A thinly veiled plot....

Today we will take a look at some of the more popular plot lines in card magic and why, I feel, they are good.. and why they are also not so good.

The most popular right now is Torn and Restored card... so I'll leave that for last.

Let's talk about a classic underground idea known as Resets. Made popular by magi's such as Paul Harris and Paul Wilson. Ricochet to this day is still a well known reset ploy. Ryan Swigert's Kickback is also a nice effect. (And there is a gimmicked and un-gimmicked version. I prefer the un-gimmicked version as there is no need to do a card force.) Upsides: The effect confuses people no end Downside: It confuses them no end. Dai vernon said confusion is not magic (or he has been quoted as saying it anyway) The moment of magic happens SO fast that it's hard to call it magic. More like a hallucination. Don't get me wrong, I have my own version of the idea. Just be sure your personality can sell it.

It has been said that many magicians have a great 10 minute act. However it takes them 45 minutes to do it. This is how I feel about Ambitious Card sometimes. If you can make a card come to the top of the deck once, why not 857 more times? (I feel the same way about card manip and linking rings, but that's another post) Card goes in, card comes to the top. Rinse, repeat. Pros: Easy to do and has TONS of methods for accomplishing it. Cons: Everyone does it. Sadly not many do it differently.

Only gonna cover two more for now. One of them is Inversion. Card goes into the deck and reverses itself inside magically. Of course there is the vice-versa of that as well. Someone who has done some good work on this is Dennis Friebre and has a DVD coming out on it. I learned about the routine back in 2003, and use it now and again when I feel the need arises. The good parts about inversion plots are that they are simple to follow and hard to backtrack thru. Sadly, the basics of the effect are taught in just about every damn beginners magic book so be careful of smart-assed kids with big mouths.

Ok ok now I will deal with Torn and Restored card. Who here remembers when that tall limey did his version of World's Greatest Magic? It was the talk of the.. well.. not internet so much as magic community. (When you actually had to go to shops and meetings to gossip. Also kept people civil to each other for fear of recompense.) Before that of Course David Copperfield did Chris Kenner's version on TV with a Baseball Card. Then came Daniel Garcia and Torn. That sparked a powder keg of headless net kids doing their own versions. Since then, variations that almost rival shadow coins and matrix routines have cropped up all over the place. The good news: It's impressive to watch and hard to explain. The bad news: It's impressive... to a point. It's a magicians trick. Plain and simple. It seems to be a race to see who can stump everyone else, then sell off the routine the fastest. Back on the upside, there is so much to pick and choose from, you can find a version that fits your style or make up your own!

That's all from me for now. What did we learn? Did we learn anything at all? Does anyone really care what I think?

All this and more later!!

Bizzaro.