Con ten ts Pocket Notes—Stephen Minch 7 Dr. Elliott’s Three-Card Speller— William Kalush 11 The World’s Second-Best Spelling Trick— Martin Gardner 49 Magic in Japan After the Opening of the Country, Part VI—Mitsunobu Matsuyama 61 Antoine Castelli and His Physical Amusements— William Kalush 141 Contributors 179
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 5
Willi a m Ka lush
Gibecière • Winter 2010
•• ••• •• •• •• • DR . ELLIOTT’S THR EE- C AR D SPELLER
•• ••• •• •• •• •
C
William Kalush
reators of magic methods have an avid interest in keeping track of who published what first. Although this is a useful measure of precedent, it isn’t the only one, nor in some cases the most telling. Many ideas are created and circulated but not published. Does the creative mind behind the idea abdicate credit due to non-publication? Consider, too, that our printed records are incomplete. We can’t ever be entirely sure of who first published something because the full record of all things printed in magic hasn’t and can’t be compiled. Pieces are missing and, as I hope to demonstrate, some of these missing pieces are important. Consider the effect of spelling to a selected card—it’s almost inconceivable that such a seemingly obvious idea wasn’t always there. But, of course, it wasn’t. Someone invented it. Some clever cardman took the idea of the spelling bee—that is, spelling each card in a packet of cards one by one and always ending at the right card—and turned it into a new ending for the classic take-a-card effect. I believe that in the idea spelling to someone’s chosen card we have a prime example of an effect that was not only new at the turn of the century, but was also one of those ideas that became immensely popular, with its theme being varied and varied and then varied again. Who was the clever cardman who first conceived it? That controversy has raged for many decades. Some point to Walter B. Gibson, and his publication of “The New Spelling Trick” in the Magician Monthly for
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 13
D r . E l l i o t t ’s Th r e e - C a r d S p e l l e r
There is no indication that these instructions actually reached press, but the ephemeral nature of instruction sheets makes it difficult to be certain of this. We know that early in his career as a magician Dr. Elliott sold instructions for numerous card tricks, their prices ranging from $3.00 to $100.00. In 1899 he published his list no. 26, which offered fifty card items for sale. (Only two copies of this list are known to have survived. No examples of lists 1 through 25 seem to have come to light. This is a substantial number to have disappeared with no other trace than the number of list no. 26 to suggest them. It is nevertheless possible they have all been lost.)
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 17
Willi a m Ka lush
Gibecière • Winter 2010
Dr. James William Elliott and T. Nelson Downs
RAMASEE OICUFESP TULEFTA WIL L T HE AD AMS LASTTWO HO WA RD MA TCH
•• ••• •• •• •• • The World’s Second -Best Spellin g Trick
T
•• ••• •• •• •• • Martin Gardner
he best spelling trick is, of course, Jim Steinmeyer’s nine-card trick. In my opinion the second best is a self-working effect based on what mathematicians call modulo arithmetic. Most older cardmen know the trick, but it is less familiar to younger magicians, and in any case its history is largely unknown as well as its seemingly endless variations. I will first describe the two basic forms of this amazing trick, each with the presentation I consider the best. Then I will introduce some of its variants. But first, the trick as done with unmutilated playing cards. Ask someone to remove from the deck any five cards. Call them ABCDE. Go through the deck to remove their mates. A mate is a card with the same value and color. For example, the mate of the Queen of Hearts is the Queen of Diamonds. Call the mates abcde. Arrange the ten cards in ABCDEabcde order and place the packet face down on the table. Ask someone to cut the packet one or more times. If you like, though it’s not necessary, you can further mix the cards by giving them a Charlier shuffle. Hold the packet in your left hand, face down, while you remark that the trick begins with two equal piles. So saying, deal five cards face down to the table, thereby reversing their order. The remaining five cards go face down to make another pile alongside the one just dealt. Explain that you now intend to use the two piles for spelling words in the sentence “Last two cards match.” It’s a good idea to write this sentence
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 51
Ten-ichi's all-star New Year's show with Tenji and Tenkatsu, 1910
••••• • ••••• • AN INVESTIG ATION INTO M AGIC IN JAPAN AFTER THE OPENING OF THE CO UNTRY
••••• • ••••• • Part VI: Ten-ichi Shokyokusai, the Japanese Father of Modern Magic
I
Mitsunobu Matsuyama
n 1888, the same year the Wash Norton troupe made a sensation with Japanese theatergoers (see Gibecière, vol. 3, no. 1, Winter 2008, p. 158– 78), Ten-ichi Shokyokusai made a spectacular début at a Tokyo theater. Because of his western-influenced repertoire and style of presentation, Ten-ichi eventually became known as the father of modern magic in Japan. Conversely, Western magicians know him for the Japanese-style magic he performed in formal native attire when his troupe toured America and Europe from 1901 to 1905. In part, Ten-ichi’s reputation in Japan was created when he decided to break with tradition and move his up-scale illusion show from the usual vaudeville halls to larger theaters. This had the effect of elevating his magic act to a level comparable with major theatrical performances. This stature of magic within the hierarchy of entertainment was later sustained by Tenkatsu and Tenyo, Ten-ichi’s apprentices and eventual successors, and it continues to the present day. Many biographies of Ten-ichi have been written.1 Most, however, when examined closely, contain fictional elements and imaginative embellishments adopted by their authors without regard to or knowledge
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 63
M i t s u n o b u M at s u y a m a
Explanation for the Water Fountain given in Morokoshi Hiji No Umi
Gibecière • Winter 2010
M i t s u n o b u M at s u y a m a he stretched out the right hand, seized a flask of wine and drank to the health of the person who had tied him, and tossed the emptied glass to the ceiling, whence it fell as a ball of finely cut paper. At the same instant he allowed the hat to fall and displayed his hands, still as closely bound as at the beginning of the experiment.
