It's that time of the year again, time for Art of Play'sMystery Deck drop!
If you're not familiar with the "mystery deck" concept, it's fairly straightforward. The company, in this case Art of Play, will wrap every deck, from an assortment of decks, in a wrapping or container that conceals what the deck is. Then, when you place an order, they'll send them your way. Some companies will even pre-mix the mystery decks so that even they don't know what deck you're getting. Art of Play does state that they pre-mix the decks. The caveat is that the possibility of duplicates exists.
Each year, Art of Play puts on what is, in my opinion, the best mystery deck offering. For $12 plus shipping*, you get a deck from a large assortment. The list of decks available is different each year. They also change the wrapper every year too -- and it has always been a really luxurious one at that.
This year, 2022, their wrapper is going to be a new design that unfolds into a vintage-inspired game board, sealed with a stamp. But, what about the decks themselves?!
Mystery Deck List
This year's assortment is a random mix of 25 decks, 12 of which are exclusive to the Mystery Deck lot (i.e., they can't be purchased directly and are specifically made for this list, they're out-of-print, or they're early releases).
* over $150 is free shipping, so if you buy a brick (12) of decks it's $144... instead of paying another $15 or $20 in shipping, just order 13 decks and you end up saving a few bucks (and get an extra deck)!
Spoiler Alert I reveal who fooled Penn & Teller below. If you don't want to know, don't scroll down!
Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a TV talent show that is filmed in front of a live audience (or, virtual audience during the pandemic). Oh, and we can't forget to mention that Penn and Teller are there too -- they're the judges!
During each episode, four magicians perform a magic act for Penn & Teller which, at the end of each act the magician-comedian duo try to deduce how the trick was done. In very articulate speech, Penn -- as Teller remains characteristically silent -- commends the magician on a job well done. If the magic act fooled Penn & Teller, they win a sweet Fool Us trophy and a trip to Vegas to be the opening act for Penn & Teller's show!
I want my opinions below to reflect those of a spectator who just saw a performance live. To achieve this, I've only watched this episode once. In real time - no pausing. No slow motion. Once through, with commercials and with my kids enjoying it with me too. Did I remember everything I saw? Did I see everything that happened? Do I remember the exact words that were said? Maybe, but likely not -- which means if I over-portray an effect below then it was just that great of a trick. If I under-portray it, well, yeah. So let's see what this episode's got in store for us!
Episode Recap
That (Bleeping) Teller! was a fun episode, full of energy, comedy, and engaging storytelling. It featured magic with a knife, cups & balls, ventriloquism, technology, and who can go wrong with a little card magic too? Overall, fooling or not, the episode was full of entertaining magic performances that just make you feel happy while watching.
The fooler of the night's episode was Kevin Micoud. His techno-driven mentalism routine had some pretty awesome visuals that make you feel like you're in the future, hopefully by the time the iPhone 20 is out it'll be reality though. Read down below for a more in-depth recap of his routine and the others too.
Luka Vidovic
Luka is a professional magician based in Croatia, and looking at his Instagram account (@lukavidovic_magician), he's a guy that knows how to have some fun! His performance echoed that idea very well too.
To start, Luka called upon Teller to be an assistant, as well as Alyson. Using some really well-done ventriloquism, he gave voices and personalities to each. It was quite entertaining hearing Teller speak in such a fun way. The voices were part of the act, but the overall trick can be summarized as simply a "knife through jacket" presentation where he stabs a knife through Teller's jacket and magically, the jacket is fine.
The only part of the routine that I didn't like was that the knife completely missed the "X"!
Penn & Teller perform a very similar routine, or rather the same routine with a different presentation? I'm still not sure how to classify whether a magic trick is "different" if the presentation is different. But yeah, it wasn't a fooler because they are very familiar with the routine itself.
This act was where the title of the episode, That (Bleeping) Teller!, came from as Teller, through Luka's vent work, had quite the profane mouth =P
Connor McDonald & Kenshin Amagi
Connor (connorpaulmcdonald.com) and Kenshin (@kenshin_amagi) are two friends from school who also happen to be magicians! While the intro for the act, which only highlights Connor's name, does feature both of them, it only shows Connor as a magician. The routine itself -- described below -- also has Connor as the magician and Kenshin as the hidden assistant; however, Kenshin does appear to also be very much a magician himself. The show's "info" (i.e. in the TV listings) has his name, but again, the introduction in the show itself only lists the performance as "Connor McDonald" so I want to point out that it was in fact a duo act.
