I second that opinion Dennis

In my area its a rare thing to see mem deck magic. You can do amazing stuff with a mem stack. I don't know why many magicians ignore this concept, its great.

If you go to google, you can search the whole forum by typing in

site:http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/ (your search term)

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2......ed+stack

(sorry about the snark on that link)

I'm glad that not many perform stack work! Means we are unique Aronson brought this up in his "bound to please". On page 84 he eludes to 3 reasons for this. One that magicians think a stack is impossible to learn, second that having to switch in the stack during a routine is wracking and third that over the years many effects have come out for the stack that are simply mundane. That every effect using a stack is a simple location effect or a weighing the cards effect. All of these points are valid.

Personally I feel if you don't put time, effort and creativeness into stack work then yes the effects will be long and boring. It is what you do with it, the possibilities are endless. As for the first point learning the stack does take time but once learned it is hard to forget. To the second point, learning a false shuffle and allowing the spectator to shuffle (Eric Mead has some ideas on this)will allow one to already have the stack out in play. I usually will perform one or two effects before a stack effect.

With that I hope that stack work remains used but only few and lets help each other with new ideas. Other Magi don't know what they are missing out on!

Yesssss! Jan

Alright, I'll bite.

What would you folks recommend as a "starter" MD set-up?

Jorey

Juan Tamariz' "Mnemonica", and Simon Aronson's "Bound to Please", "Simply Simon", "The Aronson Approach" and "Try the Impossible". Jan

Jan,

Thanks for the recommendations

J.

I think most are a) afraid of the work involved memorizing b) can't choose a stack - and this one is BIG, just read some of the arguments about stacks their features etc to get a feel for this c) have a philosophical objection to stacks - something along the lines that it's not sportsmen like to the spectators (true ).

Hey, neither are any slieghts we use. We are cheating and fooling them(that's not very sportsmen like). However the spectators know that we are cheating.

I don't have a philosophical objection to stacks , nor did I honestly represented it either , I was teasing but it doesn't come through well in writing sometimes. I think the real deal with c) is something along the lines "what about borrowed shuffled deck" (answer: it can be stacked in front of spectators).
Of course I agree with you, in fact , the more something is NOT sportsmen like the better , magic is not the Olympics, you are supposed to cheat as the magician. Mem deck takes it to another level in my opinion, like super steroids or since we like those weapon analogies, its like hunting rabbits with one of those smart self navigating stealth missiles