Warning: Long post, just sort-of hacked away at the keyboard here.
ankh wrote:I'm assuming they're referring to Paul Harris' Art of Astonishment series. If not, I have no idea.
Yep
. Sadly though, they did not arrive today as anticipated, nor will it come tomorrow (which stinks even more because I have the day off and would be able to read all day). Apparently E had a HUGE backup because of the release of Indecent; anyway, they did not even ship my order until today (I placed the order Thursday, and just assumed that for some reason I did not recieve a shipping conformation since I could not get in contact with customer service until today. I had my order on priority mail, and when I called a second time (I was debating whether or not to bump myself up to next day so I could read all day tomorrow for an extra $18...about 10-12 pounds if I'm not mistaken ?) it had already been shipped and I could not bump myself up without it being taken off of the truck and only being shipped tomorrow which wouldn't help me a bit
.
So I'm in a bit of a pickle here, went from spending the weekend practicing and coming in to school Monday with a few new menalism and card tricks, to hoping I could spend Tuesday (first day off in a long while) practicing to get at least one new mentalism trick under my arsenal to now spending Wednesday (if I am lucky and the weight of the package does not affect my normal shipping time using priority which is 2 days...but because I have Psychonetic Time, Art of Astonishment..all three, and 13 Steps to Mentalism in one package, you never know) and Thursday practicing if I get the books on Wednesday to perform on Thursday. Otherwise, if I recieve the books after/on Thursday, there will be little chance that I will be able to practice enough (maybe an easy card trick or two from 13 Steps and Art of Astonishment) but nothing good to be performed till Monday...
But hey, who cares about my problems
. I just have nothing better to do, and felt like putting this down "on paper".
I am definately jumping right into Art of Astonishment to figure out this trick right here...
From_Ellusionist wrote:Cros-Twist
You sandwhich a face down joker between two aces. You wave your hand and the joker turns face up. The audience is amazed, but you state it "didn't work." You try again. Instead of turning over the joker turns red.
Which I saw Wayne Houchin performing on his video "Unreal" and I have been stumped by it ever since. Honestly, that is the ONLY reason I bought this set; this trick stumped me so much that I only read the reviews on Ellusionist and based on those I bought it...for me that one effect was worth the $110...which is saying something. Good thing though that this was rated a classic by you guys.
Also learning this won't hurt.
From_Ellusionist wrote:Anything Deck:
The effect is basically you do a crappy effect.... and then you blow away your specators by spelling out ANY word they can think of. Deep Astonishment is cleaner, but the Anything Deck will still ASTONISH spectators.
Which is just one more of the effects that will make me want to jump right into Art of Astonishment. After I get a few things off of my chest I will probably check out the stuff in 13 Steps. Anyone know any good effects in 13 Steps, or anymore good effects in Art of Astonishment (even though from what I have been reading everything is pretty good in both of the books.
Also, I don't really know the limits to some of these rules on the board so please mods and admins, if this is "true" exposure, please let me know and I will delete this part of the post ASAP. For the trick with the Ace and 2 Jokers....I am really killing myself over not knowing how to do this, and if my word can be taken as true (which I do not hold against anyone for not taking my word as I have only been on here for a few days) when it comes to the fact that Art of Astonishment is indeed in fact in the mail coming to me; could someone please PM me how it is done? If not though, I will understand and just wait 2-3 more days
.