Magic & Conjuring: page 214

"It is one of the very best tricks which can be done for close-up work." - Hugard and Braue from Show Stoppers With Cards

From the Foreword:

Basic Plot:

A selection "lost" in a deck is successfully found by using three...

An exploration of the Hotel Trick, aka "A Night on the Town". A trick with a good plot is half the battle. This one has an interesting plot that can be styled and modified to fit your needs. Sleight-less and sleight-of-hand versions are being taught.

Jon was introduced to this trick by Persi Diaconis in the 1970s. In this ebook he has traced it back to its roots, and forward to modern variations and spin-offs.

The core effect:

Two Queens and four Kings are shown. The Queens are tabled face down next to each other. Two Kings are added onto each Queen to form two three-card packets. After...

Jon explores the bluff pass and its spin-offs.

• INTRODUCTION
• THE EXEMPLAR THE BLUFF PASS
• THE "BLUFF" PASS AND PALM
• SPIN-OFFS
  • TOMMY TUCKER'S BLUFF PASS
  • FAKE OR BLUFF PASS.
  • LE PAUL'S PASS
  • TRACKING ATTENTION
  • THE BLUFF FORCE / Andrew Galloway
  • BLUFF BOTTOM PLACEMENT / Edward Marlo
  • NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED / Edward Marlo
  • BLUFF-BLUFF PASS / Roger Klause
  • THE MARLO-THOMPSON BLUFF PASS
  • THE BLUFF CUT / Edward Marlo
  • BLUFF CENTER DEAL
  • BLUFF SHIFT / Bob Vesser
• VERBAL BLUFFING
  • PUT / R. Paul Wilson
  • BLUFF ACE ASSEMBLY / Edward Marlo
  • TWO-TIMING BLUFF ACE ASSEMBLY / Edward Marlo
• BLUFFERY TRICKS
  • BLUFF SANDWICH / Edward Marlo
  • REPEAT...

The Ascanio Spread is a beautiful false display move, generally used to display 4 cards and hide a fifth one.

From the Introduction:

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• To Begin
  • Racherbaumer Variation
  • Some Comments On The Mechanics Of The...

• A Decade Later
• Publisher's Notes
• Round-Trip Travellers
• Student's Exchange
• Marlo Card-To-Pocket Items In Print
• Detached Collectors
• Table Side Manners
• Future Trap
• Olram Cunningly Catches A Card
• The 1003-1006 Aces
• An Apparitional Bit Of Nonsense
• On The Spread Cull

1st edition 1983, 2nd edition 1994, 50 pages; 1st digital edition 2020, PDF 52 pages.

• Introduction
• Marlo's Routine For Abbott's Chinese Coins
• Cursory Commentary On Close-Up Fantasies Books 1 & 2 By Paul Harris (1980)
• Bombshell Twins
• LSDM Aces
• LSDR Aces
• Patter For The "Ropes Of India"
• Clipper Passage
• Deuce Sandwich Ideas
• Better Than Best Lie Speller
• Simplex Lie Speller
• Complex Simplex Lie Speller
• Whose Oil And Water?
• Million Dollar Card Secrets By Frank Garcia

1st edition 1994, 50 pages; 1st digital edition 2020, PDF 55 pages.

This issue of Facsimile includes the complete contents of the first two (and only) issues of Jon Racherbaumer's periodical Marlophile. Jon has reformatted Marlophile, and added some additional routines.

• Publisher's Note
• I
  • Introduction
  • Marlo's Personal Annotation
  • Marlo's Variation Of The Zarrow Shuffle
  • MARLO In IBIDEM (1956-1969)
• II
  • Introduction
  • Marlo's Personal Annotation
  • The Easy Way: A Bottom Deal For The Millions
  • Two Memory Bits
  • Mental lie
  • Slop Shuffle Or Triumph?
  • Whispering Snitch

1st edition 1995, 50 pages; 1st digital edition 2020, PDF 50 pages.

Although Marlo is generally credited with the Elevator plot, analysis of the action steps taken in the Four Burglars, Jacob's Ladder, and Marlo's Penetration exhibit procedural similarities and could be presented as "elevating tricks" if accompanying patter expressed the "elevator" analogy. As far as the "elevator" trope is concerned, we can credit Bill Simon for naming rights.

