Hey guys!
I've come up with a little trick (I think it's original but would be glad to hear from you if you think otherwise).
I'd like to share the effect with you and then ask for your thoughts about presentation ideas.
Here's the bare-bones effect:
I take a deck of cards, place it on the table and ask you to name a suit. I then cut the deck into two. The top card of the newly exposed pile is turned over neatly and shown to be in the named suit. Now there are two piles on the table. I ask for another suit, cut one of the piles and again the top card is in that suit. Now there are 4 piles. I repeat again and again with different suits until there are about 10 or 12 little piles of cards all over the table with upturned cards showing the suits that were named. Then I pick the stacks up and spread them for examination, showing the cards to be in a totally random order. I can even spread each stack individually to prove I haven't just put all the clubs together etc.
That's the bare bones. It's my own devising, it's easy to set up (under 2 mins reset - I timed it) and requires no gimmicks whatsoever.
Here's one idea for presentation, but I'd really love to hear your own ideas.
My presentation/patter suggestion. Routine starts with my 'perfectly ordinary' deck sitting on the table.
How sensitive are your fingertips? Do you think they could detect a hair on a smooth surface just by touch? In fact some researchers at the Smithsonian have apparently determined that you can detect a raised dot which is 30 thirty times thinner than a strand of hair. So what I'd like you to do is take a hair and cut it into 30 lengthways sections for me. No I'm kidding. It's true about the fingertips though, that's what they say. No, I'm going to show you just how sensitive you can train your fingers to be. See, these researchers are only thinking in one dimension.
See they assume that only eyes can see and fingers, well fingers can only feel. But I've trained my fingers to detect both shape *and* colour, and not only that but I don't even have to be touching the face of the card to know what it is. Let me show you.
What's your favourite suit? Hearts, diamonds clubs or spades? [spectator names a suit] Now let me find a card of that suit for you using just my highly trained fingers [cut the deck, place cut stack on table, slowly turn top card of bottom stack to reveal appropriate card]. Now that's just a 1 in 4 chance, I could just be lucky, so please would you name your favourite suit for me [different spec]? [repeat] And you? [repeat] The odds of this happening by chance are getting lower and lower don't you think? And your favourite suit? [again] This really is just me feeling out the colours and shapes, through the edges of the cards. Your suit? [lalala]
and so on until, as Derren once put it, I "climb onto the table and roar for applause before triumphantly urinating on the group"
(Tricks of the Mind, page 32, yes really.)
Phew. Well thanks for reading this far.
I think I've given you enough info about the effect, so I'd love to hear your ideas for routines around this effect, and your feedback on my ideas for the patter and presentation.
Thanks again.
PS: Disclaimer: I'm just newbie at this ol' magic lark, don't bite me.
