Saturday, April 16, 2005

Card to Glass Routine

Here is my original routine for card to glass. Although a difficult routine that requires substantial knowledge of sleight of hand, I hope to offer some easier tricks in the future. This one makes use of Dai Vernon's thinking on the top change as well as the classic palm. The effect is that a card is selected (by riffling and asking the spectator to stop), and that that card then winds up under an object at the bar or the table--not once but three times. With deck in mechanic's grip in left hand (reverse if you're a leftie) riffle with left thumb then ask spectator to say stop. Separate cards and show him face of deck with right hand then, as you replace pack on offbeat, direct side steal card into right palm. The left hand with pack immediately turns palm down and spreads cards on bar counter or table, asking spectator if he sees his card; at the same time the right hand, in the act of lifting up an object in front of but slightly to the right of the performer (glass, but this can be another object), introduces palm card under it. Since all eyes are on the spread face up portion of pack, and body language suggests this object (the glass or whatever) is (so far) just "in the way," it is easy to make card go beneath it. This first phase I learned at the Magic Bar in Chicago. Now have the spectator look under glass. To his surprise there is his card. Pick it up in right hand, gather deck in left. Ask if he saw you put card beneath glass. Accompany question by physical placement of card under glass. You show the card in right hand then your left hand (with deck) moves toward glass to pick it up so card can be inserted beneath glass. As it does right hand turns and top change occurs as left hand picks up glass. Right hand immediately puts (now indifferent) card beneath glass. Don't actually leave it there but pick it up and insert into the middle of the pack--the whole thing is just a gesture to accompany the words, "Did you see me put it under the glass?" They say no and you put the card back in the pack, turning to the left and up (away from the tabled object). Leave the card protruding half way. Cut to the pack to show the card still sticking out. One-hand top palm the card in the right hand. Drop the right and cards on the left. Push flush the protruding supposedly chosen card with left forefinger. Loudly riffle cards with left thumb and then, in one motion, follow imaginary flight of playing card to glass, introduce card beneath glass, and lift glass to show card has arrived there. They just saw card sticking out of deck in left hand so there seems to be no moment in which it could have flown. Plus this is now the second time card has arrived there, increasing effect. I then make the card rise before it arrives the third time. This is done by showing card has arrived. When you put it back in the pack this time riffle with the left thumb but, as you introduce card into space created by pressure of left thumb after riffling midway through pack, riffle off one more card. Card-to-glass card is put back in pack not above, but beneath, this card. This time when you use your left forefinger to push card in, push it (and card above it which you riffled off) not just flush but a little further, so that it is injogged. Now you want to give the impression that the deck is squared although it really has a double injog. I do this by using a multiple shift square move that involves the fingers smoothing the cards along each side and end of the pack as the cards are apparently squared up. I believe this is from Marlo's The Cardician in one of the multiple shifts. Now, using the left hand pinky, with the left side of the performer facing audience, and back of his left hand facing audience, by slowly lifting lower outer corner of injogged card, the chosen card (actually two cards) will be seen to rise. A standard bit of byplay here is to pluck an imaginary hair and attach it to pack, then pull, as if that were causing card to rise. Slight motion of left pinky is obscured by back of hand and slight rise of whole hand as card rises. I have altered this standard impromptu card rise to make it a double rise, which doesn't add to the rise effect but sets up the climax for card to glass. Remove the doubled card and display as one on top of pack. Turn over double card and display on top of pack. Push off double card and let fall on face of pack. Grab double card as one and insert into middle of pack. Turn hand with cards over to show that (doubled) card "really is" in middle of pack (this reinforces idea that it was "really there" when you did it previously). Turn palm back up thus showing backs of cards and do the push-in change. This involves slightly separating top of doubled card with right thumb by pushing it in a tiny arc up and to the right, a motion which, in turn, allows left forefinger, operating secretly beneath cards, to pull actual card-to-glass card down beneath the upper card of the double and add to lower portion of the pack. Forerfinger doesn't stop but pushes off entire lower portion of the pack which takes cards by ends as per Hindu shuffle. With lower cards jutting inwards by about half an inch right hand cuts upper half of lower cards along with a few cards above the break (these will be outjogged relative to bottom cards) in Hindu shuffle position in right hand. Shuffle off top outjogged section per Hindu shuffle until you get to injogged portion that came from bottom of the pack (the top of this will be the card-to-glass card. Then throw the remaining cards onto pack. The situation now is this: the selected card, appparently still jutting out at end of pack, is in fact on top. As the previous moves are performed you want to say something like: "This time I'll really bury it in the pack." This part of the routine can be, if not really sloppy, a little casual-looking. The reason is that the cards should not end up to neatly in the left hand. As you (once again) apparently push the card that has travelled to the glass flush with the left cards you palm the top card. There is natural misdirection here due to the uneven pack that needs to be squared up before "anything can happen"--this is not something you say; it's just your body language: you're squaring up the cards after the card-to-glass card, which has already popped beneath glass twice, and risen once, can do whatever its going to do next. But of course by then its already done. All you have to do is riffle with left thumb and show that the card has (despite being thoroughly "buried" this time) once again gone to the glass. This you do using the same technique you used in part two of the routine--riffling deck, following imaginary flight with eyes, and introducing card beneath glass in the act of lifting it to reveal that very card.