Category Archives: general

books, general, history

7♥ Week Seven

Leave a comment

On December 27 1904 newspapers began to relay the news that the body of a young woman found on Cutler Mountain with a gunshot wound to the head and face burned beyond recondition was Bessie Bouton.

Bouton had been staying with a man at the Albany Hotel during the spring and though the couple were registered under the name of G. Bouton. It was believed that the man was a gambler named Milton Franklin.

It seems that Milton Franklin was long gone by the time the body was identified (and if you are interested in how you may want to read this article in The Desert Evening News about how Bouton’s hairdresser helped with some turn of the century CSI work) and the next place we catch up with him is at The National Sporting Club in Sydney, Australia where Andrews, now using the name Brush and traveling with Nulda Petrie, a beautiful young French-Canadian woman, meet J. William Ellis.

image_612x817_from_0,1_to_6462,8621Ellis, Brush (Andrews) and his young wife board the Sonoma, a steamer headed for San Francisco, with a stopover in Honolulu, and eventually end up renting a house in Berkeley. This is where things go wrong and because these are real people I know the violence should not be glorified in any way but I can not keep myself from smiling every time I read Ellis’ account of the attempt on his life.

This is from the San Francisco Call November 7 1905

“I had just seated myself and was raising a spoonful of marmalade to my mouth when I was struck from behind. I fell off the chair. I was not entirely unconscious and got a glance of Brush standing behind me with a hammer in one hand and a dagger in the other. I attempted to rise, and as I did so he struck me two more blows, He then put his hands in my hip pocket and took five $100 American bills that I had with me. This seemed to bring me to my senses and I struck him on the jaw with my left hand. I then rose and found the woman standing and pointing a revolver at me. This I knocked from her hand with my right had and made for the door as fast as I possibly could in my dazed condition. Just as I arrived at the door he made a terrivle lunge at me with the hammer again.”

Ellis was very nearly killed but there is something about the marmalade and even though he had been hit in the head with a hammer three times being robbed of $500 was enough to ‘bring him to his senses and allow him to fight off two people armed with a hammer, a knife and a gun that put the story in to the better than fiction category.

I’ll wrap up the murder story next week and may even have my copy of Barton’s book by then so can start to discover the links between M. F. and EATCT.

I’ve spent the last week focused on The Mexican Turnover, for those familiar with the move I am sure you can agree this is almost as exciting to practice as dealing cards with your wrong hand. If you don’t know the move it is one of the reasons you can never win a game of Three Card Monte when the big money is on the table.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that a first edition of EATCT was up for auction in Chicago. It was expected to go for $3000 – $4000 according to the catalog. The final bid came in at $13 000!

general

5♥ Week five

2 Comments

5heartsPractice, practice, practice. I have done a lot of it over the last week. I can now sit down at a table and deal out cards in a right handed manner well enough that people wouldn’t give it any thought but I certainly have a ways to go before being able to preform holding the deck this way. It has made me think about what it is we aim for when learning a new slight.

Any style of preforming art requires great amounts of practice if you want to be seen as great. It is often considered a compliment to say ‘they danced so beautifully that it seemed effortless’. Magic takes that an extra step, the point is not that the movement looks effortless but that it doesn’t ‘look’ at all. Being able to deal hands of cards should look smooth and effortless and I am getting close to achieving that right handed but doing any of the moves found in EATCT shouldn’t look effortless they should look exactly like not doing them at all.

The shuffles at the beginning of the book are not to far from being unseen. I haven’t filmed any of my practicing sessions yet because I don’t believe anyone would really want to watch ‘almost undetectable’ false shuffle. I tend to have a tick at the same spot each time and so am trying to spend time practicing while watching something else. It is a simple enough move that I don’t need to be worrying about dropping cards and if I am not watching I am building that muscle memory and not stalling due to the my brain thinking ‘okay here comes the move, pretend it isn’t happening’.

It is strange though, devoting all this time so that one day I can ‘Watch this’ and have the spectator see nothing at all.

Then there is the section on shifts that I am not sure how much time to devote. It is a strange category of moves. They are knacky, angle sensitive moves that have no place in the cheating end of things and many argue they don’t have a necessary place in the magic side of things either. It is a move that tends to be misunderstood by beginners – the advice that a larger action hides a smaller movement is often taken to extremes by beginners and I’ve seen videos on youtube where the performer comes dangerously close to punching themselves in the face. When done well it is an unnoticed move but rarely is it mastered to the point of really being invisible.

My introduction to downloadable magic instructions was actually a video that focused on a couple versions of the move and I believe there was a point in time where I could do a passable job but it always seemed like there were easier ways to control the cards. All that said I am still a ways off from the sections of Shifts so maybe by the time I get there I’ll be excited about working on them.

books, general

4♥ Week Four

Leave a comment

The reader who has prepared himself with a knowledge of the position given for hand shuffling, and the definitions of the list of terms, will have no difficulty in understanding the above directions, and executing the blind at the very first attempt. However, as a first lesson in the A, B, C of card manipulation, the following description of the action is given at length, viz.:

2014-01-22 19.22.06In other words you should already know how to do this. The first actual lesson we get to in EATCT is a shuffle to retain the top stock. As far as a false shuffle goes this is probably as simple as it gets. An undercut and an in-jog and you are good to go. Reading though various forums it is often stated that this is not a good beginners book, though it is a book everyone should own, so I am glad that he does start off with some very basic shuffles. I do already know how to do this so am using the learning time to get the hang of it from a right handed position.

