Two Ed's Are Better Than One: Volume Three

Some Ground Rules

I think you should know a little bit about me to help you understand what I will be interested in, what type of material I will choose for the Trick of the Month, or point out as worthy as I read through Marlo’s Magazines.

I am an amateur magician. My main source of income was software development and database design. I have performed magic for money, sometimes for long stretches of time, but performing for friends and family has always been what I do most.

As an amateur, I have chosen to do magic effects that have no logical explanation. I do not try to show how skilled I am; no fancy handling, no gambling, not even Ambitious Card. I save all of that for magic club meetings.

Of course, even though one can be very entertaining doing skill demo effects, I don’t think that you can entertain the same people for years on end doing gambling demonstrations. Once you prove your skill, you’ll never be able to do a card trick where they don’t tell you, “I sure won’t ever play poker with you.”

I’ve never learned how to do riffle stacking; if there’s a trick that asks me to do this, I skip it.

Same with the faro shuffle. I used to be able to do them when working for magicians. Now I can’t do them reliably. I skip tricks that use them.

I’ll skip tricks that are just puzzles: “Look what I can do that you can’t figure out.” Marlo has a variation of the “Piano Trick” in this volume. No matter how you play it, the trick still sounds like a puzzle to me.

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Vol. 1: p. 169 to End Vol. 2: pp. 1–27

The second half of Vol. 1 was somewhat of a challenge. It started out with a section called “Plot Effects,” then one called “Old Business,” followed by a section called “Marlo Card Secrets.”

Let’s dispose of the last one. Marlo says that if the light is correct, one can take a new deck of Bicycle cards, rotate some cards, and find them at any time by looking for differences in the way the light reflects off the back of the card. Maybe so, but not for me.

Plot Effects

The “Plot Effects” section (p. 167) starts with variations on several standard effects. If you do any of them, you’ll probably keep doing them the same way. If you don’t do them, I doubt there is anything in Marlo’s methods that you’ll find more attractive than the standard methods.

I’m also a bit suspicious of the method, as you must look through a deck shortly after the spectator names his card.

Several variations of this follow. All the decks require some serious work to create. Who knows, if you make one up, maybe you’ll become famous.

The last version, “Think as I Think,” is so close to the standard “Do as I Do” that you shouldn’t bother with a gaffed version.

Next comes the oddly named “No Palm Climax,” which is a Gambler vs. Magician trick.

Next comes a pair of tricks that are tied together.

The first is a difficult trick, “My Best Number.” A spectator takes four spot cards from a “shuffled” ribbon-spread deck. He places them, face up, in random spots in the spread. He then closes the spread and gives it to the magician.

The magician goes through the deck and removes each face-up card and the card next to it. He fans these to make a “telephone dial” (try explaining what that is!). Dialing the face-up cards finds four queens.

The method, although interesting, involves loading each queen under the face-up card as you spread through the deck to display the four face-up cards. I believe this is too much work to merely find four of a kind.

The following trick, “Hofzinzer Would Have Loved This,” goes beyond just finding four queens. First, you find the queens; then they change to kings; then they disappear; and finally, you find the kings and queens, paired by suits, in four different pockets.

This uses the same method as the previous effect. I can see myself working on this method to get this effect. It’s one of those methods where you can practice in front of the TV, working on technique and rhythm, week after week, month after month. At some point, you’ll know you have it.

Unfortunately, there’s a problem: this effect needs four double-index K/Q cards. Now, if you can find a source for the cards at a reasonable price, this might be worth working on.

A section on packet switches comes next. The more I know about packet switches, the happier I am.

Sandwich switches (stealing the center card of a sandwich) follow this. I found these less interesting. These are usually specific to an effect; something that an author will usually specify or an obvious solution.

There are three more tricks in this section:

• Devils to Witches — A very confusing plot where a selection jumps between kings and queens; stuff turns over; etc. As Vernon said, “Confusion is not magic.”
• Seven variations on “The Motel Mystery” — One is one too many.
• The Prodigal Card — Has the spectator write down the names of cards he holds to advance the plot. Too slow. Not for me.

Old Business

We now enter a section called “Old Business.” Little in this section interested me.

It starts with “Marlo Strip Cuts.” Marlo says these techniques “…seem to come from the gaming table.” This is exactly what I wish to avoid.

“The Ten Hand Poker Stack” comes next. I’m not interested.

The next subsection is “Double and Triple Peek Controls.” I have serious reservations about this technique.

The “spectator peek” originated as just that. The magician would hold the deck out to the spectator, who would lift some cards at the top index corner and peek at the card he could see. This gives the appearance of total control to the spectator.

Then the procedure changed to the riffle peek. The magician holds the cards toward the spectator and riffles the cards. The spectator is asked to call “Stop.” He then looks at the card showing.

I can’t understand how a magician can justify this. The spectator is right next to him. Why can’t he pick a card, or physically peek at one? Why must he play the games some magicians play when doing the riffle?

As we see here, magicians can use this sleight to control cards. I think spectators might get a sense of that. That’s why it’s a sleight I don’t have in my repertoire. There are many better ways to control one or more cards.

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Vol. 2

Happily, Vol. 2 starts with a section on “Cannibal Cards.”

I first learned of this plot around 1980 from a Jon Racherbaumer book, The Ascanio Spread (1976). Jon makes it clear that no one knows for sure who created the method for this version.

I performed this many times during the early ’80s. It had four cannibal kings eating two selections (missionaries), one at a time. At the end of the trick, you give the four cannibals to the spectator to show the missionaries are gone. This vanish had a significant effect on my spectators.

There are three effects in this section. None of them make the keystone effect the vanish of the missionaries. The magic of these effects involves the cannibal kings changing into other cards.

A Slew of Cannibals

The first effect, “A Slew of Cannibals,” uses four cannibal cards to eat the missionaries. (Marlo refers to kings at the beginning of his description, but he uses jacks in the “Working” section of the trick.)

The cannibals eat seven cards before the cannibal kings turn into four eights. They ate and ate.

Women’s Cannibal Liberation / Cannibals-Cannibals

The second and third effects (“Women’s Cannibal Liberation” and “Cannibals-Cannibals”) are almost identical, with one major difference: "Women’s Cannibal Liberation" doesn’t work. As I said, they’re nearly identical tricks. "Cannibals-Cannibals" has a small modification that allows it to work. It also has some minor changes in the handling of the “eating” segments.

Both variants change the kings to queens. They both have a queen eaten, so the line “You are what you eat” justifies the change.

These differ from the first as there are only two cannibals eating the missionaries. This means they use an odd procedure involving eating a queen and adding some “helper” cards to have enough cards to end up with four queens.

It’s unlikely I would consider doing this variation.

Final Thoughts

I am attracted to the first method, but it has some flaws that concern me.

Seven cards are eaten. Is this too many?

It uses several different false counts/displays to prove the vanish of the missionaries. Will this activate suspicions among your spectators?

It ends dirty. You must ditch the queen you have just eaten.

Is eating the queen valuable misdirection for producing the eights, or a needless complication?

To add to your confusion, the Trick of the Month is “The Cannibal Cards,” from The Ascanio Spread.

I must mention that my favorite Cannibals routine is Luke Jermay’s. It’s part of his download Constructing Magic. In this download there are four routines—all of which use gaffed cards.

Even better, Luke spends a lot of time teaching you how to make them.

Very cool!