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The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: August 25th, 2016, 5:07 pm
by MagicbyAlfred
Can anyone provide some guidance as to how I can procure the book, "The Fortune Teller's Book of Days"? From what I have seen there are terrific routines that can be performed with it and an ordinary deck of cards, very commercial, especially for females. The sites I have checked state that it is out of stock.

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: August 25th, 2016, 7:05 pm
by erdnasephile
Try here: http://www.llpub.com/zenshop/index.php? ... cts_id=367

The website of the publisher seems to indicate this is in stock. Hopefully, it will work for you.

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: August 25th, 2016, 8:43 pm
by MagicbyAlfred
Thanks a lot Erdnasephile, I appreciate it!

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: August 30th, 2016, 4:11 pm
by Stephen Burton
I noticed something peculiar about that effect. The card used are the first cards in the Si Stebbins arrangement but there is no mention of that in the instructions to the routine.

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: August 30th, 2016, 4:55 pm
by MagicbyAlfred
Stephen Burton wrote:I noticed something peculiar about that effect. The card used are the first cards in the Si Stebbins arrangement but there is no mention of that in the instructions to the routine.


Yes, that's true. However, I realized that since a cross-cut f - - c - is used in the recommended routine, there is actually no need for any set-up at all. As long as you know what card corresponds to the spectator's birthday (and without explaining why here, that is actually quite an easy matter) then you merely need to get that card to the top. That's easy, as well, even after the spectator shuffles, as you run through the deck face up, under the pretext of showing that the cards are all different and have been thoroughly mixed by the spectator, and casually cut the cards.

I have also thought about p - - - i - g off the correct card after the spectator names his or her birthday, and then handing the pack to them to shuffle. After they have shuffled, you can casually replace the card on top, and tell them to take the card that "randomly" ended up on top of the deck they just shuffled. I haven't tried that yet, though. Not sure whether or not this added convincer in the "selection" process is necessary...

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: September 1st, 2016, 5:08 pm
by Chas Nigh
For me, the Balducci force is far more convincing.

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: September 1st, 2016, 5:51 pm
by Stephen Burton
Here's a wonderful tip on this effect, check out John Luka's LINT for a fantastic (and sneaky) way of immediately repeating the effect. Page 83.

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: September 1st, 2016, 9:18 pm
by MagicbyAlfred
Chas Nigh wrote:For me, the Balducci force is far more convincing.


I am assuming that you are referring to what is sometimes referred to as the "Cut Deeper" force, where the spectator cuts a small portion and flips them face up onto the deck, then cuts again, this time deeper, again flipping the cards over on to the top of the deck, and is then asked to take or look at "the "first facedown card".

I used to really like that force and believe that it was convincing until a sharp-eyed layman pointed out the discrepancy between how few face-up cards there ended up being on top of the deck compared to how many cards there really should have been if one had cut as deeply into the deck as had apparently been done.

Upon analyzing the Balducci force, I came to the conclusion that, at best, it is confusing, and at worst, very suspicious, to a layman. Why would the deck need to be cut twice? The cross-cut force is very straightforward, and in over 20 years of using it in my professional work, I have never had a spectator express even the slightest suspicion. If time misdirection is utilized, it should get by every time.

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: December 27th, 2016, 5:38 am
by Brad Jeffers
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.
Image

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: December 27th, 2016, 10:40 am
by Brad Jeffers
Here is a puzzle ...

I am performing Fate's Datebook using my customized Fortune-Telling Birthday Book.

Someone tells me they were born on Christmas Day. Her card is the King of Spades.
Another is born on Halloween. His card is the the Three of Diamonds.
The Ace of Hearts belongs to the fellow born on New Year's Day.

What is the card for a person born on July 4 ?

Re: The Fortune Teller's Book of Days

Posted: December 27th, 2016, 12:53 pm
by erdnasephile
Thanks for the tip on the book, Brad.

(Via Michael Close: Eric Mason had some work on writing in the name of those cards--he suggested writing the names in different colors and handwriting styles to better camouflage the arrangement.)