Mental Magic Archives - Bicycle Cards

Steve Dela – Night Flight Deck – review

Phil Sweeting — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 21:04:24 +0000

So Steve Dela’s Night Flight Deck landed through my letterbox this week. “Do we really need another marked deck?” I hear you cry? If you’d asked me before I might have been unsure, but these Night Flights have gone some way to stealing my heart. Let me tell you more.

Who’s Steve Dela?

If you’re not familiar with Steve’s work, where have you been? He’s a busy and award-winning close-up magician. He’s responsible for the fabulous Will To Read (which remains my absolute favourite take on this type of Free Will effect), the awesome All About Eve book test and an At the Table lecture which I still haven’t got round to watching!

What makes Night Flight Deck special?

The most obvious difference from every other marked deck I have seen before is that the Night Flight Deck is 100% plastic. I still remember the first plastic deck I saw (it was the Karnival Death Heads, in case you’re wondering, back in 2011). It was a bit of a shock to the system of someone so used to cardboard-based playing cards. But I was (then) pleasantly surprised and still am.

In the context of mentalism – and that is the primary focus for this release – the ability to do all your fancy card moves is less important. In fact, I find the handling of these cards pretty solid – they riffle beautifully, though don’t fan (for me) quite as well – but I don’t think the material will cause handling issues for anyone. On the contrary, the big selling point is that they should last much better than normal cards. Too early for me to tell with this deck, but I see no reason to disbelieve the marketing on this one.

The Marked Difference

So what about the markings? I have to say they are brilliant. They really are hidden in plain sight. They will fly past a layperson – but once you know what you’re looking for they jump out at you. I have tried them in various lighting conditions and have found them simply the easiest deck to read I’ve ever tried. For ease of reading, they’ve even, for me, knocked the DMC Elites off their top spot (though the Elites still have a smarter tuck case!).

To make the point, this picture shows the same card from 3 well known marked decks. Even on this reduced quality JPG, I think it is clear which is easiest to read.

Not only are the main marks incredibly easy to see, but there are also several other marks which mean you can tell at a glance what colour a card is (even if you can’t see the name marking) and there’s a one-way feature – which is an often overlooked subtle method for aiding some miracles. So there’s a lot going for these. The overall effect is close enough to a Bicycle-style deck that no one will bat an eyelid. (Though they will eyeball some bats – did you see what I did there?!)

The tuck case looks innocuous – which is a bonus – especially in mentalism work. And has a classic mentalism reveal on the top. I found it slightly difficult to open – but that’s probably just me.

Other Bonus Features

The whole thing came nicely packaged in a plastic storage case – to keep it doubly safe. There are also some extra cards. The deck comes with two double backers – one red/blue and the other blue/blue. This latter has apparently caused some controversy – since the two blues are slightly different colours. Steve tells me this is deliberate – so you can use it as a key card in a spread. Sounds like a good idea to me.

In fact, that takes me to my only two small niggles with the deck. I actually prefer the ‘odd’ colour blue of the double backer to the ‘normal’ back colour which is a shade lighter. I suspect that is simply a familiarity thing – since the darker blue is closer to the standard Bicycle blue. This really is a personal preference thing – and I suspect that the more I use them the less it will bother me. And as I reflect on it the lighter colour probably makes it slightly easier to read in low lighting.

I’d also really have liked to get two jokers in the deck – since I do a mix of magic and mentalism and a pair of jokers is very useful for any number of tricks. But as I said these are both minor niggles.

The bottom line is that the Night Flight Deck is a superb marked deck. I will be using this whenever I do marked deck magic and I think it has the potential to become the new standard. Great job. I’m very grateful to Steve for sending me a review copy. And you can pick up your own deck here

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Steven Palmer – Rogue – Review

Phil Sweeting — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 22:21:28 +0000

Rogue has been sitting on my review pile for woefully long. As you may have noticed, there’s been a bit of a delay in reviewing recently due to other pressures. However, Steven Palmer’s new (ish!!) DVD from Big Blind Media was well worth the wait. Let’s talk about the tricks first.

Deviant Shuffle
This isn’t a trick, but is rather a technique used in some of the routines. It is a sneaky combination of moves which allows the spectators to shuffle the deck whilst retaining a stock of cards. There are no ‘moves’ to speak of here and it does look pretty fair. Neato!

