Clearing the misconception on the Pass

[Toad]

i think the pass is kind of an impractical and angly move.

i'd rather use a different, easier control that can be done surrounded.

 

[RichmanMatthew]

And this is what confuses me the most about this whole endless "the pass is great/sucks"..."this or that DL is best" type of discussion:

Sleights by themselves are means to an end. The sleights are only meaningful when put into a trick to create a magical effect. Discussing the relative merits of the pass as a technique compared to others is missing the point - place the discussion into a meaningful context, into a specific trick, and THEN we can have a discussion!

To give an example of this, a common use of the pass is in the ambitious card. I steer well clear of this as I feel that the method is waaay too close to the effect in this instance, although many seem to feel that the "invisible" nature of the move makes it an ideal candidate. One thing i have learned through years of experience is that a complicated technique is rarely the best one for the job. You feel very impressed with yourself, but for the audience nothing different or special has happened. You can show the card being placed cleanly in the middle of the deck using the Wesley James Load Up Move; you can do it face up by doing tilt plus the colour change of your choice.

Whenever you perform a trick, there are going to be several categories of audience reaction; total amazement, entertainment or the inevitable "how's he doing that?" (or of course boredom, disinterest, or dismissal!). When I put myself in the head of an analytical spectator watching the ambitious card, I consider one of three possibilities:

1. He's not REALLY putting the card into the centre
2. He's actually putting it in then MOVING it to the top
3. Something more complicated

Solution one needs to be dealt with via good technique and your own conviction in your actions. Solution two is easy to deal with by using a strong illusion like the load up move or tilt where the card is clearly seen "in the centre of the deck" and you clearly do NOTHING afterwards. The issue with actually putting the card, honest to goodness in the actual centre of the deck is that then a shrewd spectator will look for anything at all that indicates that you might have done something - even if they don't see your pass there's an indisguisable moment that says SOMETHING happened. If you cause them to look away from the deck they'll assume you moved it then. So for me, the one place where the pass is useful is also the most dangerous point in the trick to use it. Magic is illusion - creating the illusion of the card moving to the top of the deck is more potent than actually moving it to the top of the deck.

Problem three leads to one of two major reactions - impressed or indifferent. Just a couple of nights ago I was working a party on a sailing ship and I opened a set with my colour changing deck - a very nice combo of the Giobbi routine, Dave Forrest Colour Burn and Paul Harris' Bizarre Twist. One lady in the audience looked very underwhelmed and commented to her friend that it was all very nice, but the only real skill involved was in the presentation - they were obviously just "trick cards". This is someone who has decided that there is a "complicated" explanation to the trick, that explanation being trick cards and so therefore was unimpressed with me for being able to do it. I was mildly amused at this as although yes there is a gaff involved, the manipulation is far from easy. In any case, I turned the situation around in two ways - I pushed the deck (clean by now) towards her and said very simply "I'll let you keep those as a little present". That really upset her. The final nail in the coffin was a wonderful self working trick which is easily the most powerful effect in my repertoire: the spectator shuffles, selects and loses a card in the deck then spells the name of it, dealing a card for each letter. The last card dealt is theirs. The beauty is that it all takes place in the spectator's hands - it truely does seem impossible.

Why is any of that relevant? Because it illustrates my point about distancing method and effect, except on a much larger scale. Once the trick was concluded, the lady became convinced that her inital impression was incorrect, that in fact I was a skilled magician and not merely a "presenter of little tricks". I achieved this by doing the exact opposite of showing my skill - to create the effect of incredible skill I performed a piece of strong magic which I could teach to anyone in ten minutes flat. Had I pulled out a super sleight heavy trick I can guarantee that her change in opinion would not have been so significant, because there is always a discernable difference between effort and effortlessness. This point may attract argument, as the truely skilled do make sleight of hand look effortless, but the very presence of sleights leads to certain aspects such as the performer handling the deck, to moments of misdirection etc. etc. which simply aren't present if the spectator is holding onto the cards all the damn time. As such to create the EFFECT of being a skilled magician I used a method as far away as possible.

