A Blog About Card Magic

Kill It with Fire

David Byrne once shouted, “Well I’m a tumbler!” And then he snorted some fat rails, probably. 

Folks, I’m here to tell you I’m no longer a Tumblr. I’m moving on. It’s been a fun almost-coupla years. We’ve shared laughs, tears, and needles. We talked about card tricks, and we made fun of Harry Lorayne. I genuinely appreciate all who showed up. Thankee. 

Now, lest ye think this is a grand, tearful goodbye—it’s not. Really, I’m just ditching Tumblr for Wordpress. Put down the gun, you still have something to live for.

The new blog will be located at

(suspenseful parentheses)

(suspenseful parentheses)

(suspenseful parentheses)

thebottompalm.wordpress.com

I do encourage all to come join the fun at the new place. I like most of you, and would rather enjoy your company. As an incentive, I will be posting 100% more nudie pics.

Well, onward and upward. Or, as they say in Italy, “Io non so parlare italiano!”

Justin

Spread cull cards to bottom, injogged. Proceed with mechanics of diagonal palm shift. Fin.

Common knowledge reinvention? Probably. It’s a bit finicky. But academically interesting. 

Despite my general misgivings about Sankey’s output, I would buy those big books in a heartbeat if I had that kind of d’oh. There’s no denying that the guy is full of creative ideas, filter be damned. Mr. Musgrave has written at length about similar thoughts on Sankey on his blogge. Plus, I trust the Vanishing Inc guys with a project like this. They’re smart, discerning guys, and they have good taste to boot. To really make a (true) Best Of work, you couldn’t ask for more.

Not sure why I decided to write this. I downloaded the free sample they’ve so graciously provided. I recommend it. There’s four neat ideas, one cool idea, and one really great idea. It made me smile. I think that’s why I wrote this. 

Arrhythmic Tic

I think this is something I’ve talked about before, but reading Ryan Swigert’s neat-o contribution to this year’s TFD booklet got me going on this again.

A very sneaky thing that I love doing is feigning strict mathematical conditions in a trick. This allows several things. My favorite way to go is to play up the supposed mathematic procedures, and then fuck them up. For instance, tell the spectator to shuffle, accompanying the request with hand motions that suggest a riffle shuffle. Then, once they’ve shuffled, cry out something cute, like, “No, what the fuck are you doing, you fucking piece of shit idiot? I said to fucking give the deck a straight cut. Christ, I swear the world would’ve been better off if you’d’ve just been left a sticky glop running down your mother’s taint.”

The audience laughs at your patter. And then, despite everything, you find their card. I’m sure you get the idea. It’s basically a clever way to reveal a forced card, so there’s a shit-ton of possibilites. 

Another, more subtle, feature to this approach is that it can justify actual mathematical procedures. I’ll let your mind fill in the blanks.

Okay, now take the last digit of your birth year, divide it by how many bananas you’ve eaten in your entire life, and fuck off.

I’m eating a sandwich, reading Ascanio, and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. What are you doing? Don’t answer, cuz what I’m doing is better.