Just got done with “Silent Running” by Ben Harris. I’d heard about it on the Café and it was getting great reviews, so I figured I’d have to find out. I’ll admit I was very much disappointed as I read it.
It’s too simple. Actually I think some friends and I tried something like this when we were kids just messing around with cards. How can somebody not see through this like a sheet of water? But the high praise from some very notable personalities in the field made me keep reading.
I finally went out and tried it on some living breathing victims. I went ahead and made up the special deck described in the text. The first time out, I did the routine where the person “sees” their card dissolving. Now, this is too much like Magic for my purposes in the show, but I wanted to see how it looked. The woman went through the deck four or five times trying to find her card. I was actually afraid she’d spot something, but she never did.
Her friend, with her, wanted me to “do her next”. (No comment.) Although it’s definitely not recommended, I went through exactly the same process, got a different card (thinking about it now, I should have “changed keys”, duh!) and just did a straight “mind reading” on her, using the “no fishing” technique described by Devin Knight in the “bonus contributions” section. She screamed! Seriously! It was loud, too! I wanted to hide!
Needless to say, simple as it is, it works. I’m going to figure out how to put this in, possibly with the bunched up napkin, also suggested by Devin Knight.
Wow, I’m starting to actually believe I can do this!