Bob Hummer and Theodore Annemann are among the few magicians with the audacity to discuss politics through the medium of a card trick. That’s probably just as well; agitprop rarely produces a comfortable fit in performance. Casting caution aside, we’ll add just a dollop to this presentation.

The performer brings out a face-down packet of cards, and says, “Have you ever noticed that criminals seem to like working in teams? Of course, as in almost every profession, there are soloists in the field. But it’s the partnerships that are really memorable. For example, if I show you this name . . . ”

With this, he turns the top card of the packet face up and deals it to the table, revealing that it is not a playing card. Instead, it bears a name: Bonnie.

The performer says, “You would immediately connect it to her partner.” Without pause (and without fail), the spectators respond with the name “Clyde.” The subsequent card is turned face up and tabled next to the first; it indeed has Clyde inscribed on its face.

Dealing two more cards, the performer adds, “Then there’s the team of Leopold and Loeb, the notorious ‘thrill killers’ of the 1920s.

Two more cards are dealt, with the comment, “Or, if that’s too far back in history, how about Erik and Lyle, the Menendez brothers who murdered their parents a few years ago.”

Two more cards are dealt as the performer blithely continues, “The point is that it’s quite standard for criminals to work in pairs.” The names on the just-dealt cards are not uttered out loud, but the audience can read them: Bush and Cheney. (Okay, yes, we’ll discuss the joke at the end of this write-up.)

The cards are gathered and mixed, as the magician says, “Of course, when a criminal team completes its work, the members lose themselves in the crowd.”

A spectator is invited to give the packet one or more complete cuts. This done, the performer gives the cards a further shuffle, then deals the packet back and forth into two piles, and explains, ‘It’s safer for the partners to separate.”

The dealt packets are recombined, and handed to a spectator, who is asked to redeal the cards into two groups, then reassemble them by placing either group atop the other. This is repeated as many times as desired. The performer turns away, so that he does not know how many times the process has been done.

The participant stops at any point when there are two piles on the table. The performer, still turned away, instructs the participant to remove the top card of either pile, and pocket it, unviewed.

The other pile is now dropped on top of the first, and the combined seven-card group is squared.

Reiterating the fairness of the circumstances, the performer turns to face the audience. “Obviously,” he says, “the challenge is to track down the partner of the secret culprit who is hiding in your pocket.”

“Fortunately,” he continues, “criminals aren’t the only ones who work in teams.” With this, the performer brings out two more cards. One bears the name Holmes, the other Watson.

“The detectives round up the usual suspects.” One of the new cards is slid, face up, beneath the packet’ the other is placed, also face up, on top of the packet.

“And now they go to work, trying to narrow things down to identify your secret partner. If they can accomplish that, perhaps the partner will rat you out. To simulate this investigatory process, please do a Criminology Shuffle.” The participant is guided through this activity, which is, of course, an Under/Down Deal^{[footnote 1]}. (You were warned.)^{[footnote 2]}

At the conclusion of this procedure, the packet is spread. The two face-up detective cards are seen to have repositioned themselves closer together; in fact, there is only one face-down card between them.

“Look!” the performer exclaims. “They’ve narrowed it down to one suspect!” The flanked card is extracted and turned over. It is, for example, Lyle.

Pointing toward the participant’s pocket, the performer shouts, “All right, Erik – Come out with your hands up!”

Copyright © 2002 by Max Maven

Time out For this Station Break

Note From the Editor:

I picked up this book a couple of years ago and have read it, literally, at least 6 times since then. The book is extremely cleverly written. There are fun little subtleties all throughout the text (they’re even in this write up) that show you just how clever Max Maven really is, and how well thought out the book is.

It’s very easy to read and covers (in some form or another) the Stay-Stack, the Gilbreath Principle, and so many other wonderful ideas that can be applied to Tarot cards, ESP cards, playing cards, and many many other cards.

I highly recommend this book. There are three different effects in my active repertoire from this book. For the meager price of $15, you can’t go wrong. Because I’m such a huge fan of this book, I emailed Max Maven to ask permission to publish this particular effect in the magazine. 24 hours later I received an email back granting his blessing to publish this effect. I tell you this because, Max Maven did not ask me to advertise this for him. I asked him if I could advertise it.

