The other day, I finally sat down to read Pure Effect, by Derren Brown. I'm not terribly far into the book yet, maybe 40 or 50 pages, so I don't have a full review or anything -- I can only say that, so far, I love the book. Is it worth the prices I'm seeing on eBay, as a hobbyist? No. No book should cost that much. Is it a great book that I think should be reprinted for more people to have access to? Yes!
Anyways, that's not what I'm writing about, I'm actually writing about his approach to the Out of this World trick. Or, rather, how reading his approach to it inspired me to start doing the trick again. The timing was very coincidental as I had just attended a magic show that's finale contained a really great "call a random person on the phone" version of Out of this World. I won't tell you which magic show this was, just in case you're planning on attending yourself. Although, I have read some reviews of magic shows from other blogs, newsletters, and magazines that give a rundown of the tricks that were performed, so maybe in a future post (no promises though).
So yeah, Out of this World. I wrote a few random thoughts about the trick a couple years ago and did end up buying the book Best of all Worlds, which happens to be a great anthology of the trick. I still haven't performed the trick all that much though since the few times I have, the reactions have never been anything special. However, given my two recent reintroductions to it, I'm pretty sure the reactions have been because of my presentation.
Truth be told, I'm not sure what version of the trick I performed. I think it's the original by Paul Curry, though I honestly don't remember where I learned the trick from originally, or if I'm even performing it the way I learned it... which could be an indication as to why I'm getting lackluster reactions 😂. Derren Brown, at least in Pure Effect, says that he performs Paul Harris's version -- I'm assuming it's Galaxy, originally printed in the Magic Arts Journal, but later reprinted in The Art of Astonishment - Book 3.
In my case, I tell the spectator upfront that we're going to sort the deck by color. In Galaxy, you do too. To me, this introduction needs way more build-up. Saying "we're going to sort the cards", and then you have the spectator pick right or left and bam, the cards are sorted, leaves something to be desired. The spectator never touched the cards. You told them what the ending will be, and it was. To me, it's missing that little "oomf" factor.
The version I saw in performance, the magician didn't say that's what was happening. He only said the cards are being separated right and left. After the two piles were dealt, only then did he mention the concept of sorting by color. And damn was the audience impressed!
I don't know how Derren performs the routine. In Pure Effect, he only describes the psychological influence he uses during his performance so I'm not sure if he tells them upfront that they're sorting by color either. I'm sure that with some performers, or presentations, it wouldn't matter...
That said, I'm staring at a pile of books I took off my shelves and they all have variations of Out of this World. I'm going to skim through a bunch and pick one or two that speak to me, including the impromptu version from the David Blaine Teaches Magic course, which is what got me interested a few years ago too.
Do you perform this trick? If so, feel free to send any tips or recommendations my way 🙏