available-for-the-taking.

Magic dealers of course SELL some of these ideas, concepts, schemes, props, and patter. In other words, they COMMODIFY these things and attach prices to them. So, in the COMMERCE of magic it is implicit in the TRANSACTION that a SANCTION exists—the sanction being that the buyer can to do anything he wishes with whatever he purchased. This, as most of us eventually realize, becomes a banshee-screaming Pandora’s Box.

Of course, initiates want access to everything. Then once they have gained access and know precious secrets, they want the backrooms of magicdom to shut forever. They do not want anyone else to know the secrets they now know. (When I learned how the Brainwave deck was done, I thought: Houdini would have paid big bucks to know the secret of this phenomenal trick and would do everything in his power to suppress its secret.)

Back in the old days when privileged access to secrets was the norm, insiders protected them; and for the most part they honored the signature work of colleagues and fellow insiders. Those betraying this trust were ostracized and shunned. (There were of course exceptions.)

Also, in the not-so-distant past, amateurs did not routinely interfere with professionals. They did not invade their turf, steal their lines or material (unless they thought they could get away with it), or publish other magician’s ideas without permission. (Notice that I said, “…routinely.” Plagiarism and rip-offs have always existed; however, it was not as rampant as today.)

Sad Example: Don Alan was raised in the old tradition where amateurs bought stuff from dealers and then performed for friends or at parochial venues. In other words, they performed classics and new stuff, but they did not perform the Chinese Sticks exactly like Roy Benson or do the billiard balls like Buckingham in larger public venues or on national television. When Don Alan became famous, he was grateful to Frances Ireland for her steadfast support and help. To express his gratitude he gave her permission to sell many of his signature PRESENTATIONS such as the Bowl Routine and Ranch Bird. Since these tricks were seen on television, Magic Inc. (Ireland’s) sold lots of these routines to magicians, who immediately glommed onto them and IMITATED Don…chapter and verse. One Chicago magician completely copied Don’s entire act.

So, what’s the upshot?

At time passed there were many Don-Alan clones and some of them competed for the same jobs Don had been working. After awhile Don became bitter, disenchanted and disengaged.

When we were working on his book, I had the temerity to tell Don that the best way to avoid imitation is to be inimitable. Then you are the sole owner of a franchise that is ESSENTIALLY YOU. End of story.

Recently there was an interesting show on Bravo called “The 100 Greatest TV Characters”—people such as Lucy, Archie Bunker, Ralph Cramden, Ed Norton, the Fugitive, the Fonz, Frazier, etc. One commentator said, “When you (as a viewer) cannot imagine another actor playing a certain character, then the actor known for playing that character OWNS the part.” Again, end of story.

There have been only a few inimitable magicians.
The rest, alas, struggle to express themselves the best they can, hoping that whatever is uniquely theirs will shine through what they have learned through imitation and expropriation…including the “borrowed” and the “bought.”

Ethical issues are complicated and questions that arise are easier to pose than to answer.

Onward…

Steven Millhauser, who wrote the short-story which was the basis for the film, The Illusionist, has written my other works of fiction that magicians should read. In a recent interview he had this to say:

Steven Millhauser: I remember being struck by a passage in a philosophy book that pointed out how no object is completely present to sight. If you look at a cube, you can see only three sides. The passage went on to distinguish seeing from imagining — in imagination, I immediately apprehend all six sides — but for me the simple fact that objects don't reveal themselves completely to sight became a symbol of the general invisibility of the world. Even the three visible sides of a cube are barely visible if, when it hits your sight, you happen to be meditating the murder of your wife's lover. And what about hollow cubes, like houses, that contain invisible spaces, filled with unseen things that we can only guess at? To say nothing of cubes that once were there and are there no longer. We walk through a world continually disappearing from view. One thing fiction does is restore the hidden and vanishing world. It makes the blind see. It gives us the mystic's vision: the universe in a grain of sand (not a bad definition of the short story, by the way). That's what I meant when I said that I want fiction to unbind my eyes.

Onward...

The reverb effect is working. The Gombert paper resulted in some interesting freedback. I recvently discussed some oif the dynamics with Richard Hatch and Michael Weber. Both asked if I had heard from Arthur Hastings. The answer is yes.

Here is what Arthur wrote:

Dear Jon,

Thanks for the copy of the manuscript on the mystery pass/reverse. I think you have stated the situation accurately from my point of view. I see nothing surprising in magicians coming up independently with similar sleights, moves, and even effects. After all, it happens in science, literature, and other areas of creativity, why not magic? It is only our egos that are unhappy. That particular turnover move is a natural one to do when one is exploring reverses or passes. And, sometimes your fingers come up with moves that your mind does not know.

I'll add four comments on the sleight:

(1) The first is that the pass can be made so the deck ends face up or face down. In my opinion it is smoother to end with the deck face up. However, I feel that the visual effect is better if the deck is face down, as in the Marlo reference, because the card is more visible face up in a face-down deck.
(2) Second, I did not go into the details of handling because I assumed that I was writing for skilled card workers, and they already understood the details of handling. (I do not care for the write-ups of sleights in which every position is spelled out in fractions and angles. It seems unnecessary to me, especially because hands and performing positions vary. One should be able to use experience and mirrors to adjust the handling. Of course, there are some sleights which are sensitive to these details, and the writer should provide the specifics.)
(3) The third is a speculative thought. The Marlo “Fantastic Move” is so close to my description, that I wonder if he might have read my item and then incorporated it into his effect, perhaps not even remembering the source. I know that after I published (in Hugard's) my variation on “Daly's Last Trick,” in which two of the aces change to kings, Marlo then came up with many variations on the Aces changing places, changing to Kings, etc., inspired by my effect, which was klunky compared to his extensions. When I first showed him my version, he commented, "Magicians will like it," because of all the complex handling. But, as we know, it would be unusual for Marlo to read something and then not remember it.
(4) Regarding whether I had seen Cervon or others doing his reverse: I had never seen anyone do the effect that way, and I remember coming up with it as I was working on the manuscript. If I had seen it, I would have credited it.

I am in the dark as to what you are going to do with the Gombert essay. Is it destined for publication?

Arthur

*****

I also just heard from another "player:" Gordon Bruce. I will post his remarks here.

Stay tuned.

Onward...