Jack McMillen by Michael Landes & Jack McMillen

Jack McMillen is famous for his (plunger) card rise. Seventy-five years after first appearing in print, it remains the preferred pure sleight of hand method for the rising cards, as well as a powerful more general concept that can be used as a force or a switch for example. If you are an avid reader of card magic literature you will no doubt have encountered other effects credited to Jack McMillen – for example in Expert Card Technique, but his name tends to slip through and very little is known about him although he is without a doubt one of the great card men of all time.

We have to thank Michael Landes who, starting more than 20 years ago on a suggestion by Paul Chosse, sat down with Jack McMillen and recorded his most important contributions to magic. Michael Landes meticulously and carefully studied every nuance and every detail to share with all of us Jack McMillen’s legacy. This is THE book on Jack McMillen. There will never be anything more authoritative on Jack than this book. The late Paul Chosse, another student of Jack McMillen, did not only suggest this book, but also generously offered to supply any material of his own that Jack and/or Mr. Landes thought appropriate. If you find any references to a ‘Jack McMillen book’ by Paul Chosse – this is it. This is the book he was referring to.

Who was Jack McMillen? Jack was an all-rounder, a technician, creator and performer, and he excelled in all three realms. Blessed with prodigious skill, he was already one of the top card men in the country while still in high school (1925-1929). Due to his widening reputation, Charlie Miller, living on the other side of the country, sought him out in 1929. They were to remain close friends for sixty years.

Blessed with a strong creative bent and an analytical mind, Jack was a superb problem solver, talented at refining the ideas of others as well as with coming up with original tricks and methods of his own. The measure of his talent lay not in the quantity of his ideas, but in their seminal quality. A startling number of his ideas continue to inspire new thinking even today. Blessed with an affable nature, gregarious personality and a fascination with the problem of making tricks entertaining, Jack evolved into a top performer. He really was truly charming, an ideal close-up magician. In spite of the miraculous impact of his tricks, the spectators primarily remembered him.

Despite his status as one of the top card magician – friend and confident to legends like Charlie Miller and Dai Vernon - Jack never put a lot of his creations on paper. Other than the lecture notes he wrote for his Magic Castle lecture in the seventies and a single contribution to Charlie Miller’s Magicana, he never wrote up any of his material. The articles that appeared in print bearing his name were invariably written by others, with only minimal cooperation from Jack at best, and sometimes without even his knowledge or permission. As a result the descriptions usually missed salient details and were often downright inaccurate.

This ebook will set the record straight. It will describe the most important contributions of Jack McMillen in minute detail. Mixed into the technical descriptions are some wonderful anecdotes and stories which will bring the person to life.

One note of caution: This ebook does not have illustrations. We believe that the meticulous textual description allows for a more detailed and more accurate communication of method and their nuances than illustrations could provide. If you are the kind of person that quickly flies through a book glancing at a few illustrations to pick out what you think are the main nuggets of information, you will be disappointed. This is a book for the serious student of card magic. Take a deck of cards and follow along the descriptions of what you will find to be some of the most efficient and clever techniques with cards ever created.

Paul Chosse: "Jack McMillen taught me to 'Go Slow! and be sure the audience understands the plot. Jack was the most unaffected, affable, charming guy you would ever meet. An old country preacher sort of a fellow, always a smile, soft-spoken, and gentle. He epitomized the card-handling techniques that Vernon espoused: he held the pack like a little bird, gently, softly. There were no hurried movements, no "big move covers the little move" actions. Just great timing, perfect excecution, and a pleasant personality and presentation that charmed people into submission! No one wanted to catch Jack – they wanted to be fooled! They like him and wanted him to succeed – that makes a huge difference. Jack's favorite text was Erdnase, though he studied all the classics. He was always trying to be better. Jack was never quite satisfied. Even his signature tricks, things he'd done for 50 years, could be altered if he found a better way. I remember him making a change in a trick he'd been doing since the forties, because Roger Klause showed him a little thing that fit, just right, in the trick. I don't even know that it made any difference to anyone else, but it made a difference to Jack, it brought the trick just an iota closer to perfection, so he used it. In fact, it was so small a thing that the first time Jack did the "new" version of this trick for me, I didn't notice the change. But like I say, Jack didn't do it for me, he did it for himself. He was an artist, a master, and he knew that this little change made his work a bit better, for him if not for anyone else. I learned a lot about magic from Jack, and a lot about human nature, and since his tools were cards I'd have to say he was the single most influential person in my card magic education. ……."

1st edition 2011; 263 pages.

