John Bannon - Mentalissimo [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

Do not underestimate the power of this trick. The pain-to-glory ratio is very low with a very high glory component. Even better, it's infinitely repeatable. When asked to think about which trick he would choose if he could only do one trick for the rest of his life, Marlo (though this may be apocryphal) said that he would choose a trick that could be repeated again and again for a participant without fear of detection. This'll do it.

MISE EN SCENE THE PITCH I added the opening line about the murderer and the victim to this trick. I think a healthy dose of the outre can improve a card trick-especially a mental effect-but not so bizarre that the audience immediately realizes that they are seeing or hearing "presentation." My goal is to be conversational, interesting, and a maybe just a little strange. Remember this is the first effect of the evening-my audience is not expecting to hear about murder victims and old superstitions. Now they are not sure what to expect. The secret is simple: You covertly know what card the participant selected. How do we secretly ascertain the participant's card? Technically, a force might accomplish that objective. I believe, however, that the method should affirmatively preclude any conclusion that the card was forced. Let's go with a shuffled deck and a participant peek, followed by a really deceptive glimpse. I am very skeptical about the claim that a peeked card can be parlayed into a purported "thought-of card." Well, not just skeptical, I really think the claim is self-deceptive nonsense. You can call it a "thought-of card," and your participant may go along with you, but it's not a true mental selection. That said, the peekplus-glimpse is a very fair-looking, very deceptive selection procedure. You can use your favorite glimpse technique, and there are several very good ones. In Dear Mr. Fantasy, I employed Steve Draun's fabulous method, "The Fan Glimpse, one of the finest moves in all of card magic. If you don't know it, you really should check it out. I have also used B.J. Bueno's method for glimpsing a selection during a hand-to-hand dribble selection procedure-another very fine card move. You can't know too many of these handy and diabolical moves. For now, however, follow me through the more recently-devised Shuffle Transfer Glimpse and its application to this trick.

THE SHUFFLE TRANSFER GLIMPSE First, have the deck shuffled. This is important for a number of reasons. I want my audience to remember that the deck was shuffled by a participant (that is, really shuffled). And for this trick, you must emphasize that the deck was shuffled and at no time do you see the faces of the cardst. 2 John Bannon