I’m going to be a grumpy old magician today. I get super annoyed when I see posts like this:
The poster bought a trick, which is the easy part, but doesn’t want to do the hard work. People who ask for routines never say what work they’ve done (I’m assuming they haven’t done any). This is why many people don’t think of magic as an art, because magicians constantly demonstrate that they aren’t artists.
Here’s what that person should do to work on a routine for mental dice:
1: Examine the prop:
-What is it…duh it’s a die
-What can it be hidden it to make it look like something different
2: What can the prop do:
-Let’s you know which side of a cube is uppermost
-Since opposites sides of a die add up to 7, it also tells you the lowermost side. This could be applied to any decorated cube, you’ll just have to memorize pairs.
-Can be used as a random selection device (free choice)
With those two things above accomplished, you should have a little bit of a start.
Let’s say you put the die into an alphabet block that has a different letter on each side. That essentially is a die, but instead of numbers, you have letters. Also, each letter is colored, so now you have a choice of letters or colors. That gives you 12 things you can get information about instead of six.
A three-phase routine with the colored alphabet block could look like:
Phase 1: You reveal the uppermost color selected by someone
Phase 2: You reveal the uppermost letter selected by someone
Phase 3: Someone randomly rolls/shakes the block under a cup. They then selected a color from a stack of color swatches and a letter from alphabet cards. Those reveal the lowermost side of the block.
A little bit of work and you can have something unique. Not sure I’d call what I just thought of above as “art,” but it’s a step in that direction.
-Louie
