The Pages Are Blank by Michael Feldman

Hot off the Vanishing Inc press is a brand-new book by Michael Feldman. Like all of VI’s magic books, it's superb quality, so let’s dive into the content.

Foreword by Garrett Thomas

Aesthetics - This chapter introduces the main concept Michael presents his magic under. Essentially, rather than shy away from the sleight of hand, he focuses on it to force the spectators to consider the impossibility of the feat while remembering that the laws of logic are still in effect. His thinking is that everyone knows it’s a trick—so rather than trying to convince them that it’s “real magic,” he wants them to KNOW it’s a trick and still struggle to find an answer to how it was done. This chapter also explains his inspiration for the book’s title, but I’ll leave you guessing what that is.

I found this section to be very enjoyable to read, and I really liked several of the points he made as to why he presents magic in the way he does. Clearly, he does it with conviction, and he argues his case very eloquently. I have seen some people online saying that this book reminds them of Andy from The Jerx, but I don’t think Andy and Michael’s style would mesh very well. The Jerx’s approach involves weaving a fiction that is clearly fake, but then the magic makes it seem as if that fiction is real, forcing the audiences to consider that MAYBE the fiction was true, even if only for a brief moment. Michael’s approach eliminates all fiction entirely and instead makes it clear that he is tricking them. While I like the points Michael brings up, it is a very magician-centric way of performing that leaves the spectators asking questions about the performer’s ability to do sleight of hand, which I find far less interesting than The Jerx’s approach, which leaves them asking questions more like, “Is it possible that he really does have a fairy as a friend? I mean, obviously, fairies aren’t real… but how did that little letter drop out of the sky? And how the heck did the fairy know which card I would pick?” That said, I think Michael’s approach is much more attainable, especially in a professional setting.

For the tricks, I really like the format used. Michael introduces the trick, describes the effect, teaches the trick, and then includes the full presentation script and a numbered “breakdown” of the method that is a quick way to remind yourself how to do the trick at a glance. I think this format is quite handy.

False Dichotomy - James looks at a card. You show it to Ben, too, then lose it back in the deck. You produce a card from your pocket, but when you ask James to name his card, Ben disagrees on the suit. They argue for a moment, then ultimately, you vanish the rest of the deck, leaving only the two cards the gentlemen are arguing over.

This is a great “magician in trouble” plot that occurs in the moment rather than during a story about what happened in the past. It creates real-life drama. Little do they know, it’s an “accident” that you have forced to occur. This means you get to solve the “real” problem via sleight of hand. As the first trick in the book, I think it is a good example of Michael’s style. It is naturally very engaging for the audience and creates real drama without resorting to fiction or story-telling. This is the type of magic you can have a lot of fun with. This first trick also gives you a good idea of what’s to come throughout the rest of the book from a sleight-of-hand standpoint. This one routine has a force, control, palm, deck ditch, and a move that isn’t too hard to do, but it is unusual, and many readers may be unfamiliar with it.

Victory - I’ll describe this effect with the exact words Michael uses to describe the effect in the book, “It’s Triumph.”

The benefits of this version are that it is done entirely in the hands, the mixing procedure involves you mixing a spread of face-up cards into a spread of face-down cards, you can do it with a borrowed shuffled deck, and you get to spread through the deck to show they are mixed right before they right themselves. This version of Triumph has some nice moments, but it won’t become my go-to. My top three versions of Triumph all come from Ben Earl, and I think once you see the effectiveness of the simplicity in this plot, the more over-complicated approaches tend to leave me feeling like it’s trying too hard.

Don’t Skip This - This chapter is devoted to card moves that Michael has developed. This chapter teaches a way to peek two cards that are looked at, a method for grabbing a double from a tabled deck, an incredibly clean and invisible deck switch, a one-handed top palm that allows you to palm two cards at once, a palm that occurs during a riffle shuffle, a sneaky way to add a palmed card back to a deck, and a concept you can use to make some of your magic more deceptive.

These moves are all great, but by far the standout is the deck switch that he calls “Out with the Wash.” This deck switch can be seen in the book’s trailer; if you’re like me, you may not have even known it was a deck switch until the third or fourth time you watched the video. It’s that clean. Honestly, it’s the best deck switch I’ve ever seen. It has a lot going for it. It is incredibly casual, relaxed, tension-free, and deceptive, even if they’re burning your hands. The downside is that you must perform it seated at a table, and you will have to make a little rig and attach it to the bottom of the table to perform it. You won’t be able to use this table hopping, but if you have a more formal close-up show that involves you sitting at a table, I don’t think you will find a better switch than this.

time One at a - This is an ace cutting routine that plays with time travel as a plot.

It is clear that Michael is very proud of this effect, but I find the presentation confusing, and I think it goes against the very principle of performing that he discusses at the beginning of the book. Time travel is mentioned several times in this presentation, yet it never feels like time travel occurs. Perhaps the presentation is just too meta for me, but I’m not a fan. Essentially, he cuts to one ace and tables it, then says that it’s really the third ace as he cuts to the “first and second” ace. He tables those two aces with the first one and then immediately calls those aces “two, three, and four” because “the first ace” is already in the spread of aces on the table. When the audience looks, there are now four aces in the spread. The effect is fine; there’s nothing wrong with the cutting sequence, but I think the presentation is trying too hard to be clever when it’s just convoluted.

