It’s been said that great scientists do their most powerful work before their 30th birthday. Einstein himself will tell you that science is first and foremost a creative and imaginative endeavor. So a real concern I had as I threw myself headlong back into magic last summer was whether or not I still had the imagination and creativity I once enjoyed.
As is the case with most magicians, when I was a teenager I spent countless hours alone in my room coming up with all sorts magical ideas and solutions. Most of them of course were impractical at best. But what fun! There were even a couple that served me well. One of these that stand out in my mind is something I performed for as long as I had doves. After producing a dove from a handful of multi-colored ribbons, the ribbons were turned white and the dove, rainbow colored. Oh, the many hours spent painting a live dove with food coloring. There is probably nothing that looks more like mental illness than a magician working out a solution to a problem! At any rate, this bit of business was only a small part of a 12 minute choreographed routine from back in the day. But people who saw me perform all those years ago remember this more than anything else I did.
Today’s magic Friday sampling was an effect I had unintentionally created over the past two weeks or so. To begin, several months ago I started working on “Cops and Robbers” from “Expert Card Technique” by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue. This is a beautiful effect with a very strong visual component. Four kings are placed face down on the table. A selected card is cut into the deck. The deck is dropped onto the face down kings. The deck is immediately spread and the kings are now face up in the middle of the deck with the chosen card sandwiched between them. I wound up putting the trick on the back burner as I was having difficulty with on of the sleights. Then last week, quite by accident, I ran across a book by Stephen Minch I purchased 20 years ago. It’s a 45-page book of card magic using Tarot cards
called “The Book of Thoth”. I had completely forgotten that I owned this book. As I read through the book a thought came to me. “Why not do Cops and Robbers with Tarot cards?” As soon as I began working on it I decided I wanted a double climax ending. This called for an entirely different handling and forced me to clean up my top change. Soon the thing took on a life of its own and looked nothing like “Cops & Robbers”. Here’s the effect.
A tarot deck is given for examination and mixing. Upon receiving the deck the magician removes (among others) the 4 Knight cards. The patter revolves around a super thief known only as “The Magician”. The performer searches the deck and produces “The Magician”. This card is shown and buried into the deck. The four knights are then placed in different parts of the deck which is then cut one time. A spectator freely selects a card from the deck and marks it. The chosen card is placed face down in front of the spectator and a small sword is placed on top of it. The performer removes the top card from the deck, shows it and explains that it is really “The Magician” in disguise. This card is then cut back into the deck. After a magic pass or gesture with the sword, the deck is spread. The knights are seen to have magically gathered together and reversed face up in the face down deck. Between the 4 face up knights is a face down card. (Presumably, the magician). This prisoner card is turned over to reveal… the spectator’s chosen and marked card! The sword is removed from the spectator’s card on the table, the spectator’s card is turned over revealing that it has changed into… The Magician.
There’s more to it than that really. The Tarot cards with their 14th century artwork facilitate story telling. So that’s what I did. Using some kid’s craft beads for jewels and other cards to represent a king, a princess and a dark tower the story really wrote itself. But was the effect itself direct? Magic should always be uncomplicated and direct, right? On the other hand telling a story using magic is nothing new. I’ve heard it called “bizarre” magic. Whatever it’s called, performing magic within the context of a story makes sense to me. It takes the pressure off the audience, and the focus off the “cleverness” of the magician. The story becomes the star and the audience gets to help tell it. Everybody wins. The problem is I was concerned about the magic getting lost in the story telling. I didn’t want
the “magical moment” to get watered down. I was also doubtful that the story I wrote for the effect would be interesting enough to create suspense and hold the audience’s attention. I decided the only way to find the answer was to go with my gut and try it out.
The first performance, in my view, was weakly presented. Also, the “Magician” failed to show up at the end as he was supposed to. I think he may have gotten lost during a triple lift. The second performance was much better. One knight got lost during the “facing” so only three knights showed up back at the castle with the prisoner. This had no ill effect the magic and actually added a bit of comedy…”The Knight of Cups must have lost a drinking contest with a serving wench. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him anytime soon”. During the 3rd performance I just plain forgot to face the knights all together. Everything else worked fine though. I just lost a nice visual component. Even though these first 3 performances came up a little short, there was enthusiastic applause when I reached “The End”. The 4th and 5th performances were dynamite! Everything came together as I hoped. After each performance I did something
I had never done before. I polled my classes. I really wanted to know what they thought. So I asked them to rate the effect on a scale of one to ten. They were very honest and told me what they liked about it and what would have made it better. I didn’t think to poll the first group but the second group scored the routine at 8.8. The group that I forgot to face the knights for awarded me an average score of 6.8. I thought that was fair. The last two groups were all 9’s and 10’s! Some of them remarked that they really enjoyed the story! I felt like I had come up with a decent presentation but it played much stronger than I expected. Especially toward the end of the day once I worked out the rough spots got into the rhythm of the effect. 
I’m so excited that most of my audience ranked my own effect right up there with the classics I've been performing. However I would not want to set everything I do to a full story. That would be contrived and probably pretty boring. But it reminds me that even the most simple and direct effects should have a recognizable beginning, middle and end. And best of all I’ve got a unique and powerful new effect that proves to me that there’s still some creativity left in these old bones.
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