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Old 26th January 2018, 06:44 PM   #1
Senex
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I'm sharing a bit of my "A" material here because the this section needs some juice.

This thread won't run afoul of exposing secrets (even if that is no longer an issue) because it isn't a magic trick. It's more like a stunt or a joke but you represent it as a magic trick when you start. Under no circumstances are you to sue me or Penn and Teller who wrote the article I learned this from if you damage your eye. Reader beware.

OK, this works best if you have been drinking with people thinking your judgement may be off and you and your audience are at the local Waffle House having a bite before calling it a night. You proudly state that you are going to perform a magic trick with a metal fork and your eye. You take a fork and start poking around the outside of your eye with it. I GUARANTEE your audience will be uncomfortable and ask you to stop. You act offended and tell them they are in the presence of a true artist. What your audience doesn't know is that you have cupped/palmed a small coffee creamer in your left hand. When you have worked your audience up to a frenzy that they think you are nuts you bring your left hand up to your eye (hiding the creamer from their site) and puncture it with the fork and squeeze it and the cream (eye juice) will spurt across the table definitely scaring the hell out of the gullible members of the table.

It's brilliant.
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Old 26th January 2018, 08:34 PM   #2
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Keep the cork on the fork, Rubrect.
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Old 20th May 2018, 03:07 PM   #3
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This sounds like a Mac King trick.
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Old 22nd May 2018, 02:23 AM   #4
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Honestly, after a few drinks what could go wrong?
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Old 22nd May 2018, 09:43 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by a_unique_person View Post
Honestly, after a few drinks what could go wrong?

Senex unleashing the Grob.
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Old 22nd May 2018, 09:51 AM   #6
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Read this one in a Penn and Teller book a looong time ago.
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Old 23rd May 2018, 08:48 AM   #7
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Since this thread has been resurrected by popular demand I will offer more of my "A" stuff.

What I"m about to write is secret magic stuff. Don't read unless you honestly wish to learn about magic (I'm particularly looking at the single, middle-aged ladies who shouldn't read how the sausage is made.)

Two words: thumb tip. The bare handed cigarette vanish is as jaw dropping an affect as anything.
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Old 23rd May 2018, 11:10 AM   #8
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Not sure how secret thumb tips are, since they come in kid's "Be a Magician" kits. They're handy for doing psychic surgery though.
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Old 24th May 2018, 10:28 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by deadrose View Post
Not sure how secret thumb tips are, since they come in kid's "Be a Magician" kits. They're handy for doing psychic surgery though.
No bulloney, I have truly amazed people just using a thumb tip. You can get away with stuff right under your audience's nose and also at a distance. There was a period in my life where I patted myself down before leaving my apartment. I needed to touch my keys, wallet, watch and thumb tip before taking on the night.

I'm clumsy but good at misdirection. The thumb tip can be considered a gateway magic trick so I should proceed with caution. I'm lazy and have always looked for the easy way to perform miracles. The thumb tip is the easy way.

My hope is young skeptics who read this unpopular thread find a nugget.
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Old 1st June 2018, 10:12 AM   #10
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My color changing knives routine has practically earned me a harem. Hand someone a white pen knife to examine and then change it to red and then back to white and then red again and hand back a red knife to be reexamined. It's a standard affect that costs a few dollars and some practice but it pays off big.

I'm writing this one only because I no longer seem to meet people from the site (so you won't see me perform this) and wish to help someone monitoring this dead thread for ideas.

Loops. It's expensive and I'm cheap but it looks like real magic. One thing I do is tell my audience how much of a skeptic I am and then say there is one exception about moving stuff with your mind and i take their glasses off and put them on the table and I can make their glasses move. Right under their noses under any lighting conditions. No bulloney, some people who know me may have believed I cracked the psychokinetic issue through internet reading. It looks like real magic.
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Old 5th June 2018, 10:56 AM   #11
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I'm ready to accept even negative feedback.

The Conjuror's Corner has fallen on hard times.
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Old 6th June 2018, 09:30 AM   #12
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This is true.

I've never actually mastered any sleight-of-hand, but I was an assistant when my dad revived his stage magic career in the 70's and I spent a year working for Stan Kramien as a roadie, concessionaire, and occasional assistant.

