Other Visions

Giving A Method to the Madness
by Chris Noice

The card to impossible location routine which so many card workers, including myself have used to reveal a chosen card is one which has been troubling me recently. The main problem that I have with the routine is that if you break it down, it often makes no sense whatsoever. The performer, after having a spectator choose a card and then after making it disappear (or even not in some cases), he reveals the card inside an orange, or within a cigarette in the spectator’s cigarette box or in some other spurious “impossible” location. The routine, as performed there – has about as much magical value as (to quote a Derren Brown example) the mind reader who writes things on a piece of paper that he couldn’t possibly know, but
provides no method for his madness.

Read over the following two routines, both similar in basic application - and consider which is more appealing to a spectator.

1) The spectator chooses a card, which is replaced in the deck. The magician
tries to no avail to twice find the spectators card, but all is not lost. The magician makes a magical gesture and points toward the other side of the room. In a sealed wine bottle, the spectators’ card is found floating within.

2) The spectator chooses a card, which is replaced on the top of the deck. The magician asks the spectators to watch what he does closely. Slowly, the magician makes the spectators card visually disappear from the deck. The magician explains that the card has not entirely gone; the entity of the card is still very much there. He walks across the room and picks out a bottle of wine from the shelf which is still sealed. The magician explains that the entity of the card is so powerful that it can transfer through solid objects. Taking the apparent invisible card in his fingertips, the
magician wraps his hand against the glass and concentrates. The chosen card is now seen to be inside the sealed bottle, which can be given to a spectator.

Now, I’m not sure about all performers – but the second version to me is much more appealing. The effect of the card to impossible location is not one that requires the identity of the card to be secret. The whole purpose of the trick is to get a freely selected card to a location that a card can’t be taken to during a performance. The second performance not only flows better, but gives a method (although fictional) to the proceedings. If the card isn’t vanished from the deck before the reveal, then the first thing the spectators will ask is “have you got another Two of Hearts in that deck?” This happens for two reasons…

Firstly, there hasn’t been enough of a change of focus away from the cards before the reveal – all the spectators know is that they put a card in a deck, and that very soon after, a card that looks the same is in a wine bottle. It’s clever, but it’s not magical.

Secondly, the lack of the vanish of the card instantly implies that it is still there. If you don’t see something go, then you don’t think it’s gone. Magicians have been using this to their advantage for years with vanishing floating lady tricks. The spectators haven’t seen the woman go from under the cloth, so they assume she is still there – floating until the moment her vanishing is revealed. If we want to reveal a card as transporting to somewhere else, we first have to show that it’s gone from where it was.

Of course, there is a crude way around having to vanish and reveal the card. The magician could of course just throw the deck of cards at the object used for the reveal. This is effective and to all intents and purposes, rather magical – but it lacks the precision and care for the art that magicians are supposed to be known for. If you are one of those performers who does this, a la David Blaine at a window – then ask yourself if you’re maybe not trying hard enough.

In method 2, the magic for the spectator is so much more appealing because they will believe that they have actually seen what is happening. People don’t believe what they see, they see what they want to believe. If you show them that a card vanishes, show them the entity of the card within your empty fingertips and slowly melt the card into the revealing object – they will believe that what they have seen is exactly what has happened, according to what you have told them.

However, they will believe if and only if you believe. Believe that every move you make is as you want it to appear. An audience will never believe that you’ve managed to make a card vanish if you don’t believe in it yourself. Get involved with the piece; feel every move. The audience will be on your lines, along for the ride with you.

Chris Noice