Modelo de estudios europeos seleccionado y beneficios

A LOS OBJETIVOS DEL TÍTULO

2. Modelo de estudios europeos seleccionado y beneficios

Before I explain how to print and assemble the magazines, I must tell you that most people find the process a good deal more difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating than they thought it would be. In fact, that’s the very reason I started offering this as a complete effect with the magazines included, rather than selling it solely as an e-book as per my initial plan. So if, once you read this, you decide that making your own magazines isn’t worth your while after all, you can take part in my “upgrade offer” and get a set of pre-printed magazines for only $20 + $5 shipping. That’s the price difference between the e-book and the complete package, and it’s $10 off the regular price of a set of magazines. If you’d like to do this, send the payment via PayPal, with “Upgrade offer” in the subject line, to [email protected],

With that out of the way, I'll explain the most efficient way of putting the magazines together, thereby saving you from all the mistakes I made. Besides a computer and a printer, you will need the following:

Glossy paper for the covers. Not photo paper, which is thick, but rather the kind that's sometimes called

"presentation paper" or "brochure paper." In fact, you want the thinnest, cheapest glossy paper you can find. Many copy shops will sell it to you by the sheet, which is good since you only need one sheet per magazine (and a whole

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packet won't come cheap). However, be sure to get the right kind for your printer, because if you try to use glossy laser paper in an inkjet printer, it won't be a good day.

Regular paper for the rest of the pages. Originally I used actual newsprint paper, which is what real mini-magazines are printed on. Then I realized that no one was going to spot the difference between real newsprint paper and cheap copy paper that had been colored to look like newsprint paper. Any sort of general-purpose 20-lb white printer paper or copy paper will do the job.

A stapler. But not just any stapler; you need one with a four-inch "throat depth," which means it can put a staple four inches inward from the edge of a page. Most office staplers are made this way, but most "home" models aren't.

If you don't have one that fits the bill but you don't want to buy one, any copy shop should have one you can use.

A razor knife. I recommend the kind with the snap-off blades, since cutting paper will dull them quickly.

A T-square. While you could theoretically get by with just a straight edge, a T-square makes the construction so much easier that you'd be foolish not to get one. I use a three-dollar plastic one from Office Depot, and it works like a charm.

Once you've got all these, you're ready to go. The order of the steps might seem counterintuitive, but trust me, it's the best way. You're going to print first, then fold, then cut, then staple, then cut again.

First, the printing. How you handle the pages will depend on what kind of printer you have. For our purposes, desktop printers can be broadly divided into two kinds: the kind where the paper is loaded into the top, which I’ll call “top loaders”; and the kind where the paper is loaded into the

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front, which I’ll call (you guessed it) “front loaders.” With top loaders, the paper comes out facing the same direction as when it went in. But with front loaders, the paper gets flipped over as it’s printed, so the side that’s facing up when the paper goes in will be facing down when it comes out. Because of this, some steps will have different directions for front loaders and top loaders.

For explanatory purposes, let's assume you're starting with the spring magazine. We’ll start with the outside and inside covers, which are on pages 34 and 38 of this document, respectively. (The inside covers only appear once, since they’re the same in all the magazines.) It’s best to print the inside covers first because they put less ink on the page, which warps the paper less, which makes it easier to feed back through the printer a second time. So load a sheet of glossy paper into the printer and print page 38. Important note: assuming you’re using Adobe Reader, make sure the

“Print Scaling” option in the print dialog box is set to None, and the “Auto-Rotate and Center” box is checked. Once page 38 is printed, load that same sheet back into the printer, oriented so that the other side of the page will now be printed. If you have a top loader, that means put it in with the blank side up; if you have a front loader, put it in with the printed side up and the blank side down. Also, make sure you orient it with the top edge of the paper going in first (no matter which kind of printer you have). Then print page 34. Obviously, make sure you print the cover in color, and use the highest quality print setting.

Now for the body pages. Load the plain paper into the printer and hit Print. In the Adobe Reader print dialog box, select the option to print “Odd pages only” under the Subset menu. Next, if you’re using a front loader, check the “Reverse pages” box, which will cause the pages to print in reverse order; if you’re using a top loader, leave the box unchecked. Then print pages 39 to 76. When they’re finished printing, let the ink dry for a few minutes, then

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load the whole stack back into the printer to print the other sides. Again, if you’re using a top loader, put them in blank sides up; if you’re using a front loader, put them in printed sides up. And whichever type you’ve got, make sure the top edges go in first. Then hit Print again, and this time when the dialog box comes up, change the Subset menu option to “Even pages only.” Also, make sure the

“Reverse pages” box in NOT checked, regardless of printer type. Then print pages 39 to 76 again. When the printing is finished, you should have all the pages printed on both sides, and in the correct order; one of the outer-facing pages should show the table of contents and an advertisement, and the one on the other side should show pages 38 and 39 (of the magazine, not this document).