The pass is neither good nor bad, but merely an option to consider within the overall construction of a trick. I have argued against its inclusion in an ambitious card based on my ideals of separating method and effect as much as possible. As such, it would make sense to include it in routines where there is no emphasis on where the selected card ends up. If the effect is that the card appears magically in your pocket then why not use a pass to control it for a palm or a switch? A place for everything, and everything in its place. When I make a trick, I try for three things: elegance of construction, seperation of method and effect and last but most important: just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

Cheers,
David.

What trick would that be?!

 

[Shodan]

Ah, you're talking about the spelling trick. It's something I put together based on several effects: John Bannon's wonderful mental speller from "Dear Mr Fantasy" (I want to say Dead Reckoning...) and the self working stuff from Mike Powers' "Power Plays". There is also a trick in "Expert Card Technique" which uses a similar dodge to narrow down the possible outcomes although I do feel that i've streamlined the approach a little.

I simply love the Bannon trick but I don't like setups, even one as flexible as his. So I lose the mental spelling aspect in favour of being able to work from a shuffled deck. I call it the "stress free speller" because its FASDIU, almost moveless (you have to be able to do one easy sleight about 35% of the time) and having eliminated ALL the memory work and ALL the calculation, it really is stressless.

I first devised it as an exercise in applying mathematical principles to create a strong, practical, entertaining and uncontrived card trick. I was surprised and very pleased to discover that the audience reaction to it was 100% consistent - total amazement right up next to, and sometimes exceeding, my best material. It plays particularly well to "challenge" audiences.

In order to stop any speculation about the effect being impossible as described, I'll throw a crucial fact into the mix. You DO handle the cards ONCE - but only after the spectator has selected and lost their card in their own hands without you ever touching the pack. The handling of the cards is motivated by "summing up", during which the cards are given a cut. That's pretty much it. The reason why I didn't clutter up my previous post with a detail like this is because in the eyes of the audience, everything of any significance happens in the spectator's hands - the selection, losing and finding of the card.

Cheers,
David.

 

[Medifro]

Magic is illusion - creating the illusion of the card moving to the top of the deck is more potent than actually moving it to the top of the deck.

That would be the case if they SAW IT actually being moved to the top of the deck.Illusion is created by methods, the pass is one method to achieve the illusion. ( playing with you ). Anyway, here's a qoute by Steve Youell, I think you'll love it.

Too many people have the wrong idea about misdirection. They worry too much about what the spectator's looking at and not enough about what the spectator's thinkiing about.

The default analogy is that the human eye is a camera. That's a bad analogy. The human eye is the lens. The brain is the film. They work together. If the brain doesn't record it, then for the spectator, it didn't happen.

John Muholland said "Magic is designed to fool the brain, not the eyes."

And I agree.

Anywho, I can really where you're coming from ( its actually one of things I like about magic ), so lets talk.

elegance of construction, separation of method and effect and last but most important: just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

The way I see it, the argument in your post was mainly around separation of method and effect.

This is just depending on the trick/principle you're doing, and its also up to the performer.

Distancing the method from the effect is one way to make the trick more deceptive, but is it the only way? Of course not. Then, the next question would be, why using a method that is close to the effect? Because sometimes its the best method to achieve the desired effect. The construction of the trick should evolve around covering any con's of the method ( misdirection, sublties or otherwise ). There are ALOT of examples in this, Bro. John Hamman, Gene Maze and Slydini particularly have maaaany tricks that flow the above concept. Anywho, here is an example:

Say a 4 aces are outjogged, push in and you hand out the deck to be shuffled, only to locate the aces again. Many methods to locate the aces after they are shuffled. I know someone who does a diagonal palm shift with 4 aces outjogged in different parts of the deck ( read that again ) and mind you, he does it flawlessly. He steals the aces, the deck is shuffled, and he can control them now. Its the same method the spectator would suspect, but the nature of the revelations and cutting, let alone the flawlessness of the technique execution, made no doubt to the spectator that the aces were never controlled or being stolen out throughout.

