Jon Racherbaumer - Sticks & Stones, Vol 1.pdf - J - animga

STICKS & STONES NUMBER 1

A leaflet for the left hand

This is leaflet proclaims no credo and makes no promises it cannot

keep. The Yiddish proverb--"Truth is the safest lie"--is worth

remembering.

Readers will wonder about the name I've chosen. What does it

mean? The instant riposte is: What do you want it to mean? Its

symbolism is taken from the duality of human consciousness, a

duality long recognized in other cultures. Right and left. Think about

it. If you've read Robert E. Ornstein's The Psychology of

Consciousness , it helps. The research of R. W. Sperry, Michael S.

Gazzaniga, and Joseph E. Bogan has given us more information for

our split-brains to perceive. The left is often the area of the taboo,

the sacred, the unconscious, the intuitive, the dreamer. This leaflet

is for your left hand, although your right-handedness will naturally

interplay. It's written in the same fashion.

Paul Curry's "Out Of This World" is a classic. No doubt about it. The

structure of its modus operandi is a work of genius, regardless of

how much serendipity was involved in its creation. Its personal

history remains unknown, although I suspect an inspiration or two

can be found in The Jinx.

I was two years old when Curry released his best known trick. I

didn't experience the effect until I was twenty-two years old. A

magician with only one ear (I'm not kidding) performed "Solid

Ghost" and "Out Of This World" and the latter effect zapped me. It

was impossible! No way! I watched the trick three times; each time

it became more baffling... No card effect ever affected me this

way...

There are many published variations of "Out Of This World". Most of

the good ones are included in Curry's book, Out Of This World--And

Beyond- -a compilation worth studying. On page 14 of this treatise

Curry mentions the Stripper Deck. His brief paragraph mentions

how Strippers work, but nothing about how they should be applied

to "Out Of This World".

Most applications happened at the wrong time . The cards were

shuffled, the colors were stripped and separated, then the cards

were handed to a spectator to carry out the instructions of "Out Of

This World". The following approach is radically different in that the

spectator actually deals from a shuffled deck . This buried item is

called...

SUBCONSCIOUS

WORKING

1) Have a Stripper deck made from a Bicycle or Tally-Ho deck,

avoiding tell-tale commercial brands. If you use another magician's

matching deck and ring-in your Stripper, you're wired without

anyone being the wiser. The red and black cards, of course, are

reversed, mixed, and ready for stripping-out.

2) Hand the deck to the spectator for shuffling. After he throughly

mixes the cards, ask him to look at the faces of of the cards. Patter:

"Quickly scan the cards. Don't try to remember specific cards; just

absorb them as a whole ..." This subliminally shows the red-black

mixture without verbally emphasizing the condition. In fact, the

whole presentation is designed so its climax isn't prematurely

tipped.

3) After he has "absorbed" the cards, tell him to turn the deck into

a face-down dealing position. Explain: "Deal the cards into two

portions; however, you may deal the cards in any random fashion

you choose. Also you may deal as many cards as you like...one,

two, three, four... and the deal doesn't have to be strictly an

alternated one. Deal all the cards..."

4) After the deal has been completed, pick up one of the portions

and say, "Wouldn't it be amazing if you unconsciously, without

counting, dealt exactly twenty-six cards in this portion?" As you

deliver this line, hold the cards at their extreme ends and strip-out

the colors in a simulated cut. The portion stripped out by your right

hand goes on top . Drop this portion on the table.

5) Pick up the other portion and strip-out the colors in another

simulated cut as you say, "If the tabled cards consist of half the

pack, these too consist of twenty-six cards... None of this is too

startling..." Retain a break between the sections. Transpose these

sections by cutting at the break. Maintain a new break between the

colors.

5) Your right hand scoops up the tabled portion and places it on top

of those in your left hand. Retain the break throughout these

actions. Now apparently turn the assembled cards face-up as you

execute a Turnover Pass with the small packet below the break.

Patter: "The part that amazes me is that you've separated the

colors during your subconscious deal!" Ribbon spread the cards

face-up to show the color separation.

This handling is very direct and when performed properly, it will

surprise other magicians. Now for a couple of questions: (1) Where

is this gem buried? (2) Who master-minded the handling?

Answers: (1) The Gen; (2) Edward Marlo.

Edward Marlo continues to be our most prolific cardman-magician.

Marlo's Magazine (1976) was published in June. This 325-page,

spiral-bound bonanza of advanced cardmanship will give lovers of

card magic real substance for their money. Its size and scope will

make it unprofitable for xeroxers to crib the Work. I wonder if the

ground shook in Teaneck? A month later Magic Inc. issued an

enlarged edition of Early Marlo, which includes a Survey of Marlo

Accomplishment, items from 1938-1940 (such as "Double Trouble"

and "Yogi Bird Card Trick"), and a complete reprint of the

manuscript, Unknown.

About five years ago I wrote a brief piece on why more than one

method for doing an effect is necessary; that there's a method to

the madness of making methods. For those so disposed, here is...