All of that said, this act was pretty fun. We, the audience, were in on the trick but Penn was the person we were trying to fool. Even the stage background changed from "Fool Penn & Teller" to just "Fool Penn". It was a cups and balls routine being performed by Connor -- Kenshin "wasn't there" and wasn't actually introduced by name. Penn & Teller, specifically Penn, didn't know that Kenshin was even part of the act.
Connor started a standard cups and balls routine, three cups and three little red balls. Then to mix things up, he asked Teller to pick any kind of object and -- thanks to Kenshin, hiding under the table, not visible to Penn, writing a sign that said "pick Fruit", Teller picked Fruit.
If I were Penn, this routine would have floored me from his perspective.
Asking Penn to name a fruit, at least one that could fit under the cups, Penn chose oranges. Ah, and herein lies the "trick". Kenshin, under the table, would slip fruits under the cups through mini trap-doors. They did this for a bit and Penn was really mystified!
After Penn returned to his seat, Connor knocked down the table revealing that Kenshin wasn't actually there! This one last kicker surprise was for the rest of the audience and it was a great way to end the routine.
Overall, it didn't fool Penn (or Teller). Penn did admit that the cups and balls routine did mystify him while he was there, but he realized that there had to have been help. To end things, and I'm actually upset that they did this, but Kenshin came out from under a blanket object on the stage. While yes, I expected him to be there or hidden somehow in the boxes, it was still part of the mystery of "whoa, how did he disappear?!" My kids also were both a bit let down, my eldest saying "well, I guess that kind of killed the surprise."
Another big question I had about the whole thing, which I think is explained only by the reasoning of needing the extra space, is: why did the table have 5 spots for the cups to go on, but they only used the 3 that were furthest away from Penn?
Marc DeSouza
Marc DeSouza is a magician who's been around for quite a while -- he was even called out as being a friend of Teller's since school! He has several things published in his name, tricks and videos, and you can find him on Facebook too (@marc.desouza.737).
Marc's performance was a card trick, or rather a story told with cards. Set to the theme of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, a card was selected that then went through a series of changes from small to big to completely gone, only to reappear in the looking glass (mirror) itself!
I know my summary here is short and without much detail, but the performance itself was just fantastic. It was one to enjoy and become enthralled by and words on a page just wouldn't do it justice.
Watching from home was great, but I wonder if it was just as magical to be there in person.
I really liked Marc's handling and performance style, and the routine itself. While this routine won't fit into my own performance -- at least, not the cards turning into mirrors piece -- I might adapt parts of it.
Penn's "coded message" did show admiration for the performance, however, the magic due was not fooled by the handling.
Kevin Micoud
Kevin's introduction on Fool Us was a great overview of how he performs -- with technology! He's a mentalist who likes, or needs, to use technology for his acts. Not in the "he needs an ear-piece and wireless communicator to steal glimpses at a spectator's written down number" kind of way, but more of in the he uses everyday objects like cellphones. Something everyone has to make things that much more realistic. After looking at his Instagram page (@kevinmicoud_mentaliste), I'm kind of surprised I haven't heard of him before this episode because he's been performing quite a bit, all over the place!
Kevin's whole vibe, or performance style, focuses and relies on technology -- so there was no surprise when he brought out his cellphone and asked Alyson to use hers too. He set his on a stand and started asking Alyson to enter in numbers into her phone's calculator.
Pick a number between 1 and 12. Then, pick any number between 1 and 31 and add them. Then multiply that by a 4 digit number, like a year. So far, completely open choices. Then, however, things get a little structured by requiring a number of 8910X to be subtracted by the current value, X being a free choice -- the whole number being one of the zip codes of that area. Then, divide the current total by 3700, the number of the address of the building they're in.
So far, no magic. However, this is where things got interesting. Kevin grabbed his phone and a super futuristic, and highly desired, hologram full of apps started flying around the phone. A digital assistant appeared, also in hologram form and ended with "finding a mind reading app" that could read Alyson's mind. A sheet of paper came out of the hologram which, when displayed had Alyson's generated number!