It is fair to ask if Ten-ichi independently originated this effect, or possibly improved on an old Japanese trick? While not impossible, the latter seems unlikely, as no similar trick has yet been found in any explanatory textbook or any other literature concerning magic published in Edo Period. Other types of rope escapes were, though, known and performed in Japan at this time and much earlier, and the Thumb Tie might conceivably have grown out of these. It also cannot be entirely ruled out that the trick was known but not recorded. In trying to determine whether the Thumb Tie came to Japan from the west or was developed independently by a Japanese magician, the first question we must answer is when the trick appeared in Japan. There
Courtesy of the Kawai Masaru Collection
Method said to be Pinetti’s, from Recueil de Planches de L’Encyclopédie
Gibecière • Winter 2010
PHYSICAL A M U SE M ENTS
A N D E N T E RTA I N I N G EXPERIMENTS, for the Amusement of Young People, with a Method for Reading the Cards
by Antoine Castelli,
Professor and Demonstrator of Physical Amusements. [Translated from the French by Lori Pieper]
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 143
•• ••• •• •• •• • An toine C a stelli and His Physical A muse m en ts
•• ••• •• •• •• •
O
William Kalush
ccasionally a new and interesting object appears seemingly out of nowhere. Within the last year a previously unrecorded little conjuring booklet has done just that and is now being preserved in the library of Conjuring Arts. This little pamphlet, Antoine Castelli’s Amusemens physiques, is of interest for a number of reasons. It breaks a little new ground in the genealogy of card magic; it gives us a bit of fresh insight into who certain members of the Castelli clan may have been; and it is a beautiful example of an entire genre of conjuring literature that has gone almost entirely ignored. The first book with the title Amusemens physiques of which I am aware was by Pinetti, printed in Paris in 1784. It is likely Pinetti was responding to the recent publication of La magie blanche dévoilée1 by Henri Decremps. Decremps, seemingly incensed by Pinetti, had made an attempt to expose his secrets and destroy his immense popularity. Within a few months of Decremps’s debut as a grand exposer, Pinetti sent to the printer his own version of a small book explaining his purported methods. Pinetti’s book was popular enough to achieve several editions in French and, according to Toole-Stott,2 at least three English editions, and no less than two in Swedish.3 This concept of a performer willingly explaining and selling books of, ostensibly, his own secrets wasn’t new when Pinetti did it; nor would it soon fall out of favor, since it is still popularly practiced to the present day.
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 145
Willi a m Ka lush
Gibecière • Winter 2010
Antoine Castelli and His Physical Amusements
M E T HO D FOR READING THE CARDS. Readi ng a Horos cope for each person , about all the ways of looking at the cards, and all the meanings of the signs of the plane ts and the month s of the year in which a person is born.
F
irst, you will take a pack of 32 cards [a piquet deck] , shuffle it, cut it and draw the cards, three at a time, in the sign of the month of your birth, as I will explain below . January in the sign of Aquarius; the King of Spades, Ace of Hearts and Nine of Diamonds are the three meanings of the sign of your birth: These three cards are to guide you in your whole hand; when all three of them come out of your deck they foretell to you and announce to you happiness, success in an enterprise, success in your business matters; when only two of them come out at one time, they mean, at the beginning of your life, some troubles to come, some unhap piness in love, prosperity in business and great betrayals by several people you trust; and [when there are] none at all, it means sickness, a lawsuit, enterprises that do not succeed, dome stic happiness; when the three cards come out at once, it means a happy future, victory over your enemies. The same meani ng serves for the twelve months and planets of the year. 2. February, in the sign of Pisces: Ace of Spades, Jack of Spades and Eight of Hearts are the three mean ings of this month.
Vol. 5, No. 1 • 159