side of the envelope. Then explain,
`7 was inone of those discount stores a couple ofmonths agoandsaw a bunch of decks ofplaying cards on sale for a dollar each. At that price, my first reaction was to buy them all. But then I thought to myself, `Gee, atthatcheapprice, there must be something wrong with them,' so insteadl bought only one, and this is it."
Display both sides of the box as you casually place the envelope on the table, address side down, as if it were unimportant.
"Sure enough, when I got home and took the deck out of the box, there was some-thing wrong with it. Well, since I couldn't use it for playing card games, I thought maybe I could at least do a magic trick with it."
Take the cards
out of the box
sothat they are face down and
place the box on the table off to one side. Hold
the deck face down in dealing position in your
left hand and then pick up the envelope
be-tween your right thumb and index finger.
Ex-tend the corner of the envelope diagonally
opposite the one you are holding toward your
spectator and ask her to hold it between her
thumb and index finger. Make sure she takes
dentally feel the stamp on the underside of the envelope.
Immediately ask her to "stab" the enve-lope somewhere in the middle of the deck.
Once she has, square the pack as best you can with the envelope within. "Well, when I found out there was something wrong with he deck, I wrote to U.S. Playing Card company about it.
They wrote me back." At this point, do my handling of Bill Simon's Prophecy Move as follows.
Spread the cards from your left hand into your palm up right hand until you come to the envelope. Separate the spread at that point, taking the cards above the envelope into your right hand, leaving the envelope on top of the cards in your left hand. Outjog the envelope for about half its length with your left thumb as your right hand squares the cards it holds. Now turn your right hand palm down and take the outer right corner of the envelope between your right thumb and the now lower-most card of your right hand's packet. Then relinquish your left hand's grip on the envelope and turn your right hand palm up again. This turns the envelope over and brings its address side into view.
As the address side of the envelope comes into view, "Really, they did. See, it's addressed to me from the U.S. Playing Card Company." Point to the address and return address with the left index finger of your palm up left hand as you deliver this last line. Once everyone has read the addresses, place your left hand's face down packet on top of your right hand's face down packet and the envelope, square the deck and the envelope as best you can. Table the deck. That's the Prophecy Move. (For greater detail, see Backwards Prophecy in the section titled Moves.) Since it secretly gives the deck a complete cut, the envelope now rests between the original top and bottom card of the deck. In my case, this would place the envelope between the three and the five of diamonds.
circle as suggested by Scott Robinson and ex-plained in Opening Stab. As you spread the deck say, "You see, when I got home and took the deck out of the box, I found that there was one card missing— the four of diamonds."
Point to the envelope and act as if you just noticed that the envelope is in the location of the missing four. "And look --- you could have placed the envelope anywhere in the deck, but you placed it in the exact location of the missing four of diamonds."
Pause for a moment to let the magnitude of this accomplishment sink in. (Okay, so it may take longer than a moment.) Pick up the envelope and open its flap. "And if that wasn't amazing enough, when I opened the envelope and looked inside, do you know what Ifound?"
Invariably at this point, someone will say either the missing card or the name of the missing card. Wait for this response and act surprised by it. Then say in a somewhat exasperated manner, "No, a letter!" Your response should come as a complete surprise to your audience and should get a laugh.
Now take the folded letter out of the envelope, hand it to the spectator and ask her to read it out loud. When she has finished, refold it and place it off to the side. "So I looked back in the envelope. And,‘what' even more amaz-ing is the fact that even thoughlfailed to mention the name of the missing card in my letter, some-how they managed to send me the correct re-placement for it." As you end this sentence, hold the envelope address side down and slide the face up card out of it. Table it face up. The comment about not mentioning the card in the letter somehow seems to make the appearance of the missing card from out of the envelope more magical than it really is.
Finally, gather up the face up circular spread on the table and respread them face down in a straight line. "But you know, even though theysent me the right card, I still can't use this deck to play cards with. Do you know why?" Thistime you don't wait for an answer.
Instead, conclude by saying, "Because even though they sent me the right card, they sent it with the wrong color back!" As yousay "back,"
flip the card on the table face down to show its different colored back. Also, say "wrong col-ored back" very slowly and distinctly. This makes for a very humorous ending to your
"true" story.
Leftovers. I like Marv's routine and the words sound like something I would say to an audience. It is believable and interesting. If you like the routine, be sure to subscribe to The Minotaur after renewing your subscription to The Trapdoor. Come to think of it, you may want to prepay a couple of years of The Trap-door first.
Mary Leventhal. Mary is forty-one
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years old and lives in North Royalton, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He works at a major medical facility as a database and project re-search manager, following his Bachelor degree in mathematics and Masters degree in statis-tics. He is also a part-time instructor at the University of Akron.
He has been in magic for the last four-teen years and prefers close-up to stage magic.
To his wife Eileen's chagrin, he is now in his sixth year of publishing The Minotaur, a quarterly magazine focusing on close-up magic.
Although I'm with Eileen on this one, I would encourage you to check out Marv's publication.
It has established a niche for itself in a market filled with the corpses of other, less successful publications.
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