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REVIEW BY TOM FRAME, from the June issue of Genii Magazine:
"Unsheathe the Swedish steel!"
Sweden’s Tom Stone is well known for his acclaimed books Maelstrom and Vortex and his startling 'Benson Burner' routine. Being awarded the Creative Fellowship by The Academy of Magical Arts in 2016 doesn’t hurt either.
In January 2024, Stone lectured at The Session convention in London. Realizing that not all of you were able to attend his deceptive disquisition, Stone is selling his notes. You can print them, forge Stone’s autograph, and pretend you were there!
With one exception, Stone’s writing is adequate. I know these are mere lecture notes, but the author’s teaching should have included more detail. He includes his entertaining presentations. Stone’s fetching illustrations are helpful.
In “Mittens,” two participants freely select and sign cards. The performer displays his empty hands. To preclude any suspicion of sleight of hand, he dons a large pair of oven mitts. The participants assist the performer in cutting their selections into the deck. The performer removes a signed selection from each of the mitts.
This trick has it all. An original plot, a funny, engaging presentation and a unique method. I really like it.
“The Ship of Theseus” is a thought experiment that questions whether an object is the same object after all of its original components have been replaced. In 2021, Nancy Colwell wrote Theseus, a thoughtful exploration of methods for presenting this paradox with pasteboards. Colwell’s work inspired Stone to develop “The Suss.” The performer spreads a packet of postcards and a participant freely selects one and signs its back. The performer affixes the face-out postcard to the glass in a picture frame. He selects a postcard for himself.
He tears off a quarter of the participant’s postcard and places it in his pocket. He tears off a quarter of his postcard and places the piece in the missing quarter of the participant’s postcard. He repeats the procedure of tearing off and replacing quarters until all parts of the selected postcard have been replaced.
The performer turns the picture frame around, revealing that the postcard still bears the participant’s signature, despite the transformation.
The Theseus presentation and Stone’s use of the frame focus the effect, allow it to play big, and elevate a standard transposition into a strong, theatrical effect that encourages the crowd to think. I really like it.
The performer displays “A Handy Gift.” Using a pair of scissors, he cuts the ribbon encircling a gift and opens the box. He holds the open box in his right hand and the scissors in his left hand. As the performer dumps the contents of the box into his left hand, the scissors vanish from his left hand and fall out of the box onto his left palm.
This visual whoopee cushion is magical Theater of the Absurd. It stuns the spectators’ sensoria and exemplifies the futility of seeking meaning in a meaningless universe. I like it.
In “Flatworm Fry,” participant number 1 stands to the performer’s right and participant number 2 stands to his left. The performer spreads the faces of the deck toward the crowd. Participant 1 only sees their backs. The performer asks her to close her eyes. He removes the top card of the deck, the Ace of Hearts, and displays it to the crowd and participant 2. He asks participant 1 to open her eyes. The performer hands the face-down Ace to a member of the audience. He dumps the deck in his pocket. Both participants close their eyes. The performer plucks a light from the second participant’s head and inserts it into the head of participant 1. The participants open their eyes. The performer asks participant 2 if she knows the identity of the card that he just showed her. She says she doesn’t know. He asks participant 1 to name the card, even though she hasn’t seen it. She correctly identifies it as the Ace of Hearts.
Thought withdrawal and thought insertion are two types of delusions. Stone employs a clever dual-reality technique and a D’Lite to induce these delusions in two innocent participants and amaze the audience. I like it.
The performer holds a stack of business cards, encircled by a rubber band. A participant names any color, say green. The performer writes it on a business card. The participant names the color purple. He writes the second color on the card.
He displays the business card and the participant sees that he wrote the color gray twice. He explains that he is “Color Deaf.” He writes the participant’s initials on the card and removes the card face down. When the participant turns the card face up, she discovers that it now bears the colors green and purple. Stone creatively tweaks the “Out to Lunch” principle, empowering it to do something that it has never done before. I like it.
In “White Death,” the performer removes 10 blank cards from a wallet and deals them into five pairs in a row between him and a participant. The participant takes a coin and uses it to eliminate five cards. He turns over the remaining cards and discovers that they have the word “death” printed on them.
Stone’s instructions for using a coin to eliminate cards are so brief and devoid of detail that I can quote it without exposing anything.
“Give a coin to the spectator, saying it will symbolize him. Now, let the spectator jump with the coin, to get across from his side to yours. The card not jumped to is removed at each jump.”
If I understood how to perform the effect, I might like it.
But I can’t, so I don’t.
Tom Stone’s Session Notes contains strong, cleverly crafted magic that will wow the crowd and make you grin. Unsheathe the Swedish steel. Recommended.
Available here:
https://wargmagic.com/shop/ebook/session-notes-2024/
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Looking at the notes, I might have to agree with Tom Frame that maybe the instructions to "White Death" are too sparse. So to aid understanding, I made the following illustration:
http://file.tomstone.se/WhiteDeath.jpg
That should provide the clarity that was missing. And if you want to see the activity that was the main inspiration for this item, check out this video from 1927:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVjCXGu9Ws0
