Alexander de Cova

Where is this mar­ket­place going? A “new” trick is offered: A ver­sion of the “7 Card Monte” (click here).

Well, some sort of dis­cus­sion and spec­u­la­tion star­ted in some magic­al for­um. When read­ing this, it really raised my eye­brows. Some people appar­ently have only a little or lim­ited idea of the his­tory of magic. The basic effect and inspir­a­tion was Peter Kane’s “Gipsy Curse”. From that, the late Fred Kaps built his (unpub­lished) ver­sion, using unpre­pared cards. The Kaps routine is a blast and unmatched.

Later, José Car­oll was inspired by the Kaps routine and developed his bril­liant routine, which is pub­lished in «52 Lov­ers». Derek Dingle had some work on the same lines. Dar­win Ort­iz has a nice routine in “Scams & Fantas­ies with Cards”. So there is plenty of people out there that have been con­trib­ut­ing to that plot, the “Gipsy Curse” and the Wild Card. Espe­cially Span­ish magi­cians are very famil­i­ar with that effect. There is a beau­ti­ful ver­sion on the Dani DaOrt­iz web­site for down­load. It is well-known and on the way to becom­ing a clas­sic. Basic­ally, it is a wild card done under the premise of of Monte effect. I am sure there are oth­er ver­sions as well, which I am not aware of …

The deal­ers offer us a “new” trick, there is even a gim­mick involved that “does the work” for you. Giv­en that some of the above men­tioned ver­sions are done all without trick cards, using a gim­mick in that routine seems like a little step back.

I prefer the oth­er ver­sions. Pepe Car­oll’s routine, for example, is just a thing of beauty. Read­ing the books really pays off …

I love the cat­egory “hacks” on this blog, which deals with fix­ing small prob­lems in our magic­al life. This is one of those “hacks” that are inten­ded to make a magi­cian’s life more com­fort­able and more trouble-free.

The Mul­lica Wal­let is a great thing. But then, the remov­al and the shift­ing of the signed card under­neath the wal­let some­times makes trouble—also, the hid­ing of the slit of the smal­ler wal­let. I loved the port­fo­lio (s), and I hated it (for those reas­ons). Need to force me to con­tin­ue to work on it for a solu­tion. Both prob­lems solved now in the «de Cova way».

To hide the slit, I put a Post-it note onto the small wal­let with a shop­ping list, humor­ous com­ment (“The Card is Hid­den in Here!” or some oth­er crap), whatever. This note also serves as an addi­tion­al men­tal mis­dir­ec­tion later. The bill aligns pre­cisely with the slit and over­laps (the wal­let) a little bit. Then, this over­lap will give you, even more, cov­er when you pull the signed card from the compartment.

The next thing I changed was the place­ment of the small wal­let. I just lay it into the big­ger wallet—no fum­bling around try­ing to push the smal­ler one into the com­part­ment. Just lay it in there, note side up.

Hand­ling

With the signed card loaded under­neath the big­ger wal­let, open it. With the oth­er hand, remove the smal­ler portfolio.

The smal­ler wal­let is removed, the big­ger closed. Lower can be shown freely, the edge of Post-it note cov­ers the slit.
At this point, you can show the smal­ler wal­let from both sides, which you do. Mean­while, the right hand closes the big­ger wal­let by flip­ping the left side over.

Now for the move that took me years (!) to fig­ure out, even though it is so logic­al and self-evid­ent. But then the tree and the forest thing. Or maybe only because I am a stu­pid and slow guy. 🙂

Instead of doing now all the com­plic­ated shift­ing of the signed card under­neath that wal­lets (as writ­ten in those instruc­tions), free you mind an do it the «de Cova way». The broad­er port­fo­lio is placed merely on top of the smal­ler one, and you imme­di­ately turn over both wallets!

Now your signed card is loaded securely under­neath the smal­ler one, which you can take (along with the signed card). Put the big­ger wal­let aside, open the small one and pro­duce the card.

Sounds simple? It is! The 1 second it takes for the turnover is less noticed by the spec­tat­ors than the fum­bling under­neath, try­ing to get the card from wal­let to wal­let. Give it a try, and I am sure you will use this. Thank you Tom Mul­lica, for giv­ing us your bril­liant wal­let. And I have to thank myself for work­ing on it and devel­op­ing hand­ling that makes me happy.