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

2. ORIGIN OF THE PROJECT

3. ADDITIONAL NOTES

   SECTION ONE: LOS ANGELES: 1925-1929

   
   

4. 1. STARTING OUT

5. CONTROL I

6. A BARBARY COAST SCAM

7. CONTROL II

8. THE STILL THUMB

   
   

9. 2. TAKE A CARD

10. Controls

11. AN INSTANTANEOUS DETECTION (Judson Brown)

12. A RIFFLE SHUFFLE CONTROL

13. Locations

14. END FOR END

15. THE RIFFLE GLIMPSE (McMillen/Brown)

16. GLIMPSE FROM THE PEEK

17. FIVE CARD FAN SELECTION

18. SHUFFLE CODE (McMillen/Brown)

19. Forces

20. SPREAD FORCE (Larsen)

21. THE CUT FORCE

22. KNIFE FORCE

    
    

23. 3. REVELATIONS

24. UPSIDE DOWN (Judson Brown)

25. A RETRIEVED ERROR

26. FROM ANOTHER PACK

27. THE SPECTATOR FINDS A CARD

28. REVERSED AT ANY NUMBER

29. A QUICK REVERSE

30. THE JOKER FINDS A CARD

31. THE BIDDLE COLOR CHANGE

32. A MENTAL SPELL

33. THE VOODOO CARD RISE

    
    

34. 4. CHARLES JORDAN

35. THE UNKNOWN LEAPER

36. EDGE MARK PREMO

37. SENSITIVE FINGERS

38. THE PAIRS POKER STACK

39. PAUL CHOSSE ON THE PAIRS POKER STACK

    
    

40. 5. THE J. M. CARD RISE

41. FIRST METHOD (for a single selection)

42. SECOND METHOD (two card rise)

43. THIRD METHOD (one selection)

44. FOURTH METHOD

45. PAUL CHOSSE ON THE J. M. CARD RISE

    SECTION TWO: SAN FRANCISCO: 1933-1953

    
    

46. 6. THE BRAUE CONNECTION

47. CONTINUOUS SPELLER

48. THE DOUBLE LIFT

49. Jack’s CENTER DEAL

50. THE PSYCHIC STOP

51. MIND MIRROR

52. THE WITCHCRAFT CARD RISE

    
    

53. 7. SAN FRANCISCO DAYS

54. THE VANISHING DECK

55. Jack’s SAN FRANCISCO SECOND

56. Senor Mardo’s RING, COIN, AND HANDKERCHIEF

    
    

57. 8. THE COLOR CHANGES

58. THE SNAP COLOR CHANGE

59. PUSH OFF COLOR CHANGE

60. THE ERDNASE STEAL

61. THE EYE TEST

    
    

62. 9. THE COLLINS’ ACES

    
    

63. 10. VERNONIANA

64. THE FIRST MEETING

65. THE DOUBLE LIFT GET-SET

66. THE THUMBPRINT TRICK

67. TRIUMPH

68. A HAND-TO-HAND TRANSFER

69. THE AMBITIOUS CARD SEQUENCE

70. A QUICK TRICK

71. THE GAMBLER'S SECRET

72. A PROBLEM WITH THE ACES

    
    

73. 11. MAGICANA

74. THE ONE SHUFFLE POKER STACK

75. THE ORIGIN OF THE TEN CARD DEAL

76. THE NYQUIST POKER DEAL

77. THE SECRET OF HENRY SING

78. THE TAP THROUGH CONTROL

79. NYQUIST RADIO CONTROL

80. CARD TO POCKET WITH A KICKER

81. THE POWER OF THOUGHT

82. THE STOP TRICK

    SECTION THREE: SANTA ROSA: 1954-1990

    
    

83. 12. COMING TO SANTA ROSA

84. THE OLD GAMBLER

85. SHADE WORK

86. BLACKJACK ROUTINE

87. THE BLUFF ACES

    
    

88. 13. THE SAN FRANCISCO SHUFFLE

    
    

89. 14. NEVER BET ON A SURE THING

    
    

90. 15. THE PURSE FRAME

91. THE PURSE FRAME

92. WINGED SILVER

93. QUICK SILVER

94. CROSSED HANDS

95. ONE COIN

    
    

96. 16. MORE TRICKS

97. PSYCHIC STOP II: THE SPREAD

98. DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

99. THE BIDDLE TRICK

100. RING, ROPE AND STICK

101. EXPANSION OF TEXTURE

102. THE CHALLENGE POKER DEAL

     
     

103. 17. ODDS & ENDINGS

104. AN OPENING

105. COINS

106. THE LINKING RINGS

107. AMBITIOUS CARD MANEUVERS

108. THE CUPS & BALLS

109. Bob Madison's CARDS TO POCKET

     ADDENDUM: AT THE CARD TABLE

     
     

110. 18. BOTTOM DEALS

111. Jack’s SOFT BOTTOM DEAL

112. ANOTHER BOTTOM

113. FINAL NOTES ON BOTTOM DEALS

     
     

114. 19. MORE SLEIGHTS

115. RIFFLE SHUFFLE SEQUENCE I. To Retain The Order Of The Entire Deck

116. RIFFLE SHUFFLE SEQUENCE II. To Retain Top Stock At The Bottom

117. Martin’s FALSE CUT

118. Dr. Elliot’s SECOND DEAL

119. SIMPLICITY BOTTOM PALM

120. SIMPLICITY BOTTOM DEAL

121. MIRAGE (THE NO-SWITCH SWITCH)

122. HOLE CARD SWITCH

123. Gene Matsuura's ONE-HANDED SWITCH

     
     

124. 20. NOTES ON CARDS

125. Notes On THE BOTTOM PALM – FIRST METHOD

126. Notes On THE BOTTOM CARD REPLACEMENT

127. Paul Chosse on THE DIAGONAL PALM SHIFT

128. Notes On FALSE DEALS

129. MORE TIPS & DETAILS

130. APPENDIX

131.