TUM TE TUM TUM TE - ISSUE 27

Revisiting, Refining, Relearning

Welcome back to Cardopolis. It’s been a while since the last issue and it’s time to begin a new season. For those new to Cardopolis, this newsletter is mainly concerned with the history and practise of card magic. You can access all back issues, for free, here. It’s particularly focussed on solving card problems in simple and efficient ways, and inclined to take the easy route than one involving knuckle-busting moves. There is a Comments section below each newsletter if you want to add information or ask questions. If you want to support Cardopolis, and I am grateful to everyone who does, you can do so via the Ko-Fi link below.

THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

Shiv Duggal inspired this handling when he showed me a very nice sandwich trick that will appear in the next Cardopolis. The routine, which I really liked, made me think about a handling I had no use for until now. Here it is incorporated in a simple sandwich trick.

TUM TE TUM TUM TE

This strange title came about after reading an article by Graham Adams in The Sphinx (May, 1943). I won’t say anything about it now other than suggest you watch the video before you read the notes that follow.

Graham Adams was describing a trick called The Lady Vanishes in The Sphinx article and it used thumb counting from the top of the deck. Thumb counting was a favourite method of Adams, as it was for magicians like Gus Southall and Ben Ehrens, but Billy O’Connor told him that instead of counting the cards you could mentally hum a little rhythm to yourself and keep track of the number of cards that way.

Billy O’Connor talked of using a ’rhythmic count,’ like Tum Te Tum Tum Te, each beat signifying one card riffled off the thumb. That five-beat musical phrase would result in five cards being thumb counted. If you could riffle off batches containing 5 cards with some degree of certainty, you could combine them to reach larger totals. I gave it a try and think it’s worth exploring. Tum Te Tum Tum Te, as described in this newsletter, aims for an efficient use of thumb counting and allows you to make the odd error without spoiling the final effect.

You can use any musical phrase that suits you and you can vary the number of beats to achieve different numbers of cards. For example, HA-PPY-BIRTH-DAY-TO-YOU works nicely if you want to thumb count six cards. The thumb count is also a very good way to deal a poker hand. Frank Lane described the idea in Here’s How (1934), inserting four aces into the deck with three thumb-counted cards between each ace. William Larsen described a more elaborate version, The Four Ace Deal, in Greater Magic (1938). I’d recommend inserting the first ace nine cards down, as for Tum Te Tum Tum Te and then inserting four thumb-counted cards between each ace. Deal five hands and the fifth hand will get an indifferent card on the first round, which looks good if you are dealing cards face up and commenting on the outcome, and an ace on each subsequent round.

THE TURNING TEST

Dai Vernon’s Twisting the Aces became a favourite effect the moment I read it in More Inner Secrets of Card Magic (1960). The Elmsley Four Card Trick was already a go-to packet trick, and it wasn’t difficult to transition from that trick to the Vernon routine. However, I have to admit that while I enjoyed it, I’m not sure the spectators did. It was a hard trick to care about since the spectator has no involvement in the event other than to watch how clever you are. One ace is pretty much like another so it never really felt like there was a progression in the effect.

Piet Forton had Queenie (New Pentagram, April 1969) which was a twisting effect using the Ace to Four of a suit. Fred Kaps had a similar Ace to Four twisting routine in his 1973 lecture notes. The cards turned over in numerical sequence, which gave the trick a thin sense of progression. Both were excellent tricks, but they used five cards. The following routine sticks fairly close to Vernon’s classic Twisting the Aces but uses only four cards. Is the effect clearer? No idea. But here it is.

ELMSLEY FOUR CARD TRICK

Talking of Alex Elmsley’s Four Card Trick (1959), I recently published a handling in Genii (May, 2023). The original Elmsley trick is still a splendid piece of magic, four cards twisted and changed and everything was examinable. Back in the day, you carried those four cards around in a plastic wallet with you from one performance to another and they got grubbier by the minute. Today, cards are cheap enough to perform the routine and then leave the cards with the spectators. If you’re a professional entertainer, you might want to ensure that you have your contact details on the one printed card. My handling dates back to the early 80s. It was first published in Spell-Binder (April 1983). To aid with the write-up of the trick for Genii I recorded a video which you can see below. The working should be apparent to anyone who knows the Elmsley original. If not, you can check out the instructions in Genii or Spell-Binder.

DR LASZLO ROTHBART

Dr. László Rothbart is likely to be a name new to you but he created a principle in magic that you probably are aware of. In the 1930s he was a doctor in Budapest where he had a successful clinic. He was also a keen and talented magician and served as Secretary for the Circle of Hungarian Amateur Magicians. He came to my attention with a trick he called Colorato (The Jinx, December 16th 1939). Tan Hock Chuan referenced the trick in his book Rough and Smooth Possibilities (1948) where he adapted Rothbart’s idea to a five-card poker hand. I made this trick up as a teenager and it made me an enthusiast for the rough and smooth principle.

There is much to be said about Rothbart, his life, and his original and clever magic but for now I’ll just say that his life ended prematurely on September 8th, 1947. He was just 60 years old. The Sphinx praised him saying, ‘He was a most prolific inventor of brilliant effects in card magic now used the world over.’ His friend M. S. Mahendra said, ‘his methods and technique were far ahead of the times.’ He published many of them in magazines and also a booklet called Deck in Hand - Magic of the Magyar (1940) where you will find some real gems. Recently, I reconstructed the trick I had read as a teenager in Chuan’s book and updated the handling. It owes much to Rothbart’s Colorato. I shot a quick practise video on my computer camera. Let’s call it Colorato Poker Hand as a debt to both Dr L Rothbart and Tan Hock Chuan, pioneers of the rough and smooth principle.

FINALLY

This is the second season of Cardopolis. Let’s see if we can produce another 26 newsletters to take us to the magical number 52.

If you want to support Cardopolis, you can do so using the Ko-Fi button below. Feel free to read, enjoy, share and comment.

David