You have Card College, check vol.2, Palm section, the cards across there. You are achieving the trick with the exact method that might come to the mind of the spectator, though the construction covers everything, and the desired effect is worth it. Through after performing the trick extensively for 2 years, I always get a kick out of performing it, fun for me ( I love bold stuff ) and gets the reactions.

You limited your post to the ACR, so lets talk a bit about that.

Any card control method is a very close method to achieve the effect. The pass can be used ( I use it, many cardmen use it, like Darwin Ortiz, Bill Malone ) to achieve 2 things:
1) effect not possible by any other move, card face up in middle, now its face up on top with almost no cover ( assuming the one doing the pass knows what he's doing ).
2) The pass is also commonly used to control the selection 3rd from the top at the beginning of an ACR, the first phase they might see a flash, or it might not be as clean as other phases, but the next phases, they are clean ( thanks for the multiple lifts done ).

This falls under the idea of making the effect cleaner and cleaner as the trick is repeated, making the trick more impressive, a concept applied extensively in card magic ( Homing Card Plus, and that cards across, both are in Card College vol.2, Palm chapter ). So, if you don't like using the pass, many cardmen still think its very good, I think its amazing. I personally do 2 passes in my ACR, first phase and fifth phase ( face up ). I also use a control by Slydini to the top, but the construction of my ACR make it needed.

An argument might arise, saying that you can control a card 3rd from the top using tilt or bluff pass. For Tilt, I don't want to replace the card in the deck myself at the beginning of the ACR. For Bluff Pass, I use that every now and then, but I still use the pass as my preffered method.

After making the above points clear, heres another: Any magician as he goes in magic will make it "personalized", he'll use sleights he like more than any sleight. Lennart Green's magic covered with Lateral Palms, my magic covered with loads of stuff that magicians don't like ( hence I won't be writing any magic book for the next 20 years, no one will read it! ). Now, if the trick can be elevated using the pass, I use it. If the trick can be done with the pass as an alternative method, but the effect or method would be inferior, then I WOULD NOT use it.

Now don't get me wrong, I always cover things up to make the trick as deceptive as it can. Indirect methods achieving direct effects are always great if not amazing ( Bro. John Hamman has alot of such methods by the way ), but that doesn't mean that direct methods achieving direct effects are not amazing too ( Cavorting Aces, Bro. Hamman, Slydini's magic, Gene Maze magic .. etc ), but the construction of the trick would help.

In fact, now I'm thinking about it, its a credit given to magicians that they can fool a spectator with the exact method he's thinking of, even make him convinced that the method he's thinking of is not used. Cups and Balls?

At the end ( whew, I think I'm gonna put this in my blog! ), its up to the performer to decide.

You mentioned that a good sleight of hand guy can make sleights effortless, but yet there must be a lack of flow involved ( you said misdirection, or some sort of handling the deck ). Let me tell you this: They practice to MAKE TRICKS FLOW BETTER. Go check Darwin Ortiz, Steve Forte Bill Malone, Slydini ... etc, all of them are miracle workers with an extremely good flow. In other hand, go check Harry Lorayne's Ace cutting routines ( Halo Cut .. etc ), extremely easy, and yet it flows. My point is? Please please, don't say that difficult magic can lack a flow easy magic can have. I understand you're a very experienced magician ( far more than I am ), didn't you study the work of these men? Then you should know better that these people ( as should others ) imply difficult sleight of hand to make the effect look even more miraculous. Of course, from spectator's point of view, they see nothing.

Harry Lorayne often says that his favorite magic is the one that shows him as the best card manipulator in the world, while the secret is so so simple anyone can do it. He never said "the harder ones are inferior" because he knows this is not true, this is just his taste. I do a version of Marlo's Estimation Aces made by a friend, its very tricky and very bold to do, though I had alot of success with it, not because the fact its difficult, but because the fact I ( hopefully! ) make the effect clear to laymen.

