"Miracles With a Short Card" DVD by Peter Cassford
Suggested Retail USD$29.95
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 10 Out of 10

"Miracles With a Short Card", the latest by Peter Cassford, should be subtitled "Everything You Need to Know About Short Card But Didn't Know It" with "need" in great, big, neon orange letters.

I was expecting that, to be honest. Cassford, through his excellent "Pass With Care" DVD, taught the pass quickly and wonderfully to me and a lot of others. I knew going in I was going to get a high-quality piece of work here. What I wasn't expecting was the depth and breadth of the material which makes this not only encyclopedic but essential.

"Miracles With a Short Card" covers everything you'll need to know and learn to implement some of the wildest card miracles you'll see with very little sleight work. That's a huge thing. With sleights so downplayed in the method -- and letting the gaff do the work -- the card magic looks so much cleaner it's almost frightening.

From the start, Cassford impressed me. He begins, as he should, with teaching how to make a short card. Here I was tempted to fast-forward; after all, how many of those things have I made over the years? But then he caught me with a little bit of advice that I never thought about, employing a certain problem with Bicycle backs, and I was hooked and already in "Why Didn't I Think of That?" mode.

The sleights Cassford uses in conjunction with the short card you just made are something else. These are all fairly well-known if not classics: the double-undercut, Bill Simon's "Prophecy Move", a spread cull, and a glimpse. A word of warning here: don't go past Cassford's teaching these. His instruction of the "Speed Glimpse" is particularly fascinating and will end up being something you use a lot more than you think.

Cassford next hits some quick but necessary applications for the short card. Here you'll see his methods for locating the short card in the deck, controlling it to the top or bottom of the deck, forcing the short, and controlling a card using the short. Along the way, you'll see Cassford's work with the riffle force, but of particular interest is his "Behind the Back Force" (which looks so downright honest it's creepy) and his "Visual Force" which will have you re-thinking the whole "stop me" approach to forcing.

With the right gaff and a good foundation, Cassford then starts living up to the title of the disc and showing miracles revolving around the use of the short. First he performs the routines for random people -- and does it so well, so personable, that most performers should just watch these and learn how not to assail people on the street -- then goes through the workings. Chances are, at this point, you'll be drooling over the material. And you probably should.

"Red Hot Momma" moves the simple color-change up a level and makes this one worth the price of the disc. Here's how it goes: The spectator selects a card and returns it to the center of the deck. The deck is spread, showing a single red-backed card in the middle of a blue deck. The card is removed, shown to be the selected card, and tossed to the floor or ground. Announcing you're going to repeat it, you have another card selected and put back into the deck. But this time the deck is spread and there's no red-backed card. There's only one marked card, you see, and it's the one on the floor. Yep; turning over the cast-aside card reveals it to have changed to the second selection. Cassford uses this one a lot and it's easy to see why. It's a great piece of work.

"Coincidence?" has one spectator reading another spectator's mind. This is a powerful piece of work, utilizing Cassford's "Visual Force", and will probably end up being the one routine most people use from the disc; it's that good.

"The Difficult Spectator" is one Cassford says he likes to use when he has a difficult spectator and wants to make things as impossible as he can. With this routine, he certainly succeeds. The performer turns his back, the spectator selects a card, takes the deck, and shuffles it... and the performer can either name the card or produce it. Good stuff here, to say the least.

"Ace Production" is one of the most spectator-involved ace productions I've seen. In this one, the spectators cut the deck as much as they want but the performer still finds two aces. The spectator places one of the aces into the deck, which is spread and the other two aces are found next to the ace. This is one you have to see to appreciate; it's Cassford at his finest.

"Impossible Mindreading" is as clean as you could ask for. The performer turns away, the spectator cuts the deck anywhere they want, memorizing the card they cut to and replacing it in the deck. The performer quickly divines their card. This and "Difficult Spectator" would sink any overly-skeptical spectator in a heartbeat.

"Triple Threat Mindreading" is "Impossible Mindreading" turned up a notch. In this variant, three spectators choose cards, as fairly as you could ask for, and still the performer can divine their cards. This is classic Cassford; a simple methodology, lots of spectator involvement, and a well-structured routine.

"Spelling Made Easy" is a speller with a difference. Not long and drawn-out, not crippled with overly-complicated mathematics, this one's slick. A spectator selects a card, returns it to the deck, and the deck is shuffled. The spectator deals out one card for each letter of their name and the last letter is, of course, their card. This is a great piece of work and one of my favorites.

That should be enough to get your head spinning; it did mine. And it's all taught as only Cassford can do it: clearly, thoroughly, and with a fine eye to detail. I've always held that Cassford is one of the best teachers we've got in magic and "Miracles With a Short Card" shows him at his finest. You'll have no problems grasping anything on this disc.

"Miracles With a Short Card" is a collection that is exactly what it says it is and deserves a look by anyone searching for card magic that stuns spectators and won't stun them in endless sleights or off-the-charts gimmickry. This is one of the best DVDs of the year.

"Miracles With a Short Card" by Peter Cassford
In a Blink: 10 Out of 10

Material: 10
The effects are beautiful, the handlings downright crafty, and the sleight incredibly useful. All of this means you'll be sorely tempted to open a deck of cards and immediately make a short card for it. And that's a good thing. Even those familiar with short cards will find some thinking here that is just too good to pass by.

Practicality: 10
Slip the short into the deck and you're ready to do some astonishing stuff. Things like resets and set-ups are, therefore, nothing at all to worry about. This is as practical as it gets.

Quality of Production: 10
Great video, great audio, great navigation, great camera work... this one's a perfect production.

Quality of Instruction: 10
Cassford is a wonderful instructor; he's thorough, well-rehearsed, confident, and extremely easy to learn from. He's one of the best teachers of magic around today.

Presentation: 10
Cassford material has to work where he does: it's got to be as magical as he can get it and as entertaining. His work with these routines, crafted for audience interaction, show that to the nth degree.

Shane

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