It looks pretty obvious to me. When he split the deck he offset it enough to feel. The vertical line above the X in LUXOR is a slot cut into the outer pane. He tosses away the deck above the split and then stuffs the card into the slot. I can see it falling down the window clearly.
I’m not sure how it stops. I’m guessing it falls to where the two panes are re-joined, but he could have poured some water into the slot.
I love this response and respect it. We should start a thread on secret craft codes. I think about the street-smart guitar stuff I have unloaded on the Dope…
Eh, fuck secret craft codes. The beauty is in the execution, not in the supposed “secret.” I personally hate this bullshit. I don’t appreciate magic any less because I know how the mechanics of the trick are done. It’s in the performance that I think the magic really happens.
Ooh, I got Secret Craft Codes… but my crafts are so mundane, that no one wants to discuss them.
Or DO they?
Hmmm, maybe you should watch for my Tricks To Folding Wrinkly Shirts thread, or Secrets of A Coffee Shop Sketcher or Ask The Born-Again Christian Who Can Hide A Straight Dope Column Inside A Hymnal.
See, right before Blaine seemingly popularized the chosen card through glass, there was the well known and nearly ubiquitous “Card on the ceiling” in the close-up scene. I would say that Blaine was successful in his take to have obliterated the memory of that. Lately I’ve seen it taken to different levels with a thrown deck and darts or throwing knives.
Once you accept that it’s normal sleight-of-hand to move the marked card around the deck (or even out of it entirely), the rest is just matter of careful reviewing of the youtube vid. If you pay close attention to what he’s doing starting at 2:54, he flips all of the cards at the top and then there’s a little “hitch” in his flow and the marked card falls into place. If you’re watching his right hand and not getting distracted by the cascade of cards (anticipating the “punchline” or whatever it’s called), it’s pretty obvious. That “hitch” is the extra little care to get the card into slot to drop it between the panes of glass.
As for what it takes to hide a void in glass, there’s a lot of unexpected things you can do with unexpected materials. Outside my area of expertise, but they had a lot of time to prep that door, and I’m sure could find the time to replace it with the “display model” after-the-fact.
What is the deal with all the hate heaped on the OP? What in the $#@@ did he do? That was an interesting OP, and it had some good info in it…I love the Dope and yet sometimes I hate it. Sometimes it feels like the elementary school playground where everybody turns on somebody else with no warning. Yuck. Regarding the OP, what mortal sin did he commit that I am missing?
He didn’t come back to his thread, when it’s supposed to be a thread where he answers stuff.
But mainly because a lot of people are annoyed by his posts, to the point that he left for quite a while. I’m not one of them, and was very happy that he finally decided to post a constructive thread, but him not coming back has soured it for a lot of people. “Ask the” threads require constant attention.
Again, I actually like the guy, but am disappointed he hasn’t come back. But if, as his posts imply, he always posts under the influence, maybe this is a good thing. You can overdo it on those substances.
I don’t like magicians and think they are a crock of shit. “Gob” on Arrested Development sums up my feelings on them.
The worst thing is that they refuse to tell you how they do something. The “magicians code” or something like that.
When one can pull a rabbit out of their ass without any shit sticking on the beast’s fur, I’ll be impressed. If not, they all deserve to be burned at the stake for sorcery.
His hands right where the “Luxor” symbol on the door is too, presumably to keep the girls on the other side of the door from seeing him drop the card and/or to hide the slot.
Not really, most of the “explanations” or guesses I’ve seen here for magic tricks are classically overwrought and involve much too much logical linear thought or leaping to mechanical engineering solutions… slots and water???
I’m afraid that a you tube video doesn’t change the audiences from being led to their own fantastical conclusions.
I would go so far as to say that the girls are in on the Card in door. It was a very produced and polished skit specifically for TV and by design a promotional piece for his venue. It’s specifically a one-off. He will never do it again. Really more of a commercial and piece of cinematography than a genuine magic trick.
That’s where I stand - I know all the tricks are just that, tricks, but the mechanics, timing, misdirection, showmanship, etc. are all top-rate, and I appreciate that (even though Criss Angel may indeed be a douchebag).
Super Kapowzler is a Special Doper - he doesn’t participate like us regular folk, and some people love him for it, and some people hate him for it. If you do a search on him you’ll probably see why. And shit.
Consider Derren Brown’s tricks, where he’s presenting them as NLP tricks but (as he himself admits) they really aren’t. Brown’s presentation and misdirection are just absolutely magnificent because he builds all kinds of NLP hints and spoilers into the trick’s presentation while in fact doing different tricks. I just love watching the guy perform; his act is magnificent, his delivery so practiced and perfect. You can give me the secrets behind David Blaine, Penn and Teller, any magician you care to name; I still couldn’t do what they do because I don’t have the skill they have in terms of sleight of hand, presentation, showmanship, timing, performance art, and what have you.
I always enjoyed Brown’s trick of beating a bunch of chess masters and pulling off some draws. When he tells you what most of the trick consists of - he’s just playing one guy’s moves against another, this making it inevitable he’ll win as many as he loses against 8 of 9 players - it seems so stupidly obvious, but up until he explains it you’re amazed. And then when he explains it I’m further amazed at how he pulled off such obvious trickery without me noticing. It’s beautiful.
Watching a great magician isn’t about how they pull of the tricks. There’s always a technical trick, but so what? It’s like watching a great basketball player execute an incredible move. I know HOW he does it, but I can’t do it. It’s still amazing and wonderful to watch a master at work; the real show is in appreciating the skill, not the technicalities… and shit.