Pages from precursor no 84 39201

AIXXX1

UOIIUAOUUI JO 2UIZU0UW U

PRECURSOR

LXXXIV

This is PRECURSOR LXXXIV and is published in October 2002. 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.).

"Irv - Al - Me" is Mike Amico's handling of the "Triple Transposition." Mike developed this trick about thirty years ago by tying together some ideas of Irv Weiner and Al Leech with some of his own handling to form a nice routine.

"Collecting - Up In The Air" is Gary Plants' solution to the problem of performing "The Collectors" with the collecting cards away from the deck. The idea of using a "Bottom Deal" action to load the collectors above the selected cards is unusual, and I found it intriguing.

Dan Block's "How I Cheated the Cheats" is his handling and presentation of Fred Kaps' version of "The Homing Card."

"Australian Count Down" is a continuation of his "Diminishing Duck & Deal" by Reinhard MuIIer originally explained in Precursor LXXXIII and it should prove to be of interest to those addicted to the Australian Deal.

In "The Ultimate Squeaker," Gary Ward provides his ideas along with some from others using a novelty squeaker obtainable from most novelty and magic shops. Some of these off-beat bits seem quite humorous and hopefully will provide some inspiration to our readers to add some sound effects to their close-up magic.

Bob King submits "Pseudo Greeks" for you to add to your gambling demonstration so that you can simulate dealing Aces from above a "burned" card in a Black Jack Deal. This demonstration is quite deceptive. Watch for a whole issue of gambling demonstrations in an upcoming issue of Precursor.

"Emotional Lies" by Ezra Tawil is a wonderful combination of Dai Vernon's "Emotional Reactions" and Henry Christ's "Lies! Lies! Lies!" No preparation is required; this trick is totally impromptu and performed with a freely shuffled deck.

Marty Kane adds another one of his humorous spelling and dealing tricks to Precursor, which he called "Victor And Loser." This is an interesting usage of the retention of a stock during a continuous mixing process.

Ed Eckl and his partner in crime, Myra Duckinridge, offer an old favorite of theirs, "An Evil Card Trick ... Well, No." Of course, those of you who know Ed, know that words and puns are two of his favorite things; so don't be surprised to see both here.

Just recently I was looking over some of my notes from thirty years ago, and I discovered my write-up of "Faro Four," dated January 1972. It was about this time that Another Card Session with Peter Kane made it to the U.S. In this book, Peter Kane had an interesting trick that he called "Faro Five." Maybe it's just me, but I have trouble faro shuffling with reversed cards in

the deck due to the natural bevel of the cards; so I eliminated the reversed cards. eliminated the need for specific "In/Out" Faro Shuffles.

I also

William P. Miesel

FURTHER REFERENCE Regarding Dan Block's "Little Juggle With Some Dice" in Precursor LXXX, I got a note from Karl Fulves that he had an "Unsolved Problem," entitled "Drop Out," that is even more impossible, in the Pallbearer's Review Vol. 8 #10. In Karl's problem, five dice, three red and two white, are arranged in a row with the colors alternating. Pick the five dice up between the thumb and forefinger. Now, the two white dice drop out and the center red die remains trapped between the other two red dice. I have to admit that I had forgotten about this, but I'll use the excuse that "it's not done with cards" and besides, it was thirty years ago.

About a year later in Pallbearer's Review Vol. 9 #10 there appeared a solution by Martin Gardner, and even at that time I did not have the agility to do it and by gosh, Martin Gardner is twenty years older than I am.

This brings us to Precursor LXXX1II and Marty Kane's "Ramasee Ramblings." I got a note from Marty this past spring saying that the first phase is almost the same as Jim Cuthbert's "Jim's Match Up" in the British Ring Parade in last January's Linking Ring. Unfortunately, I missed up on this (no excuse this time).

Marty did send a re-write eliminating his "5 - 6 - 7 - 8 Trick," but Ed Eckl had picked up that issue of Precursor from the printer the very day that I received Marty's note. As a result, I wasn't able to make a switch without having to make major changes.

All I can say now is that this trick was in a batch of tricks that Marty sent me well over a year ago and it was the last one that I used. I guess I should have used it several issues earlier.

William P. Miesel

"Anyone can do an>( amount of worfc, provided it isn't the worK he is supposed to be doing at that moment."

Fobert

How often I am in this situation! I can find so many things, interesting and uninteresting, to do instead of setting off to do what needs to be done. There have to be mental acrobatics out there to overcome the problem, but I haven't found a reasonable one that works for me. I guess the answer is to sit down on the chair and get to work. But, then I'd have to find the chair.

Ed Eckl

IRV-AL-ME A number of years ago I saw Irv Weiner demonstrate his "Triple Transposition" at a convention in Boston. I took some notes and added some ideas of Al Leech and came up with the following routine. I start this routine with a shuffled deck.

1. Hold the deck with the faces toward yourself and spread through the deck, remove the four Queens, and place them in a face-down packet on the table slightly to the left.

2. Spread through the deck a second time, remove the four Aces, and place them in a face-down packet on the table slightly to the right.

3. During these spreading actions, cull any medium-valued four-of-a-kind to the back of the deck. For this explanation, let's assume that the four Fives have been culled to the top of the face-down deck.

4. The right hand reaches to the left and picks up the Queen packet from above between the fingers at the outer end and the thumb at the inner end. As the right hand picks up the Queen packet, the left little finger "Pinky Counts" and gets a break under three of the Fives on top of the deck. We are now going to perform packet switch that I learned from the work of Al Leech.

5. The right hand turns back down and the right thumb moves from the inner edge of the Queen packet onto the face of it. The right hand now gives the Queen packet a casual one-handed fan.

Move the right hand over the top of the face-down deck and tap the sides of the Queen fan on top of the deck to square them up.

6. While tapping the Queens on top of the deck, transfer the packet back into the Biddle Grip.

Apparently, peel the uppermost Queen onto the top of the deck, but actually the following switch is performed.

7. The face-down Queen packet is moved across the top of the face-down deck until it is sidejogged slightly to the left. It is now clipped in the left thumb crotch. The right thumb and fingers now transfer from the Queen packet to the three Fives above the little finger break. The right hand now starts to move to the right but stops at the right side of the deck.

8. The left thumb pushes the top card of the deck, a Queen, about a half-an-inch to the right.

Bring the right-hand packet under the right side of the side-jogged Queen and flip it face up on top of the deck.

9. Move the left hand a bit to the left and thumb off the face-up Queen onto the table. The right hand now places its three-card packet face down just behind the face-up Queen. This face-down packet supposedly consists of the other three Queens, but in reality they are Five Spots.

10. Repeat steps #4 through #9 with the Ace packet, leaving one face-up Ace and three switched in face-down Queens.

11. The situation now is: a face-up Queen and three face-down Fives behind it to your left; a bit to your right is the face-up Ace with the three face-down Queens behind it; and the other three Aces face down on top of the deck with the final Five Spot fourth from the top of the face-down deck, (see illustration) 3