Written & Illustrated by
Tom Stone
Hermetic Press, Inc. Seattle, Washington
Contents
Preface—Håkan Berg IX What Is This Thing Called Book XI Of Dice and Men 3 Silver & Sorcery 7 The Safe Bullet-Catch 24 Wet Russian 25 DacheBox 29 Silks from Another Century 30 Wired 31 Ceiling Thoughts 31 Shivers 31 Vanishing Sefalaljia 31 Burn Remedy 32 Brutus’s Gift 33 Sole Survivor in 3-D 35 White Lies 39 Clink-Catch 41 Bottled Up 43
Bottled Thoughts 47 Stirring Up the Still 47 Don’t Stare at My Bottom 54 Glasswhere? 55 Glass–Bottle–Can 57 Multiplying Glasses 59 Redneck Remedy 61 Prediction Ajar 65 Siamese Book-Test 67 The Forbidden Palm 69 Oh No! Thimbles 77 The Ultimate Sub Trunk 82 Paper Bag Cut 83 Sentient Sand 87 Chinese Lubricant 90 Amore Motel 91 Chairport 96 Eye of the Last Dragon 97
161 Peaks and Valleys 104 Signed Transformation 162 Mitosis Maneuver 107 Sign of the Boxer 165 Negative Structure 110 Homer's Case 166 Back to de Kolta 112 Occhamman Card 171 The Shell as Topit 113 Occhamman Now! 173 Shell Lapping 115 Daryl-Simon Convincing Control 178 Ball Mélange 117 Wooden Sign 180 Ball Climax 119 The Collective Blink 185 Bank Naught 121 Hip Hip Hurray! 187 Psychic Losery 122 The One-Handed Top Change (Max Milton) 192 Weightmaster 122 Sir Offalot 193 Dance Shtick 123 Challenge in Silk 202 Mental Posterior 126 Well-Timed Miracle 203 Electro-cute 127 The Tutorial 206 SloMoSub 130 Going Bananas 209 Tesla’s Knot 131 Things That Go Cluck in the Night 222 Derringer 133 The Voice of the Public 223 Eggs from Bombay 135 Glitching the Aces 225 50% a Magician? 147 The Hat Trick Quick Memo 148 Synonymax 229 239 Paperback Writer 149 Tripodal by Sundown 237 Waiting for a Sign 151 Mental Pursuit 241 Sign of the Count 152 Quean of the Quiz 245 Crossed Sign 153 The Quiz Show Time Operator I 154 Acknowledgements 257 Time Operator II 158 Publishing History 259
Of Dice and Men I
n 2003, I visited the Magic Castle. While there, I hung out a lot at Hollywood Magic, the magic shop then open on Hollywood Boulevard. One day, one of the guys there demoed Andy Nyman’s “Diceman”, a very funny and edgy close-up piece. I was instantly smitten by it, and started to wonder if it was possible to add more layers to it. Perhaps I could add some twist, some contrast or tension; perhaps the audience might discover the nasty ending while the person assisting is kept unaware of it? This could simultaneously tell two contrasting stories, the one perceived as kind and pleasant by the assistant, while the audience discovers I’m some kind of psychopath. When I walked through it in pantomime, I quickly realized I needed to make the piece one for a larger audience. The blocking wouldn’t work in close-up circumstances. I also saw I had to come up with a different method. While Nyman’s method was perfectly suited
for close-up, it was a bit too convoluted for a stage setting. By the time I really started to brainstorm about the piece, I had the concluding image vivid in my mind. In other words, the climax was my starting point. It took me two years to figure out a method that satisfied me. I considered all kinds of strange ideas in a search for a way to transform the text on a card as I removed it from its holder. Max Maven’s “Symbol Simon”, John Breeds’s “Visible Magic Painting” (the kid-show classic), ambigrams, Black Art, whiteboard pens—you name it. But I got nowhere with all this. Finally, when on the verge of scrapping the idea, I thought, “Maybe I’m looking at the problem from the wrong end? Perhaps I should turn it around?” Ten minutes later, I had a simple, working method. So, here is my version of Andy Nyman’s original “Diceman” plot, described with his kind permission. S 3
is already on stage with you. As you tell the above story, give your helper the cup. Next pick up the rack of cards and bring out the die. Toss the die into the air (figure 2). Don’t worry about anyone noticing that the same number is on all the sides. No one is looking for such an odd thing or is in a position to observe the die closely. Drop the die into the cup and ask your helper to put her hand over its mouth and shake die inside. She stops 2
shaking the die whenever she wishes, looks into the cup and calls out the number she sees on top of the die: four. Immediately take the cup from her, peek into it yourself and verify that four is correct. Place the cup into the same hand that holds the rack of cards; then remove the card numbered “4” and display its message (figure 3). There will probably be some snickering, as some will suspect that all the cards say hug, and that you are just a letch looking for a cuddle. But played 3
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p roperly, your helper will go ahead and give you a friendly hug. And exactly as that embrace takes place, you “accidentally” display the faces of all the other cards to the audience (figure 4). The only person who doesn’t see this is the one hugging you—which takes this cute effect to an entirely different place. S If you are going to perform this frequently, it might be wise to make dice and sets of cards for other numbers. S SHORT STUFF
complicated exchange
* See Hugard's Magic Monthly, Vol. 18, No. 4, September 1960, p. 37; also Andrus Card Control, Vol. 1, 1976, p. 59.
