The Genii Forum

Paco Nagata

My latest finish is that I straighten out the bent corner and in fact straighten out all the cards. I pass my hand over the Queen and it disappears completely. I show the two remaining jokers back and front and there is no queen. Finally I make the two jokers disappear too and then produce all thre...

Paco Nagata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SJExUhy9YY Great idea for a really good climax, Mark! I like it. Let me tell you a personal idea for the final "kick": After performing the final bent corner effect, so that the bent card is not the winner card, I insist: "Please, pay attention for th...

Paco Nagata

MagicbyAlfred wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztPiSXzsjTg

I have watched this YouTube vid one thousand times!
And I have performed it one thousand one times!
I've always loved this simple Professor's Three Card Monte routine. I have been using it as an opening in many of my family shows.

Paco Nagata

I showed my take of this MagicbyAlfred's thread on December 24th. Unfortunately it has been a week since the last time I took a look here; now I see that I have been missing very nice posts from the last week, specially the ZigZagger's one. Very good! Nontheless, and fortunately, I'm subscribed to Z...

Paco Nagata

Paco, you never need to feel inferior about your English! I would give anything to speak Spanish (or any other language) as well as you speak English. Not to mention (but to mention) tha you have written a book in English that has influenced and inspired me. Muchas gracias, Alfred, for your encoura...

Paco Nagata

I was finding kind of suspicious how incredible good he was improving his English! I didn't dare to add anything to the conversation because of some inferiority complex about my English! By the way, do you think it was also "misdirection" when he said that he didn't know how to show partia...

Paco Nagata

90% of the times I have dared to carry out a Top Change has been my means of a joke/wisecrack as a way of misdirection. Juan Tamariz usually uses jokes or witty remarks as a way of misdirection, and I learned that from him. The only difference between Tamariz and me is that people are "misdirec...

Paco Nagata

Paco?
No, no! It wasn't me!
I'm just a humble initially Rotemberg voter (^_^)

Paco Nagata

The writter may have not been specially interested in hiding his name if we assume that it is showed just backward. So, I wonder why Smith didn't want to identify the guy even decades after. Maybe the writter is actually Smith? I agree that there's another discrepancy, Paco, and thus I have questio...

Paco Nagata

That's a good story, Paco! What your friend may not have realized back at the time he thought the top change was too risky and not necessary, was the risk involved in over reliance on the double lift, and the necessity of diversifying and mixing our techniques. In so doing, we can stay a step ahead...

Paco Nagata

How strange that the illustrator recalls his lettering but not the figures. Recalls soft hands and soft voice, clothes, some small talk about family, but not the tricks or the guys name. That's one of the "little details" that most intrigues me, as "Columbo" used to say. ...or t...

Paco Nagata

One of my amateur card magician friends once told me something like: "The top change is nothing but a very risky and not very necessary technique to do good card magic; I'm not interesting in mastering that technique, besides it is quite boring to practise it." He was a good card magician ...

Paco Nagata

So, according to the "backward spelling theory" the book IS NOT an anonymous book; the writer wrote his name! And "S. W. Erdnase" IS NOT a pseudonym since it is not a name, but just a game; a joke. As if the author were fooling around with the authorship of the book. Maybe the au...

Paco Nagata

Paco, I think the Chief Genii was just mocking the recent discussions here with one of the most improbable candidates ever. ;) Or, he was just trying to misdirect us, to keep us away from the new hottest candidate... Apart from that, it certainly doesn't hurt to learn a bit more about the Golden (N...

Paco Nagata

Erdnase was Harry Kellar. Oh man! I thought I was a connoisseur of magic history as I have read quite a lot about magic, however I see that my knowledge about magic is not so good... I have never heard about Harry Kellar! I have google it and now I can say I know more about magic... Definitely than...

Paco Nagata

On the other hand, Erdnase was apparently very proud of his own creations. Being a tiny bit of a creator myself, I'd have a hard time believing that you would attach a totally unrelated name to your brain child (like the S.W.E. Shift). Hence I would argue that, no matter what the real meaning behin...

Paco Nagata

To make the case for Roterberg = Erdnase, you have to have a good explanation for why Roterberg didn't simply publish the material under his own name. Maybe he was afraid of gamblers. Gamblers may think that he was making fun exposing those sleights. As far as I know the book wasn't written as a ca...

Paco Nagata

Bill Mullins wrote:Credit for this insight goes to Tom Sawyer, not Wasshuber.

Sorry, I didn't know that.

Paco Nagata

Those are all interesting ideas, indeed most of them have been posited in one form or another before. However, none of them draw a line between Roterberg and Erdnase/EATCT ... so where are you getting that specific connection from? I guess that everything that can be said about "Erdnase" ...

Paco Nagata

Interesting, Paco! Would you share some more thoughts on this? I think there might be a connection between Roterberg and Dr. Elliott... Well, let's see: 1- First, I believe that this book was written by a card magician; not by a gambler. Why would a gambler being interested in writting a book talki...

