On 2004-11-12 13:56, markhammagi wrote:
For those interested, the U.F. Grant routine can be found on page 13 of Paul Curry's "Out of this World" manuscript.

The plot of having a spectator intuitively sort face-down card into red and blacks was not original with Mr. Curry. Reinhard Müller has pinpointed examples as far back as the 1800s, which he reports on in Underworld, No. 1, 1995. p. 4. In the same issue Karl Fulves mentions two early Scarne approaches. (Also see The Fine Print, No. 1, 1995, p. 2; and No. 4. 1996, p. 89.) However, there is no question that Curry’s method eclipsed all the previous ones of the time (and arguably to the very present). Its birth occurred during a session with John Scarne, at which they tried to improve on a Walter B. Gibson trick, “Pay Off”, which appeared as the first offering in the first issue of The Phoenix (January 1942). Gibson’s effect, by the way, does have a spectator sorting face-down cards by color, but it as much resembles Stewart James’s classic Miraskill (The Jinx, No. 24, Sept. 1936, p. 147) as it does “Out of This World”. Fred Braue tells the story of the conception of “Out of This World” in his column in the December 1948 issue of Hugard’s Magic Monthly (Vol. VI, No. 7, p. 489):

Quote:

The genesis of “Out of this World” is fascinatin’. Curry and Scarne watched Audley Walsh do Gibson’s “Payoff” and began figuring angles. Scarne devised a trick in which a spectator cut groups of cards, then Scarne told him how many red cards each contained, the method involving seconds, bottoms, shifts, palms and prayers. Even Johnny couldn’t do it. Curry struck off on another tangent, speculating on the idea of a self-working face-down color separation, and came up with “Out of this World.” “I didn’t think much of my method,” Curry writes. ‘It wasn’t until a week later that I actually did it. On the basis of my very-suffering wife’s reaction, I realized that the effect was fairly good. It’s a funny thing - all the details of the stunt came to me in about 15 minutes. Since then my mind has been in a complete fog and I haven’t figured out any angles that differ to any extent from the original method. But to this day - I don’t quite understand why it should fool magicians.” That’s the history of the greatest self-working trick of our time.

The fog eventually cleared, though, as the article following this one shows.-S.M.

On 2005-04-14 11:46, Jonathan Townsend wrote:
Is Oscar still alive? He was in NYC last I asked.

On 2006-07-06 22:53, Bill Palmer wrote:
I've been doing OOTW for almost 50 years. I figured out a way of setting it up in front of the spectators without their having any idea it was being done. It's so simple that it borders on being a no-brainer.

I start the routine with the statement "People in various parts of the world shuffle the cards differently from other people." And I demonstrate various different "shuffles," most of which are gags. The last shuffle of the series is a slop shuffle, which I call the Chinese shuffle. I use that shuffle to do the necessary separation into the main groups.

On 2006-07-06 22:53, Bill Palmer wrote:
"Out of This Universe" is in Close-up Card Magic. It always struck me that it was a cure for a problem that did not really exist. A lot of people have commented that OOTW is not impromptu. That depends entirely upon how you get into the routine.

I've been doing OOTW for almost 50 years. I figured out a way of setting it up in front of the spectators without their having any idea it was being done. It's so simple that it borders on being a no-brainer.

I start the routine with the statement "People in various parts of the world shuffle the cards differently from other people." And I demonstrate various different "shuffles," most of which are gags. The last shuffle of the series is a slop shuffle, which I call the Chinese shuffle. I use that shuffle to do the necessary separation into the main groups. From that, I construct the necessary starting situation for the Curry routine (sans the missed card) with a simple cut. Then I state that I will read their mind and shuffle the cards at the same time. I do one riffle shuffle, push the cards together and go into the Curry routine.