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The deck is face down. Turn a card face up somewhere in the middle of the deck, and then turn the top card face up. Display the situation, catching a break above the face-up center card, and then do a top-card cover pass, secretly bringing both face-up cards together on top. Then do Jerry Andrus’s color change,* which secretly moves the top card to the center of the pack. Spread the deck to confirm that the two face-up cards have transposed! S
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the kicker 43
Transfer the cylinder to your left hand and pick up the cork from the top of the stack. “Keep an eye on the cork.” Then carefully cover the stack again.
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Forcefully plunge the right fist down beside the cylinder, saying, “The cork goes down.”
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Maneuver the cork into righthand thumb palm as you close that hand into a fist. 22
Forcefully pull the fist up again: “And the coins go up.”
Brutus’s Gift I
’ve always loved to read pipedreams in old books and magazines, because they often ignite my imagination. That is also why I like to mix practical routines with a few unfinished ideas. There is something freeing in making up effects, without the burden of coming up with practical methods. I also believe this exercise provides inspiration. This piece falls in the “unfinished” category. It is envisioned for a controlled environment, such as a small theater. S The light comes up and the magician says, “I don’t have much time; we must hurry.” He is standing behind a table, looking pale and worried. On it sit five boxes, and on each box there are a pair of colored cotton gloves (figure 1). Next to the table is a chair. The magician closes his eyes and sweeps his hand slowly in front of him, as if he is scanning the audience.
The hand stops. A finger points to someone. The magician opens his eyes and asks, “Is it you? Are you the one?” Obviously, the person in question has no clue what to answer, but the magician shakes his head and says, “There’s no time for that. If it’s you, I just want to know why? Come...” The person is invited to sit on a chair next to the table. The magician gestures toward the boxes and the colored gloves. “Do any of these colors please you? Do you find yourself attracted to any of these gloves?” Let’s say the spectator indicates the green pair. 1
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* The Books of Wonder, Vol. II, Wonder and Minch, 1996, p. 32.
“Try them on. Do the green gloves fit your hands?” As the spectator tries on the gloves, the magician takes a napkin from his pocket and dabs his forehead. He doesn’t seem well; his posture is stiff, he’s unbalanced. The spectator finds the green gloves are a perfect fit. The magician shudders. He then starts to take the lids off the boxes. Inside the box with the blue gloves is a knife with a blue handle. Inside the box with the yellow gloves is a knife with a yellow handle. Red gloves, red knife; purple box, purple knife. This leaves the helper’s choice: green. The box is opened—and found to be empty (figure 2)! No knife with a green handle. Nothing! 2
The magician looks at the spectator, face ashen, and with a hoarse whisper he says, “So it was you! Why?” 34
The magician’s eyes glaze over and he falls forward over the table. Deeply embedded in his back is the missing green knife. S This plot came into being while exploring Tommy Wonder’s essay “Secondhand Drama”,* which is in essence about the fear of commitment to a plot. For many, it is scary to submerge oneself into a story and bring it into the present, into the here and now. It might look odd when put down in such plain words, but a lot of what we do is designed as shields and barriers to separate us from our material. As tools for the purpose, we use irony, self-deprecatory comments and lousy one-liners. We seldom take our effects and plots seriously. And as soon as we get the chance, we relocate the plot in another time and place, because it feels safer to deliver the story in a detached manner, rather than to act it out in the here and now. I dislike story magic because that genre by its very nature has those “protections” built in. Why tell a story about an ancient king in a far-away country, when you can put on a crown and be that king right in front of the audience? A common exercise in theater improvisations is to leave two budding actors alone on an empty stage. It is very likely they will soon relocate the story, perhaps finding a window from which they can describe what is happening on the street below, or pressing their ears to
ff One more thing: a No. 2b pencil. S As you begin the presentation, the box sits in front of you on a small table. A willing subject sits opposite you. Bring out the paper plate, the pouch of sand and the wooden stick (figure 2).
