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book tests, some are heavily gimmicked, some not so much - others are truly gimmickless...

but you treat them all the same...

as said, its MY wallet, its full of everyday bits n pieces...train tickets, credit cards, scraps of paper, receipts, occassionally money...

they see me pull out one card...they do not see any other card, they see the wallet is full of everyday stuff...therefore it is...

do i have to hand over my jacket and say "look, no electronics, no magnets, no toppits, no wizard's sleeve, no ITR..."?

Robert Nelson's "Reading Sealed Messages", has some fantastic things in there, the Khan envelope (not in that book - but can you guess where eh?) is still great...some you can have examined, some you cannot...yet, the key is to treat them all the same...

i won't quote annemann and what he says about using gimmicked envelopes in with regular ones...

but if part of your delivery is a section where you list all the things its not or couldnt possibly be...then i say....*snore* BOOOOOOOORING!...

don't get me wrong, its fine to clarify you havent met anyone previously to arrange anything - but thats done in the introduction of the person to the group watching...though more difficult to do one-on-one obviously...

and sometimes, yes, it can be fun to switch out one thing for a duplicate one and leave it as a reminder...but again, thats all done indirectly...

Here is a normal deck of cards every one perfectly ordinary.

Read strong magic Elshy , It will teach you how to prove with out actually handing stuff out. One example is rolling your sleeves up. And if you ask how it would work in a mentalism context then you should put the tricks down and talk to the real people out there. 85% of them don't care.


Oh and btw I can't see that thread in the magicians only section either.

Derren Brown performs a trick where he needs to subtly prove all the cards are face-up.

How does he do this?

He puts them all into new deck order, King to Ace and suit by suit and shows that they are all there and accounted for. Subtle and clever.

Eshly wrote:Derren Brown performs a trick where he needs to subtly prove all the cards are face-up.

How does he do this?

He puts them all into new deck order, King to Ace and suit by suit and shows that they are all there and accounted for. Subtle and clever.

yup, but he doesnt say "notice I'm not using d****e-facers, crimps or RnS..."

and SHOWS....he doesnt have to say anything other than a throw-away sentence...

if its the jonathan ross and lovely mrs ross effect, notice the audience management, i wont go into details, and I'm not talking about the card thats selected - but if you know how the effect works, you know what i mean...

IAIN wrote:

Eshly wrote:Derren Brown performs a trick where he needs to subtly prove all the cards are face-up.

How does he do this?

He puts them all into new deck order, King to Ace and suit by suit and shows that they are all there and accounted for. Subtle and clever.

yup, but he doesnt say "notice I'm not using d****e-facers, crimps or RnS..."

and SHOWS....he doesnt have to say anything other than a throw-away sentence...

if its the jonathan ross and lovely mrs ross effect, notice the audience management, i wont go into details, and I'm not talking about the card thats selected - but if you know how the effect works, you know what i mean...

Yes I do know how it works, its a GLORIOUS effect. Its so good I don't want anyone else to know about it, but sadly they do

And Iain, I am never so stupid as to assume my spectators think of trick cards. In my opinion the second you hand them the deck they assume its a normal deck.

Eh the actual point of the King to Ace order isn't really anything but a visual cue. People can easily remember something if it's in the easy to remember order than if he had the deck in a shuffled ordered.

Eshly wrote:The number of reasons something should be examinable is infinite, but it all depends upon the circumstances.

For example I was planning a Q&A that involved envelopes, and these were to be handeled by the audiance, therefore they need to be examinable.

Blindfolds need to be examinable.

Steve Shaw at my local MagicBox performs a great trick with a gimmicked coin. He does it perfectly, but the trick is SO impossible and SO clearly not slight of hand that they always ask to see the coin.

I am trying to convince him to switch it out for a real coin, but he never bothers.

I perform a trick with an omni deck that is mostly an adaptation of a James Brown trick (I've only changed the selection, the rest is his and you should check it out) where the spec is holding the omni deck in their hands, totally unaware.

Its called misdirection, I think the term may have been knocked about once or twice somewhere when it came to magicians.

The obsession with making everything examinable is obsurd. In some RARE cases it is preferable, but there is always a way around it.

Bitten/restored coin for example. Watch anyone do this with a borrowed coin, the simplest switch in the world and you hand them back a coin they can chew on until their heart's content and it will be fine.

If you are constantly making the audience examine everything you do, it makes it all the more suspicious and, eventually, less impressive to the spectator. It constantly reminds them that you are "fooling" them, rather than having them share a magical event with you.

Hell, on the odd occasion I use the Tarantula and anybody asks "Its on a wire right?" I just confidently say Nope! and that is that. They don't ask more questions, dont need to strip search me in persuit of the puzzle.

