talkmagic.co.uk

Greetings. Thought I'd take this chance to introduce myself and pose a question about the Stealth. First, a little background...

I've been dabbling in magic for about 10 years now -- TT and silk, scotch & soda, salt shaker through table, fake transfers with coins...you know the things I'm talking about. Basic stuff that relies on good presentation. I've also been doing a "one-ahead" mentalist trick over the years, which I probably enjoy doing more than anything else, simply for the great reactions it garners. Anyway, after years of doing the same tricks, I finally said to myself, "It's about time to learn some new tricks, eh Lance?"

So I started doing some surfing around the internet and, using well-penned reviews to guide me, began to make some new purchases -- tricks, books, DVDs, even a few instant downloads from Penguin.. They've included the ID (I love this one, especially when presented with a mentalist twist..."last night I turned over one card in my deck, anticipating that I'd meet up with you today..."), Crazy Man's Handcuffs, Richard Kaufman's "Basic Card Technique" video, Double Back (simple and stunning), 3D Rabbits for my new nieces and nephews (I just got married this summer), etc.

Needless to say, I've got the bug now. I feel reenergized, and I'm so enjoying the learning of new techniques and ideas. I love being able to lend a wee bit of wonder to people's lives in this jaded day and age of been-there-done-that-seen-it-all-before.

Anyway, I stumbled on this forum about two weeks ago, and I've really enjoyed reading the posts here. Your reviews and discussions are literate and full of passion. Really good stuff. I got so jazzed by reading some of the reviews here last weekend that straight away this past Monday I placed an order with Elmwood Magic here in the States. My package arrived today, Friday, containing Triple Impact, The Hidden, and Peter Nardi's Stealth.

My question for you concerns the latter, which I've only just began to play with...

When you're inserting an audience member's answer (on the back of your business card) back into your wallet, do you make a point of turning your head or even having the audience member insert it into the wallet? My first thought was, "If they hand the card to me and I put it back into the wallet -- even if it is face down -- they're just think I caught a peek of their answer as I slid it into the wallet."

Do you Stealth practitioners find that this is an issue?

Thanks much.

-Lance
Seattle, Washington

hi photo,
your stealth queery will have to be answerd by pm as your not in the mag only section yet, im sure someone will help sorry i cant.
but feel free to contact me on other issues as i will be pming you with seiges age and experience codes after all i am the cartaker eh seige.

Personally I give them the wallet with the business card turned over ready to write on using the wallet as a rest. This way they have also handled the wallet, while not checking it out specifically, but it does take the heat of it a bit for later.
Then I do turn my head until it is written on. I then ask them to turn the card over on the wallet and then pass it to me. The card can now be slipped into the pouch of the wallet in their full view at all times and without any possible chance of me seeing it as at all times after being passed to me it is face down on the wallet.

Hope all that is clear. The other thing to consider, They have basically 3 logical alternatives.

1. You can read minds and this is real magic.
2. Somehow you peeked at the card while they wrote it, or just as you put it in the wallet. Even though they hid it from your view and watched you carefully while you handled it.
3. The real answer.

Now as most people won't accept the first as a possible, it's not a bad thing if they think it's the second, because while they are saying yea I know how you did that, you peeked..... In their mind they are saying to themselves, "When the hell did he see that" and all the time they are not considering the real method.

I suppose in short what I'm saying, is that if you managed to preclude any and all possibility of number 2 being the answer in the spectators mind, he may well be forced to think down another avenue and either come up with 1 or 3.

Hi Photofiniosh, welcome to TalkMagic.

Ive been using the Nardi's stealth wallet for a while now, and in fact seldom go anywhere without it.

As far as arousing suspicion - most spectators won't even remember the wallet as being part of the trick, and thats exactly how it should be.

When they write/draw their thought of word/name/symbol/whatever on the card (which is taken out of the wallet) I usually have my back turned, and tell them to turn the card over before I turn around again. I then say that I really don't want anything to do with it, and I will hide it in the wallet for safe keeping. I then drop the wallet on the table, as if thats it. Thats that part over.

There is nothing suspicious about this whatsoever. It's actually very clear that nothing has been seen at this point. All seems very fair indeed.

If you start making an issue about turning your head as it goes in, in my mind you are actually bringing unnessecary suspicion on yourself. As someone once said. "Why run when you aren't being chased".

It's like using a TT - you don't make it too obvious that there is nothing in your hand - you let the spectators come to that conclusion themselves. If you kept opening hour hand and pointing to it and saying "Look, see - really, theres nothing in my hand", they would start getting suspisious. If however, you just flashed your hand open, maybe turning it over - they will reconstruct that it was empty for themselves.

Good Magic depends on the subtleties. The misdirections. The way I try to approach issues like this is to say

"How would I do it - if there was no magic involved?". As this is always going to be the most natural way of doing something.

What you guys say makes perfect sense. Thanks very much. I'll let you know how my first Stealth attempts go.

Thanks again for your advice on this one, guys. I performed Nardi's cinema effect on my wife, and it went down well. Even though she knew the wallet I pulled out wasn't the wallet I've been carrying for the past five years -- offhandedly I simply mentioned that I got myself a new wallet -- when all was said and done she didn't have a clue as to how I knew the name of the actor and the film -- and normally she has some pretty good ideas about how effects are achieved.

If it worked on her, I know it will work on anyone with the right presentation. Good stuff!