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Difference between revisions of "The Trick Brain"
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Latest revision as of 12:23, 17 March 2023
The Trick Brain | |
Image Courtesy of ProfB | |
Author | Dariel Fitzkee |
---|---|
Publisher | Saint Raphael House |
Publication Date | 1944 |
Language | English |
Preceded by | Showmanship for Magicians |
Followed by | Magic by Misdirection |
The Trick Brain was part of Fitzkee's trilogy which also included Showmanship for Magicians and Magic by Misdirection.
Reviewed in Genii 1945 January
Content
Introduction
- Clearing up a puzzle
- Art versus science
- The reason for a book of fundamentals
- Where this work came from
- Old things are best
- Bromides
- Time and tide
- Of words and style and other trivialities
Chapter I: Classification of Effects
- Thousands from so few
- Trick and effect
- Classification of card effects, by T Page Wright
- Conjuring feats, as Mr Sharpe sees them
- Fundamental effects, through Mr Freer's eyes
- And nineteen effects for this work
- Their definitions
Chapter II: Upon These Fundamentals We Stand
- A fertile field for argument
- You may lead a horse to water
- What you may use
- What you may do
- Time
- Conditions
- Of repetitions and the like
- Are secrets important?
- But twenty from many
Chapter III: The Beginning of Appearance
- Three ways of looking for tricks
- From a secret place while diverted
- The form
- The detachable portion
- Repeating
- The thread, elastic and spring pulls
- Decanters to spiders' webs
- Spring levers and balloons
- Guided gravity
- Revolving panels
Chapter IV: Appearances, Continued
- Secret compartments
- Double bottoms double sides
- Movable compartments
- Mirrors
- Cast iron elephants
- Two compartments, either of which may become secret
- Concealed by an accessory
- Remote places
Chapter V: Appearances, Again
- Expansibility
- Eggs and chickens
- Covering which blends with the background
- Sliding slats
- Loading while concealed by an accessory
- Chemicals
Chapter VI: Appearances, Still Going On
- Secret ingress
- Secret passageways
- Optical projection
- Hollow shells
- Secret exchange
- Pretense
Chapter VII: The Vanish
- Opposites
- Disposal while distracted
- Disposal and form
- Detachable portions for vanish
- Pulls and the flying cage
- Improvements
- Secret compartments again
- Even two secret compartments
- Shells
- Collapsibility
- Covering to oblivion
- Gone behind an accessory
- Black art
- Chemistry
Chapter VIII: Vanish, Continuing
- Gone like the malefactors
- Secret passageways
- Optics
- Shells
- Reversing the appearance principle
- Substitutions
- Pretense
- Disguise
Chapter IX: Transpositions
- Combination vanish and appearance
- Clocks that pass
- Duplicates While attention is away Change in proximate surroundings
- Secret exchange
- Flaps
- Compound transpositions
- Refinements
- Difliculties of classification
- Disguise with a die
- Shells and buttons
- Concealed conveyance
- Pretense
- The invisible man
- Complex transpositions
- And other applications
Chapter X: Transformations
- Combination vanish and appearance
- Dual identity
- Bricks, billiard balls and canes
- Substitution
- Shells
- Concealment
- Bold tactics
- Pulls Coverings
- Secret compartments and disguise
- The disappearing princess
- Concealment and secret passageways
- Disguise
- Relative surroundings
- Bulk, blinds and reversible panels
Chapter XI: Penetration
- Can matter pass through matter?
- The very few ways
- Secret passageway
- Around
- Duplicates
- New for old
- Needles to rings
- Substitution
- Two obstacles and two Parts
- Magnets
- Collapsibility
- Pretense
- Implication
- Random examples
- Princess, phantoms, blocks, ghosts, glasses, spokes, boxes
- Optics, ties
- Grandmother's contribution
- Passageways in profusion
Chapter XII: Restoration
- Two conditions
- Dupes again
- Pretense
- Disguise
- Six ways
- Cremation, decapitation, dismemberment and other gory details
- Paper
- Valuables
- Mr Kolar's String
- Ropes
- Portions
- Rubber bands, string, cards, plates, ribbons, neckties, handkerchiefs, ropes
Chapter XIII: Animation
- Invisible connection
- Concealed connection
- Clockworks
- Stored up power
- Indirect connections
- Chemicals
- Secret compartments
- Human power
- Gravity
- Centers of gravity
- Balance
- Pendulums, handkerchiefs
- Implication with silk
- Automata
Chapter XIV: Anti-Gravithy
- Suspension
- Concealed support
- Shifted center of gravity
- Rising figures
- Pianos
- Invisible support
- Ashrah
- Magnetic repulsion
- Atmospheric pressure
- Threads
- Concealed support again
- Reels
- Hair
- Magnetic attraction
- Weight
Chapter XV: Attraction
- Invisible support
- Concealed support
- Magnetism
- Ad-hesion
- Secret grips
- Canes, cigarettes, tables, vases
Chapter XVI: Sympathetic Reactions
- No common characteristics
- Silks
- You do as I do
- Interpretations identify
- Effects really in other categories
- Candles
- Productions
- Cards and saucers
- Cards
- Flocks of sympathy tricks
- Suggestions on how to do
- Suggested effects
Chapter XVII: Invulnerability
- Fire eating, cooking steaks and walking on swords
- Rolling in a barrel of glass
- Kids and a bed of spikes
- In a cake of ice
- Traps
- Bullet catching
- Stretching
- Electrocution
- Methods unique to the problem
Chapter XVIII: Physical Anomaly
