Are you new to card magic, or you have been doing a lot of "self working" tricks and want to add some harder sleights into your repertoire? Look no further because the double lift is one of the most foundational sleights in all of card magic.

Join me as I walk you through the most basic variation of the double lift, taught in books like The Royal Road to Card Magic and Card College, Vol. 1. We'll cover how to hold the deck, the "get ready", and being comfortable holding two cards as one.

This sleight will take practice, and you'll need to continue practicing even after you're good at it, but once you have it down you'll have expanded your reach in card magic beyond anything you've thought!

It's worth noting, and I do say this in the tutorial, that this is a very basic "get ready". Holding the deck and holding two cards as one are their own element, but how you "get ready" to lift the two cards is the primary focus of this specific tutorial. I, personally, do not use this method but it's worth teaching because it's more important for a beginner in card magic to become comfortable with a double lift, to perform with a double lift. Learning the basics quickly can help expand your repertoire and later on you can practice a more advanced "get ready", which I'll have tutorials for too!

What started out as a fidget move, just playing with Charlier Cuts and running cuts, turned out to be a deceptive and also flourishy false cut!

I noticed one day after I had been cutting and re-cutting a brand new deck, over and over again, that the cards were all still in perfect order. I broke down the one-handed cut I was doing and sure enough, it keeps the deck entirely intact! It looks like you're giving the deck multiple cuts, with one hand, but in fact not a single card changes place.

If you're looking for your next move, give this one a try:

When I first got into card magic, I wanted to learn a false cut and that led me down the path of one-handed cuts. They were flashy, they were fancy, they were awesome. They weren't, however, false. But, that was okay because they were the foundation of what would later become a collection of one-handed false cuts I still use to this day.

This tutorial contains the first three one-handed cuts I learned and I recommend any beginner to start with too. The Charlier Cut is the most basic, but also the best foundational one-handed cut. The Scissor Cut is a little flashier and will need more hand dexterity, but do it right and it'll hold it's own place in your repertoire. The Revolution Cut is the hardest of the three and while less useful in magic, it'll be a near-requirement for any more advanced cardistry cuts whether they need one or two hands.

I was introduced to the magic of Eddie Fechter only a few years ago. It was actually during an introduction to another magician, in real life, when we were noting our inspirations in magic. He mentioned Fechter, and my response was "... who?".

That was before I ever heard of the Forks Hotel or FFFF. As it's an invite-only convention, I've never been so the only details I have about it are only from other books and mentions from magicians here and there. Anyways, back to Fechter.

When I learned of Fechter, I watched one or two of the very limited number of videos of him on YouTube. His magic was bold. He was blunt. I liked it! I bought books on his magic, which included Magician Nitely: The Magic of Eddie Fechter.

Finally getting to it in my stack, I read all the way through it and wanted to share my thoughts!

Overview

This book was written in 1974 by Jerry Mentzer. The foreword is by none other than Dai Vernon and he has only great things to say about Fechter.

My copy is a bit dated, and by that I mean the cover is faded and slightly frayed, and the pages are yellowed. That's not really important though, just thought I'd mention it.

What is important to mention is the number of typos throughout the book. A noticeable number of works are spelled incorrectly, everything from just wrong spelling to the wrong character (like an `n` instead of an `r` ). It's to the point where I thought I was reading a bad bootleg copy of the book and not the original.

What's interesting, following the note about misspelled words, is the actual typography used throughout the book. Characters aren't aligned or sized equally, and some appear more bold than others. It could be a leading factor of some of the wrong characters in places, perhaps it was just the way it was printed? Not sure. It doesn't really take away from the reading of the book, but it's odd nonetheless.

Tricks, Sleights, Peeks, and more

There are five chapters in the book and they separate tricks, sleights, and miscellaneous topics between them, and there's even an entire chapter dedicated to peeks!

There are 16 tricks in the book. These include tricks with cards, coins, a torn and restored cigarette, and a goblin tube!

What even is a "goblin tube"?! ... and, how do you get water to stay in a thumbtip?!?!

Yes, these are some of the questions I have after reading the book =P

As mentioned though, in addition to the variety of tricks contained in the book there are also sleights and moves. However, subtle notes spread throughout the entire book -- typically at the end of a specific trick -- yield even better information than the tricks themselves! My favorite is the practice routine Fechter has for "outs". It's not only useful for his Fechter's Aces trick, but it's the entire premise of Vernon's Trick That Cannot be Explained. Not to mention, it's an incredibly useful skill to have overall!

Takeaways

I'm really into the material from this book. I didn't know it, but I've been performing a version of Be Honest, What is It for a long time.

I think the version I perform was made by David Blaine, or at least I saw him do a version of it a while back and figured out a way to perform it myself. Fechter's version, at least the way written in the book, is a little difficult to understand. Specifically how you get a break under the top three cards, then take off the top card, and then do a top change with the card you took off ... all while holding the original break? It could just be the way it's written; there's a good chance that the way Fechter performed it is the way I perform it and I'm just not understanding the printing all the way. In my version (from Blaine's performance), I slowly-and-deliberately let the spectator see that I'm switching the cards in my and their hand, whereas Fechter's version makes it appear like it might not have actually happened (on purpose, due to speed).

