Magic Tricks

Nu Collection is a three-hour download from acclaimed mentalist Alain Nu dealing with impromptu mentalism. First things first, Nu is an outstanding thinker who is passionate about the art. His enthusiasm is infectious, and he's terrifically comfortable presenting and teaching these routines. I really like him.

The lecture did not get off to the best of starts as Nu demonstrated the cross-cut, oh, you know. He added a John Kennedy subtlety to it, which didn't really impress me. He then moved on to his Easy ACAAN. It's a nice effect with an issue that I don't like but which is easy to fix. During the teaching, he demonstrates a highly ingenious and easy sleight/ditch that he uses on several other effects. It's great, and I wondered why I hadn't seen it before.

Of the other effects here, his Serial Killa is really good, the best routine of the bunch. I was already using a version of it from one of Mark Elsdon's Conversation as Mentalism pamphlets, but Nu's handling is great. After that, I liked his version of Mental Epic called Do I Know You? which reminded me a lot of Richard Osterlind's Mental Epic with a steno pad. Nu's routine is charming, and I know that I will be doing it impromptu soon.

After that it's a mixed bag. His No Threat Roulette uses a cool mathematical principle but needs you to be alert and keep track of card movement. I'd rather use the commercial effect .357 by Tom Lauten, which requires no mental gymnastics and allows me to work on my performance. Then he goes into a bunch of routines using ESP cards. Here is where I have to knock him down a star. While the methods are intriguing, I think that they are way too complicated for the effects presented. I've seen Osterlind, Spelmann, Elsdon, and others do ESP card effects that are just as effective but so much simpler. These routines are clearly a case of Nu's being enamored with clever methods. Perhaps I'm lazy, but there's no way that I'm going to spend the time learning something like his 5 to 9 routine. It's just not worth it. Elsdon's Cubicle from his new Simplimental download, for example, is just as effective and almost self-working. These routines tread dangerously close to the stuff that card workers do, stuff that has so much process that I'd never trust my ability to perform them perfectly 100% of the time. To put it another way, you'd never catch Marc Paul or Luke Jermay doing these routines.

In summary, Nu is great, and there are a couple of fantastic things that you are going to learn from this download so your money will be well spent. After that, it's all about whether you like ESP card effects with complicated methods.