Next comes the folding, which is easy because you can pretty much do it all at once. Take the entire stack of pages except for the cover, and fold them in half lengthwise.

(Reality check: make sure you fold them so the contents page ends up on the outside, and pages 38 and 39 become the centerfold.) Once you’ve got a good crease in them, separate them into packets of 4 or 5 pages and sharpen the creases, then reassemble them. Then fold the cover the same way, by itself, and put it over the rest of the pages.

What you would like to do next is staple the pages together, but unfortunately you can’t, because a standard office stapler is about a quarter of an inch too short. So first you have to cut away part of the pages to allow the stapler to reach its target. To do this, unfold the stack, and lay the whole thing face-down onto your cutting surface, with the cover on top and the fold sticking up into the air. Press the stack down as flat as it will go, making sure the folds stay lined up. Then take the T-square and put the T along the top edge of the pages, so that the straight edge lines up with the short black lines indicating the right edge of the cover.

Then take the razor knife and start slicing through the stack, cutting from the top edge of the paper down to just

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below where the graphics end. This will leave a whole booklet’s worth of narrow strips along the edge, which will just get in your way, so tear them off.

Now you have enough room to staple. Again make sure the folds are aligned, and put two staples through the center of the magazine, about a third of the way in from the top and bottom. The tricky part is that the staples have to go right through the fold. If you’re off by an eighth of an inch, that’s no good, and you’ll have to pull them out and start again. To avoid this, it’s best to practice first by putting some staples through lines on a piece of scrap paper, so you can learn exactly where the staples come out of your stapler. (And if practicing your stapler accuracy makes you feel a bit foolish, that’s the price you pay for doing this yourself.) Once they’re in, the booklet should close normally.

Finally, the rest of the cutting. Flip the booklet over so the back cover faces up. Off to the left side you’ll see two short black lines indicating the top and bottom edges of the magazine. Get the T-square, put the T against the spine of the booklet, line up the straight edge with the bottom edge mark, and slice all the way through the booklet. Then do the same thing with the top edge mark. Cutting through this many pages is trickier than you’d think, but patience is the key. Make many strokes with light pressure rather than trying to slice through the whole stack at once. The trickiest part will be the “armpit” of the T, and you may need to flip the booklet over to get all the way through that spot. Once you’ve got the top and bottom edges cut, flip the booklet over to the front. Line up the T against the top edge, with straight edge just slightly inside the right edge of the cover, and slice through the whole stack again to even up the right edges of the pages.

Ta-daa! With that, you've got yourself a genuine horoscope mini-magazine.

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29 PARTING THOUGHTS

If you’re working on developing your cold reading skills, this effect can serve as a useful training tool, as it gives you an excellent opportunity to practice with a very large safety net in place. With so much solid information at your disposal, you can afford take some chances, knowing you’ll have plenty to fall back on if they miss. You also have the option of taking down the necessary information, but then starting your reading genuinely cold and seeing how you do. Then you can “heat it up” with information from the effect as needed, to enhance (or bail out) what you get (or don’t get) on your own.

Another point to mention: since you never have to see the magazine, it’s possible to perform Ascension over the phone. Of course this involves sending one of the magazines to someone, so you won’t be doing it for every random person. But for someone who’s worth going out of your way to impress – a potentially lucrative client, a radio or TV host, etc. – I know of no other over-the-phone effect that can compare. (And I say that as a certified phone effect junkie. Don’t get me wrong, there are some fine ones out there. But as conventional mentalism wisdom dictates, there’s simply no way that telling someone what randomly-selected number or card or word they’re thinking of, even under the most impossibly remote conditions, can compare to telling them intimate details about their own life.) My suggestion is to send a package with the magazine in a separate envelope inside, with instructions not to open it until the recipient speaks to you. Then once you‘ve got her on the phone, have her open the envelope and do the routine as usual. If you’re afraid she might start poring over the magazine later, here’s a ploy to destroy the evidence. Once you’ve got what you need, say, “All right, so you’ve read what the magazine has to say, now I’d like you to forget about it. Put it out of your mind completely, because if you’re thinking about it, that will interfere with

