Personalizing a 90-Year Old Effect

I stumbled across the effect Miraskill by Stewart James a while ago. I was looking for something else in The Jinx, Annemann mentioned it in passing, so I looked it up and decided I’d give it a try.

The effect: Spectator shuffles the cards as much as they want while you write a prediction. Still holding the deck they take off cards two at a time. If they are both red, the cards are placed in front of the spectator, if both black placed in front of the performer, and if one of each color, they are discarded. When all the cards have been dealt, the two piles are counted and the prediction is shown to be true. (The spectator can choose whether they want reds or blacks at the beginning.)

While the original is done with playing cards, I have a deck of cards I call Two Extremes — there are Alaska scenes (where I lived for 37 years) on half the cards, and Arizona scenes (where I live now) on the others.

I allow the helper to choose one of the states, with the other one going to me. They start dealing the cards two at a time and placing them on top of the Alaska flag card, the Arizona flag card, or the discard pile, depending on what the two cards are (two Alaska, two Arizona, or one of each). At the end, the prediction matches! If I want, I can scoop up the cards, let them shuffle again, and the result, different this time, will match a second prediction.

I think back in the 1930s they had much longer attention spans than we do today, because there’s no way I’d do this with a full pack of cards. (Note: If you are doing OOTW with a full deck, please stop!) My Two Extremes deck has about 28 cards and that feels just about right. If you’re using playing cards, I recommend using just a half deck or so.

If you don’t have a copy of The Jinx, here’s a link to a PDF of Miraskill from issue 24. https://jinxnavigator.com/thejinx/jinx024-01.pdf

But also, go to JinxNavigator.com site and sign up for a free account and get online access to every issue of The Jinx!

…is not that I’m awesome and figured out a way to take something old and not only make it new, but also fit me to a tee. No, the moral of the story is there are a TON of mostly forgotten effects that may be old, but aren’t moldy. It’s fun to buy new stuff, but it can be just as fun to discover something that was created before you were born.

And then you’re probably the only one doing that effect while the other local magi are all buying the same thing from an online dealer.

Once you find an effect that is cool, wrack your brain to figure out some way you can personalize it to your character or situation. That’s one way you can make it more memorable for your audience.