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Noel D Regular user 197 Posts |
This is the best book, ever! It has some sleight stuff that's amazingly easy and almost half the book is self working! Keep in mind, there are no gimmicks used throughout any of the tricks, and almost all of them can be done with a half dead deck of cards.
let's examine each trick one by one. ch 1 = bullet train the bullet train is a chapter on ace assemblies where bannon was goin for a very odd thing. Most tricks have an internal clock, like for ace assemblies, the aces are put in, they vanish one by one, then the appear in the leader paccket. But what if everything just happened at once? that's what this chapter explores. Al though the aces are meant to be performed as one long routine, you can do them as individual tricks. 1. Iconclastic aces In this first assembly, the aces are put in place, then a bunch of cards are laid on top of them. they vanish one by one, and appear in the leader packet. this is basically an easy, almost sleightless (if you use the handling in the "more" section) run of the mill ace assembly. it's real purpose is to set up the audience for what happens next. 2.Syncopated aces You put down the cards in 4 rows of three, then an ace on top of each packet. move one packet to the leader position, and it just happens. There's no way to explain this. The aces don't individually vanish or get there all at once, its so much more! there's only one ace, you move its packcet to the middle, and they're just there. very creepy. This one happens in about ten seconds, making it one of the fastest and most lethal assemblies ever. 3. Interrobang aces. here, you perform the most unexpected assembly ever! There's no way it could happen, but it does! You lay down the aces (really, not any indifferent cards or anything like that) and isolate them in a fan of three indifferent cards. you do that also for the second one, and, for the third, you triple check, seeing the ace after it has been isolated. to make the last ace impossible to move, you put it face up, but before you can do that, teh aces assemble! there is no way to explain this. the trick hasn't started, and its over! summary = I cannot stress the impact this has, because every assembly has two climaxes. one, the aces assemble, but two, it happens before the audinece is ready for it. it just happens. This was all inspired by a lennart green routine, where the aces and kings are on the table. you lose the aces into the deck, pick up the kings, and they're the aces! The climax not only happens, but it suprises you by how fast it happens. The is the best assembly routine ever, and this alone is worth the price of the book. ch.2 = secrets and mysteries of the four aces. this is designed to be performed impromptu with a borrowed deck of cards. here, after the spectatorbhas shuffled the deck until the deck is beggin them to stop, you produce the aces, do stuff with them, read a spectators mind, perform an absolutewly impossible transpo, and end up wioth a royal flush! let's go over them one by one. the tricks in this routine let you stack whatever you need for the other routines as they go on, so you are basically able to do any trick that needs preparation as an impromptu trick! 4. line of sight (variation on alain nu's routine) this is a simple trick, made powerful through presentation. you talk about how in the old days, a killer was caught by llokign into a victims eyes. because the kille was the last thing they saw, the image is still embedded in their eyes. offering a demonstration, you ask a spectator to think of a card. you fan otu the cards and have the spectator stare at her card. by looking intoher eyes, you can see the reflection adn reveal th thought of card! this is repeated again. and for the third time, you don't even fan the cards, you just remove a couple and layone down. you the mentally divinate.. THE WRONG CARD! btu no problem, since you showbthat oyu were kidding and the card is on the table. Impromptu mindreadin, that is only topped by out of touch (coming up later) the best thing about this trick is that it lets you setup up to 15 cards in any order you want for your next trick or otherwise. bannon takes advantage of that in his next trick. 5. final verdict All cutting to the aces suffer from two fatal flaws. one, you either "toy" with the deck before, or have to do it as an opener. wo, you turn over the cards. both of these give unwanted suspicion. bannon got rid of both of those problems to bring us the king of all ace cutting. the spectator FREELY cuts the deck to whereever they want. they then turn over the top card of each packet to find the aces. simple, powerful, and thanks to line of sight, impromptu. 6. cull de stack this is a way fo cutting the deck and getting whatever you cards you want into whatever position you want. he uses this to get a royal flush first, second, fourth and eight from the bottom fo the deck. you can be burned, since there is nothign to see, you cut the deck, and all the cards you want are in whatever you position you need them. this is not too hard, but takes practice to make it look good. it takes about a second and can be donw while the spectator examines the aces. 7. two classics here, bannon explains some tips and subleties he uses for Dr Daleys last trick, and twisting the aces. while they seem like small changes, they dramatically heighten the impact of both of the routines. the change in hand placements in dr daleys last trick is worth the price of the book alone. (I believe that for $200, this book would have been a bargian) 8. Beyond fabulous. Now begins a trend we will see a lot more as the book progresses, and that is self working tricks. This trick is a sleightless miracle, and I close my shows with it. You lose the four aces into the deck (no breaks or controls, the aces are really lost, the deck is on the table perfectly squared without any crimps) and then find them one by one. you riffle the deck and spread through to fins a seven. no big deal though, you just (no middles, seconds, or bottoms) deal down seven cards and find the first ace. you then riffle the pack again, and an ace turns face up. for the next ace you cast a magic spell over the deck, and spell out ace of hearts (real deals, no fancy second or anything) to find the ace of hearts. there's only one ace left, the ace of spades. you now split the deck in two and have the spectaator pick a half. you keep going like that untilnyou only have ne cad left, which is the ace of spades! you then turn over the top card of each half the spectator didn't want and find a royal flush! and this is SELFWORKING! 