Remember, by constantly reminding someone "LOOK IM NOT TRICKING YOU! LOOK REALLY CLOSELY!" you are reminding them that it is, in fact, tricking them. Nobody likes to be tricked. If they are watching you perform, they want to see magic/mindreading/whatever, not to be duped.

Finnishing clean through timing and performance is a thousand times more useful to learn than searching desperately for the *perfect* gimmick.

People are exagerating things out of proportion and causing whats known as "stawman" arguments.

No one is suggesting that every gimmick should be 100% examinable and we should say "LOOK! ITS JUST A NORMAL COIN, HONEST!".

No.

If I were a magician I'd borrow the coin, do the swap, bite the coin, spit, swap and return. Hell I can think of two good ways of doing it with a SIGNED coin. I'd say something like "Now can you do me a quick favour and just write your initials on the coin, make sure I'm not cheating or anything... you know what we magicians are like, always up with the old slight'o hand"

(I never call myself a magician or perform this effect, so don't judge me)




I have discovered a wonderful no-gimmicked envelope to be used, and I'm very happy with! And a nice man also taught me the value of "self-discovery".

I perform effects such as the card effect mentioned above, and they are NOT inspectable, and rely purely upon misdirection. Please do not assume I don't perform such effects.

Eshly wrote: Please do not assume I don't perform such effects.

Nope, I'm assuming you don't perform at all.

Lenoir wrote:

Eshly wrote: Please do not assume I don't perform such effects.

Nope, I'm assuming you don't perform at all.

Was there any point to this post other than malice?

Lenoir wrote:

Eshly wrote: Please do not assume I don't perform such effects.

Nope, I'm assuming you don't perform at all.

To be fair, you could have kept that to yourself, Lenoir; I don't there is anyone who doesn't know about Tom's bipolarity.

Saying that there is no need to tread carefully is like saying its ok to expect a cripple to use the stairs.. in a way.

I really don't care how annoying he can be, I really don't. You can ignore it and as the mature ones you should if he bothers you that much.

As the saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say, then say nothing at all. If you want to disagree with him, fair enough: but is it so difficult to have a mature debate without resorting to ad hominems and derision?

I am not just talking about this thread. Commendable as most people's patience is, I know it can wear thin, but at least an effort was made.

I hate to go all Mother Theresa and I'm sorry. But those whoever this applies to knows who they are.

linking finger rings? You borrow the rings and then link them why would they need to be examined seeing as they have been borrowed?

What I think is happening here is that we are not on a level playing field and we are getting caught up with terminology(?).

As long as there is a logical reason for everything, then it really does not need to be examined because it makes sense for it to be there. Nobody ever asks to see the caps for dynamic coins, why? because I call them transporters and they transport the coins from one place to the other. So they make sense. You only question things that are out of place.

Something only has to appear examinable. The caps stay on the table after the effect is over, I don't rush to hide them, so the presumption to the audience is that they are normal. Same as with a gaff deck, and if you switch the deck, even better, but I never even think to hand out a normal deck, and nobody ever questions it, so why would I then want to have somebody examine a gimmicked deck.

I know what Eshly is saying because if it is 'real' then everything should be examinable. The point you are missing Eshly is that if you present it properly it doesn't need to be examinable the presumption is going to be that it is normal. If you are presenting a puzzle then yes you are going to need everything examinable, but you will only be presenting a puzzle. My suggestion would be to try to create magic. Because when you create magic, create wonder, there is no puzzle to solve. The audience believes because they want to. Because you made them want too.

Also, something that should never be forgotten is the show is more important than the effect. I hate it when an escape artist has every bloody lock inspected, the illusionist has somebody come up to examine every sword, the mentalist has twelve items over his eyes, it is boring to be sitting in the audience watching all this. It is not entertaining, it is boring, and I know longer care. All the 'proving' just kills the pace of a show and if you are a mentalist chances are the show is painfully slow to begin with.

bmat wrote:if you are a mentalist chances are the show is painfully slow to begin with.

Hehe

Eshly wrote:I have discovered a wonderful no-gimmicked envelope to be used, and I'm very happy with! And a nice man also taught me the value of "self-discovery". .

oh the irony!

that is what everyone has been trying to drum into you ever since you arrived here tom...

i also mentioned the khan envelope earlier as a hint to you, and its even in the pdf stuff i sent you...

Eshly wrote:If I were a magician

This is your main problem.


Also...

Eshly wrote:

Lenoir wrote:

Eshly wrote: Please do not assume I don't perform such effects.

Nope, I'm assuming you don't perform at all.

Was there any point to this post other than malice?

Was there any point to this post other than to question the intention of previous post?

Also, I agree with Lenoir.