He also explains some subtleties on a breather crimp and a short card – both of which are underrated techniques which enable hands off miracles!

Void
This is a very convincing reveal of a card that the spectator is only thinking of. Quite a lot going on here and some clever subtleties. Two versions are taught – one is more ‘advanced’. As with many mentalism effects you will need some confidence in improvising around a script. But the techniques you need are not advanced and are clearly taught. A further variation is taught which works the opposite way round – which I can’t really explain without exposure!

Thought of Monte
Two spectators choose cards in a very fair way. Then you play a sort of two card monte game where the cards turn into the spectators’ selections in their hands. Did I mention you can do it with a borrowed shuffled deck?! This uses a lovely peek from Ollie Mealing which is fully explained and I’m sure you’ll use in other contexts too. And there’s another really nice utility move – a kind of switch. A neat little impromptu routine.

Villains and Heroes or possibly Heroes and Villains!
This is framed as a lie detector kind of test – where you pick up on the spectator’s tells to reveal their thought of card. The construction allows the spectator a lot of freedom and several free shuffles and yet you can still identify their card. Great effect. (The DVD titles give one name for this and Steven gives it the opposite name!)

Technically Missing
The spectator chooses a card and loses it in the deck. You not only find it again – but you also find its 3 mates. This looks so fair and the outcome is very surprising. Like many of the routines on the DVD this has lots of nice subtle convincers.

Memorabilia
This is another revelation of two merely thought of cards. For some reason this didn’t grab me as much as the other routines. And you’ll have to be prepared to do some verbal jazz to get to your successful result. But still very strong for a layperson.

Out of my sight
Another routine based on Vernon’s classic Out of sight, out of mind. The spectator thinks of card and you reveal it! Again, you’ll need to be prepared to think on your feet to pull this off. But if you’re confident with the approach you’ll have another very strong routine.

Medley
This is a nicely constructed series of three revelations of a spectator’s chosen or thought of card under the theme of a gambling demonstration. The phases seem more and more impossible and very fair. Possibly my favourite on the DVD.

Deadcut
With the presentational hook of deadcutting, you manage to deadcut to a card that the spectator has earlier freely chosen and lost in the deck. One of the easiest effects on the DVD – and yet just as strong as any of the others. Really nice routine.

Final Thoughts?

There is a lot to like about Rogue. BBM’s production values are always high and having Liam Montier in the saddle helps to make sure explanations are all very clear. I must admit to being amused by the ‘spooky mentalism background music’ – which is a bit of a break from BBM tradition!

Rogue is billed as ‘easy to do mentalism with cards’ – and I would just gently question the easy to do. It’s not that any of the routines require difficult sleights (although one of the peeking techniques taught does in my mind qualify as at least early intermediate) – but as with many mentalism effects you need a degree of confidence with your script to sell them. Not all the routines require this – and at least half are unquestionably ‘easy to do’ – but I would just put a tiny caveat on that label.

Another very personal reflection is that although I liked a lot of the effects, my main reaction to this DVD was to want to use the different elements and techniques taught here to come up with my own routines.

There’s a big in-house debate about mentalism and card magic and whether they should go together. But I think this DVD proves that you can do cracking mentalism with cards without any loss of integrity.

If you like strong mentalism then Rogue is definitely worth a look.

And you’ll be glad I waited so long to review this because it’s currently on offer for only £12.60 at the Merchant of Magic! (at the time of writing!)

Many thanks to BBM who kindly supplied the review copy.

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Other Brothers – Words Beyond – review

Phil Sweeting — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 23:01:48 +0000

Words Beyond is a clever new (ish!) book test from the Other Brothers. Of the making of book tests there seems to be no end – so what’s different about this one? Read on in our review to find out.

What is it?

I’m kind of assuming you know what a book test is? But if not, Words Beyond enables you to be able to reveal the word that a spectator is thinking of from a freely chosen page in a book – all without any ‘fishing’. Well, that’s not strictly accurate. Words Beyond enables you to reveal the letters in the word that a spectator is thinking of from a freely chosen page in a book. And there is the tiniest, most imperceptible bit of fishing involved – depending on which presentation you go for. More of that later.