It was an awesome year, and I learned a lot. Never managed to make it down to his Jamboree in Oregon. By the time I could afford it, he'd stopped having them.
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Old 7th June 2018, 11:46 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by deadrose View Post
This is true.

I've never actually mastered any sleight-of-hand, but I was an assistant when my dad revived his stage magic career in the 70's and I spent a year working for Stan Kramien as a roadie, concessionaire, and occasional assistant.

It was an awesome year, and I learned a lot. Never managed to make it down to his Jamboree in Oregon. By the time I could afford it, he'd stopped having them.
Through some crazy coincidence I'm reviving my stage magic career and am in need of a female roadie, concessionaire, and occasional assistant. What are the odds? hehehe...

Gimmicked decks. There are a number to choose from. It's best if you have an identical nongimmicked deck to switch to.
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Old 7th June 2018, 08:53 PM   #14
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Ha! Back then I was a skinny 19 year old who could carry 4/5 of her body weight easily. Now I'm nearly 59 and too plump to fit into your average stage illusion.

And yes, I've though about just using gaffed decks, but my hands are so small I can't even shuffle cards properly, much less palm one, so it seems like complete cheating to do any card magic at all.
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Old 7th June 2018, 08:57 PM   #15
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I'd bet I can still spin floss though, it's like riding a bike.
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Old 8th June 2018, 06:19 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by deadrose View Post
Ha! Back then I was a skinny 19 year old who could carry 4/5 of her body weight easily. Now I'm nearly 59 and too plump to fit into your average stage illusion.
hehehe... I find magical assistants in their late 50's and early 6o's to be my favorite demographic of assistance.
Quote:
And yes, I've though about just using gaffed decks, but my hands are so small I can't even shuffle cards properly, much less palm one, so it seems like complete cheating to do any card magic at all.
I never felt using gaffed decks was cheating. Entertaining is entertaining.

Originally Posted by deadrose View Post
I'd bet I can still spin floss though, it's like riding a bike.
I'm hoping "spin floss" is a euphemism.
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Old 8th June 2018, 01:51 PM   #17
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Eh, it's carny for cotton candy. My boss was an old carny, one of the other 2 roadies was a carny, and we frequently did joint shows with a small circus so I learned a lot of the language & culture, and was declared an honorary carny by the circus crew.

Took me a few months to rein my mouth in when I left, I coulda made a sailor blush
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Old 9th June 2018, 06:33 AM   #18
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Originally Posted by deadrose View Post
Eh, it's carny for cotton candy. My boss was an old carny, one of the other 2 roadies was a carny, and we frequently did joint shows with a small circus so I learned a lot of the language & culture, and was declared an honorary carny by the circus crew.

Took me a few months to rein my mouth in when I left, I coulda made a sailor blush
May I ask you to share one story? Your stories outdistance mine.
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Old 9th June 2018, 02:17 PM   #19
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Hm, what sort of a story? Having our load-in turning out to be up a fire escape in the rain? Fun with 4 tons of equipment, I tell you. If I remember right that was also about the time where the magician's wife and onstage assistant was possibly going to have to leave at any moment because her father was deathly ill, which would have put me onstage in her place.

The problem was that she was 6' tall, with quite a figure, and I was 5'2" with a figure that got me mistaken for a pubescent boy on a regular basis. None of her costumes would have fit me in any dimension at all. When I *did* appear onstage I was generally wearing a clown suit and appearing from an empty "dolls house" box.

I was actually the right size for most illusions though, she had to go through some painful contortions to get sawed in half at her height.

Or are you more interested in hearing about shows with the circus and becoming fast friends with their young elephant? Or something else entirely?
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Old 10th June 2018, 07:31 AM   #20
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I've always been an attentive audience member for wardrobe malfunction stories.

