The magic session opened with John Ferguson, the host for
“Packet Tricks and Gimmicked Cards”, explaining the “Gesture Cut” which he had
learnt from Sean Taylor’s lecture at the Geniis Sydney on Monday March 12th.
Steve Irwin performed an item in which cards were predicted
by laying coins on a portion of the deck.
The coins had C, S, H or D written on them on one side, and a number on
the other side. Underneath the C – 5
coin was the five of clubs, and so on. It was ingenious, and new to us.
Several special decks were shown by Andrew Pickard. There was the “Crazy Man’s Marked Deck” in
which, for example, the chosen ten of spades had a back with a different colour
and “10” and a spade symbol very boldly printed. From another deck Andrew was able to produce the only queen of
spades in a full deck of Jacks of Clubs.
Then, he displayed a Svengali Deck, and later, Michael Blakeman showed
him other effects using it.
Unable to go home and collect props, Noel Clair had come
straight to the meeting, and we were amazed at how much magic he was able to do
with just a shoelace and a finger ring !
He did the ring on and off shoelace, and then did a new routine he had
developed with this. He also showed a
brilliant illusion in which he wound the lace around his index finger, formed a
loop, and threaded the lace through the loop automatically without appearing to
do so. This illusion happened in front
of one’s eyes, and “your eyes deceived you”.
The gasps of surprise were audible.
That’s real magic !
Several items were performed by John Ferguson. He did a Neil Patrick Harris trick in which
a selected card appears to jump to the top of the deck. Next,
he displayed a deck, asked for an ace to be named, and said he had to
remove any jokers. He did – lots and lots of them (all 51 cards were jokers !)
- until only one card was left – the chosen ace of clubs.
One problem with the trick “Split Deck” is that one has to
find a married couple to perform it.
John had developed a presentation (“does your right hand know what your
left hand is doing?”) which one could
use with only one person, putting the chosen half card under one hand
and the other half under the other hand to show that “you are a very well
put-together person”. He also used a
small piece of glass to find a chosen card.
When one breathed on the glass, a picture of the chosen card became
visible. In another item, the chosen
card could not be found, but a card frame with an indifferent card it in was tipped
on to the table, and the chosen card was revealed instead of the indifferent
card.
David Whitson had brought along a copy of the old Wierdo’s
Magic Shop trick “Mystic Kings”
Although probably 50 years old, it worked magnificently. Then he performed the Brainwave Deck trick,
which works in the same way as the Invisible Deck, but the chosen card has a
different coloured back to the others.
Next, he had a card chosen, and displayed the 52 card display, and as he
put it away, everyone saw a giant picture of the chosen card after all.
David then proceeded to tell a story, “Diamond Jack”, in
which for every facet of the story he displayed jumbo cards to illustrate
it. For instance, when the (German)
waiter denied his crooked deal, he said “Nein. Nein. Nein !” and David
displayed three nines from the pack. It
was funny and entrancing. Spectators
love stories !
Michael Blakeman pretended to have memorized the order of a
whole deck in ten seconds, and started naming them, then told us it was a
reader deck. It was a neatly printed deck in Bicycle, with “distressed”
appearance. No-one had suspected it was a reader deck until he told us. Taking
a Svengali deck, he showed Andrew how to force a known card. He then did the Three Card Monte.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half of choice
magic ! You just did not know what was
coming next !
