Architecture and the Memorized Deck

What does Architecture have to do with the Memorized Deck?

Just over ten years ago, I published my first book, which included a chapter of routines using a memorized deck. I was unknown as a writer (I still keep a pretty low profile) but the book managed to find an audience, especially once it began receiving endorsements from some of the great card experts!

"This is an outstanding book and one which I feel all card men should study ... Amazing effects with The Memorized Deck, ...One of the highlights is Pure and Simple, a stunning effect which can look and feel like pure Mind Reading to a lay audience. ... Greg outlines his thinking along with his tools so that we, the readers of this fine book can develop an understanding for how a dedicated practitioner approaches his craft and what works for him. When I read a new book on card magic, I am not looking for new effects, I am looking to be stimulated so that I can approach my passion for the subject from a new and refreshing angle. This book was successful on all counts. Highly recommended." - Michael Vincent, author of Close-up Classics, and The Craft of Magic

I had not planned a second book,... but things don't always go to plan, and three years later I released a second book that also included a chapter of new memorized deck effects.

Over the years, I realized that people who enjoyed my books seemed to fall into a few groups and one of those was the mem-deck workers. I began thinking about compiling my best MD routines into a single collection. When I began putting together that collection, I realized that it would be helpful to also describe the tools and instruments I use to develop strong memorized deck routines, and I set about working through my detailed notebooks from the past 25 years. As the routines and ideas/concepts/theory started coming together, there was still something missing. This seems to happen to me each time I begin working on a new book and this time I had more of an idea about what needed to be done about it.

Putting together a collection of card routines and ideas is a little like fitting together pieces of a blank jigsaw puzzle. Even when it's all put together, it's incomplete as a blank canvas! That is, although each puzzle piece has its own interesting shape and they all fit together nicely, there is an opportunity to express something more interesting or meaningful if the completed puzzle also reveals a bigger picture. And until then, I had not really considered the picture I wanted to paint on the blank puzzle pieces of my memorized deck book.

The technically detailed imagery of classic books such as Gray’s Anatomy and Larousse Gastronomique has served as inspiration for me while illustrating previous projects and after mentioning this in conversation with a good friend, he suggested I look at the work of Andrea Palladio in The Four Books of Architecture, to help guide and inspire the creative direction of my memorized deck project. Aside from having imagery similar to those other books that I found inspiring, I soon discovered in Palladio's work many parallels between card table artifice and the language and ideas of Architecture. Although I started out simply enjoying the artwork as visual inspiration, the words and themes also began jumping of the pages: foundations; framework; construction; façade; pillars; motif. These ideas all belong perfectly in a conversation about the card concepts and routines. And so, a new concept was born. As I began deeply exploring Palladio's writing on architecture, it gave me something much deeper on which to reflect as I re-wrote my memorized deck notes and routines ,... into this book, Architettura.

“Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

I've made sure the book doesn't get caught up in constant comparisons with architecture, but through my own exploration of the subject and its language, I’ve rediscovered my own routines and ideas through a new lens, which ultimately revealed new insights. When I began writing, four words resonated most in relation to the ideas in Architettura, and those became a new framework for me. These four concepts are the framework I present in Architettura.

Whether you adopt these concepts as instruments to examine your own memorized deck work or not, I'm not concerned. But I hope that the framework helps you understand my routines a little better.

Part I is 69 pages. Here's a list of contents:

STACK WORK - Memorized Deck. Partial Stack. Stack Number versus Position. Memorized Deck versus Stacked Deck. Stack-friendly. Stack-dependent. Stack-independent. Home. Crimp. Work. Architecture of Deception. Getting Started the Right Way. HIDDEN SECRETS - Next/Previous Card. Card to Stack Number. Stack Number to Card. Visualizing Groups. Open Index. Counting Up or Down – Adding or Subtracting. Next/Previous Card. A Broken Sequence. Missing Card. Odd Card Out. Belonging to a Group. Number of Cards. Highest/Lowest Card. Next/Previous Card as a Locator. Double-key Concept. Burn A Card. Distance From Bottom. ON PRACTICE - A Common Obstacle. Four-Way Cut Exercise. The Hard Stuff. Drills - Basic Drills With A Shuffled Deck. Basic Drills With A Deck in Memorized Order. Advanced Drills Strategies for Memorization Under Fire. Four-Way Cut Exercise. ON CONDITIONS - Disproving Other Methods. Chaos and Order. Layering Methods. Hands-off Conditions. Safety Measures. Crimp Cut Peek. Three Packet Displacement. An Application UTILITIES - Gesture Peek. Card Box Shiner. Packet Tilt Peek - Top. Cull Steal. Cull Steal - Applications with a Mem-deck. In-the-hands Shiner. Fan Force Revelation.

Part II is 67 pages. Here's a list of contents:

CONTROLLED CHAOS - Mixing and Unmixing. Morphing Variations with a Memorized Deck. Restoring Your Stack. Possible Applications. A Convincing Detail . A Powerful Tool. Marked Cards. Jokers. Tactile Key Cards. To Secretly Learn the Position of Any Card Chosen. Face Down. Face Up. Estimation Fishing. Bottom Card Position. Top Card Position. Peek. Getting Familiar with the Cutting Sequence. Selection and Replacement. SELECTIONS - Anamnesis, Bookmarks: Part I - Double Divination, Part II- Sneaky Three. Displacement, Disruption, Destruction. General Thoughts on Resetting. Worth the Trade Off. Breadcrumbs. Always On My Mind. Strange Variations. Pure and Simple Revisited: Fourth person - Dual Reality Flinch Bluff, Third Person Skip, Second Person - Second Guessing, Finale - Three Card Hustle.

Part III is 67 pages. Contents include:

ON PRESENTATION Interesting Questions. Intriguing Objects. Presentation-less Presentation. Conditioning. Scripting. Character. ROUTINES: Two for One. Slow Burn. That Old Trick Again. Istanbul Cafe Notes. Hellstromism. Stuck in the Middle. One Card Missing. Burning a Card. Blind Burn Control. Backburner. Burning A Hole. Empty Hand Load. A Short Set - Part One: Call-back Card in Pocket. Part Two: Color-Changing Deck. Part Three: More Than a Feeling

The fourth and final part is almost ready, and some more updates to follow afterwards!

Find out more at www.thedevilsstaircase.com