However, I know you have many interesting performing stories (elaborating just on what you mentioned ) that would be fun for everyone to read and would give some needed juice to the Conjuror's Corner.
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Old 13th June 2018, 12:26 PM   #21
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One thing I am an expert at is those inexpensive magic sets. There has yet to be created a crap cups and balls set I can't impress with.
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Old 14th June 2018, 03:04 PM   #22
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I'll try to write up some of my stories and post them, however we're right in the midst of house-buying and moving, so I can't guarantee when.
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Old 18th June 2018, 03:16 PM   #23
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I work food festivals during most of the year selling high end wines, when no-one is buying I do my best to entertain fellow vendors with the odd trick or two. I get good results with a thumb tip as an easy "go to", I have a good and really simple torn bill restoration (but unfortunately anything under a Ł20 note is untearable now), even the simplest tricks impress in what appears to be uncontrolled circumstances.
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Old 24th June 2018, 05:35 AM   #24
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Originally Posted by P.J. Denyer View Post
I work food festivals during most of the year selling high end wines, when no-one is buying I do my best to entertain fellow vendors with the odd trick or two.
I go to festivals during much of the year but the low end beer guys are my usual vendors. Smokers are my favorite target for thumb tip magic.

I have a mistreat a dollar trick that I spent money on when I was an early teen and never used. You pull out this pretty much non gimmicked, maybe a little, hole puncher and ask for a bill. You fold it in eighths, punch it, eight circular pieces of the bill hit the table. Ypu collect 7 (oops, missed one) and resurrect the bill and the missing piece fits perfectly at the end. It's brilliant but requires a real ballsy sleight I wasn't comfortable doing. I'm going to blow the dust off it this summer just to have a new story to post here.
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Old 27th June 2018, 04:29 AM   #25
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It never ceases to amaze me how blatant the trick can be if done confidently and with a modicum of style, I do a paper money restore that a five year old could figure out, but it amazes people. The only problem now is that we have new untearable five and ten pound notes so I have to use a twenty. I'm waiting to see how long it takes before one of my torn twenties finds it's way back to me!
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Old 2nd July 2018, 10:59 AM   #26
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Originally Posted by P.J. Denyer View Post
It never ceases to amaze me how blatant the trick can be if done confidently and with a modicum of style,
When I was very young I read an ancient magic text that exposed effective but outdated secrets. This particular secret seemed too brazen when I was even nine to ever perform. It's called "One Ahead." It requires you to pass out pieces of paper to your audience and have someone recollect the paper in a hat or whatever after the audience has written questions on them. You pick out the questions from the hat one by one while blindfolded (or just eyes closed if performing while teaching.) You answer the questions correctly and then open each paper after you engaged with the question.

At one point in my life I decided to teach. Sometimes I was a substitute teacher. A few times a long term substitute and then my own class. The truth is I always looked at teaching as a reason to reason. I always looked on a classroom as a place not to be boring. As a place to often perform magic I had no place elsewhere to perform in front of a (literally) captivated audience. I floated a zombie ball several times a day. Every day I had a prepared routine.

Several times I used this one ahead method in a classroom. In third, fourth,fifth and sixth grade. You get a student who you can trust to being an accomplice to say the first paper was theirs. It is easy after that. I always finished the lesson saying there is no magic in my opinion. It's always a trick.

It was fun and educational for both parties. This definitely falls in the brazen category but can work, you have my word.
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Old 6th July 2018, 01:08 PM   #27
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Originally Posted by Senex View Post
When I was very young I read an ancient magic text that exposed effective but outdated secrets. This particular secret seemed too brazen when I was even nine to ever perform. It's called "One Ahead." It requires you to pass out pieces of paper to your audience and have someone recollect the paper in a hat or whatever after the audience has written questions on them. You pick out the questions from the hat one by one while blindfolded (or just eyes closed if performing while teaching.) You answer the questions correctly and then open each paper after you engaged with the question.

At one point in my life I decided to teach. Sometimes I was a substitute teacher. A few times a long term substitute and then my own class. The truth is I always looked at teaching as a reason to reason. I always looked on a classroom as a place not to be boring. As a place to often perform magic I had no place elsewhere to perform in front of a (literally) captivated audience. I floated a zombie ball several times a day. Every day I had a prepared routine.

Several times I used this one ahead method in a classroom. In third, fourth,fifth and sixth grade. You get a student who you can trust to being an accomplice to say the first paper was theirs. It is easy after that. I always finished the lesson saying there is no magic in my opinion. It's always a trick.

