card trick with same potential as cups and balls

i was watching the great tommy wonder on the youtube doing his cups and balls and the thought occurred to me that may be the only card trick that uses heavy misdirection and repeated audience fooling is the ``card under the box/drink". though while writing this post the ambitious card trick might be another contender.

in case you are wondering here is the youtube clip.

erdnase again

i really like this post from Devol over at the Scoundrels Forum

Here's some details on the David Alexander candidate.....

In and around Helena, Montana lived the father:
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000039

and the son:
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv57460

A few bits of information:
1) The book is not called "The Expert at the Card Table"......it's called (as per the title page) "Artifice, Ruse, and Subterfuge at the Card Table"......but you need an actual first edition to see the title page as Erdnase meant it to be seen.
2) Although Darwin Ortiz "Annotations" does give the correct title, it does not use the original, and very important typography of the first edition.
3) The authors name, and the books title aren't simple anagrams (as Andru points out above), but rather are highly complex anagrams.
4) The authors name provide four useable anagrams which result in proper names (in addition to the standard Andrews). Ward Essen, Wes Anders, E.W. Sanders, and W.E. Sanders.
5) How do we find the real name?........we look at original source material for Erdnase research, his book........Erdnase only names one sleight in the book after himself, the S.W.E. Shift , and in doing so, he tells us who he is!
6) A "shift" (as in S.W.E. Shift) moves the top block of cards to the bottom. If we follow Erdnase's anagram instructions and apply them to the letters in his secret clue, we would move the "S" in S.W.E. Shift to the bottom, we get the initials "W.E.S.".........and lo and behold we have an anagram candidate named (get ready for it).............W.E. Sanders!!
7) To further put the nail in the Andrews coffin, if we also reverse the original name of the book (and remove the tiny type in the original typeset), we get "Cardtable Subterfuge, And-Ruse Artiface (Andrews is artiface).

So he tells the die-hard researcher that he's not Mr. Andrews, and that he is W.E. Sanders!

When M.D. Smith sat down with S.W. Erdnase in a cold Chicago hotel room was he really sitting down with Wilbur Edgerton Sanders from Helena, Montana?

I have pictures of W.E. Sanders, unfortunately they're not online, and they're not mine to share. I will say that looking at this young chaps eyes as he stares right into the camera gives me the stone-cold-shivers.
Are they the eyes of S.W. Erdnase?

interesting eh ?

no it's not done by magic

there are those who would like to insist that its done by magic ... come on guy's this is the age or reason and rationality, why would any body want to propogate wrong notions. do you expect ppl to believe that its the dummy that does the talking and not the ventriloquist ?
you may want ppl to think its real magic if you don't want ppl to probe into the modus operandi of a trick. even then this is not the right approach, humans are inquisitive by nature and they would like to know what's going on behind the trick that puzzles them.
the worst offenders i think are the mentalist who like to feed spoonfulls of bullshit that sounds like pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.

the whoring of magic

if magic is subsidiary to your entertainment act, please don't call is a magic show. i mean if you are going to dance or sing and do magic ``in between" then it ISN'T a magic show, is it ? call it a variety act or a pot pourri but dont' call it a magic show ... the defining feature of magic is the element of mystery which HAS to be placed above all aspects of the show.
yeah bill malone is a great comic while he is doing magic but if you look close he is delivering magic first, the comedy bits are the in between stuff. then again he is a pragmatic person who well understands that arm chair hobbyists like myself don't understand what it really means to earn a living doing magic. yes one has to be a whore to sell the show if the magic alone won't pimp the deal for you.

why skill is important ?

i have never liked max maven for one reason or the other. may be phil goldstein is a likable person but max maven the magician or the mentalist is not on my list of "what a guy". i caught a glimpse of his show where he tries to impress upon his audience the idea that he is an erudite. he recites lots of big names in science and literature and then frowns upon the audience in a mocking fashion when they can't seem to relate to the mumbo jumbo he mouths. what a shame !

check out the big mess he lands himself in to in trying a classic force

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmnpfvfngp8

``so what?" you say, every body misses now and then. yes they do but did you notice the fumble. the fact that he was not allowing a free choice was clear and apparent. so skill = nada, quick thinking = nada, managing a situation = nada. so why should he deserve any credit at all ?

now go and watch this and marvel why skill is so so so important

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKPwhdMT3gQ

ghost restaurant at kolkata

gleaned this report from rediff a couple of days back and was disappointed in a sense. don't know if mr. sorcar is going after money or something else. the theme does not appeal to me and in some sense appears logical. why would anybody want to mix food with the world of dead. as far as india is concerned we consider food to be sacred and the kitchen is a place that signifies purity and cleanliness which is very opposite to what we associate with ghosts and spirits. if it works out then its good but i rather that he concentrated on popularizing magic as in having magic as in house entertainment.

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/jun/10/kolkata-to-boast-of-a-ghost-restaurant-soon.htm

dead hand

while i wouldn't have expected tamariz to do it but he certainly did it. first watch the video here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtF6bty__XM&feature=rec-HM-r2

its quite conspicous how dead his left hand is at the beginning of the routine and continues like that for a good 1 minute or so until he does the add on. also since he moves his right hand a good deal it makes the dead left hand stand out.

there are many who are blind to any mistakes made by big names. let this be yet another lesson for those.