By the way, direct methods are not always difficult.

Hope this helps. Good discussion.

Discussing the relative merits of the pass as a technique compared to others is missing the point - place the discussion into a meaningful context

It depends on what you're comparing. Side Steals vs Pass ( say half a jiggle ), both would look almost the same to the eyes of spectator assuming that they remember the deck being squared at the context of the routine ( which obviously almost never happens ), but which can have a more economic way of producing the effect? which is more benifitial to the trick? To make it flow better? Thats what it was about.
So, I firmly believe I didnt miss any points.

i think the pass is kind of an impractical and angly move.

The only bad angles for classic are the direct right and back. You got about 150 degrees of safe angle, and that without you moving naturally to the right, which covers it. For Hermann, just reverse what I said.

Looks good to me.

There are passes that are angle proof. Free Turn pass is one of them. There are passes that have severe angles, Float Pass by Lennart Green is one of them.

This gotta be the LARGEST POST EVER POSTED on T11!!


Cheers,
~ Feras

 

[RichmanMatthew]

There are passes that are angle proof. Free Turn pass is one of them. There are passes that have severe angles, Float Pass by Lennart Green is one of them.


Cheers,
~ Feras

Where can I find those passes?

 

[Shodan]

Wow, that was quite a response medifro. I don't disagree with you on any one particular point - after all we all have our preferences and there's rarely any "right" or "wrong" in this kind of territory. I have always felt that using a "direct" method - close to the effect - was a bit clumsy. Sure it can work, and in many cases very very well; this is indisputable. You mentioned Slydini who was a true master of this approach - the knotted silks, the vanishing balls...doesn't get more direct than that! True classics of magic. I'll now address a few points:

I stand by my self workers vs. sleight based argument. I understand exactly what you're saying about "flow" - that wasn't my point. My point is that even with beautiful construction designed to make all the sleight of hand flow within the context of the trick (which is one of the things I strive for in all my magic), there is a distinctly different FEEL to sleight free work. That doesn't mean that one is better than the other, but rather that they are both potent weapons to have in your performing repertoire.

I'll write more later - I have to get ready for a show.
Cheers,
David.

 

[Medifro]

I can see what you mean by the "feel" point, very true.
( I understand you mean sleight free for the performer, for laymen, I think even with sleights, they look can be done while making everything look fair if not very fair, which is something I strive for by the way! ).

Anywho, you're post summed it up. If you have more points I'd love to read them, I really enjoy discussions with good magicians as you sir.

RichmanMatthew, the Free Turn Pass is by Bruce Cervon, its found in his Ultra Cervon book which sadly is out of print for some time. It appears on ebay every time and then. There is also a DVD set with the same name, I'm not sure if the pass is taught on it, only bad angle is the back as far as I know, and its not that bad either. Check a clip here.

Lennart's Float Pass is in one of his DVDs, its the opposite of Guy Hollingworth's pass which is in his book Drawing Room Deceptions.

Hope this helps,

 

[Bijlogg]

Lennart's Float Pass is in one of his DVDs

Green Magic volume 1 to be precise.

Nice thread Feras.

Tom

 

[RichmanMatthew]

Green Magic volume 1 to be precise.

Nice thread Feras.

Tom

Thanks, I'm going to go look into it now.

 

[Shodan]

Reading through it again I don't have too much to add really. You and I are in total agreement as to the sentiment of selecting the best tool for the job and we all have our personal favourites. In terms of the pass I simply love Wilson's Backstage Pass, I think it is a thing of beauty in that the move is totally covered by the surrounding action. Bold and beautiful. However, its worth sod all as a colour change!

I guess as well your preferences regarding what type of magic you like to present are a major factor in all of this. In many ways, I think that my preferences regarding tricks have lead me away from certain techniques like the pass and the palm simply because I like the intrigue of achieving the effect in an offbeat way.

Nice to see some decent magical discussion around here folks