9. mark of the fabulous here's an alternate ending in case you don't want to, or didn't have time to set up for the royal flush ending. you have a spectator cut the deck and lay down the cards in a big question mark. they say a number and you then count down to that number on the question mark. the card at that number is the ace of spades. simple, direct, and a good alternative if oyu don't have time to stack the deck. summary = the best and easieast impromptu string of tricks I have ever seen. Another chapter worth the price of the book. ch 3 dead reckoning This entire chapter is presented in a very different, refreshing fashion. here, everythings a narrative, so it feels like your reading a fiction, rather than learning a trick, while you are learning both. dome people might complain this makes it a bit harder to learn things, but I prefer tricks to be presented this way, it gets rid of the cookbook formality most magic books have. 10. dead reckoning I now present to you THE BEST TRICK EVER! there is no better trick you can ever do than this one. it is so impossible on so many levels, that there is no way it can happen. but it does. AND ITS SELF WORKING! you shuffle for 20 million years (or less, whatever you want) and let the spectator cut the deck. they shuffle what they cut and look at the top card. they they then cut again and put those card on top of their selection. they cut for 20 million more years, and you then pile the entire deck on top of it. you do not know their card, or where it is, and you havent even touched the deck yet! you now ask them to mentally (in their head) spell out the name of their card as you deal down cards, and to think stop when they finish with the name of the card. thy think stop, and you almost fall over! there is no way you could know what the spectator thought, but you did! you turn over the card the spectator stopped you at, and it is the selection!! no tricky deals, there's no reason why this should work, but it does! You nkow how every now and then there are those manuscripts of one effect that ware worth $60? This one's worth more, and is the best trick EVER! 11. out of touch Here's the trick I was talking about earlier, and wow, is it good. It isn't self working, and requires a knacky move (the elais multiple shift). Lucky for me, I learned how to do the move almost instantly, but there are people who can't do it until they practice it for about three years or so.nIt's like the one hand top palm, really knacky, you either get it instantly or after a long time. Anyway, here's the effect. you explain how there are two ways to pick a card, mentally and physically. you outjog 5-10 cards and have a spectator mentally think of a card. you push them back in, and now have a spectator physically pick a card by touching one. the card they thought of and the card they picked are the same one. This does NOT use the classic foce, but a force almost exactly like it that you wil use every day! Amazing trick. 12. Dawn patrol This might be the only trick from this book I never use, but that's only until I get the impossible move down. Easily the hardest trick in the book, this is self working once you can get the sleight down. (if you knew what the sleight was, that sentence woulkd make more sense) a card is picked, shuffled in and the deck is placed on the table as you triumphantly excalim "your card was NOT the king of clubr or the king of spades!" you then reveal those cards were on the table. seeing as to how the spectator is amazingly unimpressed, you then have a better idea. you stick the kings (and only the kings, no extra cards) in the middle of the deck and give the deck a riffle shuffle. when you spread thru, you see that a card was shuffled between the kings. this card is the selection. If you can get the move down, this is an excellent quicky you can do whenever you want. Summary = The three tricks in this chapter all work aorund similar princples, but they each produce really different tricks. The way the chapter was laid out is really refreshing, and Except for dawn patrol with its one in every one hundred people could do this sleight, all the routines in this chapter found instant homes in my repetoire. ch. 4 degrees of freedom This chapter has 3 self working tricks that cannot happen, but they do. Bannon says "this is mre than a trick, its a toy, and you'll probably find yourself doing this just because it works" this is so true. I spent about an hour just doing these tricks over and over, trying to figure out why it happens, and I was still clueless. That having been said, let's take a look at what these tricks are 13. degrees fo freedom for a borrowed shuffled deck, you remove all the kings queens jacks tens and aces. You then mix them face up and face down, and the spectator mixes them face up and face down. now you lay them out in a big square and have the spectator fold the edges in, so you end up wioth a big unorganized pile of cards. ut whenyou spread the cards, there are only five cards face down, which are the royal flush in a spectators favorite suit! This is impromptu, and while it takes up a lot of table space, it is well worht it. I have no idea why this happens, so there is no chance the spectator could "catch you" on the method. 