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what we’re trying to do. In fact, to help you do that, go ahead and tear up the magazine. Seriously, we don’t need it any more, so just rip it up into little bits. The symbolism of destroying it will help clear your mind, and make it easier for us to form a connection…”

I should point out that the magazines are designed so that a casual glance through them will hide the differences in category titles. The graphic image next to each category is larger, bolder, and closer to the edge of the page than the name of the category. So as someone flips through the magazine, their attention is drawn to the consistent images rather than the inconsistent text:

Also, a note about the covers: Among the various astrology-related mini-magazines published in the U.S., there really is a series called Your Spring Horoscope, Your

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Summer Horoscope, etc., available at finer supermarket checkout counters everywhere. Not coincidentally, they're the same size as the magazines used here. That means that if you like, rather than using the supplied covers, you can just go to your local supermarket, buy the current issue, take off the cover, and staple it onto your magazine.

Although I'm proud of the covers I’ve created, and I firmly believe that they capture, with verve and aplomb, the quintessence and aesthetic sense of a genuine, cheaply produced mini-mag, I confess that in practice, I just use the ones from the real magazines.

Finally, for those who didn’t get the line about “10 types of mentalists,” it’s an adaptation of an old math geek joke:

“There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.” Because a 1 followed by a 0 is how you write the number 2 in binary.

And the method for this effect relies on a binary process.

So it’s funny, dammit.

Sad humor aside, this effect, performed properly, is as powerful as any in mentalism. Enjoy it, and use it well. If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or stories about how Ascension has worked for you, I’d love to hear them, so don’t hesitate to email me at:

[email protected] – Joshua Quinn, May 2006

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32 CREDITS AND THANKS

The main inspiration for this effect came from Leo Boudreau’s brilliant but largely overlooked work with binary codes, primarily from his book Skullduggery (1989, currently available in electronic format from Lybrary.com).

Many thanks to Leo for his support and for sharing his thoughts.

To my knowledge, the only remotely similar effect in the literature is Edward Stein’s Astrostar (2001, available in the U.S. from Stevens Magic), though I wasn’t aware of it when I created Ascension. It uses a related prop (a hardback astrology book) to achieve a somewhat related effect (divining someone’s birth date) via a partially similar method (which you’ll have to buy it to learn).

Thanks to everyone who allowed me to use their name, image, and web site address in the “ads,” thus enabling me to produce an authentically cheesy looking magazine without violating any copyrights.

And speaking of gratuitous ads in the back pages of booklets…

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Begin Spring

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Aries

Mar. 21 - Apr. 19

As the month gets going, get ready for some tremendous sparks to fly. You may even surprise yourself with the excitement you cause. This is genuinely one of those times when things just seem to click into place, and your good feelings rub off on everyone around you -- most of all, the lucky guy or girl who gets to reap the benefits!

Some months, everything in your financial life just seems to go right. Unfortunately, this doesn't look to be one of those months. Play things close to your vest, and you'll be able to

$

q

^LOVE

FINANCE

MARCH

a

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ride out the challenges of this difficult period.

Better luck is surely around the corner, probably by sometime next month.

No news is good news on the health front, and lucky for you, that's just what you can expect the entirety of this month. You've generally been taking good care of yourself, and as long as you keep it up, you shouldn't have any problem keeping the doctor away.

Even though you’ve got business to take care of, there’s some rejuvenating R and R in store for you this month. Fun comes in many forms, guises, and budget levels, and as long as you bear that in mind, you should have plenty of opportunities for lots of it throughout the month -- so don’t skip out on them!

A

HEALTH

LEISURE

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easing your monetary worries. Be sure to stay wise and make the most of it.

Aries

Mar. 21 - Apr. 19

You can expect some frustrations in the romance department this month. You might find yourself feeling like you’re having trouble connecting with someone. While this is bound to be dissatisfying, remember that not everything is in your control, and this too will pass.

q

^LOVE

$

^FINANCE

APRIL

a

Good news: beneficial things await your pocketbook. If you’ve been working toward some sort of payoff, you can expect to start reaping the rewards this month. And if you haven’t, then prepare yourself for a pleasant

You’ve been taking pretty good care of yourself lately, so your good sense of all-around well-being should come as no surprise.

Stay with it and you’ll continue to feel generally perky and in tip-top shape health-wise, and it’s sure to spill over into other

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