Kevin, taking the expression "talking to yourself" to a whole new level!
I've, personally, never seen the hologram display before. That thing was pretty awesome and in-person, I'm sure it would have been even cooler. I work in tech so I know do know how it was made, or rather the device that's used for the display -- not sure how to actually use it. As a magician and person with a math background, I also know exactly how the number trick worked.
Penn called it true that the tech would have been the "fooler" even ten years ago, but nowadays folks know more and more about things like that. So everything boiled down to the number trick itself. Penn and Teller know number tricks, I've seen them perform them myself. Penn also called out that he knows a lot of them... and yet, this one slipped by them. They couldn't figure it out, even though Penn's words (if you paid attention to them) said exactly how it worked. Ultimately, Kevin was a fooler -- but part of me feels like it wasn't a true victory.
All in all though, it was a really good presentation and I'd love to see more work from him!
Penn & Teller ended the show with a co-op routine featuring Dance Company Pilobolus. It was quite an interesting routine, not so much a mystery of how things were performed given that they kind of showed us how everything was done (without telling us), but it was really neat to watch. They were very, very fast and seamless in their transitions that very much reveals how coordinated and practiced they all are. The fun part is, Pilobolus isn't a magic group, they're actually dancers -- which made it that much more interesting!
She's giving Gumby a run for his money!
Takeaways
It might be strange to hear, but I actually feel really good -- as a magician -- to know that I knew how each of the routines were done. Not in a "they weren't good routines" way, but a "I'm becoming more experienced and understand more principles" kind of way. I really, really liked the different performances and think that they were all great pieces of magic. While I likely won't be stabbing jackets anytime soon, it might be an idea that could be adapted to cards...
Either way, I'm excited for the next round of magic!
Whoa, it's December already! Time has seriously flown by.
If you asked me a month ago if I was excited for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, I would have been giddy with joy. At the beginning of last week though, I was already tired of hearing about it. It wasn't because of the magic community, it was the world in general. Like most good things, big corporations try to milk every last bit of money we have in our wallets out and "Black Friday November" was no exception.
But, I did save up - almost all year - for the Black Friday sales from some of my favorite brands who never fail to put out great deals. I was hot on Ellusionist's site, Vanishing Inc., and even Art of Play.
From the latter, I only bought one or two decks. However, their famous Mystery Deck sale is coming on December 5th and I'm already ready to go broke!
Vanishing Inc.'s sale this year was similar, but slightly different, than most. They did some awesome "free reward" tiers based on how much cumulative money you spent during the sale. The different part was that all of their video downloads were on sale! That's pretty awesome. The two years before this one, I spent quite a bit of money there. This year I was a little more conservative though, mainly because I still haven't gotten through all of last year's purchases yet... what, I don't have a problem.
Ellusionist mixed things up a bit this year too, specifically with their cash giveaway. Last year, and the previous, they did this giveaway where they kept increasing a "cash jackpot" and picked one winner to give it all to. This year, each purchase made on a day would get you a ticket to that day's $1,000 giveaway. I... didn't win any of the days.
All in all, I ended up ordering 10 videos, 2 books, and enough decks to make my wife question whether I'm passionate or obsessed. I'm only counting the things I ordered between Friday and Monday though; I did order another book a few days before Black Friday, but in fairness it wouldn't have been on sale regardless.
I'm excited to go through everything. Now that I have a YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@gbabbits), I will be doing more in-depth performances to accompany my posts here and on Instagram. We'll see how that plays out though.
Oh, also, one thing I ordered from Vanishing Inc. was Dani DaOrtiz'sACAAN Fool Us Act. First, because I really loved the act -- it was classic DaOrtiz and amazing all around. Second, because I also have ACAAN Project - Chapter 1 by DaOrtiz that was published on Penguin Magic a while back. The ACAAN project on Penguin is the exact routine that Dani performed on Fool Us, as far as I can tell, so I really want to know what this "different" version is on Vanishing Inc. The product listing references Borrowed Deck Miracles but says that this new download includes way more content. So many choices!
Good thing there aren't any other gift-buying holidays coming up soon... oh, wait...
