DESCRIPCIÓN DEL LUGAR DE EJECUCIÓN

Introduction

Several years ago, I published an effect called The Mt. Kenya Paradox.* I liked the patter, but I thought the routine deserved a stronger effect.

One of the most powerful effects in all of magic is Paul Curry’s “Out of This World.” There have been many variations developed over the years. One that is particularly elegant was developed by Tony Bartolotta (Outworlder) and was published in Karl Fulves Discoverie (Issue #7), 2002.

His brilliant presentation involves two persons sitting across a table. A tray is placed on the table, and each person is instructed to distribute the portion of the face-down deck they are given into red and black piles. When the cards are tallied, both persons have amazingly sorted the cards by color. There are no sleights. The performer never touches the cards.

This version uses Bartolotta’s two-persons-at-a-card-table approach, but I have done away with the tray and the pencil and paper counting ploy he utilizes.

The Stage Setting

I will present this effect as if I were performing on a platform in front of a fairly small group.

On the platform, there is a card table and two chairs. The chairs are opposite each other and arranged so that the audience has a side view of both chairs. The table is empty.

Presentation and Effect

“This evening I would like to relate an astonishing experience that happened in Kenya in the summer of 1995.

“My wife and I were on a photographic safari and as we were moving from one game preserve to another, we crossed the equator. Our driver stopped our van at a place where an entrepreneurial person had set up an exhibit for travelers next to his small stall.

“We gathered around him as he took a large bucket of water to one side of a yellow stripe he had painted across the road, denoting the exact location of the equator. He dipped a smaller bucket into the one filled with water, but this smaller bucket had a hole in the bottom. The water came out of the smaller bucket the way that water flows out of a sink. We looked into the bucket, and the water swirled around in clockwise fashion. Next he moved ten yards on the other side of the equator line, and this time, the water swirled in a counter clockwise fashion. Then he picked up his large bucket and moved it directly on top of the yellow line. He filled the smaller bucket with water, and this time the water did not swirl at all, but ran straight out. “But strange and provocative as the water demonstration was, something happened to us that night that was even more perplexing.

“That evening we were staying at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. This was the only time on our excursion that we had to dress for dinner. Following a leisurely and sumptuous meal, we were sitting in the lounge sipping an after- dinner drink when a distinguished looking man in his sixties sat down near us. We began to chat.

“We discovered that this man’s name was Charles Austin, and he was

Australian. He was a developer of shopping centers, both at home and in the Middle East. His outside interests were photography and, of all things, poker.

“Let me stop my story for a minute and try to reconstruct the experience we had by inviting a man and a woman to come forward and sit opposite each other at this table. As I progress with the story, they will act out the event that occurred that night.”

A woman, Millie, and a man, Jeffrey, volunteer to help with the experiment, and after being introduced, they are invited to sit at the table.

“Millie, I want you to play the role of my wife, Janie, and Jeffrey, will you please pretend you are me. I will play the role of Charles Austin. Your task

is to act out the actions in the story as it unfolds. Do you understand your roles?”

They nod in the affirmative.

“Have you ever seen the Mt. Kenya Paradox?” I ask, playing the role of Charles Austin.

Millie and Jeffrey say “No.”

I produce a deck of cards and a small pouch. I give the cards to Millie and then leave the pouch on the table.

“Please give the cards a good mixing.” Millie does this.

“Jeffrey, please open the little purse and dump out the two red and two black poker chips you will find inside. Please put a red chip in front of Millie’s right hand and a black chip in front of her left. Good! Now, arrange the two remaining chips in front of you in the same way.”

The deck of cards is divided in two and a packet placed face-down in front of both of the helpers.

“Now I want you to pretend there is an imaginary line – the equator –

dividing the table. Millie, you are north of the equator, and Jeffrey, you are south of the line.”

“Your task is to take the top card, face-down, off your packet and then follow your intuition. If you think the card is black, place it face-down next to the black chip, or if you think the card is red, start a red pile near the red chip. You might want to keep the piles fairly even – but don’t try to

calculate. Just follow your hunches.”

Millie and Jeffrey follow these instructions and take this assignment

seriously. They distribute their cards and then tidy up their piles in front of the colored poker chips.

I ask.

“Yes,” the helpers agree, nodding affirmatively.

“Now we will cross the equator,” I say, in an ominous voice, supposedly replicating that of Charles Austin.

Standing at one end of the table, I say to Millie, “Please do as I do. Be neat and careful.”

I carefully pick up Jeffrey’s black pile of cards in my left hand, and then cross my right hand over the imaginary equator line and pick up Millie’s red cards in my right hand. I move my hands apart and carefully deposit the cards on the table. Both piles have crossed the equator – their locations are switched. I then pick up the poker chips and reverse their positions. The colored chips follow their packets.

