A month of so ago I picked up the book Dynamite In a Small Package by Doc Dixon. It’s lived in my backpack since I bought it and I’ve finally read it. It’s a quick read and a GREAT book!
The book covers five card tricks with a regular deck of cards. Each of the card tricks has a different flavor and are distinctly different tricks. The big thing for this is that each of the tricks was designed for the stage and plays bigger than you average card trick.
The book has a script for the tricks, and Doc does a good job of not only teaching the WHY, but how to apply his thinking to other tricks. I’m a fan of Doc’s stuff, the guy is a worker and has been for years and it shows in his marketed magic stuff.
For $35, this book is a great part of your emergency plan for when the airline loses your luggage!
I came across the book Something from the East by Haruhito Hirata in a box of magic stuff that I had bought recently. There wasn’t a lot of stuff that I liked in the book, but one thing did catch my eye. There’s an oil and water trick in there that has a slightly different mixing procedure that most.
I like the two columns of cards and then mixing them one at a time. I don’t like how much process and how confusing the whole routine is. I also don’t like that you can’t show the second packet at the end.
I tried to streamline the effect to make it less confusing and here’s what I initially came up with:
I do have two more versions that are inspired by Haruhito’s routine, and I’ll post about them later. These two version are very different in method, but keep the two columns of cards.
I love it when I’m performing in the San Francisco area and have a friday night off! Whenever I do, I swing by the Magic Garage and hang out!
One of the unusual tricks we ended playing with was an Eddie Fields card trick where a selected card is found by spelling the spectator’s name. It can be any name, and you don’t need to know it in advance, the best part is that it’s self working!
It’s a ton of fun and a great hangout with other magicians. There are people there with all sorts of skill levels and experiences in magic!
I’ve been playing with some shuffle sequences. You can see one of them at this blog post from a few days ago called Red / Black Separation. In a natural extension of that shuffle sequence I came up with what I’m calling A Shuffle and a Cut to Order.
I like the progressive nature of this routine where the cards go from shuffled, to separated by color to finally them all in new deck order! The trick has three different beats to it (but not three effects) which I like and each builds upon the previous. The other night thing about this over the previous Red/Black Separation is that this is much easier to do!
I’ve always like red / black separation card effects. I think it’s because when I was a teenager I saw a John Mendoza VHS tape where he did a routine called “the squeeze” or something like that. The effect was a deck was shuffled and kept going back to red/black order.
Over the years I’ve done several versions of this in my close up magic. The other night I was playing with a version that I had come up with as an offshoot of something else I was working on.
Then ending where they separate into suits I like, but not sure that to non-magicians that payoff is any better than just red/black. Also I think it needs three phases. The first two could simply be shuffles into red/black. Maybe the second shuffle is a zarrow and up the ladder cut?
I’ll play with it more and actually try it on someone this week to see if it plays well.
With all the buzz about the Atomic Deck and magicians arguing whether ACAAN is a good trick or not, it got me thinking about why magicians are fascinated by ACAAN.
Here’s my theory why magicians are into it, there’s really only one way to do it and that’s a memorized deck and a displacement. That method isn’t easy to do and beyond the reach of a beginner magician. Most magicians are lazy and don’t want to put in the work, so selling a method that’s “easy” for something that’s beyond most magicians skill level solves a problem and leads to sales.
That’s it, it’ makes the difficult attainable for people who don’t want to put in the work.
The problem is there compromises that are made to make the trick easy that change the trick from an Any Card At Any Number to something else. Usually a Selected Card at a Any Number, or Any Card at Selected Number or combination of the two. There’s nothing specifically wrong with those effects, but they’re not ACAAN.
The things added to make the trick easy take away what makes the trick amazing, and that’s how simple the trick is. Name a card, name a number and boom the card is there. Not name a card, now roll these dice, multiply that by nine and add 13, now deal to the number and your card is there. The added procedure kills the effect. Magicians who think the plot is boring are bored by the added procedure that makes the trick easy.
Magicians love to say, “it’s not the effect it’s the presentation that matters” are the same ones that say ACAAN is boring. Those are the magicians that aren’t putting in the work. The effect matters! What would you rather have:
1: Strong effect with a weak presentation 2: Weak effect with a strong presentation 3: Strong effect with strong presentation
I think we can all agree that number 3 is the goal. That means you need to put in the work! -Louie
The new hot trick right now is the Atomic Deck, which is an ACAAN, here’s the trailer, then I’ll give you my thoughts on it:
When I watched the trailer and the first thing that jumped out at me was this:
That’s a very specific statement, not “NO ROUGH AND SMOOTH”, so that instantly tells me that it’s roughed, just not by traditional methods. I don’t know how I feel about that in its marketing as it’s technically correct, but very misleading.
That aside, the trailer above leaves out something very important, this trick requires a phone or computer. Of course this part of the trick is completely left out of the trailer. It is mentioned in the ad copy, so it’s only sorta deceptive in its omission from the video.
With the current issues that Inject 2 is having, relying on app or website isn’t a good long term solution. The site is only good as long as the deck is selling and they’re paying for the hosting. You’re relying on something outside of your control for the trick to work.
OK, not to the effect, it’s not a true ACAAN in my opinion. You have multiple cards named and multiple numbers and then you essentially pick the combination that will work the best. So instead of Any Card at Any Number, it’s more of a “Selected Card from a Selected Group of Cards at a Number from a Selected Group of Numbers“. That’s a huge thing that to me distances this from the Berglas Effect.
It should look like this: Spectator names a card and a number. The cards are dealt and the card is at that number!
Here’s a video of me doing ACAAN at a gig that I was just supposed to be playing the organ at, however someone requested I do a magic trick.
If you follow me on TikTok, you know I’m into vintage magic tricks and really into old packet tricks. I’ve wanted to come up with an original Emerson and West style packet trick with full story patter. I didn’t want to come up with a variation of something that already existed.
The other day I threw some cards into my backpack and with my time between gigs I came up with this:
This is actually the second version of the story. The first version is more personal to me and my story, where the one above is more generic. I think this is fairly close to the Emerson and West style, it’s got all the mini effects and the pun/kicker ending.
The handling sequence just worked itself out. It was too easy, so I’m assuming someone has to have come up with it before, but it’s original to me.
For fun I’m working through the book Packet Tricks by Jerry Mentzer. This was published in 1982, so kinda when packet tricks as a trend were becoming really popular.
It’s really interesting to see where these tricks and techniques came from. The Phil Goldstein stuff is intesesting as I see the roots of some of his later stuff in the two tricks he has in the Packet Tricks book.
I’ve been posting some of these of TikTok, and you can see them and other vintage magic tricks and routines there. Plus I post some other stuff I think of on there.
If you’re not on TikTok, here’s some of the videos from the book Packet Tricks:
These are fun to learn, and I think it’s important to learn things for fun. It can be a challenge balancing my passion for magic with the job of performing magic.
