CARDOPOLIS 47

A VARIETY OF FESTIVE AMUSEMENTS

Welcome to a bumper issue of Cardopolis, a newsletter dedicated to the history and craft of card magic. Subscribers receive an issue each month, access to the full archive which now contains hundreds of effects, and the comments section where everyone can share their own thoughts and ideas. We also have the occasional free issue to give prospective subscribers a taste of what Cardopolis offers. Since we’re still in a holiday mood, now is a good time for that to happen.

If this is the type of magic you enjoy, you can subscribe for $5 a month or $35 for the whole year which includes 12 issues. It’s the Holidays. Treat yourself!

This month we have a varied assortment of tricks, moves, and ideas. You’ll find a jumping card trick called Fool’s Errand. It’s an old idea but very effective if you put in the practise.

I published a video of a quick card trick called Surface on Cardopolis Instagram last month. Here it is in case you missed it:

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In Surface four aces rise to the top of the deck. You’ll find the explanation in this issue.

Also included is variation that uses the same approach for a trick called Elevator Pitch.

Paul Curry and Oscar Weigle created a classic with their Color-Changing Deck (1944). There are countless variations and most of them use the same basic method. Colour Changing Deck Revisited incorporates another well-tried premise, that there’s a card in the deck only the spectator can see, and adds a bit of zest with a visible colour change.

Stop Aces is another use for an Edward Victor colour change previously described in Cardopolis. While relatively simple in concept it makes for a pleasing production of four aces.

Cardopolis occasionally steps into the world of mentalism. Mindreader’s Melody is a method for incorporating a prediction into a song. Imagine performing a version of Confabulation and being able to play a song recording in which all the chosen items, and more, have been predicted. Mindreader’s Melody offers a simple way of doing that.

In fact, let’s begin with another mentalism item, Pick & Mix. This is an impromptu mindreading trick worth knowing because there are so many different ways of presenting it.

PICK & MIX

I published an online video on Cardopolis Instagram for the first trick in Gabriel Werlen’s The Green Neck System (2018). There the trick was posted as an interactive piece of magic. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to do so before reading this extension to that trick.

You can do Pick & Mix with any three items to hand. This version is not an online interactive piece of magic, you do it face to face with a spectator, a table between you. The video below represents the spectator’s view of the trick.

The idea to use candy bars came from Neil Hutchinson who emailed to ask about a routine involving confectionary. I’d been playing around with a divination trick that used three borrowed items but when Neil mentioned candy bars, I thought, well, that sounds like fun and Pick & Mix was born.

The situation here is that the performer is opposite the spectator, a table between them. The explanation video is from the performer’s perspective.

Pick & Mix makes for an excellent party trick. You can do it with several spectators simultaneously. All will finish with their chosen item in their hand. And then you can deduce the items in their pockets.

VARYING THE MIX

Here’s an observation on Pick & Mix. In the original handling the second instruction to the spectator is to swap the items which were in original positions 1 and 3. This results in the chosen item finishing in position 2.

Well, there’s a pattern here because if you asked them to swap items from original positions 1 & 2, the chosen item finishes in position 3. And if you swapped items that began at positions 2 & 3, the chosen item finishes in position 1. The chosen item always finishes in the position you did not use.

Because you can control the final position of the chosen item, you can repeat the trick or perform for two different spectators at the same time, each spectator’s chosen item finishing in a different position. The rotational deduction still works. But you must give different instructions for the items you want the spectators to put in their pockets.

An additional observation is that for the second exchange you can have the spectator choose any two items and swap them. They tell you which items they’ve chosen. And you tell them to exchange their positions. If you map the chosen items to their starting positions, you can figure out where the chosen item will finish.

FOOL’S ERRAND

This is based on Paul LePaul’s Jumping Card effect from his Impromptu Torn and Restored Card Routine (The Card Magic of Paul LePaul, 1949). Karl Fulves described the trick as The Jumping Joker in Self-Working Card Tricks (1976), which is probably where I first saw it.

A similar idea is Joe Berg’s Trained Card, and several ‘riffle rises’ have appeared since LePaul published his version. The trick takes a little practise. It is not quite the ‘self-working’ item Fulves implied. The handling of the riffle rise is different from either LePaul’s or Fulves’, because I find this works better for me.

SURFACE

This is a minor variation of Tilted Aces from Ed Marlo’s 1962 Tilt! manuscript. The main addition is Daryl Martinez’ Convincing Tilt (The Last Hierophant, 1980). It’s a good trick and perhaps it’ll entice you to return to Marlo’s Tilt! and see what other items are worth reviving from that booklet. You saw the effect in the Instagram post. Here is the handling.

