Love Cards - by Craig Petty & Russell Leeds
Wizard Product Range
Price: £30
Available from World magic Store
What They Say
Love Cards - A Book Test In Your Wallet
For years the book test has been one of the most powerful effects available to mentalists. Now this classic effect has been brought bang up to date with a version that you can literally carry in your wallet.
A number of 'love cards' are taken out from a wallet and examined by the audience. While the performers back is turned, the spectator thinks of a number between one and ten and takes the card at that number. With a word having been freely selected from the chosen card, they are all returned to the wallet as the performer turns back around to reveal the word that is merely being thought of. As an added kicker, the performer can even reveal the thought of number!
No forcing
No fishing
Nothing written down
No memorisation
Everything examinable at every point in the routine
No multiple out system
Instant reset
Very easy to perform - Self working!
Includes bonus handling and multiple live performance videos.
What I say
Your pet rabbit died,
Poor little Muffett.
Your two choices are,
Eat it ot stuff it
The slushy verses in greetings cards always make my stomach turn. Not least because it reminds me that so many people are so inept at expressing how they feel and would rather have someone do it for them with extra helpings of sugar and saccharine.
What's worse, is that card shops now sell these verses printed on credit-card-sized cards that you can give to people to keep in their wallet and help them feel nauseous at a moment's notice, should they need to get out of an exam or P.E.
Am I too cynical?
There's a lot I can say about slushy off-the-shelf verses.
I won't be struggling for patter with this one.
Love Cards is a packet of ten such Slushy Verse cards. They will apparently all fit into one credit card compartment of a normal wallet, but I've yet to try that and verify.
They look like very standard fare - each card is for a different occasion, such as Birthday, Valentines, Christmas and other Hallmark Holidays. They all look different and read differently. On initial inspection, you'll be very hard pushed to find anything odd about them.
Craig and Russell's intention with this trick is to provide a book test-type effect that doesn't require you to carry a book with you - or expect your audience to provide one in typically book-free environments. That's the approach of most wallet-sized mentalism effects. The difference, though, is that this one isn't designed to look like a 'psychic testing device' or the membership card for some ancient secret society... and, in the process, doesn't look like a magician's prop. It's very organic and can be easily explained away with reference to hopelessly sentimental spouses.
There are some conditions to the handling of the cards in performance, and there's little I can say about that without risk of tipping the method. That said, the physical handling is all done by the spectator, and can be made to seem extremely fair. As a nice convincer (and with some careful routining), you can have two spectators working on the same card at the same time and reveal each one's chosen word.
Looking at the sales spiel, I was most sceptical of the claim that there's no memorisation required. Absurdly, this turns out to be true. Note that you need to have seen the cards, read them a few times and understood the method before you use them, but there really is no way they could have made this easier for the performer, short of employing loudspeakers and flashing neon lights.
The fact that we have ten cards in play - each with a very different verse - makes repeat performances less of a headache than with many other pocket mentalism effects, but it's obviously a silly idea to repeat it immediately for the same group of people. In table hopping conditions, however, I'd have no hesitation in performing it at neighbouring tables. If your last lot of spectators see or hear your next performance, you're very unlikely to get rumbled. Indeed, by varying your handling between tables, you can ensure that there's nothing at all to get caught out on.
As has become the norm with new tricks, instructions are provided on DVD, which makes it difficult to get the basics while sitting on the train to or from work (or on your way home from the magic shop). The presentation and explanation on the DVD is extremely thorough though - as we've now come to expect from Mssrs Petty and Leeds.
So that's it.
Serious mentalists (and by that I mean the intensely humourless ones) will probably not be interested in this one.
Personally, I think I'll find use for it. It's something you ring in when the tone is relaxed and casual. It's not a grand performance piece - it's friendly and chatty and fun.
Highly recommended!
9/10