It was fun and educational for both parties. This definitely falls in the brazen category but can work, you have my word.
Deren Brown has performed (and explained) the one ahead method, I can't recall if it was on one of his TV shows or when I saw him live.
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Old 7th July 2018, 03:51 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by P.J. Denyer View Post
Deren Brown has performed (and explained) the one ahead method, I can't recall if it was on one of his TV shows or when I saw him live.
A Kreskin wannabee.hehehe...
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Old 18th July 2018, 11:00 AM   #29
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Ok, this is really "A" material and I won't expose the method because you can find it on youtube if you care to perform.

This is best done when magic tricks are not on anyone's mind. The trick is you plant a gimmicked soda or beer can somewhere (and i usually use the beer recycling pail at a party) but it is best if you can plant in on the side of the road you anticipate walking on later with friends. You pick up a discarded and crushed beverage can on the road. The can uncrushes right in front of their eyes and you open it and pour/drink the contents. it's mindbogglingly if your audience believes the can was found arbitrarily. A number of times people that saw me pick up and restore the can on the side of the road behaved inappropriate trying to get me to tell the secret. The trick is that good
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Old 18th July 2018, 10:41 PM   #30
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That is "A" material, excellent.


I have an old, fairly easy card trick my dad showed me when I was young. I have used it a few times when the opportunity arises and it always baffled people, not as good as the can though, maybe "B"?


I ask someone whether they have any psychic powers and if we could test them.
I give them a deck of cards (face down) and hold out my hands, asking them to try to place the red cards in my one hand and the blacks in the other.
They deal the cards one at a time placing them in the hand of their choice, until the cards are done.

I combine the cards in my two hands and hand the deck back to the person to check, the reds and blacks are separated.


Anyone know what this trick is called?
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Old 19th July 2018, 01:05 PM   #31
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Originally Posted by Cheetah View Post
That is "A" material, excellent.


I have an old, fairly easy card trick my dad showed me when I was young. I have used it a few times when the opportunity arises and it always baffled people, not as good as the can though, maybe "B"?


I ask someone whether they have any psychic powers and if we could test them.
I give them a deck of cards (face down) and hold out my hands, asking them to try to place the red cards in my one hand and the blacks in the other.
They deal the cards one at a time placing them in the hand of their choice, until the cards are done.

I combine the cards in my two hands and hand the deck back to the person to check, the reds and blacks are separated.


Anyone know what this trick is called?
The only way I know to pull this off is to use a stripped deck. I doubt you used one. In the spirit of this thread I must advocate purchasing a stripped deck for young magicians. I'm clumsy and lazy--yet I used to look like a world class card shark with this gimmicked deck. Amazing tricks can be performed.

OK, how do honest fellows separate the red cards from the black ones?
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Old 20th July 2018, 01:50 AM   #32
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I quickly googled looking for it and the closest I found seems to be "Out of This World". This version seems better and simpler though.

This is how I have done it.

Works best when you are socializing with a group of people at someone's house. Especially if some are open to the idea of psychic powers and the conversion drifts that way. There needs to be a deck of cards around and you need some alone time with the deck.
I excuse myself to go to the loo, grab the deck and separate the reds and blacks. I put the deck back when I return. Everyone who knows me, knows I'm a skeptic, so I argue against psychic powers and eventually demand to test someone to prove they are fooling themselves.
"Ah, a deck of cards!"
Grab the deck, pretend to give it a shuffle or two as you explain you want them to put all the reds in your one hand and the blacks in the other.
Give them the deck and let them do it.
Count the cards.
After half the deck keep the place with one of your pinky fingers.
After the deck has been dealt, instead of putting the two heaps of cards on top of each other, slip the one into the place you kept with your pinky finger.
Hand the deck back declaring that you are not even going to bother checking since psychic powers are obviously BS.

Appear baffled.
Accuse them of cheating!
Demand to do it again.

Fake shuffle, repeat.

Once did it three times in a row.
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Old 20th July 2018, 03:31 AM   #33
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Originally Posted by Cheetah View Post
I quickly googled looking for it and the closest I found seems to be "Out of This World". This version seems better and simpler though.

This is how I have done it.