• Part One: The Burglazing Beginning
  • Introduction
  • Gibson Puts Perps On Parade
  • Rising Crime / Daryl Martinez
  • Rising Robbers / Jon Racherbaumer
  • Four Burglas / Jerry Mentzer
  • Mystery Of The Penthouse / Nick Trost
  • Burglar Trick / Nick...

Culling (cards) is not a particularly fashionable technique. During the past forty years, card magicians started to pay closer attention to various ideas and techniques, especially those having broad application. In this treatise three types of culls will be examined:

1. Desired cards are secretly culled during the logical and natural course of an effect.
2. Free selections are controlled (culled) to desired positions during a visible procedure that looks fair and above board.
3. A cull done during another fair procedure that results in separating the four suits in Ace to King order.

A deep dive into a key principle - the sunken key card.

• So It Begins ...
• Adding the Pips / Larsen - Wright
• Automatic Location / Oscar Weigle Jr.
• The Three Pile Trick / C. W. Jones
• The Twenty-Sixth Location
• The Triple Discovery / Charlie Miller - Jack McMillen
• Watching the Pitchman / Charlton Chute
• Improved Twenty-Sixth Location
• Middle Maze / Bruce Elliott
• The Twenty-Sixth Card Location - Using a Corner Short / George G. Kaplan
• Koran's Miracle Card Stab / Al Koran
• A New Use for a One Dollar Bill / John Henry Grossman
• Buried Treasure / Alex Elmsley
• Shadowed / Alex Elmsley
• S-D Location / Dave Solomon - Steve Draun
• S-D Plus / Simon Aronson
• An Exploration...

Remixing the Gardner-Marlo poker deal - its history and histrionics.

• Introduction
• How To Study This Manuscript
• An Effective Poker Deal / Jean Hugard
• Gardner-Marlo Poker Deal / Martin Gardner, Edward Marlo
• The Surprised Gambler / Martin Gardner
• Can You Deal A Good Poker Hand? / Jean Hugard
• Meyer Poker Deal / Orville Meyer
• The Lorayne Poker Deal / Harry Lorayne
• Of Course I Can Deal A Good Poker Hand! / Edward Marlo
• Solomon Meets Gardner-Marlo / Dave Solomon
• The Ultimate Gardner-Marlo/ Steve Mayhew, Jack Carpenter
• Marlo/Gardner/Britland Poker Deal
• Riverboat Poker / John Bannon
• Addendum: Duts / Edward Marlo

1st edition 2020, PDF 50 pages....

• LEITMOTIFS
  • Copycat Cards
  • Rashomonian Universal Card
  • Counting a Conclave
• LOCUS POCUS
  • Mine Finds Yours
  • A Narrow Margin
  • Bubkus Divination
  • No-Frills Invisible Toss
• PUZZLETS
  • Changling Sandwich
  • Another Challenge
  • Easy O. Henry
  • Recliner Mind Reader
  • Either-Oracle

Jazz Aces was inauspiciously introduced to the magic world in 1971 when Peter Kane published Another Card Session. It was a fortuitous event because it appeared about the same time the Elmsley Count was gaining favor with magicians from coast to coast. Like weeds in an open field, packet tricks were also popping up everywhere. Furthermore, Kane's routine clarified the transposition aspects of basic Ace Assemblies. Using only 8 principal "players" (cards), his action procedure was simple and direct. Best of all, the final transposition was squeaky clean. As a result it did not take long for Jazz...

A retrospective look at Dai Vernon's Five-Card Mental Force.

• Introduction
• The Prototypal Version From Early Vernon
• A Woolgather's Aside
• My Skirmish with the Five-Card Mental Force
• 30 Years Passed
• Five Card Mental Farce / David Acer
• Max on Five-Card Mental Force / Max Maven
• Outtings
• Rescuing the Five-Card Mental Force / Allan Slaight
• The Ultra Effect / Paul Rylander
• Dai-Cipher / Phil Goldstein
• I Have It / Edward Marlo
• Psyboards / Tom Frame
• Indisputably Predictable / Jon Racherbaumer
• Post Mortem

"One of the greatest card tricks ever invented." - George Anderson

"It fooled the hell out of me!" - Ted Annemann

"Without any possible doubt, Stewart James' 'Miraskill' is one of the greatest self-working card effects to have appeared in print. Apart from its own value, it is the ideal prelude to 'Out of this World'." - Peter Warlock

This manuscript is about one trick that incorporates a seminal sorting procedure now given the name Belcho's Disbursive Deal. Over the years the trick eventually morphed into an organized compilation that shares the same identifiable title: "Poker Player's Picnic."

