In the previous chapter I mentioned that the Backslip is a somewhat controversial move. I probably overstated that somewhat, as ―controversy‖ seems to suggest that a lot of people have
opposing views on it, whereas the truth is there aren‘t many people who object to the move, but those who do object to it, do so quite vehemently depending upon when it‘s used. I‘ll get to that in a second, though.
“The Backslip”
No problem with the description here. Nate Leipzig‘s touch is well worth noting, and I never do the move without using this subtlety. You can get perfect cover here.
“The Backslip Force”
…and here we go. Lots of performers, including some noteworthy ones, use this force. Richard Osterlind even uses it twice in a row in a great routine. I‘ll even admit that I‘ve used it when I‘m arbitrarily expanding the Multiple Selection and Rev elation routine to allow for an extra
spectator — it‘s a good enough surprise to use early on to reveal a selection, and I‘ve sometimes used it in conjunction with a couple of different riffle-style force-revelations (including one that fails, to set up a colour-change).
And it‘s not hard to see why people use it. As the book states, it‘s easy to get into and execute, it‘s reasonably deceptive, and if you know what you‘re doing you can get a full routine out of a single card force. So why not use it?
Here‘s the theory (in large part thanks to T yler Erickson). If you‘re going to have a card selected by somebody, there are three main situations you need to be ready for. The first is with the
magician holding the cards, and the spectator close by. The second is with the magician holding the cards, and the spectator at a distance. The third is with the spectator holding the cards
themselves.
Obviously, the third situation doesn‘t apply here, but if you consider what is probably the most fair and natural for situation 1 and 2, it‘s difficult to justify a selection procedur e via the
backslip. If they‘re close by, the fairest and most straightforward way is from a spread. Ideally, if you‘re going to force a card on a spectator, they‘ve got to leave with the impression that the selection of the card was an innocent and guile-free procedure. The more of a non-event the selection is, a lot of the time, the better. A riffling procedure makes sense if the spectator isn‘t close enough to take a card for themselves, but from close-up? Not easy to justify. Some
magicians might argue that if you know how to manage your audience, nobody will complain. Well, yeah, few people are going to complain out loud in the middle of a magic show, but what about within their own thoughts? Some of those magicians might argue that people won‘t even notice. If you‘ve worked long enough for regular audiences then you know that there are a large number of people for whom that‘s true — some people don‘t know or care. However, if you‘ve
worked long enough for regular audiences then you know that there are a large number of people for whom that‘s not true at all — they won‘t be happy unless they grab the cards from your
hands, choose one for themselves, and put it back in the deck and then shuffle themselves, before giving you the cards back. Not everybody is an easy audience, and the more you can work
without triggering suspicions, the better.
The second situation, when the spectators are at a distance, does allow you to motivate some slightly unnatural ways of having a card selected. After all, they‘re not close enough to take from a spread, right? At this point, we switch from hav ing extremely natural ways to having extremely fair ways. The one force that comes closest to the backslip force is the riffle force, but o ne key difference about it is that, for the riffle force, you‘re able to cleanly open the point they say ―stop‖ at like a book and flash it outwards. You can even motivate it further by saying that even if the card was marked somehow, you couldn‘t possibly know what the card is because of all the cards behind it. You can open it up so tightly that there‘s no way anybody but the spectator could have any clue what the card is. With the backslip, though, all of a sudden that Nate Leipzig cover that makes it so deceptive now becomes a liability — you get a glimpse of the card next to their card, so that‘s some information a magician might use to their advantage, or else in the turnover action you can even get a glimpse of the intended selection itself (a fair suspicion, given some of the methods we have in our arsenal). One thing that we don‘t want to do is allow for the
possibility to occur to the spectator that we‘re somehow doing things to our own advantage. If nothing else, this is the sort of thing that can trigger that prototypical pain-in-the-ass spectator talked about earlier. It‘s worth mentioning that when Osterlind does the move twice in the same trick, he simply hands out the card to be selected, rather than going through the Leipzig finesse. This doesn‘t mean that the move needs to be abandoned, but it does mean giving some thought as to what your justification for using the move is. Using the force as a revelation of a card negates the suspicions talked about in the previous paragraph, since the trick terminates at that point. On his Revelations DVD series, Daryl also has a handling of the move where it‘s used as
the basis for a card stab, which is another clever way to surround the move with a context that justifies all your actions. Finally, if you‘re basically just forcing a card so that you can reveal it in
a sealed envelope, then any suspicions about glimpsing don‘t really apply, since the glimpse doesn‘t help you — ditto for those situations if the card you‘re forcing has some sort of gimmick to it where the gimmick is what‘s helping make the magic happen. The previous criticism is still applicable, though, that it turns what should be a cursory process into a bit of an event.
