David Regal’s Alone – The Inside Magic ReviewInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Alone: A Review

Mr. Regal is highly respected as an expert card worker and, in my opinion at least, a fantastic writer. I saw the ad for Alone in Genii and Magic and thought the description seemed too good to be true.

Well, the description is a bit misleading but the trick doesn?t suffer ? after all, your audience hasn?t read the description, right? Some of us still remember Tony Blangalo who used to hand out the instructions to the tricks he performed as he performed them.

Mr. Blangalo defended the practice by saying ?sometimes the tricks are no good but I want the audience to know it is not my fault. The trick, she is bad; just read the instructions.? Ironically, Mr. Blangalo was the only living person to receive a Broken Wand Ceremony. In fact, I think the video of a prominent magic club president breaking the wand over Tony?s head in a contest dispute is still floating around the Internet.

Your volunteer cannot select any card out of the deck. Your volunteer can select a card out of half of the deck but this is the only force in the effect. I won?t say any more about the selection for fear that I?ll tip the trick.

The instructions are clear and, as you and I would expect, expertly written.

The deck comes in Bicycle backs ? of course, the kicker ending actually has all of thefaces turning blank with the exception of the chosen card. I would imagine you could move the deck in and out of your act but it would seem strange. How or why would you turn thefaces of all the cards blank and then return them to their previous state to do another ?pick a card? effect?

Unless . . .

I performed Alone for real audiences ? albeit very small audiences ? at the IBM Convention earlier this week.…

Alone: A Review

The instructions are clear and, as you and I would expect, expertly written.

Unless . . .

I performed Alone for real audiences ? albeit very small audiences ? at the IBM Convention earlier this week. I did do a deck switch fromthe Alonedeck toa straight deckby just putting theAlone deck into my right pants pocket after showing that all of the faces have turned blank. It is unfortunate that you cannot let your audience examine the cards.I then did my very impressive”talking a little bit about psychic stuff”:

?Hey, what?s your sign? Do you know that Taurus is the sign of love? Do you think these pants are too tight? What?s that smell? Do you really have to leave right now? Can?t I do one more trick? Do you think this mole is cancerous?? You know, the typical psychic patter”

Then I removed thenormal deckfrommyleft pocket.

When I removed the normal deck, I immediately did the age-old blowing the ink off the card faces.

I am guessing that everyone already knows this but for the one or two that haven?t seen it, you fan the deck with faces towards you, blow on the faces and turn the deck around to show all of the faces have vanished. It?s not that big a trick ? a gambler taught me when I was 12 and had just gone professional. (He also bought me a rum and Coke and said I had pretty hair ? scary, weird guy).

If you?re not familiar with the effect or the method, drop me a line at tim@insidemagic.com,and tell me how long you?ve been doing magic. If your credentials check out, I?ll send you the step-by-step of the ?blowing the ink of the card faces? effect.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make before I went off into the world ofcreepy gambling guysteaching obscure magic effects to half-drunk kids, was that after doing Alone, I would apparently use the same deck with blank faces, restore their faces and move on.It turned Alone into kind of a neat book end for my effect. The ink off the faces effect can be done with a normal deck so I was able to hand it out for shuffling during the card reprise.

This has gone much longer than I planned but I think the effect warrants the web space. I don?t think anyone will do this as the single card effect in their routine. It does need to be used among other effects. The advertising is a virtually accurate and the handling is simple. No sleights to learn. It reminds me of Dean Dill’s Blizzard — previously reviewed here. I actually thought Blizzard was much stronger than Alone.

INSIDE MAGIC RATING: Three out of Four