Switching hands has become an interesting experience. I have been practicing dealing and simple shuffles while I watch TV or listen to podcasts and the motions are coming along, dealing out five hands of cards does not take a lot of concentration, but I have discovered that keeping the cards in the hand I want does. Last night I was watching Andrew Main’s new magic show on A&E well I dealt though deck after deck. There was a point that I thought ‘this is starting to feel quite natural’ only to look at my hand and realize I had subconsciously switched back to dealing like a lefty. The worst part was not knowing when I had made the switch and how many decks I had dealt though that way. Sigh.

Even though it is not covered in EATCT I’ve decided to stick with a strike-second as taught in Jason England’s Foundations 1. I find it an every so slightly easier transition while dealing particularly while trying to train up opposite hands. I figure I can always come back to the couple that Erdnase discusses at a later point in time.

I’ve been working with a deck of Bee’s for the first time and have yet to make my mind up about them. I see why they would be preferred when dealing seconds and such, even at the extremely inept level of seconds that I am able to deal at the moment, but as general use card they seem to have worn out faster than a pack of bikes. Though now that I think of it I guess I am putting many more hours use into these than I have any other cards in recent years.

As a read though I enjoyed Erdnase’s style and like the use of language in the book. It was published in 1902 and this is evident in the use of language, the quote at the beginning as an example. It could be seen as being a little wordy but, well I like words so I am okay with this. I am probably most looking forward to working on palms and shifts as the are moves that I have little experience with.

Completely unsurprising to myself the bit I probably enjoyed the most was the description of Three Card Monte. EATCT is not a lengthy book so it is a pretty basic look at the game but I am still excited to work the routine with just the moves described. I’ve always loved monte routines and have a growing collection of people take on the ‘game’. Lately I have been working on Ollie Mealing’s handling and am starting to get comfortable with it. Erdnase presents a straight forward ‘this is how it’s played’ set of instructions.

My copy of Erdnase Unmasked has shipped, I look forward to reading and reviewing it soon.

general

3♥ Week Three

Leave a comment

To become an adept at second dealing is as difficult a task as can be given in card handling, but once acquired, like many other arts, it is as easy as habit.

This is an example of how little previous experience I have with EATCT. In thinking about my goals for the year a passable second deal was top of the list. It is a move I have always been fascinated by and even remember being accused of using when playing cards at school. I have never attempted to do it but assumed that it would be something that a fair bit of time was devoted to in the book.

Turns out there are roughly two pages discussing the second deal and half of one page is taken up with illustrations. I was a bit surprised but it just shows that I don’t have much more experience with Erdnase than I do with dealing seconds.

It is not going to affect my goal at all. I want to transition myself to dealing like a right-handed person would, which means I need to spend a bunch of time just dealing cards, so I might as well spend that time dealing seconds.

Jason England has a great section in Fundamentals 1 going over the strike second, which interestingly is not one of the ways mentioned by Erdnase, so I am going to work on that as I deal countless right handed hands.

I’ve never quite made up my mind on Daniel Madison but I do like these cards and love the commercial.

 

The Dealers by Daniel Madison from Ellusionist on Vimeo.

books, general

2♥ Week Two

Leave a comment

A common problem I run into when embarking on a new project is just how quickly, and far, I tend to fall down the rabbit hole of what ever subject has caught my interest.

I am working with a a plain old Dover paperback copy of EATCT which cost $12. It is a perfectly acceptable edition for this years project. That doesn’t mean, however, that I am satisfied with owning only it. If money wasn’t a factor I would be registering an account with Potter Auctions where a first edition is about to hit the block. It is expected to go for $3000 – $4000 according to the catalog so just slightly more than what I can justify right now.

erdnase-6_1Closer to my price range is the waterproof edition that is available over at Dan & Dave‘s website (and other online Magic shops like magictrick.com). At $25 and with those ever enticing words ‘Limited Edition’ attached to it I can see myself picking one of those up in the not too distant future. I also came across a Erdnase notebook that has all the text removed but the line drawings still in their proper places that I think would be great for logging my progress once I am a little more active with working on the moves.

One thing that I have ordered is a copy of Unmasking Erdnase by David Ben and published through Magaicana. It is listed as sold out on Magicana’s website but I believe I was able to track one down.

My humble Dover edition is all I truly need but I am sure by the end of the year I will have a nice little section on my bookshelf devoted to this project.

Progress on the read though is a little slow this week. I am part of a slightly out of control book club and am trying to finish off a couple of titles from that list and much of my ‘Magic Time’ is being spent working on the routine I am going to be preforming at the club’s annual dinner in February.