What do you get?

You get the special book – a standard ‘perfect bound’ paperback – which comes shrink-wrapped and then within a cardboard sleeve for protection. You also get a link to online video instructions (just over half an hour) and a link to a single page pdf with some extra ideas from Chris Rawlins and Rob Dobson.

What do we think?

The big selling point here is ‘no fishing’ – and that certainly makes it a strong effect. It uses a simple but subtle method which also makes it very easy to do. You don’t really need any memory work – though you might want to use a simple crib if you really struggle to retain information. And cunningly the book actually contains a crib ‘hidden in plain sight’.

As I mention above you are technically revealing the letters in the word rather than the word itself. From an audience point of view, I’m not sure that really makes much difference. And there are a number of presentational approaches you could take (most obviously ‘hangman’!) which can obscure this.

I’ve seen a number of book tests over the years and have never seen this specific method before – so as far as I know it is a new one.

The Other Brothers teach several different ideas for presentation and there are a few further thoughts on the pdf. There’s certainly plenty to work with and to get your own ideas flowing. The teaching is straightforward and easy to watch.

Words Beyond also incorporates another neat feature. It enables a sort of version of the Hoy Book Test (You can learn the original on this excellent DVD, or Andrew Gerard’s thoughts are well worth a watch – and he also teaches the original). This adds an extra and strong reveal from a second ungimmicked book. And utilising both elements combine for an even stronger routine. They teach a full two book routine on the video which is very strong.

The book itself will take casual flick through, but you wouldn’t want to read the prose. And the ‘Hoy’ feature also means you don’t want the spectator taking a long time over it. But the routine doesn’t require them to handle the book for long – so with basic spectator management I don’t see any problems.

Finally, it seems to me very good value given that you receive the specially produced book.

If you like book tests, or are in the market for an easy one, then Words Beyond comes highly recommended. You can pick it up from the Merchant of Magic for £32.99 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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John Archer – Collard 2 – review

Phil Sweeting — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 11:02:41 +0000

Collard 2 is a cracking mentalism set piece from the clever mind of John Archer. I didn’t actually see the original version – so I’m unable to make direct comparisons with that – but will instead review it as a release in its own right.

What is it?

Collard 2 is a fantastic take on Al Koran’s famous Medallion Trick (which I first came across more than 20 years ago in Al Koran’s Legacy – when it was already 20 years old!). By changing the presentation significantly, Archer has made this a trick suitable for all kinds of audiences. The effect boils down to this – your audience come up with a name for your toy dog and you are able to reveal that this name is already inscribed on the dog’s tag – which has been in full view throughout.

What do you get?

The package is very comprehensive. It comes with the name tag, the ‘naming certificates’ a clipboard, some special somethings, a pen, all in a neat drawstring bag. As is common these days you are supplied with a link to online instructions. You will need to supply your own toy dog – but that leaves you with flexibility since you could perform Collard 2 with any kind of animal – depending on your character and routine.

The teaching is very clear – and the method is sneaky and very straightforward. Just how I like it! You also get to watch a live performance – which is classic Archer – and there is a separate discussion with Lavent about his own use of the effect and some of the ideas and subtleties he has come up with.

Without giving too much away, you need a matching pen, and I’m surprised that it wasn’t included (it is possible it was missing from my set?). The one supplied is pretty similar to a Sharpie but not identical, so I’m not sure how easy it will be to find one. However, the instructions assume you will be supplying both pens, and it wouldn’t be too hard to find what you need.

What do we think?

I absolutely love this effect. The premise is brilliant and could fit into almost any kind of performance – more serious mentalism, general magic, family shows or adult ones. I intend to add it to my all age shows very soon.

As I’ve already mentioned it is easy to do – so you can focus on the presentation side of things. In fact the biggest challenge for me, is that having watched John Archer’s brilliant performance it is hard to come up with your own take and not simply copy some of his brilliant lines! Of course, I would always encourage you to come up with your own presentation.

