Editor’s note: This post sucks. It sucks so much, Jerry wrote a followup explaining himself.
And although this art is so wonderful, still it is held in no honor…
Girolamo Cardano (no relation) turning to the subject of card magic
The reasons are various, it seems to me;
first, the art is concerned with useless matters;
second, it is practiced by men of low degree.
De Subtilitate, 1554
Thanks to John Bannon for providing this excellent quotation, and a lot of great card magic.
Ah, card tricks. I do love card tricks. You probably do too. If I’m performing magic, it’s unlikely that I’ll feel as comfortable doing something else as I will with card magic. It’s where I started, it’s where I was stuck for the first 8 years as a magician, and it’s still my favorite.
It’s intuitive enough to realize that this will not be the same for the participants. In fact, a couple of reasons magicians love card tricks so much can be viewed more closely to see why a layman doesn’t get as much out of them.
They’re familiar to the magician, and unfamiliar to the layman. And both of you know it. They’re formulaic. Repetition of elements like signing a card, selecting a card, shuffling, cutting, it’s kind of unavoidable. But most of all, they invariably must use the same props or prop at some point or another. The playing card.
Do a book test for someone, and three years later they’ll be able to describe roughly what happened. They took a book, thought of a word in it, and you revealed it.
Do an ambitious card routine or a torn and restored? One year later either will result in the same recollection. “It was a card trick. I can’t remember exactly what happened, just that it was really cool.”
I promise you this. I talked to one person just the other day about a trick I had done a few years ago. She had kept a souvenir of a piece of a card all this time, and couldn’t even remember why it was torn off. When I suggested that tearing might have had something to do with the effect, she said “Maybe.”
So what do we do? Well, performing much less card magic is always an option, and seeking out original props and circumstances will always make you a better magician. But I hear you (and me) crying, what about my favorite tricks? You want me to stop performing any John Bannon material?
Well… for the most part. But first, there are ways of making card tricks more interesting, at least. You can include original props in the card trick. Think of Tiny Plunger. Or that trick with the little wind-up toy car that finds the card, the Koornwinder Kar. Or Twilight Angels. Or The Return of Stickman Bob. You can make the circumstances surrounding the trick special. If you do a trick at the top of the Eiffel Tower that incorporates the height, they might not remember the details of the card trick but they will remember how magical it was. Not “really cool” this time, magical. You can make the premise special. Andy at The Jerx is great at this. Check out his presentations for Son of Stunner, or the Invisible Deck.
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Wallets on fire on the shoulder of a spectator… I watched “invisible” thread glitter in the dark near The Magic Castle. All those moments will be remembered in time, unlike card tricks… Time to die.
But now we come to the painful truth. None of these things will make your card magic memorable. Card magic, for the reasons I listed at the start and many more, will simply never be memorable. If you want them to remember the process, you’re going about it the wrong way.
Are you a fan of TnRs? Well, you could do Paul Harris’ TnR with a leaf from True Astonishments, or his TnR with a business card. Or you could do a TnR with virtually anything. Simply procure two of the same thing, tear the feke, and restore the original.
Do you like transpositions? Well… do I really need to say this? And don’t go for coins, now! Transpositions can be done with anything!
So I would err on the side of simply learning and performing more magic that isn’t card magic, if you tend towards cards. But there are ways of making your card magic into something other than just card magic.
Coming on Saturday: A Jerry Special: Shit, I Forgot About Craig Petty’s Evoke: A Follow-Up To Like Cards In Rain: Why Card Tricks Are Forgettable