It begins with Vernon Lux, an enterprising amateur who founded the International Society of Junior Magician in 1931 and began a magazine called The Dragon in 1932. Therein Oscar Weigle had a column called "Themes and Schemes" where he explained a trick called "The Million to One Trick." (Later it was changed to "Belchou's Aces.") It's unclear...

'Mexican Joe' refers to a specially crimped card or deck, one that is crimped at diagonal corners in opposite directions.

The first person to publish anything on this crimp was Victor Farelli when he published Farelli's Card Magic. Several years passed before another mention is made. This time it was explained in Dai Vernon's More Inner Secrets of Card Magic. Racherbaumer collects a number of routines and ideas with this crimp. In so doing he weaves his way through some interesting nooks and crannies of card magic history.

• Prologue
• Introduction
• Origins
• The Double Crimp
• Mexican Joe's Crimp: Dai Vernon
• Applying The Work
• Marlo Dead...

Reviving "Between the Palms" one of Alex Elmsley's most offbeat plots. This is sort of a "locked room" mystery with playing cards.

It is an offbeat plot because the implicit aspects of effect, particularly its climax, are not immediately understood or appreciated. Yet the effect still has an emotional impact. Compared to other card tricks being done in 1952 it was very different. (Perhaps its closest cousins may be Fred Braue's "The Prechosen Chosen Card" from The Gen (February 1962) or Brother John Hamman's "Signed Card.")

Effect: The performer removes a card from the deck and, without showing its face, places it between...

Regarding changes, sexual and otherwise.

This is an unusual one, but Jon Racherbaumer always weaves an interesting yarn meshing history with magic and card tricks with culture. In this short but nevertheless interesting ebook Jon starts out with a historic event that in the 1950s made huge waves. Today it would hardly make the news. In 1952 a man by the name of George William Jorgensen Jr. had a number of operations to change his sex and became Christine Jorgensen. Edward Marlo exploited this event and created a card trick called "Christine", and with Christine, he meant Christine Jorgensen. This is...

Offbeat alternatives of the Three-Card Motif

This compilation makes a distinction between the well-known Three-Card Monte wagering game, and motifs using three principal cards in different ways. All of the motifs challenge a spectator's ability to follow the actions to keep track of certain principal cards as they are physically moved around.

In some of the motifs, the principal cards are moved by the spectator while the performer's back is turned. Then, sight unseen, the performer is able to ascertain the location of a card previously designated as the "money card."

In other motifs...

Unpacking the Smith Myth and the Rashomon Concept.

This collection of tricks focuses on a similar motif because they fit the precise definition of that word and, in each case, the goal is to show what unifies and specifically defines each one. I'm also using the term "curate," because I sifted through lots of material so readers can compare and analyze everything. I consider this to be a contextualizing exercise that reveals the motif's history and pinpoints its rightful place in the Creative Continuum.

The two motifs compiled here are the Smith Myth and what's popularly known as the Rashomon...

The contents of this series, for the most part, emphasize the history of effects and ideas. There are effects and methods in some of them, though.

From the introduction:

The contents of this series, for the most part, emphasize the history of effects and ideas. There are effects and methods in some of them, though.

• Proem
• About this Issue
• Excerpts Taken from a Photocopy of a Letter Written from Ed Whitford to Edward Marlo
• A Marlo Letter to Persi Diaconis
• Racherbaumer Letter to Charlie Miller
• Shall We Ask All The King's Horses and Men?
• Correspondence Between Jon Racherbaumer and Stephen Minch Regarding the So-Called Hide-Out Move
• Appendix: Paul Curry's "Out of this World"; a new version / Ed Whitford

1st edition 2014, PDF 30 pages....

The All Backs Motif is odd. For one thing, it casts a revealing light on we magician's claim (when it suits our purpose) that we use ordinary cards. That is our decks, which we prefer to borrow, consist of cards that have faces and backs on both sides. Therefore, if we show a deck that consists of all backs and faces we are admitting that such anomalies exist and the cards being used are probably gimmicked in some way. Why do this?

A better question may be - What motivated someone to create such an effect using this kind of deck? That "someone" was Dai Vernon and my guess is that he wanted to...