Magic Tricks

Let's just get this out of the way: Paul Harris is a genius. He's the Thomas Edison/Albert Einstein of magic. Deep Astonishment(s) 1 and 2 are two of the greatest tricks in magic. They're royalty. And Paul, who's prolific, should have stopped there. Deep X simply doesn't need to exist. It's as if Leonardo Da Vinci kept tweaking the Mona Lisa until it looked like Bart Simpson.

Notice the one thing in the trailer they neither show nor mention vocally -- the website. It gets a rather cursory message in text at the end. And there's a reason they bury it. It ruins the magic of (possibly) the most magical effect ever created. The website indicates some funny business is happening. It's simply not natural to ask someone to enter a secret word on a website. And when the website does its dirty work, it LOOKS like something funny is happening. It FEELS like something fishy is happening. It's apparent the app is engaged in some calculation. Tragically, the app LINKS the idea of the lucky word and the lucky cards in the spec's mind. Not good.

But this is where Deep X's true fatal flaw comes into stark relief: When the app spits out the spec's lucky cards, they call them out to you while you fish through the deck, find them, and deal them face up on the table. And then you almost immediately PUT THEM RIGHT BACK IN THE DECK (after a completely meaningless excuse for some business.) Why take them out in the first place? I have no idea, and this is the death knell of the trick. Every step reeks of process.

Look, people will disagree with me, and that's fine. I wanted to love this effect. I just didn't. In the end, the whole shebang feels forced and unnatural. Bummer.