Share this at the Black­pool Con­ven­tion (but only with the right and essen­tial people) for the bene­fit of the oth­er magi­cians! But don’t tell them it’s mine, pre­tend you inven­ted this. Prob­ably will get you a pint or two 😉

Jon Allen’s “Par­agon” ist fine. It is a real advance­ment in “Signed Fol­ded Card to Clear Box”. I like it, because my LAGER Switch was instru­ment­al in that. So I was sort of instru­ment­al in the exist­ence of “Par­agon” as well. Fine feel­ing, makes me a bit proud. Tickles the ego. Here is what people say:

“Wow! Wow! Wow! I’m com­pletely fooled! This is the only way people should do this trick!” – Nich­olas Einhorn

“You bas­tard!” – Wayne Dobson

“Awe­some! I *really* like it!” – Michael Weber

“Par­agon is finally it. Job done. Now every­one can stop think­ing of new meth­ods for the card in clear box. Jon Allen won.” – Mark Elsdon

Well – nice quotes from nice people. Surely helps with the sales of the trick, which is good for every­body. It would seem that there is noth­ing to top that. Noth­ing that com­pares with it. The end of the lad­der is reached. Or is it?

But is it really the only way people should per­form that trick? I don’t think so.

Is there really noth­ing else? I don’t think so.

End of the lad­der reached? I don’t think so.

For me, there could be a lot more after that end of the lad­der: Show the clear box on the out­stretched (empty) hand, hold it in front of spec­tat­or, have him remove the lid, have him take out the fol­ded card. That simple. Dump (pun inten­ded) the Switch. This is the end of my lad­der at the moment …

Impossible?

No.

I do have a way for that (unpub­lished and under­ground). Had it long before I cre­ated the LAGER Switch”. Changed the moment. Clas­sic Erd­nase quote. But it works. Changed the think­ing, the attack on the trick and mech­an­ics fol­lowed nat­ur­ally. It works. Think­ing out of the box (in that case, a won­der­ful pun, and inten­ded!) made it.

Ver­non was right with his “Magi­cians tend to stop think­ing too early.”

I agree. Nev­er ever stop thinking …

Q: Are you going to be in Black­pool this year?

A: No.

Q: Why not? It’s great! Tons of magic …

A: No, it’s not all that great really. Yes, there is tons of. But not neces­sar­ily tons of magic that I like, unfortunately.

Q: Why? 3000 magi­cians friends there, lots of inter­na­tion­al stars, lec­tures, gala shows. There will be some­thing for everybody!

A: I don’t have 3000 friends in magic. I don’t know 99% of these people. They are strangers to me. I don’t know the magic they do. I don’t care for the stars, because they also don’t care for me. They are stars, yes, but I am not. Also, I am not too fond of watch­ing oth­er magi­cians doing there stuff. They do their shows with tricks that are not of interest to me or any good for me and my work. They do theirs, I do mine – why should I watch? They don’t watch me either. Don’t want my head with its lim­ited capa­city to explode from ideas that I’ll nev­er need or wanted to do. And the magi­cians I’d really like to meet – they are not there! Maybe they also have no friends at magic conventions.

Q: But sure you have at least a few friends in magic and it would be a won­der­ful oppor­tun­ity to meet them there!

A: With 2000+ con­ven­tion­eers, there is hardly any time to talk to someone ser­i­ously and with tak­ing some time. I had it once that I met someone the first day and then did­n’t see him any­more dur­ing the whole con­ven­tion. Van­ished into thin air! Ended up stand­ing out­side smoking and talk­ing use­less bull­shit about the weath­er to people that I did­n’t know. And that was really great, going up all the way to UK to a magic con­ven­tion and stand­ing out­side talk­ing about the UK weath­er (which then was fine, by the way). Even my very few friends are so busy at that con­ven­tion that they don’t have the time to talk to anybody.

Q: Come on … every­body is going there. It’s a must! It is the con­ven­tion of them all! It is the biggest and best magic con­ven­tion in the world! It is an event not to be missed!

A: Because every­body is going there, I don’t need to, I am not missed by any­body, because because I am sort of nobody. I don’t want to meet and rub shoulders with every­body. Nobody cares for any­body except him- or her­self. And I have no prob­lem in miss­ing an event. I missed so much in my life, that one more event to be missed does­n’t really count. And big­ger does­n’t mean neces­sar­ily better.

Q: Think about the great magic you are going to see and learn! You would miss a great opportunity!

A: I don’t want to see and learn all of the “magic” there. Most of it does­n’t suit my style or my pro­jects any­way. I have more than enough to do with my own magic … think­ing about that … work­ing on that … per­fect­ing that. I know what I want to do and know what I have to do to acchieve that. New tricks are of no help for that. Don’t need more ‘new’ tricks and routines. Fed up with that. Haven’t even read all the really import­ant things from the old books. No more stor­age room for more use­less stuff. New tricks and gim­micks are well dis­guised time thefts. Attic space thefts. Money thefts. Energy thefts. And liars.

