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The
TRICK
BRAIN
CHAPTER EIGHT
The traditional method of disappearance, adopted since time began by so many elusive malefactors, must be included here, of course. This is the secret passageway. It leads from the location at which the object seems to be placed to a mysterious somewhere else.
In illusion work this device is familiar. Many assistants have disappeared from many cabinets via a plank out the back way, through the backdrop. If he walks from the cabinet, over the plank and out through the trap in the rear curtain, this assistant seems to disappear. Reverse the procedure and he seems to appear. So it is revealed that many of these principles, as contrasted with appearances, rely simply upon a detail of direction of travel.
The bottomless glass tumbler has demonstrated another application through many good and bad performances. Balls, eggs, grains, handkerchiefs and many other things have become invisible, having been placed in such a glass, the evanishment having been accomplished through surreptitious removal through the unsuspected opening.
Liquid may be caused to vanish from a tea cup, if it makes its way through a secret passageway, from the cup to a receptacle built within the saucer upon which it stands.
Indirect applications of these principles are, of course, always more effective. Take The Milk Pitcher for a good example. The milk drains into a secret compartment in the pitcher by way of a secret passageway built into the pitcher. While the milk is being poured into a paper cone, apparently, actually it is lowering because part of the original quantity—sufficient in volume to do for that apparently going into the cone—actually is going into the empty compartment in the pitcher. The milk to vanish is actually out of sight before the apparent vanish takes place. The spectators believe it to be in the cone. Then, when they are looking for a getaway, at the time the magician crumples, burns or tears the cone, it is too late. The magician is vanishing something that didn't exist. There never was any milk in the cone.
The idea of secret passageway is included in the use of a container or a restraint which seems secure but which is built or fashioned to allow the object to be purloined secretly.
The Okito Coin Box seems to contain the coin securely. Yet in reversing the box and putting the cover on the bottom, which seems to be putting the cover on the top, a secret passageway is provided for the coin.
The Plug Box, while more complicated, is similar. This has a removable bottom. The top has a shell lining which fits within the lower part of the container, and appears to be the inside of this lower part. In the beginning this shell lining is a part of the top. The coin is dropped in the lower section. The deep cylindrical cover is put on the lower section. This pushes out the removable bottom, and bottom and coin fall into the band. When the cover is removed, the shell remains in the lower part, lining sides and bottom of this portion. The box is now empty, of course.
A watch or a ring may be placed in the well-known watch box. To all appearances, it is securely locked, precluding the possibility of removal of whatever was placed inside. The box is carefully built. It stands close inspection. Yet one end opens to allow the object inside to fall into the hand. The spectator, seeing the watch placed inside, locking the box and receiving it into his possession immediately, has no reason to suspect that the watch does not remain within.
It seems to me that this idea could be revived in more modern form, if it were, applied to cigarette cases, compacts or other containers in more general use today. Joe Berg's Wallet is a definite application of this idea modernized.
The principle of the projection of an image is of extremely limited application to vanishes, even more so than in the case of appearances. At the moment I can't recall ever having seen it applied to vanishes. But it could be so employed.
A projected image could be substituted for a person or an object, after which the real object could be disposed of secretly. Then the demonstration of the vanish merely awaits the dimming of the lights in the projector, or the moving of the image away from the translucent screen, as in the reverse of the spirit paintings effect.
Shells take their place in vanish methods, too. Basically, the object to be vanished is simply a shell conforming to the contour of the interior of the cover or container, whichever the place the shell remains after the disappearance.
This principle is utilized in The Candle Tube. The device is a cylindrical case and cover, used for causing a candle to disappear. The American candle tube is a long cylindrical container with a solid bottom and a cover to fit the open end. The candle used is also a tube. A short piece of candle is inserted in one end, the whole appearing to be a long candle. The inserted piece is at the wick end. A snugly fitting disc covers the opposite end.
For the vanish, the "candle" is lighted and the case is inverted. The candle is pushed into the case, wick end first. The white disc at the open end of the case appears to be the end of the candle. The cover is put over the open end of the case. When it is removed it carries away the disc at the end of the "candle". The candle shell fits the interior of the case snugly. It conforms to, and indeed seems to be, the interior of the case. Of course, the case appears to be empty.
Almost exactly the same device in miniature is used for the vanish of a cigarette. In this case the cigarette is actually a hollow tube, with a bit of tobacco in one end.
