I really want to be out working on my routine for The (W)hole Thing and with the miscut cards I got from the printer, the set I ordered won’t work. To make them workable, I trimmed 1/4 inch off of the three cards that weren’t miscut and now I have a workable set.
This set works, but I’m not a fan of the card with the red rectangle being off center. However this is giving me a set to work with until the printer sends me cards that aren’t miscut.
-Louie
The custom set of cards I had made for The (W)hole thing were a bit too thin as well. If I’m backlit, you can see through them. I anticipated this problem and had thought of a plan.
How most playing cards are made is that they have two layers and in between those two layers there’s a layer of black glue. This glue makes it so that you can’t see through the card when it’s backlit.
I’m taking two of my custom printed cards and gluing a layer of black construction paper between them. This makes it impossible for the back image to be visible when I’m back lit AND the three layers makes the cards nice and rigid.
-Louie
The custom cards I had printed for my The (W)hole Thing showed up and they miscut one on the cards!
It’s not off center, the card is the wrong size. It should be 8.5 x 5.5 inches, but it’s 8.25 x 5.25. The rest of the cards are the correct size, so this one card is physically smaller than the rest and doesn’t look right.
I just contacted the printed and hopefully they can send me a replacement fast as I’m hitting the road for over a month and I would like to be using them while I’m out!
-Louie
The routine I’m working on for The (W)hole Thing by Emerson and West is intended for for family/adult audiences. The other day I threw it in my case when I went out to do some summer camp shows:
I thought the concept of the whole/hole wouldn’t hit with kids. Much to my surprise the kids liked the trick and got the idea of the verbal concept behind the routine. For the trick to work, the kids need to be able to read, so I probably wouldn’t do it for kids much younger than second grade.
Now I’m just waiting for my custom cards to arrive from the printer, so that I have a fancier set that what I made for myself.
-Louie
Here’s another visit with an old packet trick. It’s Sympathetic Cards by Ronnay, that was put out by Emerson and West. The trick is a “follow the leader” effect where two packets keep matching when one is turned face up or face down, then there’s a couple of kickers with jokers appearing and backs changing colors.
The problem with the trick as written is you end up with two more cards than you start with. It’s a small problem, but also something that I feel needs to be addressed. However there’s a lot of magic that happens in it and it’s pretty good magic, so it’s not a bad trick…
If I was to improve it, the main thing I would do is try to figure out a way to get rid of the two extra cards. Other than that, it’s pretty good.
-Louie
I had a day off last week and finally made a prototype of my custom props for The (W)hole Thing which is Daryl’s version of an Emerson and West packet trick.
The main differences is that the circle around they hole is a donut, the spots are arranged like an X and the cards are black. The main reason that the cards are black is that I might have a line about a black hole. With the cards in black I’m sacrificing some visual clarity of what’s a hole and what isn’t. I think if I end up not using the black hole line, I’ll switch the colors back to red as it visually pops!
-Louie
An idea for a presentation of The (W)hole Thing by Daryl came up in my daily writing a bit ago. I managed to fill out the idea a bit and do some writing. While I was in the Bay Area, I had Joe and Misdirections Magic Shop order me a set of the cards in.
One thing I found interesting was that there’s no mention of Emerson and West in the ad copy for the trick. This is essentially Daryl’s routine for the original trick. I’m guessing this is a Murphy’s Magic copywriting thing, as Daryl was pretty good about crediting things.
Here’s Daryl doing the routine:
For the routine that I want to do, I will need to make some custom cards. For now I’m working out the muscle memory for the routine!
-Louie
