Everyone’s seen a movie. Everyone’s seen a card trick. There are awful ones and outstanding ones. The awful card tricks appeal to some. The outstanding card trick appeals to rich and poor, wise and foolish, tall and short, young and old, drunk sober. But few have witnessed an outstanding card trick in person.
Card tricks can be awful for the reasons given below.
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Everyone knows a card trick.
Most who do card tricks spend more time performing than practicing.
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Lots of card tricks are long and complicated.
This leads to confusion. Confusion is not magic — it is confusion.
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The tricks are predictable.
Most card tricks laypeople are familiar with have the same plot. A card is lost, then it is found.
1. Most people do a card trick badly because they believe the great secret to a magic trick is in knowing the secret to a magic trick.
There are many factors that can make or break a card trick, including sleight of hand technique, humor, plot, and misdirection.
The plot must be better than, “The card was lost, but now I found it.”
2. Most card tricks are long, convoluted, hard to follow.
Why is this? Most performers performing a card trick spend 90% of the time on the discovery and 10% on the revelation. They may take minutes just to find (discover) the card. This is dull for everyone except the performer.
One example is that chestnut, the 21 Card Trick (there are two card tricks called by this name, but I’m referring to the lame one — the one you’ve probably seen).
After the card is selected and returned, the deck is dealt into three columns of seven cards. The performer asks a question, picks up the cards, then it gets even less interesting.
The cards are dealt into three columns of seven cards, again.
The performer asks another question . The climax — the performer reveals the card (in an interesting way, it is hoped).
The first time I saw this trick, I loved it. I was six years old.
I knew he had not seen it, and I knew it had been lost among the other cards. It was enough for me.
But unless your audience is six-year-olds, your performance should be more than perplexing.
If it doesn’t tell a story, then people should tell stories told about it.
To perform a card trick entertainingly, not only must you know how the trick is done, but how to do it.
Knowing the secret of a trick is not the same as knowing how to perform that trick — and knowing the secret to hundreds of tricks means nothing unless each trick can be performed masterfully.
Most of the performance of the 21 card charade is taken up by the dealing of cards into rows and columns. All this the performer can discern the card. A champion magician knows the correct card within seconds, or even before the card is selected. He is done with the discovery phase of the trick — then he can choose to spend as much or as little time as he needs on the presentation of the revelation.
One may argue that all that time can be filled up with dramatic patter, but Is a cop-out.
If you are restricted to the method, you are restricted to your performance being ruined amid interruptions. If your dramatic patter is essential, all the more reason to choose a better method — you can focus more on your theater and less on your clumsy method, ass.
There should be one goal — simplicity.
One of my favorites to perform is the card under drink (or saltshaker, or candle, etc.).
My participant chooses a card, draws a picture on it if desired, slides it back in the middle of the deck and mixes the cards.
I step back 5 or 10 paces, then snap my fingers. His defiled card is now under his bottle.
In the above scenario all the burden is on my shoulders. The magic happens in the participant’s hands— it is near and personal. It’s not a spectacle happening far off in the magician’s hands and tucked close to his chest.
The plot is clear, with surprising climax. My participant, young or old, wise or foolish, drunk or sober, won’t have any trouble telling that story.
Most professional magicians — even the bad ones — are knowledgeable enough not to stop at simply finding a card. The revelation is far more arresting and memorable than the discovery.
By “revelation,” I mean the manner in which I reveal I know the card.
It may appear under your drink, in your pocket, it may appear on the ceiling, it may appear folded up inside an ice cube in your drink.
Sometimes I’ll have two people choose a card, one for each of them. Then have both cards switch places, in their hands, the first person is holding the second person’s card and person two is holding the first person’s card. This is more surprising than my finding either card.
Why don’t you see a magician doing a series of pencil tricks, followed by another magician doing his best pencil tricks? Or umbrella tricks, or thimble tricks, or shoe tricks?
It’s because there are four suits in a deck, four seasons in a year, 52 cards in a deck, 52 weeks in a year, 13 card values, 13 phases of the lunar cycle. Surely this is the reason magicians like playing cards.
Wrong.
Magicians do card tricks because of the three reasons listed below.
1. Versatility
With one deck of cards, a professional magician can entertain and astonish a group for hours. There aren’t many umbrella tricks (plus, I’d walk into a party with a deck in my pocket than an umbrella). That’s not to say I performcard tricks for hours, but it’s comforting to know I’m prepared in case I forget my thimbles.
2. Audience Familiarity
A hundred years ago, thimble magic was all the rage. Leipzig performed in vaudeville, on stage, with thimbles as his props.
Nobody knows what a thimble is these days.
Any mediocre trick with a familiar object is ten times better than a great trick with an unfamiliar object.
Anyone with half a brain knows what a deck of cards is. The same could be said of coins (which is why coin magic is popular). You might say coins are more common than playing cards. No argument, but familiarity is only one reason for card magic’s popularity.
3. Practicality
There aren’t many props as small as a deck of cards that can hold an audience spellbound for several hours. The experienced magician appreciates the value of showing up to an event without any props and presenting. When my point of contact looks me up and down, then asks, “Do you need anything?” it feels good when I say, “No.” It helps I have a pack of 52 assistants in my pocket.
The Final Verdict on Card Tricks
Now you know there are three reasons magicians like playing cards. You know card tricks are like movies: good ones and bad ones. If used correctly, card tricks can be extremely effective magic.
If you’re reading this and your uncle has shown you a card trick this year, it means your uncle believes it’s easier to pull quarters out of your ear than to have a stimulating conversation with you.
Jon Finch is one of the most popular magicians in the Midwest and entertains around the Midwest. If you or someone you know has been witness to a bad card trick, please seek a professional magician immediately.