AENOS

Change and a self-perpetrating desire for variety seem to reflect a

mechanism in our nature. We have ingenuity for permutation and

alteration. An analogy quickly comes to mind: Like a child with a

kaleidoscope, we rotate the tube and watch the handiwork of

mutable, ever-changing, symmetrical forms. Creative elements

become bits of glass and we're damned to meddle, tinker,

experiment, and modify, turning the tube in our nervous hands.

Why do magicians vary effects, handling, and procedures? Why do

they devise countless methods? There are, of course, many

reasons. The way magic is learned accounts for one reason. Aside

from steadfast fundamentals, we learn by assimulation and

adaptation . All proposed and implied elements of magic are

osmotically absorbed into our consciousness. This kind of

disorganized absorption includes irreducible basics and combines

them with countless extraneous elements in a mixture that's

undifferentiated and often confused. There exists no tried-and-true

curriculum, no grand design for learning. Eventually all students

take the elements of knowledge and organize them into a personal

form. One's personality is brought to bear upon each article. One's

intelligence, native ability, and personal tastes ultimately unify and

stabilize aspects of this education.

We also make variations for the following reasons:

(1) To offer greater selectivity, catering to diverse tastes and levels

of ability;

(2) To avoid monotony, pure and simple;

(3) To allow repetition when the nature of the effect permits it;

(4) To introduce techniques applicable to other purposes in magic of

which the featured effect is only one;

(5) To characterize and specify the exploration for elusive "perfect"

methods;

(6) To offer precise methods for specific performing situations , thus

presenting solutions that have scope and adaptability;

(7) To further deepen the serious student's appreciation and

awareness of a given effect's total nature-its possible procedures,

conditions, discrepancies, dramatic elements, and so on;

(8) To offer varying methods that allow for divergent routining

exercises which teach the relatedness of elemental concepts.

The above list is by no means comprehensive. It's only a sampling,

designed to stimulate your own thinking on the subject. Nothing

was mentioned about improving effects. Whether a variation

improves an effect is always questionable, involving value-

judgements of every kind and degree. Substantiation is a problem.

Is scientific proof possible? Perhaps. Usually it comes down to crude

intuition. One senses when an effect, handling, or method is right.

One feels that something is better or more improved. Who can

explain it?

One thing is assured. Our literature is founded on variations. It

accounts for progress. Authentic improvements are inevitable.

Audiences will substantiate our progress and unknowingly answer

most practical questions. Someday we may have a means for

scientifically and unquestionably evaluating "improved" (?)

methods. If this happens (which I doubt), the business of making

variations will not cease. It will continue. It will persist despite

rationales, systematic analysis, logical and illogical arguments, and

scientific proofs. We vary because we are variable creatures

ourselves, changing and being changed every moment we are alive.

-JWR July - 1971

EPIPLEXIS

The following article was censored several months ago. It was set to

appear in a new book; however, certain parties found the article

objectionable. Such censorship is offensive to the democratic spirit

of ideas. Let's face it: nobody likes to be criticized. People are

willing to have every ox gored except their own. Yet we're all critics.

It's unavoidable. Should we remain silent? Or should we heap scorn

on the closet critic and anonymous letter writer as we forthrightly

air our beliefs, opinions, and viewpoints? The act of criticism goes

beyond mere fault-finding. It's an act of evaluation wherein the

evaluator thoughtfully analyzes his subject and deals with good and

bad. The following article involves the so-called Jordan Count. Its

purpose is to submit more exacting definitions regarding the

general subject of false counting, to clarify accepted

misconceptions, and deal with the tricky business of hindsight. After

reading this article and giving it some calculated consideration, I'm

sure each reader will wonder why it was initially censored.

You Can't Count On Jordan

The so-called Jordan Count is NOT a false count! When unearthed

by well-meaning cardmen in 1970 each discoverer referred to Thirty

Card Mysteries ( 1919) by Charles T. Jordan. More specifically, each

mentioned a technique used in effect #23, p. 37, called "The

Phantom Aces".

Let's take a closer look. The purpose of this technique, including its

mechanics, is to display four cards and secretly alter their order. It

appears as though the cards are counted and their order is

reversed. Hence it's a displacement technique and has nothing

whatsoever to do with false counting. To further substantiate this

claim, let's look at the effect, "The Phantom Aces". How does Jordan

apply this technique? This is critically important. How a principle or

sleight is applied in the context of a given effect adds to our

understanding. Its purpose also defines it . This interpretative

dynamic is frequently ignored by writers and rewriters of magic

history.

Here's how Jordan described effect #23: "Anyone's four Aces are

fanned, arranged alternately red and black. Calling close attention

to their order, the wizard squares them and holds them face-down

in his left hand. He transfers them one at a time into his right hand,

naming each as he does so, and of course reverses their order.

Again he fans them, asking anyone to remove the two of either

color. The party cannot obey! He always takes one of each color.

This is as puzzling as Monte."

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