Collard 2 comes highly recommended. It is available from MagicShop.co.uk for £45.50 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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Conscious Magic Episode 5 – review

Phil Sweeting — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 23:01:30 +0000

Conscious Magic Episode 5 is the latest in the highly successful Conscious Magic series of DVDs. Ran Pink and Andrew Gerard have carefully curated effects on these releases to provide strong magic and valuable insights into presentation and development of routines. This DVD plays for 1 hr 25 minutes and contains 5 effects which I will review below.

Know Technology – this is essentially an engaging presentation to use when you have previously peaked some information and want to reveal it. That sounds a bit vague, I’ll admit. But the premise is that you have an app which enables you to access all kinds of information about someone based on just some pieces of information. And then as a kicker the phone disappears. Mentalism is all about presentation and I do think this is an engaging and relevant ‘hook’ for this revelation.

As part of the explanation, they also teach Acidus Novus by Millard Longman. This is a very clever business card peak which has previously been released separately. It’s a worthy utility and does mean that you can do this routine even if you haven’t done peak work before.

Déjà vu – again, in once sense this is a presentation rather than some radical new effect, but all mentalism is – isn’t it? To a presentation around Déjà vu (were you already thinking that?) you reveal a name that your spectator is thinking about. And then the ‘déjà vu’ thought you wrote down earlier also disappears. I find it hard to know how to evaluate this, but again my instinct is that this would engage a spectator well.

Key Accessory – this is a clever key-bending routine where a signed key appears to bend while attached to a rubber band around the spectator’s hand. Like Acidus Novus, this was also released previously. There’s some really nice psychology in the simple handling here. But you will need to get hold of a suitable key.

Dreamweaver – Paul Carnazzo – this is a (previously released and still available) routine where you’re able to reveal a dream that the spectator is only thinking of. Some memory work – but not too difficult. It is a clever adaption of an old principle made new by completely changing the effect. I liked this and all you need to do to perform this at a moment’s notice is have the small printed business card sized card (supplied) in your wallet. With that simple prop you can perform a powerful piece of mind-reading – which will be strengthened by the more cold reading you can add!

Biddling Around – Andrew Gerard’s take on the classic Biddle trick simplified slightly and with added bang for your buck! A card is chosen and lost in the deck. You then cut through to a place near where you think the card is. You deal off four cards and show them to the spectator. They confirm that one of them is their chosen card. You place that card on their leg (or the table!) and it instantly disappears and reappears face down in the middle of the deck they’ve been holding. I really like this handling and there are lots of nice subtleties here. Cracking. This is my favourite on the DVD.

CM5 didn’t leave the same impression on me as CM3 which we looked at a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, I think that the thoughtful magician will get a lot from watching these routines and explanations as there is some strong thinking going on. I think Biddling Around is an excellent addition to the genre, and given the former retail value of the three previously released effects Conscious Magic 5 is good value – unless you already own them!

There’s probably more for the mentalist here probably than the general magician, but definitely worth a look. And if you don’t already do a business card peak then Acidus Novus is a very worthy technique to learn.

You can pick up Conscious Magic Episode 5 from MagicShop.co.uk for £31.50 (at the time of writing).

(If you only like the idea of Dreamweaver, that can still be purchased separately for £24.99)

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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John Carey – Dice Dice Baby – review

Phil Sweeting — Fri, 31 May 2019 23:01:20 +0000

Dice dice baby is a great collection of magic with dice, featuring John Carey. I’ll be honest, I don’t do much magic with dice, but there is something inherently pleasing about these familiar objects, so it is a great concept for a release.

What do you get

Included in the release are a set of 10 coloured dice – all you need to perform the 10 routines on project. They come in a nice draw-string bag and there is an online teaching video which runs to 1 hour and 8 minutes.

Let’s take you through the routines.

Dicewave – I really like this take on the classic B’wave effect but using dice. If you’ve done a bit of mentalism before there’ll be no real surprises in method – but I love the presentational hook of ‘fading away’ – can’t say more without spoiling the way the props somehow ‘sell’ the effect and make it bigger in your mind. Practical, portable, neat.

Hot Roddy – this, you might have guessed, is based on another classic – the hot rod. But somehow ‘constructing’ the ‘rod’ on the fly seems to make it even more impossible. You will have your own opinion on the strength and weaknesses of the Hot Rod force. But from my perspective, the odds are in your favour of a decent outcome!

