A CARD TRICK BOUND BY IMPOSSIBILITY
I dedicate my thoughts throughout to Tom Cromwell Esq. for being a true supporter of magic as an art
The freely selected card actually ends up stuck by tape to the box The card has no tape stuck to it before the effect and no sticking or taping takes place during the effect The box can be thoroughly inspected before and after and is fairly shown to have no pre-stuck cards No card is seen trapped between the tape and box until the performers chosen moment of revelation The revelation happens completely in the spectators’ hands with very minimal sleights Can be applied to any deck of playing cards within minutes
Instant reset, instant repeat Bound can be performed using a signed card
A CARD TRICK BOUND BY IMPOSSIBILITY
Welcome to Bound, and thank you much for investing in this idea. Having recently bumped into a handsome fellow whom was once a victim of my tomfoolery, I was bewildered to find that he not only still had the card bound to the box which he asked to keep some 2 years back, but he also had this stood in a display unit in his dinning room, always on show beside family photos. He offered this as a conversation piece for guests as proof of a real miracle of which he once played a part. It was this information that led me to release and share this effect with fellow performers. It is this level of reaction that we all aim for as performers, and in most cases we fail to realise exactly how much we can affect somebody with magic, mainly because most people hide how they really feel, as when I had first shown the effect to the gentleman in question, his reactions were slow, quiet and quite frankly, dull! But it was only recently that I questioned his guise, for at that time it was his party, he was the host who had to remain in control… he
would not be made a fool of. And his offer to keep the box was to me, merely to figure me out as a charlatan. Moments as such fuel my recognition engine which drives my aim to portray magic as an art, and not a means of which to make oneself appear better and cleverer than anybody else, through which means portrays magic as a device to be figured out and not enjoyed as an act of art. Bound offers a distortion in reality, a glitch in science, as physical is clearly incapably of breaching physical, but that is magic . Beneath the visuals, i t is all trickery, and never do I portray magic as anything more than that, which in it’s own right is an element of the art. It’s not fair to force a spectator into the belief that the card actually penetrated
the box or tape, and so with the only way to avoid the revelation of the mechanics, I offer you the best commentary for any effect… Silence.
To make this effect, you will need some strong sticky tape, preferably electrical or any other non-transparent tape. You’ll also need a duplicate of your selected bound -force card. Take your duplicate forcing card and tape it to the back of your card box as in image01, the tape needs to completely bind the box and the card should be completely stuck down. Make sure t he card doesn’t overlap the box in any way. Now that the box is ready you’ll need to make the most important part of the effect… The Shade card. To make the shade card, ideally you’ll have access to a double -back card (a card with the back design printed on both sides) but this isn’t absolutely necessary as one can be made easy enough by sticking two spare cards together - face-to-face -
with paper-glue or double-sided sticky-tape. Place this card on the back of the box and apply a length of tape long enough to cover the back of this card exactly in line with the tape that surrounds the deck. Image02 shows this held in place; image03 shows this exposed. This shade card, when held in place, acts as the back of the deck thus hiding the pre-stuck force-card, hence its name As a finishing touch, peel the torn-sticker-seal from another box and stick it to the back of the shade-card in place as in image05. Alternatively you can purchase deck seals from most magic shops. Image04 shows the final shade card.
This card needs to be in the deck and remain as the bottom card. This needs to be positioned so that the stickerseal is facing you as you hold the deck, the tape card also needs to be upside-down so that the tape is facing down. You’ll need to position your force card in your favourite forcing position and return the cards to the taped up box… you’re now ready to begin.
When introducing the box of cards, unless asked, do not mention the taped up box, and if asked simply respond with… Let me show you why it’s tap ed up Make sure you don’t show the back of the box for obvious reasons.
Remove the cards from the box and place the box on the surface face-up thus hiding the back of the box. Force the forcing card on your spectator and have it returned to the deck anywhere. You can shuffle as much as you like as long as you keep the shade card on the bottom. You’ll now need to turn the deck so that the sticker-seal on the shade card is facing the spectator. This can be
achieved with a simple fan, as when the fan is closed the deck is reversed. Grip the deck in lower mechanics and add pressure to the outer corner of the bottom cards, this will cause the lower card to buckle at the back as shown in image06. Now take the box face up so that the open top is facing your spectator, place the outer corner of the deck into the box as shown in image07. Square the deck into the box with the bottom card now lapped (but still in line) out of the box.