Spoiler Alert I reveal who fooled Penn & Teller below. If you don't want to know, don't scroll down!
Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a TV talent show that is filmed in front of a live audience (or, virtual audience during the pandemic). Oh, and we can't forget to mention that Penn and Teller are there too -- they're the judges!
During each episode, four magicians perform a magic act for Penn & Teller which, at the end of each act the magician-comedian duo try to deduce how the trick was done. In very articulate speech, Penn -- as Teller remains characteristically silent -- commends the magician on a job well done. If the magic act fooled Penn & Teller, they win a sweet Fool Us trophy and a trip to Vegas to be the opening act for Penn & Teller's show!
I want my opinions below to reflect those of a spectator who just saw a performance live. To achieve this, I've only watched this episode once. In real time - no pausing. No slow motion. Once through, with commercials and with my kids enjoying it with me too. Did I remember everything I saw? Did I see everything that happened? Do I remember the exact words that were said? Maybe, but likely not -- which means if I over-portray an effect below then it was just that great of a trick. If I under-portray it, well, yeah. So let's see what this episode's got in store for us!
Episode Recap
Until this episode, I thought I saw just about everything there could be on the show... but boy was I wrong. A straightjacket escape, a beautiful card routine that left me jaw-dropped, coins and a fake hand, and dirty socks everywhere. Just, wow!
The fooler of the night's episode was Horret Wu. His card routine was just really, really well done. While you can read more about his performance below, I do want to just call out that he took things to another level by not just changing one card into another, he changed the full deck into another. And then, did it again. If the show's editing caused us, the viewers at home, to miss crucial handling requirements for this routine, I would be extremely disappointed. If, however, the only editing that took place was non-impacting to being able to understand how the routine was done then just wow!
Gabriella Lester
She said it right from the beginning, she's both a magician and an adrenaline junky. Doing escapes and other routines that break away from the typical "pick a card" type of magic trick, she's setting the stage for an exciting life in the world of magic. Check out her Instagram feed, @thegabriellalester, to see some of the awesome things Gabriella's into.
Gabriella came out on stage and just owned it! She pulled Penn and Teller up, and eventually Alyson, to help with the routine. To start with, she had Penn pick a flash card that had a math problem on it. That was his selection that, once things started, he had to find in the deck of flash cards. Sounds interesting, right?
Talk about pressure, having to do math on national TV at speed!
The fun part is that to find the card, Penn had to solve each equation on all of the other flash cards first -- until he came to his selection. The even more fun part was that he was actually racing Gabriella. Racing her? Yeah! Her task was to escape from a straight jacket while hanging upside down from a rope!
Teller was her safety and if anything was going wrong he was to shout out "Stop!". Oh, the irony =P
Gabriella didn't end up fooling Penn & Teller, but it was a really fun act. She had amazing stage control and the performance itself was really good. If she keeps up with magic, I expect we'll see a lot more from her in the future!
Howard Blackwell
Howard's introduction and performance on Fool Us portrayed him as a really fun individual that has a unique style of magic. Checking his website here and his Facebook page, he definitely is a fun guy. If I'm ever in Tennessee, I might have to check out a show of his one day. So, what about his performance on Fool Us though?
Socks, socks, and more socks. Two baskets full of dirty socks. He said they were dirty, I didn't think they were. Alyson, on the other hand, made several comments about how dirty they were, so the only thing I can say is "ewwwww".
Honestly, that's just a ton of socks!
The premise of this routine was that Alyson -- the spectator -- and Howard would each shake a basket until only a few socks were left. Then, Alyson would pick and choose between groups of socks until only one was left. That remaining sock would match the one that Howard was wearing, but taking it a step further it matched his underwear too!
While a fun trick, I don't think many magicians would be fooled by this one. Given the choice of words and things used like when Alyson said "I like the odd ones" and he said "ok, we'll get rid of the odd ones" was a little off-putting. If he could make the equivoque more subtle, or make it even more of a free choice (or feel like an actual free choice), I think this one could be a lot better. Penn's coded messaging was pretty decently subtle too, but they weren't fooled (as expected).