Is all this skepticism necessary, or even relevant? All I know is that I trust Tyler Erickson‘s thoughts on magic more than any other magician out there, and I also know that there are other magicians who‘ve silently shared his sentiment over this move. A gain, if you‘re in this for the long haul, and you‘re hoping to make your dozen or so routines as tight as possible, then coming up with the best card force for the routine that needs it is no choice to make lightly.
“The Backslip Control”
This feels somewhat convoluted to me. While it does set up an interesting situation if they buy it — that the card is placed into a packet which they then shuffle themselves — it still feels weird
to have a card replaced at a stop point, only to then take that card and jam it into the top half of the deck, which they then take to shuffle. If we were being straightforward, wouldn‘t we just let them keep the card, give them half the deck, and then let them shuffle it in themselves? There‘s a bit too much back-and-forth in this procedure. I think there are better strategies elsewhere in the book.
“The Lightning Card”
This is a good plot. Any time they‘re convinced of the location of a card, and it shows up somewhere else, you‘ve got a good moment of magic. I don‘t know that I‘d want to do it quite this way with the backslip that they describe in Royal Road, though — even if you do the move well, it strikes me as a moment that the spectator would remember, whereas if you‘re able to palm off a card without being detected, you‘ve got a stronger mystery, I think. Later on, when
we get to the double-lift, we‘ll talk about some better strategies for this type of effect. I‘m also not the biggest fan of forcing a spectator to remember both a card and a number, but then again, I‘ve performed for drinking audiences. The trick do es have the nice aspect of letting them see that the card hasn‘t travelled yet because of the riffling, even after the dirty business.
“The Tantalizer”
The first time I read this, it felt flat to me, although I know some noted cardmen, including R. Paul Wilson and Darwin Ortiz, absolutely love the plot. It‘s worth noting that Wilson added one touch to the trick which I think lifts it from being quite boring into something spectacular — in Wilson‘s handling, the final three cards that the magician is left with a re flashed at the audience, and the selection isn‘t one of them. Of course, when the magician gives himself the final card, and the card is named, the selection is shown. That one moment really makes the trick play strong, especially if you‘ve got something in there to make it seem as though the card is lost (ie: they shuffle the deck).
Now, that addition that Wilson made came on his ―Extreme Possibilities‖ DVD series, and it‘s unfortunately not impromptu. I do know that Wilson has been messing around with completely impromptu methods for doing the trick with that added flash at the end, and hopefully one of those will get published soon, because with that flash, it‘s a great trick. (He also added the idea of making it into a bet, which is another way to make it play stronger — by putting something at stake. Incidentally, another way to take this to the next level could be to have them perform the trick to themselves.)
Unfortunately, this particular incarnation of the trick doesn‘t include the flash, so to me it
basically reads like the cards are set up in some way so that you‘re dealing the card to yourself. The only way that I think this can play really strongly is to let them shuffle the cards
immediately after the replacement, as if implying that they shuffled the card to the perfect spot where you end up dealing it to yourself.
For what it‘s worth, I do like the strategy of using the backslip to set up a key card, although the Leipzig strategy couldn‘t be used here — after all, if you‘re flashing the card at the face of the top packet outwards in order to cover the move, you might as well forgo the move altogether and use that as the key card.
“Under Your Hat”
Sort of like ―the Piano‖ trick in the last chapter didn‘t have any palming in it, this trick doesn‘t use a backslip.
Anyways, it‘s extremely bold. I bet there are people who could pull this off and it would be a real barn- burner. And, of course, 20% of the time it‘s legitimately clean.
Now, take what I say with a grain of salt, because I‘ve never done this trick, but when they say that the feat is strengthened immeasurably the 20% of the time that it‘s clean, it makes me wonder if it‘s worthwhile doing the trick the other 80% of the time. There exist methods in mentalism that allow you to basically get to that point — where the spectator is reading the slip of paper to verify that it‘s theirs — and I can‘t help but wonder if one of them isn‘t worth
pursuing. Again, not as perfectly clean as that 20% scenario described in the trick, so I don‘t know if the trade-off is worth it. If you‘re curious, look into Corinda‘s 13 Steps to Mentalism if you want to know what I‘m talking about. You can send me an email if you‘re still not sure what I‘m suggesting.
General Thoughts on this Chapter
Obviously, take my concerns about the move with a grain of salt — surround it with the right context, and you will fool people with it. Just be careful with it, and un derstand why it is that you‘re using it. There‘s a big temptation to use this move as a force, and to its credit the book resists this temptation. Now, to use it as a Key Card placement will require excellent execution, since you‘re not easily able to use that great cover Leipzig designed, but if you can do it nicely without Leipzig‘s cover, then all those Key Card tricks in previous chapters are opened up to you, with a replacement that‘s potentially much nicer than the simple Key Undercut, since the card is replaced at a point of the spectator‘s choosing, where you couldn‘t possibly know the card next to it on either side. I don‘t think it‘s the best there is, but we‘ll get to those later. Next up is the second installment of the Overhand Shuffle.