Millie duplicates this process with the other packets. She exchanges packets and poker chips. Jeffrey’s cards are in front of her, and her cards are now in front of Jeffrey. Both have crossed the imaginary equator line.

“Now, we will audit the results of crossing the equator. Each of you will please go through the other’s person’s red cards and count the number of black cards – or misses – in the pile.

Millie and Jeffrey each pick up the red pile of cards and count the misses – the black cards which appear in that pile.

“Millie, how many did your partner miss?” Millie says, “Only three.” She is wide-eyed.

“And, Jeffrey, how many did your partner miss?” He is stunned. “Just one.”

This is the same amazing experience my wife and I had that night at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club.

But there is more.

Charles said to us, “I must take your leave, but after I go, I would like you to examine your remaining selections.”

He bowed in a dignified and friendly manner and bid us goodnight in Swahili – “Lala Salama.”

We looked at each other and then with a strange sense of anticipation, turned over the remaining piles of cards and spread them out on the table.

“Please do that now. What do you find?”

Millie blurts out “No Way!” as all the cards on the table are black cards. “Do you think the equator has something to do with this?”

Explanation

The cards are honestly shuffled, and then the deck is unshuffled using the ‘Rounders Principle.’ The deck can instead be switched. The business of opening the pouch and emptying the chips on the table gives superb misdirection for the unshuffling procedure or for the deck switch.

The use of ‘rounders’ or a deck switch can be eliminated if this effect is done in an informal setting, and you have a decent false shuffle. However, the effect is stronger if the participants honestly mix the cards.

The cards are separated by color in the standard O.T.W. fashion. Assume the red cards are on top. Take three black cards, and insert them in different places among the top twenty-six red cards. Then place on red card in the all- black section.

The reason for this is to create a few misses during the first revelations. Bob Neale told me this was the approach Paul Curry used in his original

instructions.

Now assume two persons are sitting across from each other at a card table. Assume Millie is north and Jeffrey is south.

The cards are spread and separated. Millie is given the top twenty-eight cards (twenty-five red and three black), and Jeffrey is given the twenty-three blacks and one red.

The poker chips are arranged so that the red chip is in front of Mary’s right hand, and the black chip is in front of her left hand. The chips are placed before Jeffrey in the same fashion. Right hand is red, and left hand is black. (See diagram.)

Now the cards are distributed by both parties with instructions to make the piles fairly equal.

The situation is that Millie has two piles – both of which are red (with a few blacks in one pile) and Jeffrey’s piles are both all black cards with one exception.

Here comes the only move. This is not a sleight. In Stuart James’ Lexicon, a move is a subtlety that occurs and not a procedure like a pass or a top change.

The piles of cards in front of the participants will apparently be switched. The justification for this movement are two. First the equator crossing maneuver is the theme of the story, and secondly, you are inviting the partners to audit the other person’s results.

The switching of the packets in the performer’s hands never happens, while the switch that the woman makes is fair. The result is that the piles are relocated – deceptively – so that the surprising separation occurs.

A few words on this devilish move are relevant. Dr. Daily published a move (Daily’s Delight) in which one card was apparently switched for another in an ace assembly card trick, but in fact, the switch never happens.

The way I apply this subtlety is a little different. Let me go through the mechanics and then make a few comments. (See illustrations)

When you stand at one end of the table, your right hand picks up the packet of cards on the right corner of the table. This packet has all black cards, but there is a red chip next to it. These cards are openly placed by the right hand between the first and second finger of the left hand.

Now the right hand crosses over the left wrist and picks up the packet of cards on the left side. This packet has all red cards, but there is a black chip next to it. The cards are held in biddle position – right thumb on the bottom and right fingers on top.

Now the hands will be uncrossed in a calm and indifferent manner. You do not look at your hand, but at the participants as you explain what they are to do. When the hand meet, the right-hand cards are taken quietly by the left thumb, and the right thumb and right fingers pick up the left pile and both hands move apart and deposit their cards on the table.

This is one of those moves where you almost fool yourself.

There is no ‘heat’ on this procedure. No one knows what is going to happen, and everyone is intrigued by the story.

You now pick up the poker chips – one in each hand – and the hands cross back over and place the chips in front of their appropriate pile. The colored chips are switched.

These moves are done in an innocent, natural fashion. The results are that the colored chips now correctly indicate the colors of the cards next to them. There it is. This small miracle is accomplished with one uncrossing of the hands.

LaLa Salama! (In Swahili, “Sweet dreams!”) And Good Luck!

Rounders