Brown
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 12,984
I want to have it remembered that the late Martin Gardner--in addition to being a writer, philosopher, puzzler, mathematical explainer and skeptic--was a magician.
Gardner, with Randi, helped expose some of the phonies who tried to pass off simple magic tricks as genuine miracles.
Gardner also published several books and articles about how an ordinary person can do simple mentalist tricks or conjuring.
In the classic "Scarne on Card Tricks," John Scarne includes a few of Gardner's creations. One of them is a variation on "Do As I Do" that is so good that I plan never to perform the original version ever again, but will perform my take on Gardner's modified version. The trick is called "Gardner's Sympathetic Cards" and it is No. 111 in Scarne's book.
In the classical "Do As I Do," a performer and a spectator, doing what appear to be similar actions with two shuffled decks, place two cards on the table and find that they have each selected the same card.
In Gardner's version, the performer and spectator perform what appear to be similar actions with two shuffled decks, and place two cards on the table, with the respective decks sitting next to the chosen cards. When the chosen cards are tuned over, however, the spectator finds that he and the performer have NOT selected the same card. The performer then turns over the top card in his deck, and it is the spectator's card. "Shoot, your card was on top of my deck; I just missed!" says the performer, then quickly adds: "Hey, if you and I were doing the same things, and the top card in MY deck matched YOUR card, do you suppose that the top card of YOUR deck matches MY card?" It does! So instead of getting a one-card match, you get two cards matching!!
Even those who know "Do As I Do" will be surprised by this finish.
Gardner, with Randi, helped expose some of the phonies who tried to pass off simple magic tricks as genuine miracles.
Gardner also published several books and articles about how an ordinary person can do simple mentalist tricks or conjuring.
In the classic "Scarne on Card Tricks," John Scarne includes a few of Gardner's creations. One of them is a variation on "Do As I Do" that is so good that I plan never to perform the original version ever again, but will perform my take on Gardner's modified version. The trick is called "Gardner's Sympathetic Cards" and it is No. 111 in Scarne's book.
In the classical "Do As I Do," a performer and a spectator, doing what appear to be similar actions with two shuffled decks, place two cards on the table and find that they have each selected the same card.
In Gardner's version, the performer and spectator perform what appear to be similar actions with two shuffled decks, and place two cards on the table, with the respective decks sitting next to the chosen cards. When the chosen cards are tuned over, however, the spectator finds that he and the performer have NOT selected the same card. The performer then turns over the top card in his deck, and it is the spectator's card. "Shoot, your card was on top of my deck; I just missed!" says the performer, then quickly adds: "Hey, if you and I were doing the same things, and the top card in MY deck matched YOUR card, do you suppose that the top card of YOUR deck matches MY card?" It does! So instead of getting a one-card match, you get two cards matching!!
Even those who know "Do As I Do" will be surprised by this finish.