Works best when you are socializing with a group of people at someone's house. Especially if some are open to the idea of psychic powers and the conversion drifts that way. There needs to be a deck of cards around and you need some alone time with the deck.
I excuse myself to go to the loo, grab the deck and separate the reds and blacks. I put the deck back when I return. Everyone who knows me, knows I'm a skeptic, so I argue against psychic powers and eventually demand to test someone to prove they are fooling themselves.
"Ah, a deck of cards!"
Grab the deck, pretend to give it a shuffle or two as you explain you want them to put all the reds in your one hand and the blacks in the other.
Give them the deck and let them do it.
Count the cards.
After half the deck keep the place with one of your pinky fingers.
After the deck has been dealt, instead of putting the two heaps of cards on top of each other, slip the one into the place you kept with your pinky finger.
Hand the deck back declaring that you are not even going to bother checking since psychic powers are obviously BS.

Appear baffled.
Accuse them of cheating!
Demand to do it again.

Fake shuffle, repeat.

Once did it three times in a row.
hmmm....

You aren't sharing necessary details.

Last edited by Senex; 20th July 2018 at 04:09 AM.
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Old 20th July 2018, 04:56 AM   #34
Cheetah
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No, that's it.


Edit:
Say you hand them the deck with red on top and black at the bottom.
After they have dealt 26 cards, you have all the reds in your hands and they have all the blacks.
Now slip in a pinky above the last red and before the first black.
After all the cards are dealt you have in your hands two stacks with black on top and red at the bottom, one separated by your pinky.
If you now slip the other stack into the gap where your pinky is, the deck ends up with black on top and red at the bottom.


If you are fairly dexterous you can slip both pinkies in. Slip the one stack in where your one pinky is, then cut where the other pinky is and hand over the reds and blacks in separate hands.
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Old 20th July 2018, 07:45 AM   #35
Senex
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Ok, i get it now. There is a payoff there.

How's this for a trick that requires absolutely no skill. You hand someone a deck to shuffle. They shuffle. They hand it back to you. Literally, in less than a second you can have the black and red cards divided in your hands. Welcome to the world of gimmicked decks.

You can't beat the shortcuts. I'm old and wise. Trust me.
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Old 31st July 2018, 01:43 PM   #36
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OK, here is some more A material. Let's say you are a brilliant magician but you have been drinking and have this brilliant trick lined up but it requires you force a card. This is an A material force that doesn't require any skill and you can perform it while staggered. I didn't create it but I perfected it.

The card you want selected is on the bottom of the deck. False shuffles leaves the bottom card as the bottom card. You ask the person across from you to cut the deck. You now have two piles. You distract them with conversation. You then put the bottom half of the deck perpendicular to the top. The card that looks "cut" was the bottom card you planted. You display it as the "fair" cut card. That is so brilliant I would not share this except I want to share A material
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Old 8th August 2018, 01:48 PM   #37
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A variation of cross cut? Not sure I see the perfection. I'm a rank amateur and have used it as originally conceived multiple times with great success.
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Old 9th August 2018, 10:41 AM   #38
Senex
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Originally Posted by Garrette View Post
A variation of cross cut? Not sure I see the perfection. I'm a rank amateur and have used it as originally conceived multiple times with great success.
Hi Garrette, long time no see. You're still modest.

Yes, you can't "perfect" something that requires no skill, but as I've said before, I'm good only good at the misdirection part.

My next offering is put a quarter through a soda or beer can. Wonderful trick even a clumsy guy like me can do after a little practice (this one requires some practice). Videos exist on the internet.

Last edited by Senex; 9th August 2018 at 10:43 AM.
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Old 9th August 2018, 11:37 AM   #39
Garrette
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Hah. It's the misdirection for me, too. But isn't that the real work, as they say?

Actually, my skill is in spotting the rare opportunities that such a thing will seem natural to the circumstance so that not only is my performance getting less heat but my misdirection seems part of the normal flow of things.

As to technical, beyond the rare DL or even rarer coin vanish, and the occasional weird count, it's mostly beyond me.
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Old 9th August 2018, 11:41 AM   #40
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I don't perform any myself but once I was watching a Penn & Teller BS episode, they said go pull a card from a deck and I did, from a deck that had been sitting at the back of a drawer in the living room, and it was their card. I'm pretty sure I screamed.
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