SCHOOL DAZE LIST AFTER THE HALLOWEEN CARDS ARE ELIMINATED:

The following list is what you will have left after getting rid of the Halloween bank of force cards. 1. Cereal 2. Chalk 3. Zebra 4. Chalkboard 5. Supermodel 6. Teacher 7. Spoon 8. Professor 9. Railroad 10. Report Card 11. Pilgrim 12. Detention 13. Pluto 14. Recess 15. Silverware 16. Playground 17. Diner 18. Homework 19. Library 20. High School 21. Army Base 22. Hospital 23. School 24. Airport 25. Coffee House 26. Hotel 27. Boat 28. Carnival 29. Zoo 30. Casino

SETTING UP FOR THE REPEAT: The repeat of the effect is quite easy to set up. I

have the Cereal card marked. It is also a short card. This means that I can cut to the Cereal card and know, for certain, that I have cut to the Cereal card. The idea of making the Cereal card a short card and cutting to it was given to me by Adam White, with his permission it is published here. The idea of marking the card was originally intended so I could find the second marked card and cut to the deck. By making the Cereal card both marked and a short card, things have been made quite easier. There is one exception to

the School theme in the list. It is number 22, which is one of the original bank of cards that was displaced. A mnemonic will be given for it in the following list as well.

Mnemonics For Remembering The School List:

Number Card Mnemonic

2 Chalk Two pieces of chalk

4 Chalkboard A chalkboard divided into

four sections

6 Teacher A one-eyed teacher (the six

looks a bit like an eye)

8 Professor The two “S’s” in professor

make up an 8

10 Report Card A straight A report card—a

Perfect 10

12 Detention Detention held after lunch

(12 pm)

14 Recess Where you’d rather be after

detention

16 Playground Imagine the 6 as a swing

and the 1 as a ladder

18 Homework The dog “8” (ate) the

homework only Once (18)

20 High School Two O’s in school for High

School (20)

22 Hospital An ambulance with the

number 22 on it in bright colors

The No-Memory Option: When I first performed this effect, I had none of the cards

memorized. I simply revealed the card before and the card after the chosen card. I would explain how for the Church card I might get the word “Steeple” and the word “Preacher” but it would not be an exact hit. Likewise for “Beach” I might get the words “Ocean” and “Sand”. I would explain how getting thoughts is a very daunting task, and the best I could do was to hope to get close to the general theme of their card. Then I would start throwing out words related to Halloween and then finally ask, “Is your card related to Halloween somehow?” Since the card was a Theme Force of Halloween, the answer was always “Yes”. This is a quite plausible plot for people to follow. After all, if

mindreading was easy, then you would be doing things other than showing them this effect.

The “Don’t Turn Over The Cards” Ploy: Another option is to NOT turn over the

helps reinforce that the cards are all different without hinting at the next principle I’m about to discuss, where you MUST turn over the previous card.

Memory Aide: Adam White gave me permission to publish this option for the effect.

The first card in the set would be something like Hairbrush. You would associate this with Toothbrush and then know that the next card is the Vampire, which you have memorized with a peg system of the Vampire brushing his teeth. I leave you to develop the peg system further, with this as a starting point.

A Bit More Scripting: Now, when I perform this effect, I usually say the following

(let’s assume they chose the Vampire card): “For ‘Church’ I might say ‘Preacher’. And for ‘Beach’ I might say ‘Sand’. Tonight, however, I am about to attempt something really difficult. Not only will I get the general theme of your card, but I am also going to try to get the exact thought out of your mind.” I then start throwing out things related to Vampires, until I get to “I keep seeing fangs and bats. I’m getting a word very strongly now. The word is Vampire.” This helps to make the revelation a bit more involved. It also helps throw a few magicians off the path of the modus operandi of the effect if you are not using the Memory Aide version.

Other Themes to Explore: You can use any theme for this deck that you feel like. You

can use Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Saint Patrick’s Day, Outer Space, Computers/Technology, and many other themes.

The Opening Gag: The cards I have been using are bridge-sized playing cards that I

printed on with a Sharpie Marker. I found a bridge-sized case to hold the cards. The case allows me to open with a really bad gag. The playing cards seem to animate inside the case. “The Animating Deck,” I say in a mock sort of voice. I then turn over the case and reveal there is a hole in the bottom. “There’s a hole in the bottom,” I say. Then I go into the effect. This “Animating Deck” has actually fooled a couple of people until I showed the bottom of the case!

Disarming Suspicion: Sometimes I put the Zoo Card underneath the Army Base Card

so that I can show the bottom two cards as being normal. If you do this, remember that the 22nd card in the second series for School Daze will be Zoo and not Hospital. Also showing the first bank of nine cards as being all different seems to disarm any suspicion of a force deck in the minds of laypeople. I do give the deck a couple of false cuts before officially starting the effect. Then I show the bank of nine non-force cards and displace those cards to the bottom.

Some Additions From Oliver Meech: Oliver Meech kindly provided the following

ideas for this routine. These ideas are shared in Oliver’s own words in italics: DRAWINGS

You could draw pictures on the cards instead of using words. This may help with the visualisation presentation (though it might telegraph the theme).

FORCE

Instead of using the counting force you could make up a Svengali deck with the cards and have them cut to a (force) card. N.B. There used to be a pre-cut blank “Cardgali”

available online.

RESET

To avoid having to un-count the cards to reset, you can cheekily get the spectator to do your reset for you! After you’ve counted down to their chosen number, you can say that to allay any suspicions of funny stuff you’d like them to re-count the cards (face down) onto the table. This returns the pile to its original order. Return the chosen card between the packets and you’re reset. Obviously, this works best when they choose a small

number.