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BILLS SILKS ROPES COINS CARDS SPECIALTIES MNEMONICS
MlNDREADING LINKING RINGS
SIXTY TRICKS
MAGICAL WAYS AND MEANS
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WAYS w MEANS SIXTY TRICKS
AL BAKER
Ninety-Two Drawings by Dr. Harlan Tarbell Forty-Seven Photographs by Irving Desfor
CARL WARING JONES Publisher of Magic MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
COPYRIGHT 1 9 4 1 , 1946, BY CARL W. JONES COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IN ALL COUNTRIES
SUBSCRIBING
TO
THE
BERN
CONVENTION
All Rights Reserved: No part of this book, text or illustrations, may be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher. Second Edition
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY WIFE PHOEBE for her patience and understanding of a magician's whims, during the forty-five years of our marriage. AL BAKER
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE.
xi CARDS
A Lesson in Magic The Magician at Home Red-Black Transposition One Deck Do As I Do Half Card and Cigarette Trick Ambitious Card Interlude Herrmann's Vanish of a Fan of Cards "Roughing" It Outguessing the Spectator Improved Card Code for Two Persons Walking and Jumping Card Flapless Envelope Switch (Baker Method) The Knife Dial Slipping the Cut, Table Method (Baker Improvement) The Swinging Rising Cards (Baker Method for Club Work) Poker Face Miniature Card in Balloon CHAPTER TWO.
COINS AND BILLS
Magical Filtration of Four Half Dollars Stack of Quarters Rising Coin (Baker Method) A Dinner Table Trick Bending a Half Dollar A Knotty Problem Dollar Bill and Cigarette Erectile Dollar Bill Dollar Bill Switch Envelopes and Coin CHAPTER THREE.
1 8 9 12 14 17 18 20 20 22 24 26 28 29 31 34 35
37 40 42 44 44 45 47 50 52 54
SILKS
20th Century Silks (Baker Method) Phantom Tube (Baker Presentation) Spirits at Work vi
56 59 60
Contents
vii
A Silk Force The Knot That Just Won't Sympathetic Silks (Streamline Version) CHAPTER FOUR.
ROPES
Give a Magician Enough Rope (Stage Version of Cut and Restored Rope Effect) A Rope Interlude CHAPTER FIVE.
92 96 98 100 101 102 104 107
THE LINKING RINGS
Linking Rings Opening Baker's Linking Rings CHAPTER EIGHT.
76 77 79 81 84 85 87 89 90
MNEMONICS
Saturday Evening Post Feat Phenomenal Memory An Impossible Count The Celebrity Feat The Polish Psychic Living and Dead Test Plus A Miracle of Memory The Pairs Repaired (New Baker Method) CHAPTER SEVEN.
72 74
MINDREADING
Cooperative Conjuring Acme Mindreading Effect Seeing Through Solid Matter Super-Superprediction Concentration—Card Crimp Number Force—Prepared Cards Baker Slate Easel Any Telephone Book Test Number and Book Test CHAPTER SIX.
63 64 66
109 110 SPECIALTIES
Levitation of a Glass of Liquid The Naomi Gold Fish Bowl Production Ink Filtration (Baker Method) Welded Flash Paper Glass Penetration (Baker Method) The Flying Match Head Kiddie Party Slate Torn and Restored Paper Napkin The Quick and the Dead (With Baker Pellet Switch) Cut and Restored Necktie
120 122 124 126 127 129 129 131 132 134
AL BAKER IN T H E GAY NINETIES
FOREWORD AL BAKER the first thrill, the first gasp of excitement when his father placed a hat over a rice-filled cup . . . then laughed and pulled the hat away, showing that the rice was gone. . . . Al Baker was but twelve years old when his father taught him that trick— and it captured his fancy, gave birth to his love of magic. Al practiced diligently each day, learning from his father and learning from books. . . . Then, when Al was seventeen years old, Herrmann—the Great Herrmanncame to Al's home town, Poughkeepsie. The youth was at the station when Herrmann's train chugged in; and he was first in line at the theatre that night when Herrmann performed. All through the show Al sat pop-eyed, awe-struck. That night he decided that magic was to be his life work. Three years later Al was magician-salesman-barker in a traveling medicine show. First exhorting the dubious benefits of the product, then entertaining the audience, and finally selling the product, Al learned how to speak before all classes and types of people. When he was twenty-three he joined another traveling show, this time working alongside a perpetually drunk ventriloquist. One fateful night the ventriloquist was unable to perform. Al Baker, completely ignorant of voice-throwing procedure, stepped onto the platform as a substitute. By lowering his head each time the dummy was to speak, Al stumbled through a few performances. But he finally mastered the whole routine. . . . Soon Al and Dennis were famed across the country for their ingenious and hilarious act. Magicians everywhere looked to his act as an example of perfection and spontaneous wit. Since that time Al Baker has grown up in magic. He is now a prolific inventor, a superb performer, a remarkable ventriloquist. But even more, Al Baker is known all over the world as the fairest, most charming and wittiest man in magic . . . an absolute credit to his profession! HE CAN STILL REMEMBER
New York
ELMER
ix
P. RANSOM