I won't actually perform the cigarette trick, and the goblin tube thing's just different to me. It's a good one, at face value -- it's a "magic prank", which I don't see a lot of, so I think there's really something to it. But, I'm not about to go buy a metal tube and special thumbtip to perform this silly gag once ever. Maybe if I was in a bar every night though...

As I mentioned up above when outlining the tricks in the book, I actually love the notes that are sprinkled throughout. They're from Mentzer, but each is an observation of, or from, Fechter. In any case, I've already started practicing my skill at "outs" via the method outlined in the book and it's been really fun so far!

This book, printed over 50 years ago and self published by Mentzer, doesn't appear to be available from any regular outlets anymore. Only secondhand copies show up when searching for them -- which is where I picked up mine from too.

If you like Eddie Fechter, card magic, closeup magic, or great magic overall, this is an amazing reference to add to your library!

A while back I posed a simple question: How do you save Reference Material?

The question was easy to ask, the answer has been anything but. Well, I guess that's not true. For me, it's fairly straightforward.

How I literally store reference material:

This site, The Babbit's Grimoire, is my storage. The library that you can see is a "sneak peek" into what data is actually stored; it's, at least for now, what I think is the most beneficial to show.

Every magic book I own, every magazine, video tutorial, trick -- they're all entered. Or, rather, a lot of it is still being entered in, but a lot is here already. I have a rather large database and part of it is setup similar to what you'd see on Conjuring Archive. Every trick is broken down into parts, easily searchable and referenceable. I have a few end goals in mind once more things are entered in, but the most important one is just having an easy way to grab reference material... especially when my physical library isn't at arm's reach.

But that's just me.

Feedback (from the previous post):

I've heard from several folks about how they store their go-to effects from books and videos. The overwhelming majority have said that they hand-copy the tricks they like into a notebook while others turn to to scanning and printing physical copies. Some never get rid of books, others get rid of anything they haven't opened in a while (define "a while"?).

One person said that if they forgot the trick, it wasn't worth remembering ... which at face value my immediate reaction was "that makes sense", but then thinking about it even slightly, well no. No it doesn't. I've forgotten way more than I remember, and it's gotten to the point that I can sometimes read a trick I read and learned years ago and have that "first time" reaction all over again. Sad? Maybe. But also kind of great.

Collectors gonna collect!

And that brings me back to what to do with the physical books and magazines that are just taking up space. Obviously, if you're a collector you're going to collect. I'm a collector, but I also know junk when I see it. In the last year, I've thrown out 4 books and sold 5. That may not sound like a lot, but these books had a combined page count of over 2500 ... and I went through all of them!

Okay, that's not true either. 4 of the 5 that I sold were duplicates (Bruce Cervon's Castle Notebooks, Volumes 2 - 5). I really didn't need 9 books in a 5 book series. But the others that I parted with were junk, in my opinion.

Now, books are one thing. Magazines, on the other hand... these feel like something that are easy to just toss. But what happens if the magazine goes out of print? Are the effects, let alone articles, that were printed there lost forever? (or until someone winds up printing every issue into a book)

Genii Magazine

The only physical magazine I have a subscription to is Genii. It comes monthly. Twelve times a year. And I have several years worth.

Sometimes I skip reading a month's issue, almost always due to lack of time. About two weeks ago, I decided to play catch-up and holy smokes, I had exactly 12 unread issues from throughout the last 3 years. It takes me 3 or 4 mornings, sitting with my coffee, to get through a single issue -- assuming I don't practice any of the magic tricks that it has in it, so I should be caught up in no time!

I haven't counted the exact number of Genii issues I have in my stack, but my quick estimate is around 50 or so. That's the number of read copies. Have I flipped back through any of them after I read through them the first time? Nope. Not once. Did I find things worth keeping when I read through them? Absolutely!

Here's the neat thing about Genii though, it comes with a digital subscription too! I'm not trying to sell you on it I promise, I'm just noting that this is really beneficial and relevant for the "saving reference material" aspect. I decided to start skimming back through every issue I have and jot down which effects I think I'd perform, and once finished I'll toss the issue. I've gone through 16 complete issues so far and only 2 of them had nothing worth saving! Most have at least 2 effects I'm interested in. I seriously can't believe I didn't already add these to my working, let alone practice, repertoire.

But yeah, thanks to the digital subscription I'm able to pull up any issue and go right to the page I want, from anywhere! The big thing about the effects in Genii that I really love is that, more often than not, they tip to other routines or sleights, and sometimes those are more valuable than the effect being described. This is worth noting because a decent number of things printed in the magazine appear elsewhere -- either in another book, or a download somewhere. These extra "tips" might not be in the original work and are worthwhile to know.

It's not the fastest, skimming through 80+ page magazines and reading effects, but I'll get through all of them soon and finally have space to move the overflow pile of books on my counter to =P.

In the meantime, I already finished reading this month's issue of Genii and have added it to the pile to toss!