Push the entire deck down into the box whilst keeping the shade card in line on the outside (image08.) You can now close the box lid. Now, these card boxes aren’t always the strongest, so to keep the box together I always wrap it in tape as you can see…
With the shade card held in place as shown in image09, hold the box up to show all sides fairly (image10) before holding the box face down in lower mechanics (image11.) It ’s important at this point that the box is seen on all sides, this isn’t something you want to point out but do your best to indirectly draw attention as you check both sides of the box - for your own benefit.
Buckle the shade card as you did earlier in image06 . You’ll now need to steal this card and dump it in your pocket, once the card is gripped under the deck, you can tilt away your hand as shown in image12 and slowly move the paled card down to your side, the angle of this palm wil be hidden from your spectators view and will go unnoticed as you pass the box to the spectator to hold.
Ask the spectator to hold their hand out flat as you place the box (face down) aligned lengthways as in image13, Ask the spectator to cover the box with their other hand. As you ask them to squeeze the deck, you will have sufficient time to dump the shade card currently copped in your hand if you haven’t done so thus far. Cover their hands with yours and demonstrate the amount of pressure you want them to apply to the deck. As you do this, rotate their hands so that the deck is now face-down. Remove your hands and ask them to name their playing card. Hold your hands a few inches away from theirs and concentrate on the deck as you pretend to add invisible pressure the way a spiritual healer would pretend to form a ball of energy, as you do this ask them promptly… Did you feel that? Did you feel it move?
As their natural response utters Yes! Point to the deck and ask them to open their hands before taking a bow. You can offer the explanation that the card found its way through the deck, out of the box but became bound between the box and the tape.
Some of you may be asking what the F do we do with the duplicate in the box. There are many ways to combat this, the simplest is by having the card controlled to the top of the deck before the cards are placed in the box, this way you can remove the cards after and scan through them keeping the top two cards held together. From this position you can also hand the deck out for inspection, as you take the cards out simply leave the card in the box, or cop it way to the same pocket you dumped the shade card. Alternatively you can control the card next to the shade card and buckle both cards to the outside of the box to be copped away, this way the box can remain in their position for inspection after the revelation, but these are only suggestions should your spectator ask to check the deck, in most cases they will be way too occupied with trying to remove the bound card.
This version follows the same setup as BOUND 1.0, whereas a card is actually taped to the deck. With the shade card covering the bound card, show the box fully taped up. Turn the box face up and remove all cards. As you do this, take the shade card with the deck as shown in images 14 – 16.
Search the deck for the duplicate of the bound card and return all other cards to the box along with the shade card. Place the duplicate card face up covering the bound card (image17) and hold the deck in lower mechanics. Make sure not to expose the bound card as you cover it with the real card. Now, at this point, I’m sure many of you will have methods for vanishing a card from the top of the deck, be that instantly or in shade, and that’s what you’ll need to do here thus making the card to appear to have instantly become bound behind the tape. For those of you without such a method…
Partially cover the card with your free hand gripping the box from end to end. As you do this, with your deck-hand, slowly begin to pull the card around the back of the deck until it is completely underneath the deck, images 18 – 21 show this in motion. Images 22 and 23 show how this looks to the spectator before and after. Once revealed; cop away the free card from under the box and hand the deck over for inspection.
For this version of the effect you’ll need more tape and some double -sided-sticky-tape. Unroll a length of the tape that you will use to bind the deck and cut off a 6.5cm length. Unroll some more length and stick the cut off piece face-to-face in the middle of the unrolled tape – image24. Place the deck over this non-sticky area so that the tape is roughly covering the middle of the box. Make sure that the non-sticky side is on the back of the box. You can now wrap the stick the rest of the tape to the box so that it is completely surrounded by tape You will now notice that a card can freely slide behind the tape at the back of the box. Now take the double sided sticky-tape and apply a length of it across the box directly below the tape as shown in image25.
Place the shade card at the bottom of the deck – tape facing down - and place the cards in the box ready to begin… Remove all cards from the box and have a card freely selected and signed by a spectator, you can show the box fully bound by tape. It’s quite impor tant that you ask for a BIG signature right across the face of the card, however, depending on the thickness of your tape you may want to ask them to sign the card across the top. Control the selected card second from bottom (in position next to the face-up shade card.) For those without method to achieve this I offer you this…
Take the card and place it the deck, second from bottom. Just kidding. Dribble the cards from one hand to the other asking the spectator to call stop. Have them return their card to the stopping point before dribbling the remaining cards to the deck. As you do this, dribble the first few cards away from the deck so that they are left in-jogged as shown in image26. Lift the deck at this cutting point as shown in image27. Lift this packet and grab another packet from the lowed deck as shown in image28. Pull out the middle packet allowing the top packet to fall down to the lower packet as shown in image29 and finish by throwing the middle packet to the top of t he deck.