So . . . order it already: Redivider

The plot and method are related to an idea I have explored a number of times in the past, starting with “Sherloct,” which appeared in Abra in April 1992. Here, the work should be fairly evident from the description above.^{[footnote 3]} When the criminal cards are initially displayed, they’re put into two piles. One pile is then placed on top of the other, forming a cyclical arrangement (abcdabcd).^{[footnote 4]} This is followed by a false mix, a complete cut by the spectator, then a further mix to put the cards into Stay-Stack condition.^{[footnote 5]}

The spectator does the redealing and reassembling activity as many times as desired.^{[footnote 6]} The top card of either pile is pocketed, then the other pile is dropped on top of the three-card remainder. The result is that the card that partners with the pocketed selection is now fourth from the top of the seven-card packet. The two face-up detective cards are placed on the top and bottom of the packet, and an Under/Down Deal is executed. The result will be as described: The detectives will end up sandwiching the partner card.

The teams described in the presentation above are the ones I use. If you think some pairs are too obscure, there are better known substitutes available, albeit what defines “better known” is determined by the cultural literacy of your audience. Some examples: Jesse and Frank James, Burke and Hare, Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Then again, you may prefer to make use of fictional teams that carry less disturbing baggage, such as Butch and Sundance, Boris and Natasha, Norman Bates and Mom.

Now, a word about the political joke: If you don’t think it’s amusing, don’t use it. Having said that, I think you’ll find that, unless you’re working for an explicitly partisan audience, the joke will work for just about any group, no matter what their individual political affiliations may be. In fact, it’ll work no matter what party happens to be in office at the time you read this, and it will obviously work in just about any country, not just the United States. The truth is that, in one way or another, we tend to think of most political leaders as, at the very least, scoundrels; so, including them in a line-up of criminals is grist for comedy.

There are, of course, non-political alternatives. It’s not as funny (at least for me), but you can get the desired surprise and laughter by capping your line-up with a classic duo of a decidedly non-criminal bent, such as Laurel and Hardy, or Simon and Garfunkel. Or, you may choose to split the difference and go with Penn and Teller.

Well, if this presentation strikes you as being in embarrassingly poor taste, the next one is likely to make your face even redder.^{[footnote 7]}

Copyright © 2002 by Max Maven

For those who’ve not yet read the book

Notes From the Editor:

[Footnote 1]:
Briefly, the Under/Down Deal is this: With the packet in dealing position, deal the top card to the bottom of the packet. Then the next card to the table, then the next to the bottom, then the table, then the bottom, etc., until the entire packet is on the table in a pile.

[Footnote 2]:
Earlier in the book, in the write up of the effect Never Odd Or Even A/K/A I Prefer PI Max Maven is discussing his interest in the Under/Down Deal and states that “Most lay people actually find the procedure rather charming. Then again, they’re not reading this book; you are. So, we’ll soon move on to tricks that don’t employ that activity. (It will reappear before we’re done; consider yourself warned.)” Many pages and several effects later, we find that his warning was well warranted as we read in the above effect.

[Footnote 3]:
Of course, this effect is written in the Redivider at a point where over 20 other effects have been explained and much of the proceedings to the readers of the book are obvious at this point in the book. So if they weren’t obvious to you as you read them, that’s ok; you haven’t read the book yet. Though I highly recommend you spend the mere $15 to obtain this book, it is not needed to understand this effect. Everything you need is within the above text.

[Footnote 4]:
In other words, as in opening of the effect when you display the partners, Pair “A” is placed on the table (A1 on the left and A2 on the right). Next, pair “B” is placed on top of that (B1 on top of A1 and B2 on top of A2), etc., until there are two piles each with (from the back up to the face) A, B, C, D. Thus when you place one face up stack on to the other, you have the order ABCDABCD.

[Footnote 5]:
Stack-Stack is a palindromic order (ABCDDCBA). There are many ways to get to this position. Probably the easiest is to overhand shuffle the first four cards of the stack and then thrown the rest on top. BAM! You’re done. Another method (also described in the book) is Gene Finnell’s Klondike Shuffle. You’ll do what’s referred to as an undistributed Klondike Shuffle. Simply this: hold the packet in Biddle/Overhand grip from above with the right hand. Milk the top and bottom cards off together in a pair and drop them to the table. Do this again dropping the next milked-off pair on top of the first. Continue this until you have only two cards left in your hand. Drop those two cards on to the tabled packet and you now have an eight-card packet in palindromic order (i.e. Stay-Stack).

[Footnote 6]:
From the Stay-Stack condition (as thoroughly addressed in Redivider), you can deal two piles back and forth, then place one pile onto the other and then deal back and forth and repeat without disturbing the palindromic condition. After dealing back and forth into two piles, it does not matter which pile is placed on the other pile. Once the two piles are reassembled the deal and reassable can be repeated ad naseaum. In the context of this routine, we have the spectator do this procedure to their heart’s content asking them to stop at a point where there are two piles on the table.

[Footnote 7]:
One more reason to buy Redivider, to find out what the next presentation will be . . .