Translocation Dice – three fly with dice? Three translucent dice travel one by one to join a red dice in your other hand. With a kicker ending. This requires some elementary sleight of hand, but it is not what you’d call a knuckle buster. The sleights are briefly but adequately explained. A pleasing quicky. Does really need a table.

Perfect Six – this is another ingenious variation on a principle I’ve seen before with cards – but given a whole new lease of life with dice. The spectator makes all the choices and yet a 6-way (!) prediction is shown to be perfectly correct. Cheeky, subtle and satisfying. Just how I like my magic.

Evoque Dice – again nothing startlingly new here. But I love the combination of equivoque and dice and the strong prediction which is produced. You’ll need to work hard on your wording to make this as strong as it could be, but John helps you out with this.

Homing Dice – a fun fooler with three dice based on a card trick of a similar name! You keep placing the dice in your hands and removing dice, but a red die keeps turning up. This is another one that requires basic sleight of hand – but I think dice are easier than coins with this one!

Covert Prediction – a card is chosen on the basis of the roll of three dice, and it is found to match your ‘lucky’ card. It’s a bit like Diception but with an ordinary deck. For my money this is one of the weaker effects on the release. But I’d need to give it some road-testing to be certain since I may be thinking too much like a magician!

Clearly Wild – three dice change colour one by one – and then instantly change back to their original colour. The effect is clear, the moves are simple (this mainly relies on the same move as Homing Dice – so if you can get it down you’ve got two tricks for the price of one). Another nice quickie and you end clean.

Hummeresque – the effect is that you reveal a dice the spectator is merely thinking of from a choice of 6. This requires a bit of boldness and some verbal subtlety. You’ll probably need to do this a few times to really get it into your system, but it is a strong effect.

Gadabout Dice – a red dice keeps on jumping back to your hand to join two others – and then finally all three disappear. This is the classic ‘one in the pocket’ but with dice. A simple and pleasing routine.

What do we think?

You will probably have detected my bias towards mental magic in this review. All 6 are good and 2 or 3 of them are particularly strong. The more ‘sleight of hand’ based routines are also pleasing. I am fascinated by the way changing the prop changes the feel of ‘classic’ effects.

People are familiar with dice – and they are pleasing to look at and to handle. So I think the props will help to connect nicely with the audience – and also lead to a number of presentational angles.

Other positives are the small amount of pocket space needed and that they make a nice alternative to card magic (not that there’s anything wrong with card magic!)

Personally, I would have liked straight edged ‘casino’ style dice – but you could easily replace them if you do too. And the supplied dice are of good quality and have the same translucent appeal.

There’s not much more to say. Dice Dice Baby contains some really strong routines, none of which require a great deal of (if any) sleight of hand. In other words, they’ve nailed it again. A great release.

Pick it up from Big Blind Media (who kindly supplied the review copy) for £21.99 (at the time of writing).

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Mel Mellers – The Travelling Trickster – review

Phil Sweeting — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 21:52:34 +0000

The Travelling Trickster is so good that I seriously considered not writing the review, so that no one else would know about the great material in it. The book describes itself as “Thoughts, tricks, scripts and routines from the world’s most travelled comedy magician.” And whilst I have no idea if that last bit is true, it is a great description of what the book is all about.

If you don’t know who Mel Mellers is – then where have you been? (Check out his other material here.) He is an extremely talented and hilariously funny magician. And The Travelling Trickster demonstrates that he is also really thoughtful about his magic too.

Amusing Material

The tone is set immediately by a series of amusing forewords – including one by Houdini! It is followed by a brief biographical sketch, and then it’s straight in to the magic – and what a lot of that there is.

In slightly fewer than 150 lavishly illustrated pages (great job on production Phil Shaw and MagicSeen ) there is an absolute wealth of magic.

Many of Mel’s signature routines are here, along with some you may not have come across before. Most of them have detailed (and hilarious) scripts that go with them.

I suspect that there is one of the potential problems with the book. The scripts are so good that any readers will be tempted to lift them and use them as is. But they are so crafted to Mel’s unique personality that I have a feeling they wouldn’t work so well if anyone else tried them.

To help temper that, the book also contains much wisdom on topics like creativity and writing comedy – which will help to equip you to come up with your own ideas. But I fear many won’t bother.