ELEVATOR PITCH

This routine came about after reading Persi Diaconis’ Presentation for Tilted Aces in Arcane No. 14 (1995). It’s the same basic method used in Surface, but I’ll leave the details as a festive puzzle for those interested to figure out.

COLOUR CHANGING DECK REVISITED

The Color-Changing Deck was popular from the moment it was released. Most of the methods since its debut follow a remarkably similar pattern. This is a tribute to the handling its creators, Paul Curry and Oscar Weigle Jr settled on. The effect and method have stood the test of time. This version doesn’t stray too far from those foundations, but you might find something of interest in it.

STOP ACES

The Edward Victor Colour Change has been described a couple of times in Cardopolis. See Twumph in Cardopolis 17 and Snappy Victor Plus in Cardopolis 18.

For practitioners of Edward Victor’s Card Change the explanation for the following will be obvious but it makes for a pleasing production.

The aces begin on top of the deck and the repeat cut and change sequence brings them into view one by one. A neatly cut fingernail on the left forefinger helps.

MINDREADER’S MELODY

You might recall Derren Brown’s terrific version of David Berglas’ ESPacology in his Enigma show (2009/2010). Derren used a song to make the reveal. You can see it on YouTube.

I’ve been experimenting with a music generator called Suno AI, and it enables you to create similar song predictions. Whether this is any use to anyone I have no idea. But imagine the scenario. You are performing some version of Confabulation. A typical routine involves spectators selecting a fantasy holiday destination. You might have them select a city, a hotel, and how much money they will spend. And you then reveal it in the usual way; a written prediction from a wallet, or box.

Using an AI music generator means you can now play a song that incorporates all your predictions and more. For instance, it might name one of the spectators or distinctive item of clothing they are wearing.

Until someone turns this into a magic app, you’ll need backstage help to do this. Your crew inputs a prompt into ChatGPT or other AI service and instructs it to create a song, say 3 verses and chorus, in which someone called Jenny selects the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas as a destination, and that a man in a Black Sabbath t-shirt won $5,243 won in the casino. The prompt is a pre-written template and all that needs to be done is insert any freely chosen items into the blank spaces. The song also names the performer because you want them to leave the show remembering your name.

The process for generating the lyrics takes a couple of minutes. You then paste the lyrics into Suno. Suno generates two versions of the song simultaneously in any music style you want. You can incorporate the song style as a bit of business in your routine. With a little more time, the crew can tweak the lyrics to improve them and add any other relevant information. The whole enterprise is amazingly fast. I’m not suggesting this is some great mystery. But it could be a funny addition to the close of a show.

You can listen to a version here. Remember, all I did was add the performer’s name (John Smith) and prediction information to a simple prompt. ChatGPT generated the lyrics. Suno generated the music

I have subsequently added some subtitles and images, so you won’t get bored watching the video. Speaking of subtitles, these can also be generated incredibly quickly. A family entertainer could generate their own sing-along video featuring the birthday child’s name. Just a thought.

FINALLY

I didn’t know Alan Alan well but many who did have great things to say, citing him as an inspirational figure in their lives. He was a professional escapologist in his younger days and is credited with creating the upside-down burning rope escape. When I met him, he was running Alan Alan’s Magic Spot, his magic and joke shop at Southampton Row in London. For someone whose livelihood depended on selling, he was famously surly. ‘Look in the window,’ he’d say to anyone who dared enter the shop to ask a question.

If you did make it past the door, you would find him wearing an arrow through his head, and occasionally a safety pin through his nose, while doing a little magic. He had a very nice handling of the pencil through coin. It used a two-penny shell and insert, the insert having the hole in it. I once saw him demonstrate the trick for a prospective customer. Alan then showed the props, which amounted to four pence worth of coinage, and gave the price, which was in the region of a couple of pounds. The customer was shocked, ‘That’s a lot.’ To which Alan replied, ‘It’s the profit that makes it expensive.’ I’ve never forgotten that.

British Pathe made a series of films in which Alan Alan performed and taught magic. They had the odd title of Magic For You Beware. They were beautifully photographed but the main point of interest for me is seeing Alan performing Alex Elmsley’s Four Card Trick. The film was released in cinemas in late 1959. Alex had only debuted the trick a few months earlier at the IBM convention in Chicago with Corinda marketing it in the UK later that year. So, this is a look at one of the earliest handlings of the trick and Elmsley’s Ghost Count.

If you’re interested in this effect, you’ll find a different handling, Roundabout, in Cardopolis 27.

That’s all for now. See you in 2026.

David