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Set the plate on top of the box, and as you pour sand from the pouch onto the plate (figure 3), give your best spiel about how the earth from certain troubled places can retain some kind of memory. Old burial grounds and battle fields are perfect places to find such troubled soils. The sand you’ve just poured out is from such a place. Name a specific location, preferably close to the area you are performing. Spread the sand in an even layer on the plate. Give the wooden stick to your helper and instruct him, when 88
you turn away, to draw a symbol in the sand. Let’s say he draws a triangle (figure 4). Listen carefully while this is done, as the sound might give you some clue to the design. While still
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Ball MÉlange ust for practice, let’s mix, meld and fuse several techniques. Here you will need a jacket with a topit. As you begin, it appears you are holding three balls between the fingers of both hands (figure 21), but one of these—that held between your right thumb and first finger—is actually a shell. The action starts as you rotate the hands around each other, and then move them apart. During these motions, let the right hand’s solid ball fall into the shell (figure 22). One ball has vanished. To reuse the shell for another vanish, you will need to unload the hidden ball it contains. That is where the topit comes in. Continue to move the hands smoothly. The left hand moves forward, to display its ball, just as the right hand moves backward, down and then up in a smooth arc, letting the hidden
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End by letting your helper discover that the signed card has vanished from the Ace packet. Cleanly lift a corner of the stapled card, so that the index of the selection can be seen. Then use the gaffed staple remover to pretend to remove the staple, while you secretly punch holes in the signed card (figure 61). 61
The Collective Blink ere I will jump over a bunch of really odd solutions I came up with between 1999 and 2005, as only one from this period is worth publishing. I devised this exception in 2004, developing it directly from “Occhamman Now!” You might find it interesting to compare the two methods and presentations, and track my thought process. S
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At the bottom of the deck, secretly position a doublefaced card, with a Joker on the “back” and a spot card on the “face”. That is, the spot side of the double-facer is visible on the face of the deck. Discard the corresponding spot card from the pack. S As you begin the trick, you place a face-down card at the far left side of the table, almost beyond your normal reach. Kept from the audience is the fact that this card is a double-backer. Assign a couple of spectators the task of guarding this card. Now and then during the presentation, remind them of their important duty. Set two face-up Jokers near the inner edge of the table, in alignment with your right shoulder. Leave them overlapping, after you have subtly installed a bridge in the top Joker. Assign a spectator on your right guard duty over them. You make this instruction a bit less emphatic. With these things arranged, you let the audience in on the following secret: “There’s a thing we magicians always keep an eye out for when we perform. It’s something we call ‘The Collective Blink’. You see, when you are watching a performance, you are all blinking now and then. It’s quite random, as each of you does it at your own pace. But once in a while, by coincidence, the blinking pace of everyone in the room will reach a point where, for just a second, a synchronized blink occurs. This moment is a magician’s Holy Grail,
because when it happens, the whole audience is blind for a full second, and no one is aware of it. This collective blink happens about once in twelve performances, and I’m excited because this is the twelfth show, so it could happen any time.” 62
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Look expectantly at the audience, in anticipation of the phenomenon. After about six to eight seconds, let your shoulders droop. “Well—we might as well do a card trick while we wait.” You will now have someone on your left choose the double-faced card. This is assured through a bottom deal force. Have the person say stop as you dribble cards from the deck into your left hand (figure 62). When stopped, lower your right hand as your left thumb pushes the card you were stopped at to the right (figure 63). Simultaneously buckle the bottom card (figure 64). Turn the left hand palm down and appear to place the top card of the packet face up on the table, but in fact you do a one-handed bottom deal; that is, as the hand is turned palm down, the left thumb pulls back the top card and the fingers push out the bottom card you’ve broken loose (figure 65).* 64
* For a fuller description of this sleight, see Marlo’s Seconds, Centers, Bottoms, 1960, pp. 26, 45–9 and 84; and in the context of a force, see The Magic of Michael Ammar, 1991, p. 46.
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