Monday, August 22, 2005

Further Notes on the Longitudinal Double Lift

 
It's funny--I once got stopped for not having an inspection sticker, showed the cop some card stuff (that magic didn't work), and he started a conversation about double lifts! Still wrote me the ticket, though. A propos of which, I received an email from a Jimmy Wong (no relation I presume to Stanford Wong, the blackjack expert, no doubt a pseudonym anyway). Wong read my post about (my) longitudinal double lift and, while saying it's "quite cool and I think that was the one that David Blaine used" (I don't know about that), remains "quite confused on the technique," asking me for some pictures or a DVD. This I do not have but, to reiterate and synopsize what can be found below on this blog, I explained: "You push off two as one and, taking the cards by the ends (short sides), snap them face up. Like I say...the cards can't be too new--they must be a little 'gritty'--and it takes practice, a 'knack.'" I actually can't remember anyone else using this move, so maybe it's pretty hard. But, once you get it, it is the best double lift, bar none, for a borrowed, used (but not dog-eared) pack. I use it for the finale of a mental location based on a trick done by a different method that Persi Diaconis (who ran away with Dai Vernon as a boy, and now is a well-known statistician and winner of the MacArthur "genius" award) showed at a poker game attended by my stepfather, the late MIT mathematician Nez Ankony, and myself about twelve years old. Some day perhaps it will maked it to DVD but for now this verbal description will have to suffice. One more, perhaps important, detail. The second (middle) finger of the right hand (if you are right-handed) comes quickly and stiffly to the back of the longitudinally snap-displayed card, which is bevelled to make a slight concavity toward the viewers (magician and spectators) by pressure of the thumb on the face of the card; the thumb presses down between the first and second fingers on the back, keeping the snapped card aligned.

In my next entry I will give a "magic marker" routine based on my modification of Dutch magician Flip's drumbstick move (itself a version of a cigarette move).