Quaint Time-Waste

Quaint Time-Waste is a book and a labour of perhaps misplaced love. Misplaced, because I might have asked too much of card magic. I spent years pondering about the meaning, purpose, and creative potential of pasteboards, only to find myself going nowhere. I wanted to achieve some form of literary expression through card tricks, and it seemed to be the wrong medium for the task.

Regardless, I had fun. Over the years, I managed to create very little, owing to my oblique approach to enjoying magic. This book is a record of some card tricks and essays on our quaint art, and proof of a certain effort. Hopefully, it’ll be of some value to you.

Tricks:

• Decja Vu 2.0

While trying to perform a card trick, the magician gets stuck in a time loop. The audience comes along for the ride.

• Playing Heavy Demo 2.0

The performer demonstrates how cardsharps could cheat in games, and how a technique that would work in a serious game of poker wouldn’t work in UNO, a children’s game.

• Home, Truly

A mischievous card gets in the way of the magician’s attempt to perform a packet trick by appearing within the packet unexpectedly and repeatedly. The packet gets whittled down, leaving just a single card in the end: the mischievous card, triumphant.

• Ligma 2.0

A (card) sandwich produces itself.

• Blunt Card Trick

The Joker changes into 3 spectators’ selections.

• Eternal Burn 666

The fire wallet and Extreme Burn are made scary by involving certain taboos in Chinese culture.

Essays:

• Magic is Play
• Beyond Effects and Methods
• Don’t Let Magic Be Magic
• Card Magic as Metaphor
• The Value of Vanity
  

96 pages

Edition of 150