So I’ve heard of some restaurants that have magicians who visit people’s tables. They have one of the diners sign a playing card and then they flick the card onto the ceiling where it stays somehow permanantly attached…as in forever. Does anybody know how they get it to stick there? It doesn’t seem like any glue would stick that instantly.
Go to a magic shop and buy the trick, or at least the book that describes the trick.
It is a wonderful trick that is easy to perform after learning a few card control techniques. And it is not just sign a card and flick onto ceiling, but generally involves losing the card in the deck, then the whole deck being thrown.
-Tcat
There’s an amusing story I read about a group of magicians at a magic conference who attempted to get the card to stick to the conference room ceiling (around 35ft high) for hours late at night. Presumably there was alcohol involved. In the trick, the entire deck is thrown up to provide mass - throwing one card won’t work. You can imagine the mess it would make to throw an entire deck of cards 35ft into the air… The magician who eventually got the card to stick was showered with accolades for the remainder of the conference…
There’s that old deal about “magicians never revealing their secrets” - one reason for that is that it ruins the “mystery” that makes magic fun to watch. Everyone wants to know the secret, but most are dissappointed once they learn it. About the only people who are impressed by the “trick” are those who value the craft, and are interested in pursuing it themselves. Plus, the magician who came up with the trick can’t get paid if people just tell you the secret - the limited money that comes from being a pro magician is made up partly of sales of the “secret” to the trick.
One way of doing this trick (at least in the magic books I read as a kid), is to shuffle, cut, or otherwise manipulate the chosen card up to the top of the deck and surreptitiously stick some chewed-up gum on top. Throw the entire pack up in the air and the weight of the deck will stick the top car onto the ceiling.
Thanks for the answers. Throwing the entire deck of cards to add weight makes sense. Does the magician then have to go around the restaurant picking up the other 51 cards that fell in people’s entrees?
I remember a magician performing this trick for my school when I was a kid.
He had placed a duplicate card on the (somewhat high-ish) ceiling prior to the show.
The logic being, I assume, who looks up at the ceiling during a magic performance anyway?
(The answer to that is ‘kids who have short attention spans’, ie me.)
As an afterthought, I’m sorry to any magicians out there for revealing the secret (assuming this is a universal way of doing it), but I think people will just tend to assume it got stuck to the ceiling with some sort of special sticky substance, while the real trick is much more clever.
And I just noticed you specified that it was a signed card. :smack:
The trick I remember is “pick any card,” magician shuffles the deck, throws the deck in the air, catches it, then points to ceiling asking “is that your card?” and everyone* is amazed.
- or maybe just elementary school kids.
I haven’t seen the trick performed at a restaraunt, but when I have seen it performed the other cards do go everywhere, albeit in a limited circle - the deck holds together for the most part until impact with the ceiling, and then the cards fall individually. One of the great things about the trick is the loud SMACK as the deck hits the ceiling, and the subsequent visual of the deck “exploding” and falling to the ground. This adds a bit to the fun of seeing it. After all, it’s all in the presentation!
Bre’r Lappin - your method is a valid one, although it wouldn’t work for a signed card. It’s a quite common technique for many a card trick - hide a duplicate somewhere, and “force” that card on the participant in some manner. If you are going to learn card magic, the two things you will spend time learning are “forces” and card manipulation (getting the card you want to the top/ bottom/ etc of the deck). That is the challenge and the craft of the magic trick.
To keep the cards from falling, they are frequently wrapped in a rubber band, which means the signed card now has to go through the deck AND the band to end up on the ceiling. Better magic, less mess.
There’s also the “out” method. For this, you hide all 52 cards, in 52 different places. Then, if the mark’s card is the Ace of Spades, you pull down the window shade. If it’s the 2, you tell him to look under his chair. If it’s the 3, you open the book on the table, etc. Or you could combine a force and an out: Cause him to take one of five different cards, say, and then have those five cards hidden about.