Something for everyone

I’m not going to go through the routines blow by blow – suffice to say there is so much strong magic here. Much of the magic has a mental theme – but other genres are included too. One of the things I particularly admire is the way Mel can take a classic prop or trick and find a completely new take on it. This is one of the signs that a real craftsman is at work – you can see the thought (and experience) that has gone in to all of this wonderful material.

There are ideas for those working with children in addition to more ‘general’ routines – much of it pitched in the cabaret or stage arena. And of course some fantastic mentalism.

The Travelling Trickster had me laughing out loud as I read it on more than one occasion – Mel’s wicked sense of humour comes across even in his descriptions of the effects. Since it was such fun, I read it fairly quickly, and already think there are several routines I would like to take and make my own. And I suspect that if I read it again I’ll find some more.

Although these sort of phrases are often bandied about in reviews, I really do think there would be something for every kind of stage worker in here (not really for the close-upper – though even they would pick up some great insights on things like misdirection and scripting etc.).

I would highly recommend this for anyone who loves their art and wants to add to their stage act. You can pick up The Travelling Trickster from MagicShop.co.uk for £49.99 (at the time of writing) – and I would say it is worth every penny.

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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Arnaud – Switch-a-lope – review

Phil Sweeting — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 17:39:41 +0000

Switch-a-lope is a stage solution to a common magic ‘problem’ a four-way out or switch envelope. Read on to see what we think of it.

What is it?

This is a utility prop which you can use in a variety of routines. It looks like a large ‘window’ envelope, in which you can see another ‘DL’ sized envelope. In spite of this being in full view throughout the performance it can effortlessly be shown to contain one of four different ‘predictions.’ The predictions can be on a sheet of A4 paper and the spectator may remove them from the envelope themselves.

What do you get?

You get all the necessary to perform this, plus a link to a 14 minute online explanation. The explanation has annoying background music playing all the way through, but it is clear and easy to follow. Although it is relatively short, everything is explained in plenty of detail, right down to the type of paper and envelopes to use if you want to replace them.

What do we think?

When I first started playing with this I found the handling just a little awkward, but with only a short amount of practise it was becoming much cleaner. One of the hardest bits is getting the small envelope out of the larger envelope in the first place! One possible outcome is totally clean, the others require a very small amount of choreography.

The spectator can remove the prediction from the envelope, but they wouldn’t be able to examine it (why would they want to?). This is definitely a stage or platform effect where you have a bit more control over things.

My biggest reservation is about the rationale for the ‘window envelope’ – why not simply have the inner envelope? But I suspect this is easily justified – especially if you have the larger envelope hanging somewhere, or standing on something (so it is in full view). It is great that the prediction can be a full A4 sized sheet.

So if you are looking for a four-way out in a routine you’re developing – perhaps in a chair-test or similar – Switch-a-lope would be a good bet. Of course, in a chair test you might have to end up buying four of them which would be pretty pricey! (and actually the slight discrepancies in handling might be a problem)

We would be even more keen to recommend Switch-a-lope if it were just a fraction cheaper, but as a versatile accessory, if you are a regular stage performer it is worth a look.

You can pick up Switch-a-lope from the Merchant of Magic for £55.50 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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Wayne Fox – 52to1 Deck – review

Phil Sweeting — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 00:01:08 +0000

When the 52to1 Deck first arrived it caused quite a splash, so I’ve been looking forward to getting a chance to put it through its paces for this review. Let’s dive straight in.

What is it?

The effect can be described succinctly – which is often the sign of a strong trick. You show a spectator a deck of cards – they merely think of a card from the deck – and you then cut to it. It is that direct. And you don’t do it once, but three times on the trot. With different cards. And the last time, the spectator cuts to the card themselves!

I’ll be honest, magic doesn’t come much stronger than this. What superpowers do you require to perform such a miracle? The good news is that there is no sleight of hand to speak of. You receive a very cleverly gaffed deck and it relies on a bit of psychology/spectator management. But you’ll be doing this one very quickly I would think.

What do you get?