- Shadows
- Seeing through matter
- Living heads
- Pencils, dollar bills and other contradictions
- Other suggestions of violated physical laws
- Time
Chapter XIX: Spectator Failure
- An impossible game
- Shells and cards
- Rattle bars, foo cans, ropes and barrels
- Conveyance, substitution, disguise, duplicates
- Running up hands, bank nights, bingo, spell
- downs
- Puzzles
- Interpretation of transformation and transposition effects
- Threading contest
Chapter XX: Control
- A fine line between animation and control
- Clocks, hands, bells and skulls John Mulholland's bell
- Coins, hands and Bill Larsen's slipper
- Drumsticks and snakes
- Balls and spelling
- Sand and a trick with liquids
- Ducks and dogs
Chapter XXI: Identification
- Discovery
- How
- Marks Delay
- Psychology
- Tags, crayons, sticks
- Magnetic methods Keys
- Arrangements
- Mathematics
- Latin
- Indirect marks
- Pyramids, discs, ballot boxes, clocks and lead pencils
- Living and dead
- Luminous paint
- Glimpses
- Forces
- Exchange
- Mind reading, cards and telephones
- Indirect keys
- Confederates Codes
Chapter XXII: Thought Reading
- Taken from the subject
- Reading the recorded thought How to manage a glimpse
- One-ahead, extracting the card, and transparencies
- Exchanges Stealing the note Feeling the writing
- Secret impressions Carbon and wax
- Contact mind reading
- Microphones
- Reading messages in the dark
- Confederates
- Forced thought
Chapter XXIII: Thought Transference
- Projected to the receiver
- Codes audible and visible Memorized routines
- Indirect codes
- Position and felt codes
- Specialization Forcing
- Confederacy Secret writing
- Delayed commitment
- Contact mind reading
Chapter XXIV: Predictions
- Foretelling the future
- Forcing
- Delayed commitment
- Confederacy
- Slates to books
- Nail writers Pocket writing
- Indexes and filing devices
- Substitution
- Providing for every contingency
- Locked chests, sealed jars and sealed envelopes
Chapter XXV: Extra-Sensory Perception
- Spectacular delusions
- Seeing with the fingertips
- Detection other than claimed
- Blindfolds
- Secret identifications
- Seeing through welded steel plates
- Detection the FBI couldn't use
- Defective impediment
- Interpretation again
Chapter XXVI: Pseudo Skill
- Imitations of skill
- Not mysteries as to method
- Memory
- Balancing eggs
- Gambling demonstrations
- Lighting matches in mid air
- Pocket picking
- Cube root
- Fans
Chapter XXVII: The Invention of New Trick Plots
- A numbering system
- Drawing lots for a new trick
- Make added lists
- Needles, knitting and otherwise
- Pitchers, pails and decorations
- Sacks, birds and words
- Arbitrary selections force the imagination
- Original trick Plots
- Original routines
- Generalities broaden the field
- Original combinations
- Cards and The Trick Brain
- Cards on a plate
- Practical experience
Chapter XXVIII: Methods for New Trick Plots
- Basic methods
- Generalized for stimulation
- Why this book was written
- The "how" of the needles
- A new trick: Needles to packet
- What flower do you prefer?
- Say it with flowers
- Adaptation
- Method selection
- Animated sympathetic rope
- Weed out those you don't like
- The Trick Brain does many things
Chapter XXIX: The Trick Brain
- Introducing The Trick Brain in person
- What it is
- How it works
- Lists of basic effects
- List of essential factors
- Lists of objects
- Lists of basic methods
Chapter XXX: Techniques of Invension
- How various inventors attack the thirty-card trick
- Leipzig, Buckley Baker, Zens, Scarne Vernon
- Card to the Pocketbook by various methods
- The Diminishing Cards by Bertram Chapender, Stanyon, Baker and Walsh
- The Bill In Cigarette by many including Rae, Thayer, Ervin, Davenport
- The wands
- Sawing a woman
- Six card repeat
- Many effects with blocks
- Whiskey glasses
- Trunk tricks
- How method is shaped by style and circumstances
- The linking rings
- Conditions and capabilities
Chapter XXXI: Sleight-of-Hand Translation
- Mechanical methods apply to sleight-of-hand performers
- The hand is a mechanical device
- Secret hiding places
- Reasoning out methods
- Bouquet to silk
- Step-by-step analysis
- Forms, detachable portions, pulls, secret compartments, shells
- The hands as accessories
- Cards as accessories
- Coverings which blend, secret passageways secret exchange
- Disguise, secret compartments
Chapter XXXII: New Lamps for Old
- Other valuable uses for The Trick Brain
- How tricks may be changed in effect
- Interpretation again
- Shelves full of unused tricks and devices
- Reclaiming them for new purposes and uses
- An example with The Passe Passe Bottles
- Analyzing what they really may be
- An example with the mirror glass
- What to look for and how The Trick Brain will suggest new uses
Chapter XXXIII: The Ultimate Objective
- Marshaling the elements of the mechanics of magic
- Disagreements are expected
- Reduction to final elements is intended
- The foundations of mechanical magic
- Tools are tricks
- Technique of performance
- Overcrowded workshops and unskilled mechanics
- All the tricks you will ever need
- Mechanics not profound
- Fundamentals all here
- A list of the fifty four elements
- Are these the true secrets of magic?
- What of the mind?
Chapter XXXIV: Glossary Of Definitions Of Fundamental Expedients
Courtesy of Doug A's Magic Book TOCs