Michael does, however, play with the concept of time travel by with a running gag that toys with the reader in a way that I quite enjoyed.

Change Blind - A deck is thoroughly shuffled with a wash shuffle, showing the back of every card as blue to match your shirt. Despite the thorough shuffle, the deck ends up in new deck order. You reveal a red shirt under your blue one, and by the time the audience looks back at the deck on the table, it has changed to red. You can spread the deck to show every single card is now red.

You can see a performance of this in the trailer for the book. Michael wanted a “card under glass” type routine that was strong enough to withstand being videoed. This simply uses the “Out with the Wash” switch and a clever moment of misdirection to affect the change. The only downside is that the deck you’re left with isn’t complete, so if you need to do any tricks that involve a full deck after it, you will need to ring in a few cards.

The Trick That Cannot Be Spellchecked - This is a difficult one to describe, so hold onto your hat. Essentially, a spectator names any card. You describe what a spelling trick is and demonstrate by spelling the name of the selected card into a pile on the table. But you say that perhaps you just know how many letters the card spells with, so you give the deck to someone else and ask them to choose any suit for the selected card spell that into a pile instead. They do, but you say that maybe you know how many cards all the suits spell with, so you ask if anyone speaks another language, and you have them spell the selected card in their native language, but you say maybe you know how many letters are in each card in multiple languages, so finally you hand what remains of the deck to the spectator who named the card and have them make up a language and spell the card with their made-up language. The top card of this pile is turned over to reveal their named card. As a kicker, the top cards of the other three piles are turned over to reveal the mates of the named card.

I hope you followed that. While I love the presentation here, I’m not as enamored by the method. Sure, it works, but it feels a little on the nose, and I think the average spectator would assume that you just secretly put the card on top of the pile, and they’d be correct for two out of the four piles. Oddly, this is one of the most complex methods in the book. It contains a cull, ten or more consecutive bottom deals, palming two cards, and loading those two cards at two different times. I think there HAS to be a more elegant solution here somewhere. I think the plot alone is fantastic, but I would never perform the method as written. I’m sure it works for Michael, but I prefer methods that are a bit more streamlined than this. To me, this feels clunky.

Not Again - A card under glass routine where selected cards end up under the glass four times in under a minute.

Michael’s goal with this routine was to get a card under the glass as many times as possible as quickly as possible, and I think he achieved that. Just be aware that this is another complex method that will take some work to get down. It will also take honing the necessary skills to feel out the audience’s attention as you load the cards. This is true for any card under glass routine, but I think it’s especially true with this one since the cards are quite literally loaded back to back at one point in the routine. The best thing this has going for it is that the routine is structured in a way that pulls focus at all the right moments, which should help you not get caught. It’s not a routine I’ll be performing, but if you already do the card under glass routine and want it to have a quicker flow, this structure is worth taking a look at.

Overcoming the Signature - This essay discusses Michael’s fascination with the concept of duplicating a spectator’s signature—a concept that will be explored throughout the rest of the book. This section teaches the two basic things needed for his technique, which he calls the phorgery principle, which was first published in Magic Magazine in 2009. This section also gives a teaser of some of the effects you’ll learn in the coming pages, and it goes over some history of duplicating a spectator’s signature. I should state that while the phorgery principle is billed as a way to duplicate a signature, it’s really a way to duplicate someone’s initials. In theory, it could be a whole signature, but that would be much more difficult.

Phorgery - This is the first effect utilizing the phorgery principle. The spectator signs a card, and the performer signs a card. The cards transpose under impossible conditions.

This is an incredibly complex version of the classic two-card transposition. It’s the easiest signature forgery to get away with because of the structure of the routine, but it has to be one of the most complex two-card transpos I’ve ever seen. The majority of this added complexity comes from the fact that the deck is removed, and only the signed cards are in play. The benefit is that they clearly see their spectator’s signed card in the performer’s hand, and it visually becomes the performer’s signed card. But I really don’t think this adds much from the layman’s point of view. Since it requires the performer to sign a card anyway, you might as well stick to the classic method because I think it is every bit as convincing to spectators.

Merely Impossible - This is another magician in trouble effect with the “trouble” being real-life, in-the-moment drama created from a spectator’s mistake. The effect the performer is apparently TRYING to perform is that a spectator signs a card and hides it in the deck. They shuffle the deck, spread them on the table, and touch any card. That card turns out to be the signed selection. This is what is SUPPOSED to happen, but the spectator misunderstood the instructions, and instead of hiding the card in the deck, they hid it in their pocket. It goes all the way until they have their finger on the back of one card before the performer realizes the mistake. Liking the challenge, the performer has them keep their finger on the card they touch and asks them to remove the signed card from their pocket. The performer takes the signed card and shuffles it into the deck. It seems impossible, but they turn the card under their finger over to find their signed card.