A European candle tube is similar to the American type, except that the case is open at both ends and has two covers. It works exactly as the American tube. But in addition the cover at the wick end removes a portion of the candle containing the real candle section. This tube may be held up so that the spectators may see clear through it.
Reversing several of the appearance examples, outlined in that section, supplies a number of applications of the shell method to vanishes.
Applications of the principle of substituting containers were discussed in detail under the section devoted to appearances. Obviously, many of these may be reversed for vanishes.
But a sleight-of-hand method comes to mind.
The performer has a stack of envelopes in his hands. Into one of these he places the object to be vanished—a coin, bill, card or something else of suitable size. At the opportune moment he top-changes the envelope containing the object for an empty one. In due course, the exchanged envelope is shown empty.
Annemann brought out an envelope device which could be adapted to a vanish with results generally similar to those in the top change method. He, too, employed a stack of envelopes. But they were held in the hand with the faces towards the palm and the flap sides up. Beneath the flap of the topmost envelope was tucked another from which the flap had been removed.
As a vanish it could be utilized in this manner: The object is placed within the flapless envelope, pulling aside the flap of the second envelope as if it were the flap of the top one. Immediately, still grasping the flap, the performer lifts the stack so that their faces are towards the audience, with the flapless one nearest the performer's body. The second envelope is pulled away from the stack as if it were the one into which the object was placed. The stack, and the flapless envelope with it, is laid aside as the performer moistens the flap and folds it down to seal the envelope. Eventually this envelope is shown to be empty.
An object seems to vanish if the performer pretends to remove it, actually leaving it behind at its original location, and then vanishes the feigned thing.
There are many ways of simulating removing an object. The performer of The Cups and Balls does it when be seems to roll a ball from one hand into the other. Actually the ball is retained in the first hand, but the second hand is controlled as if it actually received the ball.
A similar effect may be obtained in the case of an egg placed in a coffee cup. The cup is turned over as if the egg were being rolled into the other hand. But the fingers of the hand holding the cup prevent the egg from rolling out.
Disguise supplies a further method. The object to vanish is disguised as something else and openly removed.
This seems an elaborate expression to describe the method back of Theodore DeLand's old Phantom Card Trick. In the days when that trick was a feature of my repertoire, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it at all, had it been explained that way.
To refresh your memory: DeLand's alternate title for the trick was Three From Five Leaves Nothing. Five cards were held in a fan and three spectators were asked to select one each mentally. A handkerchief was thrown over the hand holding the fan. Two cards were removed and exhibited with a statement by the performer that they were not the mentally selected cards. Then the handkerchief was removed. The mentally selected cards were shown to have vanished.
Only two cards were used. On the back of one was printed a drawing of four cards fanned. The cards were identifiable by the indices. On the reverse side of this card was the face of a card entirely different from any of those shown in the drawing. The second card was double faced. Two different cards—different from any used on the other and different from each other—were printed on the two faces, one on each side.
Naturally, when the two cards were exhibited as a fan of five, none of the cards that were mentally selected could be either of those shown on the reverse faces. So under cover of the handkerchief the two cards were turned over and the new faces were shown as they were removed one by one. Really, of course, through this principle the whole five of the cards offered for mental selection disappeared. Three appeared to have vanished because the faces shown were exhibited as two of the cards from which the selection was made.
Burling Hull utilized the same principle in his The Ghost Cards. The difference was that he actually used five spot cards and the Joker. The Joker is unprepared. But each of the spot cards has an index corner printed on the corner of the back. The index corners on the backs are all different from each other and different from any of the cards' faces.
In the beginning the cards are shown in a fan. The cards are actually backs towards the spectators, with only the small index corner of each visible. On top and covering the back of the second card is the Joker, face out.
It is almost obvious as to what happens. Of course, the cards are reversed. Naturally the one mentally selected card cannot be seen. The cards are taken off one by one and shown front and back. The fingers holding the card cover the corners printed on the back.
Actually, the cards originally seen are caused to vanish by removing each of them disguised.
The many four ace routines utilizing double-backed cards employ this principle to cause the aces to vanish.
Many illusion routines use this idea.
Apparent evanishment is accomplished, also, when two or more collapsible objects are pressed together, disguised as one. This is the reverse of a familiar expedient used in many sponge ball routines.
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