14. origami poker this is my favorite trick in this chapter. It's basically degrees of freedom but a bit more streamlined. You have 16 random cards removed (or take them otu yourself) and have the spectator mix them up. you then mix them up face up into face down, and the spectator does also. lay them otu in a square thingy, and fold them in until you end up with one heap that has a royal flush in spades face up. I like it more than degrees of freedom because it is a bit quicker, and it takes up less table space. very cool. 15. perfect strangers this is one cool packet trick, but I'm still trying to make it. basically, you have 16 cards, each with a different back and a different card on the face. you the mix them every single way possible, make a square, fold them until you have a big pile. square up this pile, and when you spread the deck, there are only three cards face d. you remove a packet wallet thingy, where you reveal there are three cards that have the same backs as the three cards that were face down. not only that, but the faces mathc also! This woulkd be a very cool packet trick if I could round up 16 different backed cards. Mybe a rainvow deck?I don't know, But I'll round up the cards eventually. 16. the works Only read this If you have taken calculus. I have taken pre cal honors and I still have no idea what is going on. This section is bannon's attempt to explain why the tricks in degrees of freedom work. I kind of understand, but Everythign gets too confusing. Either way, this is nothign more than a bonus, so It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not. summary = The three tricks here all work on the same principle, which is impossible to discover. because of this, you can use it on any heckler and they will be as confused as you are. great tricks. ch.5 Impossibilia bag here's some tricks that didn't really fit anywhere else, so bannon put them in this chapter 17.wait until dark this is the perfect triumhusing the goodwin/jennings display. you probably have heard of the goodwin/jennings display and might even know what it is, but It has never had a useful application until now. Basically, this is a triumph and it uses this display to make the pefect riffle triumph. a riffle triumoh has always had one of these to problems: they either had one face down card on top of a face up packet pretending to be an entire face down packet, or some seventy five years to master false riffle shuffle. This trick does both, without doing either. It sounds cinfusing, but once you learn the method, this will make sense. Its a grewt and easy triumpg, very good. 18.last man standing this is jeapordy with a different presentation. here you mix a bunch of face up cards and face down cards together, and mentally divine what each card is with someone covering your eyes with their hands while you look away. I have used this a coupek of times when I left thejeapordy predictions at home and wanted to use this trick. It's good, and has a different flavor than most other versions of this trick. 19. trait secrets this is a gemini twins trick with a four ace kicker at the end, and is sleightless. you could do this without touching the deck, if you anted to. basically, a prediction is placed on the table and two spectators pick a card, and then deal down until they want to stop. they then put their card face up where they stopped and drop the deck on top. this is done with another spectator who has another card. when they look at where they stopped, they see they stopped at the mates to their cards! you flip over the prediction to reveal an ace. you then flip over the cards next to the mates to find the other three aces! This is the perfect trick to do with an age old deck of borrowed cards. 20. dave's game the same trick as above, but with dollar bills,a nd the production of a royal flush rather than the four aces. although the method is exactly the same, the trick feels completely different. great trick. summary = this is the only part of the book that feels like a normal magic book. this isn't a bad thing, since the effects here aree quite powerful (especially trait secrets) but it makes this sectiob of the book stand out as thw worst part of the book. I find it ironic that the worst part of the book is a section I would have happily paid $30 for and still have been really happy (especially for trait secrets!!) ch. 6 = lagniappe this last chapter consists of one trick, the power of poker, I can understand why they chose this trick as the last one in the book, as it is an extremely powerful self working version of the ten card poker deal. 21. the power of poker this is the last trick in the book, and its very easy to see why. this is a ten card poker deal that is different from any other version ever made. its self working, no equivoque the spectator does everyhting, and you still end up with a perfect hand everytime. It's a great packet trick, and I made a set out of those WPT cards. This trick is amazing! summary of book = John bannon is easily my favorite magician of all time, and hopefully you can see why. Now wonder this was voted "best book of '05" by the Café! 1000000000000000000000000000000000/10 |
slydini62 Special user 939 Posts |
Great review and one of my BEST books I own!!
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Shikina Loyal user Los Angeles 260 Posts |
Seriously- thanks for an awesome review. I have a special place in my heart for Bannon, but I still don't have this book. That's gonna have to change!
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