Paco Nagata

It is specially sad to hear about a good magician by means of his passing. I didn't know about him, but at least I can look for information about his magic path now on and talk about it.
My condolences to all his friends and families.

Paco Nagata

I have noticed that there is no post of mine in this thread yet...
So, I will give my humble opinion after having read TONS of "literature" regarding this mystery.
In my opinion Erdnase is (was) August Roterberg.

Paco Nagata

I was wondering if anyone here might know whose hands are shown in THIS PHOTOGRAPH ? I think that if we know where does that picture come from we could get some idea. If you Google "card sharp stock photo" you will get a picture of an (apparently) anonymous guy from the same source of the...

Paco Nagata

Ha, ha, ha!
You fooled me; I really believed your headline!
Well, who knows, maybe this thread is good to relieve the more than 7000 posts thread "ERDNASE" and people shift here to post their comments about Erdnase...

Paco Nagata

The first time I had heard about Roy Walton was through his master piece "Oil And Queens." I fell in love with this wonderful card trick, becoming one of my favourite and frequently performed card tricks. When I performed it for my wife she was so astonished that she grabbed the Queens and...

Paco Nagata

How about using 16 beer mats (4 each of 4 brands) for a bar bet or bar trick? Just drop 4 bottle caps of the „winning“ brand (or 4 different ones) as a hidden prediction into the fist of a spectator, and you are ready to play... That's a very good one! If I were still in my "young single age&q...

Paco Nagata

No need to feel stupid or angry, Paco! This is just a friendly (yet slashing) reminder of the many flaws of our perception. This happens when we look, but don‘t see. Jan, I reckon that this is the perfect example of how magicians can do magic; making spectators look without seeing! An interesting p...

Paco Nagata

Following the good ideas proposed by Alfred, how about presenting it as well as a "coincidence"? The magician ask the spectator: "what's you four favourite picture cards?" The spectator may say "The Queens" or "The Jacks" or "The Kings". He or she co...

Paco Nagata

I did try the test... Of course I got ALL correct... CHEATING! I got FOUR correct... GUESSING! I got NONE correct... BEING HONEST! At least I can say that I'm not so bad at guessing... and I'm very good at cheating! A very funny test, Jan! I should thank you for it, but actually... I hate you for it...

Paco Nagata

I have always thought that the general idea of this wonderful card trick was Martin Gardner's, inspired (I guess) by the Hummer Parity Principle. As Alfred said there are several variations, and his "Magical Game" is a wonderful presentation! As well as his prediction great idea! Thank you...

Paco Nagata

I love that Bannon version too. I also like a lot a comical version in which the magician "explains how the trick is done": He says: "what I really do is to take the second card like so... (the magician takes clearly the second from the top card and put it aside on the table) ... but ...

Paco Nagata

As Richard pointed, Ambitious Card Routine is my insignia impromptu card trick to do anywhere at anytime when someone ask me for doing some card magic with a borrowed deck. If I had to think about others wonderful impromptu card tricks to give the impression of being a good card magician anytime wit...

Paco Nagata

You are shifting again. You don't have arguments. So, you're starting to create your own fantasies! You quote from a definition of Magic that is fantasy ("stories for children"). This is not Art of Magic by magicians. You are confusing again. That's the concept of Magic, and what I mean. ...

Paco Nagata

El Mystico wrote:The Too Perfect Theory is fifty years old this year. It's amazing how it is still going strong. I wrote a blog about it here https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/blog/ ... ous-theory

Very interesting! I read it.
Thanks for sharing it!

Paco Nagata

Pavel, as is becoming the custom, you talk for yourself without even answering what I said; you only talk about what suits you besides confusing our conversation topic, instead of being clair and easy: - Your point is to show magic as possible. - Mine is to show magic as impossible. -By means of you...

Paco Nagata

Not only is he more well-dressed and well-behaved than the other passengers, but i understand he does a phenomenal "Magician from Hat." https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/a-bunny-in-a-bowtie-in-first-class.html I guess that someone used some "conjuration" from the movie "Be...

Paco Nagata

MagicbyAlfred wrote:That is why I have said, again and again, that layman are our teachers.

That's a very good point, Alfred!
Certainly, a witty and nice observation.

Paco Nagata

I still don't know what both of you are chattering about and I just don't have the time available to go through the thread. That's because you are a well experienced magician, Mark. It's perfectly normal you can't find anything productive in this conversation, because there aren't! And that's becau...

Paco Nagata

I think one of the most perfect tricks in magic - well, at least close-up magic - is the vanish of a sponge ball from the magician's hand, and its reappearance in the spectator's hand along with the one sponge ball they believed they were holding. When the retention pass is done well, the spectator...

Paco Nagata

Problem is that you are using your definition of Magic and is bad. You say who am I to tell you what magic is. Why don't you ask the same question to yourself? Who are you to tell me that my definition of magic is "bad"? Actually, YOU addressed me FIRTS! So, it is ME who has the right to ...

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