fl mflGflzine OF innovirnon LXXX
PRECURSOR LXXX This is PRECURSOR LXXX and is published in November 2001. PRECURSOR is edited by William P. Miesel and is published by unikorn magik. The editorial offices are at 2215 Myrtle Street, Erie, Pennsylvania, 16502-2643 (phone 1-814-454-8802). PRECURSOR will be published more than three times a year, and it will be sold for $21.00 (U.S.) for three issues. Outside the United States, Canada, and Mexico, three issues are sent Air Mail for ($25.00 U.S.). On Monday, June 4, Ron Zollweg called and said that he had just learned on the internet that Mike Rogers had died from cancer. Even though we only met eight or ten times, we became very good friends exchanging literally hundreds of letters, mostly during the ten year period after he was transferred by the Navy to Guantanamo Bay in 1965 until he retired from the Navy in San Diego about 1975. At that time Mike's magical interest changed from the highly technical theoretical card magic that we had been enjoying to the commercial magic that was required when he began performing trade shows. In our earliest letters in late summer 1965, we were discussing Lou Gallo and Bill Dunn's "Red and Blue Fantasy," which was advertised in the Linking Ring in April 1965. We both realized that gimmicked cards were involved and worked out some varied and different ideas along these lines, but wanted a method with just regular cards and NO "Hindu Shuffle." This issue starts out with a solution to this problem from Mike Rogers, in a letter to me on September 11, 1965, which I will just call "A Fantasy." A year and a half ago, I was fooling around with some ideas pertaining to the "Cannibal Cards." "Who 'Ate' Who?" is one of the ideas that I was working on at that time. "A Double Gilbreath" from Tom Hubbard is an interesting handling of the Gilbreath Principle in that the deck is given two Riffle Shuffles. While working on this, I came to the realization that this is a combination of the Gilbreath Principle with the Gemini Principle. Marty Kane submitted "Double Nine," two routines, "Killer's Pair" and "Rank Prank," that are dependent on the principle developed by Jim Steinmeyer in his routine, "Remote Control" that originally appeared in the New Invocation #43. "A Little Juggle With Some Dice" is exactly that. Like Dan Block, I remember this as a published problem because I tried it at one time with no discernable success. I would imagine that it is one of the famous Karl Fulves problems. It mostly takes a knack, but a couple little tricks are essential for success. It is a great interlude between other tricks where dice are involved. "Another Rotten Spelling Trick" is another one of those very humorous presentations by Warren Stephens. He just showed me the plot and the use of a block of force cards and left the rest of the details up to me. I was planning on working out a non-gimmicked version to include here, but I haven't had a chance so go ahead, take the plot and develop your own handling. The "Field Poker Divination" by Matthew Field is his version of the Scalbert "Mystery of the 7th Card." I first heard of this problem in 1957 when Rusduck posed his version of this problem in Cardiste #3 and I never heard of the "Mystery of the 7th Card" before this time. Rusduck posed the problem as a method of cheating at Stud Poker and not a mental trick. His premise was that a player in a game of Stud Poker would cue his hole card to his partner by rearranging 1
the four face-up cards. All of my efforts went in this direction with the face-down hole card and the four face-up cards remaining on the table. Out-of-sight mediums and telephones never came into play in my experimenting. Rusduck planned to publish one of my methods in Cardiste, but unfortunately he died before this came about. Then as time passed, all attention on this plot turned in the direction of a mental trick so I never published any of my cheating ideas. Hideo Kato offers a totally different approach to "The Mystery of the Seventh Card" from the one that was just taken by Matthew Field. At first glance, the idea of using twelve cards to code one card seems quite ridiculous, but any cards are selected and mixed by the spectator and the order of the cards does not seem to be rearranged by the performer. Still, the cards actually code the selected one. In Precursor LXXIII, I contributed "Stately Match-Up." The spectator correctly matches four of the new State Quarters with their states on a map. Karl Fulves was taken by the effect and has contributed a cleaner and more efficient method called "Coin Collecting." Precursor is still a periodical of Card Magic, but I am sure that many of you have noticed a few items of a mental nature have appeared in the last few issues because in my youth I wanted to be a mentalist. There may very well be more to come in the future