Tarot Day By Day

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Bob Farmer
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Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » May 12th, 2020, 6:53 pm

My library is a mess so, given the present unpleasantness, and the need to keep busy, I decided it was time to clean it up. I get to the B section and I find an obvious trick book entitled Tarot Day By Day by F. Abraxas Winters. It looks like a Tarot book but each day has a playing card opposite it. There's also a Steven Wright quote that's hilarious. It was in the same area as my John Bannon books. I have no recollection of where this came from.

Anybody out there know what this is?

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Richard Kaufman » May 12th, 2020, 7:53 pm

Strangely, Google finds nothing.
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MysteriousDrM
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby MysteriousDrM » May 12th, 2020, 10:28 pm

Bob,
Tarot Day By Day is the 90 page paperback book produced by Bannon to accompany his 2013 Gregorian Chance (subtitled Magic With Cards And Calendars) booklet which outlined three tricks themed around the "diary" or "calendar" effect.

Bob Farmer
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » May 13th, 2020, 9:29 am

Thank you. John Bannon confirms this.

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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » May 14th, 2020, 9:58 am

I have obtained a copy of "Gregorian Chance," from John. It is a brilliant discussion and implementation of the diary trick. Anyone interested in this effect, would find the information invaluable.

Anthony Vinson
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Anthony Vinson » May 14th, 2020, 5:48 pm

Is it the same as what he published in Mentalissimo?

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Spellbinder
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Spellbinder » June 11th, 2020, 3:47 pm

Similar to what you describe is Jim Gerrish's "Cardless Card Trick" based on a concept by mentalist Ford Kross and adapted by mentalist Bob Cassidy. It could easily be performed with Tarot cards, but Jim uses regular playing cards in the explanation. It is basically a Dollar Store daily Diary (a cheap weekly calendar planner from the Dollar store) that has random playing card names written next to each date on the calendar. A playing card is selected. Someone names a random date, and you look up the date on the calendar to read aloud the name of the card written at that date. The date has predicted the card that would be chosen. It's a little more complicated than that, but that is the basic idea. Best of all, if interested in making one, you'll find it all laid out for you here: https://www.magicnook.com/WizJournal/WJ ... sCardTrick
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Bob Farmer
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » June 11th, 2020, 4:52 pm

Here is a brief history of this type of effect.

The prescient, “The Mysteries of the Zodiac” in August Roterberg's New Era Card Tricks (1897, p.p. 116-124) may be the first published use of playing cards connected to birthdays. After that, came a multitude of effects that use a datebook, the spectator’s birthday and a card written in the datebook that corresponds to that birthday.

For our purposes, the key version is Ted Danson’s, “It's a Date” (New Pentagram, Vol. 2 No. 1, Mar. 1970, p. 1).

A card found listed next to a spectator's birthday in the performer's datebook matches a predicted playing card sealed in an envelope that has been in full view the entire time. This was marketed as “Danson's Diary.” A more accessible write-up appears in Come A Little Closer, edited by John Derris (L&L Publishing, 1998, “It’s A Date,” pp. 26-29).

In the Danson method, six datebooks are used, though only one is known to the audience. Two force cards, the 3D and the 8C, are entered in the datebooks so that no matter what date the spectator picks, a datebook can be produced that has one of the two force cards written in beside that date.

A two-way out envelope is used so that either card can be shown as the correct prediction. This simple out device, combined with only two cards being in play, means the envelope can be in full view from the beginning of the effect.

This effect presents the basic elements of the methodology:
• The number of cards.
• The number of datebooks.
• The number of outs.

Danson used 2 cards, 6 datebooks and 2 outs.

If any one of those elements is changed, the number of the other element changes. For example, by using more cards and more outs, the number of datebooks can be reduced.

Some of the more modern incarnations with marked improvements, are: Bob Cassidy’s, “Chronologue,” first marketed by Collectors’ Workshop in 2002 (which uses odd/even dates to cue a particular card), Lewis Jones’s "Calendar Card" (pp. 154-159, Seventh Heaven by Lewis Jones, published by Lewis Jones, 2009), Alex Elmsley’s “Fate’s Datebook” (pp. 430-431, pp. 433-439, The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley, Volume 2, by Stephen Minch) and Paul Green’s version of the Elmsley trick, “The Fortuneteller’s Book of Days,” (L&L Publishing, 1996). Paul Green’s version is particularly enchanting: it is a special book entitled, “The Fortuneteller’s Book of Days,” and each date has a card and a psychic reading associated with that card. This was a small hardback book.

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Brad Jeffers
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Brad Jeffers » June 11th, 2020, 10:51 pm

Here is something in reference to the Paul Green version that I posted a while back ...

An alternative to using the L&L product is to make your own using the Fortune-Telling Birthday Book, which can be purchased at Barnes & Noble, and upon which the Fortuneteller's Book of Day's is based.

It will require quite a bit of work to write the name of a playing card 365 times; and although not strictly necessary; should be done by someone with nice handwriting.

In the end you will have something unique.

A nice thing about doing it yourself is that you are not bound to the set-up used in the L&L book, but can make up your own.

If you do any memorized deck work, then you can use that as your set-up. That is, card one of your stack will be Jan 1, card two - Jan 2, etc.
When you get to Feb 1 you start over, so you utilize only the first 31 cards of your memorized deck. Now when they tell you their birthday, you immediately know the card and its location in the deck. You can now proceed as in Alex Elmsley's Fates Datebook (which is Elmsley's handling of The Trick That Cannot Be Explained) but you don't have to spread the cards, as you already know exactly where the card lies within the deck.

Now, not only can you make the Elmsley routine even more miraculous than it already is, you can do it without the need for a table.

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Bob Farmer
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » June 13th, 2020, 5:45 pm

Brad: Great tip. I've ordered a couple.

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Matthew Field
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Matthew Field » June 14th, 2020, 3:44 am

I might add Patrick Page's great "Old Moore's Diary" trick, still available from http://www.PatrickPageMagic.co.uk. It's also described in the big "Magic Page by Page" book I edited, along with two Ted Danson diary versions.

Bob Farmer
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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » June 14th, 2020, 10:03 am

Thanks Matt: I'll add that to the references.

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Re: Tarot Day By Day

Postby Bob Farmer » June 14th, 2020, 10:49 am

Patrick Page and Ronald Wohl improved the Danson method with a clever addition. There is one deck and it is stacked. The spectator tells you what day of the month he was born on (e.g., the 11th) and the deck is used to count down to that day. Then the count is continued with the month of the year (e.g. September, count off 9 more cards). This procedure nails one of 43 cards. The count can also be done by the month first and then the day of the month. See, “Ted Danson’s Diary Trick,” pp. 96-97, and “The Ultimate Variation: Old Moore’s Diary,” pp. 99-100, both in Magic Page By Page by Patrick Page, Patrick Page Magic Limited, 2011.


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