I really and truly love this. I love the drama created from the “mistake” and the incredibly magical, impossible ending, which almost has a mystery card-type feel to it. The scripting is also nice as it dangles the sleight of hand right in front of them but leaves them with no possible explanation for how this could ever be possible with sleight of hand. It’s really great. It’s simple in concept, but I can see this playing very strongly. It makes sense why Michael says this is the centerpiece of his show and the one piece that laymen talk about more than any other. It will take courage and good audience management to make sure they don’t ask too many questions that could ruin the “mistake,” but once you feel confident with that, this is going to be a powerhouse of a routine. I love the simplicity of the plot and the simplicity of the method. This is beautiful. The only slight downside is that it requires a duplicate card. I just wish there was an impromptu version so it could be done anywhere, anytime, with any deck.

Impromptu Merely Impossible - The same effect as the previous description, only this time… it’s impromptu and can be done anywhere, anytime, with any deck.

Michael admits that this method is much cooler than the effect and says this version doesn’t add much from a layman’s perspective, but I don’t know about that! I think the effect is just as cool as the method, and it does add something to the previous version. In this version of the effect, you tear a corner off the chosen card. This means that the moment you remove the deck from around the card they are touching, they immediately see a corner missing. At this moment, an immense drama and impossibility can be seen instantly. Once the torn corner is compared and seen to match, they know it’s their card, which takes the tension off of the signature just a tiny bit. That can be helpful if you’re still new to the signature duplicating process. Yes, the method is novel and fun and exciting, but I think the trick is novel and fun and exciting, too. This impromptu version has a lot going for it.

One Up - A spectator selects a card like the three of hearts. The performer asks them to sign their card and add a simple drawing. The spectator draws a heart. The performer laughs and says it’s technically the four of hearts now. After the small chuckle from the audience, they look at the selected card, and it truly IS the four of hearts with the spectator’s signature on it.

Michael admits this is one you may never perform. It requires setting up for this moment, but you won’t know if it’s going to pay off until they make their drawing. Michael has a few subtleties to hopefully nudge them to draw a heart, but you’re at the mercy of their imagination. I do think the subtleties will allow you to perform the trick more than mere chance may dictate, but just know that you will be duplicating a signature and then crossing your fingers to see if they draw a heart. If they draw anything else, you just continue on with any signed card effect, but for those moments where they DO draw a heart, wow. What an incredible moment that feels totally impossible and surreal.

Phusion - A spectator selects a card. It is fairly lost in the deck but is instantly shown on top. The spectator signs the card to prove there are no duplicates, and the card is shuffled into the deck by the performer and the spectator. The spectator even checks to make sure their card isn’t on top of the deck, yet when the performer takes the deck back and shows the top card, it is the signed selection. The performer decides to remove all distractions. He puts the whole deck away except for the signed selection and a random card. A second spectator signs the random card. The performer cleanly holds one signed card in his left hand and one in his right hand, clearly showing each card's face and back. The cards are then put back to back and placed in the spectator’s hands. Impossibly, the signed cards are now fuzed together permanently as one card.

This is Michael’s take on the classic anniversary waltz plot, and it is the cleanest version I’ve ever seen. It begins with two very clean ambitious card phases and ends with a stellar fusion of the signed cards despite the two signed cards being clearly seen separate just a moment earlier. This version eliminates all of the “coziness” that we typically see in anniversary waltz routines once the two cards are signed. I am also very happy that Michael doesn’t use this as a metaphor for two people’s love. I hate that type of corny patter with a magic trick. Instead, Michael’s presentation focuses on his sleight of hand, and the final fuzed card is given as a reminder of the fact that as long as he is performing, he is a “magician,” but as soon as the performance is over, he is just some guy doing sleight of hand. The phorgery principle here perhaps takes the most guts, or chutzpah, as Michael says, but I don’t think this is particularly bold. There’s still plenty of misdirection. I love how this all comes together, and I will definitely use it. This one routine is worth the price of the book. It’s beautifully choreographed and put together, and I can see why Michael has used this as a closer for so long. It is definitely the last thing you’d want to leave with a spectator.

The book ends with an Outro from Michael encouraging the readers to make the routines their own.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this read. The effects are original, the methods are clever, and Michael’s approach is unique and deserves study. This isn’t a book that I walk away from feeling like I want to perform each routine in the book, but all of the routines could fall right into anyone’s set if it’s right for them. I think anyone who reads it will be inspired. The explanations are clear, the photos are great, and the presentations are engaging. I would caution that this is not a book meant for beginners. It’s certainly intermediate to advanced. I should also mention there is a hidden effect in the book. It is a fantastic version of Sneak Thief that allows you to identify the first two people, duplicate the third person’s drawing, and show that you have a prediction of the fourth person’s drawing. The method is easy, structurally solid, and deceptive. So, if you pick it up and read it, pay close attention and don’t skip anything, or you may miss out on this very good hidden effect.