if there is any interest along these lines. Another one of my interests is Magic History, and I wrote a nice report on the "Hooker Rising Cards" and included some interesting 1940's material from Neal Elias' Notebooks. Last year I came across some previously unknown information about an 1820's itinerate entertainer named Mr. Taylor. I submitted a short article to Magicol, but the editor did not think that it qualified as "magic" but more importantly, now everyone wants graphics and photos. Of course, none exist. I feel this information should be recorded somewhere so that it is not lost - as a result it appears here. A lot of my friends who are interested in Magic History get Precursor, so this is especially for them. William P. Miesel September 1,2001
I'm glad that William included the article about Mr. Taylor in Precursor. This magazine was begun because there was material in hand for which there was no outlet for publication. So, here it is again. This is not for every one of our readers, but there is very little, I suppose, that is of interest to all of our readers. But we do offer a forum for many diverse interests. Hey ... where else could / b e in print?!? I do want to call your attention to a cute little card interlude published by Phil Goldstein in the October 2001 issue of Genii — "Spot On" is right on!!! It's so simple, so straightforward, so ... hey ... try it! Whilst browsing the stacks in the "word-usage" area of the Beverly (MA) library, I was surprised to find dictionaries. Checking with the library personnel, I was also surprised to find that people actually check out dictionaries. I cannot conceive of a household without a dictionary. Perhaps I'm the strange one. I guess the more unusual dictionaries remain in the reference section. I love words, but I'm cursed with a very poor memory, alas! Ed Eckl
A FANTASY This is a method using regular cards of performing "The Red & Blue Fantasy," which was advertised in the Linking Ring in April 1965. So that you can fully understand the effect, here is a copy of that 1965 advertisement. Bill Dunn Presents:
RED & BLUE FANTASY A Card Miracle Guaranteed To Fool Magicians EFFECT:
IUU1K, I in
lilt: 11 riUUUIi
SJJIfcJUUS II1« lUIUb
1UL«
II I*
bl>UWiULj u
^umt'icici y
iui~c
n IJ
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A *t
continues, that ii this would happen to most people, they would return the deck, but he being a magician, all he has to do is wave his hand over the 4 blue cards and they will turn red to match his deck. He proceeds to make a few mystic passes over the 4 cards, each time failing to change their color. He explains that things have been going wrong all day, but he'll try the next best thing; he'll wave his hand over the deck instead, and try to change the deck completely blue, to match the 4 blue cards. He proceeds to wave his hand over the deck and a miracle takes place. He ribbon spreads the cards face down, and the entire red deck has changed completely blue and it really is blue. The deck is then flipped over and shown to be completely face up. Unbelievable as it sounds, this miracle is performed exactly as written. There is no switch, only 1 deck is used (52 cards) and cards are shown on both sides. There are no roughed cards, no duplicates, no short cards, no crimps, no palming, no ialse shuffles and no false cuts used. So simple a layman could perform it, yet so stunning that it will iool anyone, even magicians that have worked and studied for years. In fact, it fooled the fabulous Eddie Fechter from Bufialo, New York and the World Renown Walt Cummings and believe me, it •will fool you.
EDDIE FECHTER commented: "No one man should have this tremendous power. It's fantastic." WALT CUMMINGS said: "Would you repeat that please. I've seen it but I can't believe it. It's impossible." This effect without a doubt is one of the strongest, most stunning effects done since the existence of card magic. In fact. I believe this to be so good that I am only releasing this routine to 100 card men, and I feel assured that after seeing this new principle and routine and the tremendous effect it has, that these men will guard this secret very closely. This principle and routine is brand new in card magic. It was developed with the assistance of Lou Gallo from Buffalo, New York, and is a MUST for close up performers. I know once you use this routine in your repertoire you'll never be without it.
I am releasing this routine as of May 1, 1965, and it comes complete to you for only $5.00.
HOUSE OF CREATION 285 Goodyear Avenue
Buffalo. New York 14211
This is excerpted from a letter dated September 11, 1965, to me from Mike Rogers, who was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, and this is his solution to a non-gimmicked version of this trick. There has been some editing for clarity but with no changes in handling.