Just watched the trailer for Ben Seidman’s Alchemy. Immediately thought of a cleaner handling for coin to strawberry- with the strawberry in finger palm, simply use a quarter and shove the coin by it’s edges into the strawberry. Then take a bite after the transformation to prevent the spectators from wanting to check out the fruit. If they try, then eat the whole thing. If the quarter means that much to you, simply wait a couple of hours and retrieve it from the toilet.
This sounds funny, but I’m being completely serious. Not about the retrieval, but the method. It should work, no?
Coin to Strawberry
Some BLACAAN Breakthrough
Things finally cooled down at work this week, and I finally got down to working out Blacaan. The following are the workings:
Two of each at top and bottom: AD, 7S, 9C, QH
Position-Card: 1-7C, 2-9S, 7-AC, 8-9D, 9-AS, 10-7D, 17-9H, 18-QC, 19-7H, 20-QS.
In case I typed that wrong, I have scanned my original:
And here’s the scanned folded instructions:
Then a video showing the unfolding progression:
BLACAAN Unfolding Procedure from Eric Hu on Vimeo.
Some Interesting CDTP Work
Here’s something I want to do:
I tell them that I have a couple of interesting things in my pockets that I want to show them in a minute. Two selections are made. The first selections jumps to the breast pocket. I tell them it’s an interesting selection because it is the only card of that suite that is in the deck. I follow this by retrieving the rest of the cards of that suite from my right pants pocket. I turn to the second spectator and tell them their selection is more interesting than the first one because they chose the only other card that was in the deck. I show them that I only have one card in my hand, the second selection, and with empty hands, I go to my left pants pocket to retrieve the rest of the deck.
I call this “The Interesting Card/Deck to Pocket”.
BLACAAN Or Something Like That
At first, I really liked Chris Mayhew’s CAANDY. Then, after a second watch, I really liked one part of it- the create-a-card card. What a great idea. But it doesn’t completely justify creating a card from two cards and having someone think of a number. Also, it uses a stack, which is fine, but it also requires you to cut the deck. So, I started thinking; the only thing that would justify having that create-a-card-card would be if it is used to generate a number, too. And, as long as the deck is being cut, why not have it cut using the prophesy move and force four cards that can be used to determine a card as well as a number. This way, the cut is completely invisible and the action of turning over the create-a-card card justifies it. Now, comes the interesting part; by having four cards selected, you would then give the spectators a choice of positioning those cards around the create-a-card card (along the four sides) face down
↑
1st Digit
←Value Suit→
2nd Digit
↓
Then only thing is to make sure that each of the possible outcomes is covered position wise in the deck.
Notes on position coverage:
1) Make sure one of the four cards is higher than a 5, thereby reducing the number of actual outcomes.
2) Make sure there is a face card for variety.
3) Use the one-way principle with the card backs to determine which cards are which, and using that decide whether to ask if they want to change the orientation of the chosen cards.
Notes on outs:
1) Also set up from the face, this will come into play if they end up choosing a card that needs to be dealt from the face. Make sure when you hand them the deck in the box at the beginning that the cards are face up; at the end you would tell them that you don’t want to change the conditions of the cards at all, even if its face up, etc.
2) Hm… keep thinking.
In case I forget, BLACAAN stands for Blind ACAAN: the presentational hook is that they are making blind choices, choices that they do not know the outcome of until after they make the choice. So, the spectator does not know that it is an ACAAN routine until right before the cards are dealt.
More on this later.
Gimmicking Yourself Something Silly
I had an idea a while ago about making ridiculous shoots and hooking up a bunch of pockets, making a tunnel system for cards all around your person. I think this can make a great signed card to pocket idea where a card is signed, returned, and vanished, and revealed to be in your pocket; all without palming. Not that I have anything against palming, I love it- the one-handed top palm is wicked. But having a shoot connecting your breast pocket to your side pocket or your pants pocket can come in very handy. For instance: a single “prediction” card is shown in your left jacket pocket openly. then a card is selected and signed, it is then returned to the deck, the deck is shuffled and placed in the box, which is then placed away in your breast/inside jacket pocket. You fairly open the pocket, ask the spectator to make sure and take out the only card in the pocket, which is revealed to be there signed card. Obviously, in this case, the left jacket pocket would have to be further gimmicked with a divider matching the inner cloth of the pocket, acting as a switching mechanism.
More on this idea later.
Something Else with ACAAN
After seeing a demo for Chris Mayhew’s CAANDY from Vanishing Inc., I decided that I also need a self-working ACAAN. So, I went and thought of one. Here, the spectators do all the work. The idea is this: two spectators will each think of either a number or a card; not for themselves, but for each other. So, therefore, they must communicate this information to the other person, giving a perfect reason to use a deck of cards. The first spectator is told to think of a number for the other person and deal the corresponding number of cards to the table quietly as I am turned away so the other person can know which number to think. After they are done, the cards are collected together and given to the other person who goes through and finds a card, takes it out shows it to the first spectator and returns it into the deck. the cards are placed back into the box and put away. A second deck of cards (which can be introduced before the selection) is taken out of its case by a spectator, and counted by them, and the correct card is found at the correct position.
Having said that, I have never been a big fan of ACAAN with two decks of cards simply because there is no good reason to have the cards chosen instead of thought of. Also, I just hate carrying around two decks of cards. But here, I’d make an exception because the reason of having a card and a number selected for someone else gives a pretty good reason to utilize a deck of cards. Even though two decks of cards are seemingly in play, there is only one used. So, I would only need to carry around one.
This does spark something interesting, which is trying to come up with a different way to have a card and a number selected using something that can be in turn used to later to get the card to that position. I’m not sure if that made any sense, but it makes sense to me right now.
In the interest of ACAAN, here’s another version I came up with that I happened to have on video.
Post-It ACAAN from Eric Hu on Vimeo.