Q: But the deal­er­’s fair is the best in the world! Over a hun­dred deal­ers exhib­it­ing the new­est and coolest stuff! Rare gim­micks, tricks, novelties …

A: They are selling tricks, as magic deal­ers are sup­posed to. They do their job well, oth­er­wise they would­n’t sell. But they are not selling magic, wis­dom or exper­i­ence. They are selling tricks, gim­micks and dreams. I am not inter­ested in buy­ing more tricks, that don’t even fit into my routines. Tired of new tricks. Tired of the hype. I am inter­ested in work­ing on good magic and cre­at­ing stuff that works in the real world for real people. I would buy some really qual­ity props, but then in these times they seem to be hard to find. No use nor interest for me to impress oth­er magi­cians or (often) fans of magic with the new­est gad­get I bought. No interest for me to ruin oth­er people’s selfies with my stu­pid face show­ing my new­est tricks or being caught help­less in the middle of the deal­er­’s fair not know­ing what tricks to buy. And remem­ber – new tricks and routines are well dis­guised time thefts!

Q: You could sell some of your stuff there! Make big profits! It’s a really great chance for your products to get known to new customers!

A: No, I can­’t. I have no deal­er­’s booth. And not enough ‘hip’ stuff to sell …

Q: But then … just run around and do some pro­mo­tion for your stuff! Get out your busi­ness cards, talk to the people and the like …

A: If I do, I would be banned for my life­time from this con­ven­tion! I could­n’t live with that.

Q: But then think about the great time you will have in the pubs, the ses­sions in the Ruskin’s and all the oth­ers of them, the social­ising with oth­er magicians!

A: Yeah … the pubs used to be great, when smoking was allowed back then. Now I always have to stand out­side, freeze and talk to idi­ots like me that also still smoke. And the ses­sions some­how mutated into mostly card moves I nev­er will be able to do. Looks like an ser­i­ous ill­ness, people run­ning around with a deck of cards all the time and nervously fid­dling around with it. But most of the moves are not involved into com­plete routines. They are just naked moves. Pretty bor­ing. You­tube live. And I get nervous very quickly when I have to watch so many moves and am sup­posed to find them ter­rif­ic, at the same time think­ing how and when I can politely sneak out for my next cigarette …

Q: Well, com’ooon … don’t be a stu­pid guy! You will come to Blackpool!

A: I am stu­pid guy, maybe that’s the reas­on I am not booked for doing any­thing there at this con­ven­tion. And when I am not booked, I usu­ally don’t go to magic conventions …

Again, Seth God­in, who wrote that in his newsletter:

Of course it is. The defin­i­tion of a thrill is tem­por­ary excite­ment, usu­ally exper­i­enced for the first time.

It’s thrill­ing to ride a roller coast­er. The fifth time you have to ride it, though, it’s more than a chore, it’s torture.

The defin­i­tion of the thrill is that it’s going to be gone soon.

You might have been thrilled to go to your first job the first day. Or thrilled to see the first com­ment on your blog or thrilled the first time one of your books was trans­lated into anoth­er language.

But after that? How can repeat­ing it be thrilling?

The work of a pro­fes­sion­al isn’t to recre­ate thrills. It’s to show up and do the work. To con­tin­ue the jour­ney you set out on a while ago. To make the change you seek to make in the universe.

Thrill­ing is fine. Mat­ter­ing is more important.

How true, and espe­cially in magic. How many times do we seek the ‘thrill’, just buy­ing a new trick, gim­mick or book. We do most of the times not really want to learn how to handle it prop­erly and then put it in front of an audi­ence show after show, just like a pro­fes­sion­al does. We look for the thrill. Once we had it, we’d seek the next one.

How much bet­ter would it be to select just a few tricks, get thrilled by them and after for­get­ting about the thrill, get on with the work on these tricks. And then, like pro­fes­sion­als, ‘show up and do the work’ …

Someone pos­ted this clip from the MagiFest 2016 on Face­book and I just could­n’t stop watch­ing and won­der­ing about it:

Well, cer­tainly the guys do ser­i­ous, advanced moves and pos­sess skill. Cer­tainly they worked hard and a long time on these moves. But then – watch care­fully and con­cen­trate on the very spe­cial way they handle the coins. It looks really, really strange to me.

Seems we magi­cians have some­how for­got­ten how nor­mal people handle objects, in this case coins. We are appar­ently com­pletely in love with our ‘hand­ling’ and the moves, diving into our own world of dreams. We lost the abil­ity to see things how they are. We lost the view of a layper­son. I think a nor­mal per­son see­ing this might think: “What’s wrong with this guy? Very strange way he handles the coin …”

I nev­er saw these strange move­ments with Kaps, Gos­h­man, Slydini, Ver­non, Ram­sey, just to name a few. I miss these truly nat­ur­al and nor­mal coin hand­ling. What we seem to have these days is a very strange pat­tern of move­ments in coin magic.