Finish with a simple overhand shuffle, retaining the bottom card and pulling the top card down to it and shuffling the rest of the cards t o the top of both… Image30 shows the start of this shuffle which controls the two key cards.
Grip the deck in lower mechanics and add pressure to the outer corner of the bottom cards, this will cause the lower 2 or 3 cards to buckle at the back as shown in image31. With practice, you can control the pressure to determine how many cards buckle at equal distances from the deck. Now take the box so that the open top is facing your spectator and place the outer corner of the deck into the box as shown in image32. Square the deck into the box with the bottom two cards now lapped (but still in line) out of the box. Push the entire stack down into the box. As you do this, hold a break under the bottom shade card so that it overlaps the tape on the box. Behind this card, the selected card will be outside of the box between the box and the shade card, and if lined up correctly will slip into the open gap in the tape. Image33 exposes this. As the deck reaches approximately two thirds of it’s way down, stop and hold th e deck still, underneath this, push
the shade card flush with the box and hold the deck up to show the bottom card to your spectator as shown in image34. When they see this, it will simply look like the bottom card of the deck that is being pushed into the box. This isn’t your card is it?
When the spectator states that it is, turn the deck back face-down, as you do this, push their card all the way in flush with the deck (image35) and take out the card above that . Place this card in the middle of the deck and push all the cards into the box before closing the lid.
Now, these card boxes aren’t always the strongest, so to keep the box together I always wrap it in tape as you can see…
At this point, turn the deck around a few times to show that the tape runs around the box, make sure you hold the shade card in place as it hides the loaded signed card. Once you’ve shown th e box. Hold the box in lower mechanics and buckle the shade card as you did earlier in image06. You’ll now need to steal this card and dump it in your pocket as explained earlier. As you cop away the shade card place the box in the spectators’ ha nd (face-up and ask them to cover it with their
other hand. Take their hands with yours and demonstrate the amount of pressure you want them to apply to the deck. As you do this, rotate their hands so that the deck is now face down. Remove your hands and ask them to name their playing card. Hold your hands a few inches away from theirs and concentrate on the deck as you pretend to add invisible pressure the way a spiritual healer would pretend to form a ball of energy, as you do this ask them promptly… Did you feel that? Did you feel it move?
As their natural response utters Yes! Point to the deck and ask them to open their hands. Take a bow.
You will note that the spectator will try to remove the card quite unsuccessfully and sue to the signature they will naturally confirm that it is their card. To remove the card from the tape, simply slide another car din between the signed card and the tape forcing the sticky to be released from the card. Once you’ve reattached the shade card you’ll be ready to go again.
Due to the simplicity of this effect, this document has been my shortest to date; all included performances are favourites of mine, which offer a lot of reputable reactions. Some may find the effect easier and more realistic with the use of a gaffed card that sports the face of box, these are common amongst gaff decks and easy to obtain. A good alternative setup would be to cut up an old box and use the front or back as a shade card, this would offer less speculation when the box is shown bound completely. It goes without saying that this can be performed with any deck. One of the effect-out-takes worth a mention saw a brand spanking new deck, complete with cellophane where as the signed card penetrated the cellophane by means of the EGO CHANGE, but as the card isn’t completely bound it was dropped from the document.
I offer my thanks to you for following these ideas and I hope that each is equally as good for you as the y have been for me. Best D
Special Thanks and Acknowledgements to R | R3man | Myles Nakouzi | Daniel Garcia
WE ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR HARM CAUSED TO ANYBODY WHO PERFORMS BOUND, NOR DO WE ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGE TO ANY BROKEN OR HARMED LIMBS OR VOWS NO ANIMALS WERE INVOLVED IN THE MAKING OF BOUND, DISPITE THE RUMOURS © DANIEL MADISON 2007 for DEVILS ADVOCATE PRODUCTIONS | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DEVILSadvocatePRODUCTIONS.com | DANIELmadison.co.uk | MAGICisDEAD.com
