I read something the other day about the value of keeping things simple, direct, and easy to understand. So, naturally, my first thought was, "what would be the exact opposite of that?"

I haven't come up with anything concrete, but I wonder if it would be possible to create a sort of comedy routine involving "The World's Most Complicated Card Trick." It would be a trick which would be ninety-nine percent extremely complicated fast talking patter with an absurd premise, like shuffling a deck of cards and instantly arranging them to form the largest known prime number, or pi to the Nth decimal place, or something. Perhaps the patter would involve extremely obtuse and overlong mathematical equations, to the point where the spectator is thoroughly baffled and has no idea what's going on--but in a good way. The thing that would keep people interested would be your ability to deal out the exact numbers you need to fit the equations despite the constant reshuffling. Dealing out pi to the twenty-fifth decimal place lightning fast could be funny, if played correctly ("Sir, would you care to verify that this is indeed pi to the twenty-fifth decimal place, and not just some random number I came up with on the spot?"). Obviously, there would be a time and place for this, but it seems like there might be a routine in that idea somewhere.

This could perhaps also work as a parody of card tricks that require math and/or counting. In fact, that might be the best way to present it.

My other idea was to do the cups and balls with a ridiculous number of cups. Perhaps fifteen or twenty. ("Well, that's how they do it... This is how I do it!" and quickly produce and unstack all the cups). Again, it would probably have to play as a comedy routine and it would have to move extremely fast. Lines like, "and yes, the ball is under the middle one!" might be funny. You'd need to do your final loads from a bag or something, of course.

-Travis

P.S. Oh, and I'm sure this has already been done many times, but it occurs to me that a stolen watch might make a good final load for a chop cup routine, or stolen watches good final loads for a C&B routine. Or would that be mixing two different climaxes to ill effect?

Presented with just a bit of absurd context, this sounds pretty good. Imagine a counting trick where you involve spelling out phone numbers, license plates, what color lipstick a woman has in her purse etc till you find... not the card, then accuse someone of lying about one of the pieces of information you requested to mess up your trick... or of being a witch!

Another possibility that strikes me is of doing a coin trick while speaking the script for something else, like a four ace trick. Perhaps by using the patter for MacDonald's aces and the actions of a coin assembly, the tricks might end with something close to a congruent finish?

Yeah, I like the "incongruent patter" idea, I can see that working. Starting a coin routine with "Pick a card, any card!" might be funny. And as long as the coin trick was very visual and clear, I think the effect could be nice. I don't know the McDonald's Aces trick, but if it's some kind of ace assembly, then I can see how the patter from it could match up with the coin effect at the end.

I like card tricks, but I also think that they can be a bit silly. Stuff that "takes the p***" a little, as long as it's still magical, sounds good to me. The "complicated" card trick idea makes fun of those irritating counting tricks, and the "wrong patter" trick makes fun of how magicians do card tricks all the time--it just gets ingrained.

-Travis

I don't know if it will help but in paul Harris colse up entertainer he has an effect an effect where he rips a playing card into the shape of a butter fly and flotes it just an idea that may help