Horret Wu
I'll be the first to admit that I had never heard of Horret Wu before this episode. While looking up small bio info about him, it turns out he's had quite the adventure a few years back. He won at FISM in 2015 for card magic, he's published a couple of tricks (available at Vanishing Inc.), and even a deck of cards! As far as I can tell, he's been back underground since then and this is his big splash back. I'll keep an eye out, and try to see if I just happened to miss this guy for the last few years.
As soon as Horret's act started, my oldest kid said "I don't like the ones where they don't talk." He knew, right away, that this performance would be silent -- I'm teaching him well (^_^)
Horret was at a table with a deck of cards. Lifting the deck, magic ensued. He produced four Kings from the deck, only to have them change to Aces on the table in front of everyone. And then, the strangest of things happened -- the faces of all of the cards began turning green!
He dealt out five green cards that then turned into a royal flush. As he laid the royal flush face down on the table, the deck full of green cards once again magically changed to each have a black keyhole on them. The royal flush, turned back over, were also now green with a black key hole and smoke covered the table in the shape of a key. Purely magical!
The only part of the routine that didn't click with me, what did the keyholes and key have to do with the rest of the routine?
Penn's analysis of this routine was that he didn't want to give away any details because it would ruin the performance for everyone watching so they "went to the judges", who are always listening in to Penn and Teller when they speak. Fantastically, they were fooled!
Horret received his trophy and, very uncharacteristically, Penn and Teller remained in their seats. They didn't come up to congratulate Horret and as far as I remember, they didn't even shout any congratulations to him either. I thought that this act was so great and deserving of praise just from its performance alone, let alone that it fooled Penn & Teller, and they didn't even give him a proper win. Didn't feel very friendly to me.
Jumping back to the routine though, Penn and Teller did seem pretty confident that they knew how the trick was done. I was watching intently, not only because it was a great magic trick but because there were cards involved and that's my jam. I know how pieces of the trick was done for sure, but some things like being able to change the full deck -- twice -- can really only happen in a very small variety of ways. The most realistic way, based on what we saw as viewers, wouldn't have been possible unless the show was edited and removed crucial handling pieces. They've done that before so I can't say that they wouldn't -- but jeez would I be really disappointed if that were the case. Not in the routine, oh no; I think that the routine would still be great if that was how it was done, but in the show itself.
If you're curious to hear my thoughts about how the routine is performed, reach out here =]
Dr. Michael Rubinstein
Doctor?! That's right, Michael here is a veterinarian and magician, one a profession and one a hobby. Which is which is anyone's guess =P. His mentor, David Roth, was the inspiration for a lot of his magic, most (if not all), coin based. He's been on the scene for quite a while, giving lectures since the 80's and publishing routines since then too.
Dr. Rubinstein's performance was a coin magic routine in tribute to David Roth, his late mentor. A brief summary of this one as it was repetitive and rather verbose, a silver coin would continuously disappear from his hand and reappear under a fake hand on the table. Then, a copper coin would disappear from his hand and appear in a coin purse. The coins would also switch places in his hand (one in left, the other in the right, then they'd switch magically).
Dr. Rubenstein with his coins and... fake hand!
As a fun ending kicker, the coins would disappear and the coin purse was then full of a lot of coins and under the fake hand on the table was a giant coin!
This act was a really nice tribute and an overall decent coin routine. Even though there were custom innovations by Rubinstein, it wasn't enough to fool Penn & Teller though. They gave him an applause and off he went.
Penn & Teller ended the show with a magic routine that would take place in the viewer's home! It was a card trick that they had anyone watching (who had a deck of cards) pre-setup a packet of cards before the commercial break. When the show came back on, they started.
The packet began in an orientation of alternating red and black cards, a total of eight. Through a series of cuts and deals and chanting nice and loud, the packet separated into all reds and all blacks -- right there in your own hands!
It was a fun little "in the spectator's hands oil & water" routine. It reminded me a bit of some of the things Juan Tamariz did via a radio show, all described in his book Verbal Magic.
Takeaways
I really enjoyed this episode overall. The sock routine, even though I thought it could have been done better, was a pretty original presentation idea and has some real potential. Gabriella also has some great potential as a future rising star in the magic world. I'm excited to see more things from her. I'm still looking forward to the episode that has multiple foolers though. Maybe one day soon!
Either way, I'm excited for the next round of magic!