As already mentioned, the 52to1 Deck is a fairly heavily gaffed deck. It can, nonetheless, be handled pretty freely. But it does most of the work for you. A few extra cards are supplied to use for various alternative presentations (for example if you want to go for a straight prediction effect).

You also get a link to an online instructional video. Although I find the WorldMagicShop titles a bit over the top, the filming and explanation is clear. There are some full live performances which is also very helpful. On the other hand, as someone wanting to learn the effect, it was slightly frustrating to have to sit through 11 minutes of performance before you get to the setup and explanation.

We never want to tip methods on this site, but suffice to say that the 52to1 Deck builds on several well-established methods (which are widely credited on the explanation), woven together in a brilliant way. The download lasts about 1 hour and 10 minutes and includes some ideas for different performance contexts (e.g. a platform or parlour show) and also a video showing you the order of the deck.
There’s a small amount of preparation involved, but it you’ll do it in less than 5 minutes.

What do we think?

This is a great release. Strong, strong magic, which is well within the reach of all abilities of magician. Yes, the deck is a one trick pony, but this pony is worth having in your pocket at all times. It is a small sacrifice of pocket space for such a strong effect. It resets instantly. A real worker.

52to1 Deck comes highly recommended and can be picked up from MagicShop.co.uk for £30.50 (at the time of writing), or curiously for only £29.50 in blue!

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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David and Sarah Trustman – The Memory Arts – review

Phil Sweeting — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 00:01:19 +0000

The Memory Arts is a book I might never have picked up, had it not been on my magic review list. But I’m very glad I did. And very glad that I waited until the beginning of January to do so. As I will explain in the review that follows…

What is it?

The Memory Arts is a beautifully produced (Vanishing Inc do produce nice magic books!) book which is all about how to develop a memory technique with specific reference to helping magicians memorise a deck of playing cards – though its applications are much broader.

The technique is based around the ancient technique of Mnemonics. It builds on a variety of ancient and more recent wisdom and packages it all in a highly accessible way. After a fascinating discussion of the history of this kind of technique, the book is straight in to a system of remembering 26 locations in a ‘Memory Palace’.

Memory Arts or Science?

This is facilitated by a unique drawing for each location alongside text to help you fix the image in your mind. In fact the use of illustration is a significant part of this book. You’re trying to remember images and pictures – which really helps the process. This view of the side of the book will give you a clue about how many pictures there are – the darker pages are all ones where the majority of the page is taken up with a picture.

After learning the 26 ‘locations’ there is a section on how you can turn any playing card into a memorable image. The next step is combing the card image with its location image.

The good, the bad, and the not so obvious…

The book has clearly been written with magicians in mind as the primary audience – so once the elements have been taught there are sections working the whole thing out for both the Aronson and the Mnemonica stack. The principles taught could be adapted for any stack you work with, but these are probably a good call as the most well known stacks used by magicians. (Although the Redford stack, and Woody Aragon’s Memorandum which builds on Mnemonica, are well worth a look in my opinion).

There are a few sections thinking about how you can use the technique in different ways – and I for one might well try it just to memorise the Kings of England in order, since that’s something I’ve always wanted to know!

The Memory Arts is well written, brilliantly illustrated and makes me believe that I could actually manage to memorise a deck – something I’ve always wanted to be able to do. That is why the timing is significant for me – it feels like a great New Year’s Resolution. And I currently believe I will be able to get this nailed within a few weeks or not much more. In fact, I have made an agreement with my 8-year old daughter and we’re both going to try to memorise it together! I’ll give you an update in a few weeks!

That takes me to what is probably my only minor criticism of the book. One or two of the images are not as immediately accessible as the others. For example one of the pictures includes a winch. My daughter had no idea what a winch is! Similarly there are one or two which have cultural connections or references which might not work for every reader. This is a tiny point – but worth mentioning. Of course, you can always come up with your own images. But half of the value of the book is that the images have already been done for you…

All in all, this is a great book, which comes highly recommended for anyone who would like to use their memory better. As I’ve said, it is well aimed at the magician who wants to learn a specific stack, but could also help memorise all kinds of other information easily.

You can pick up a copy of The Memory Arts from Merchant of Magic for only £37.50 (at the time of writing).

You can also purchase ebook editions for the specific stacks for £19.50 – but I’d always prefer a real book!

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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