"Connected" DVD by Peter Harrison
Suggested Retail USD$30.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 7 Out of 10

"Connected", a DVD by Peter Harrison, is a wonderful idea that, done for the right audience, will make your reputation if you can manage to work it into your act.

The effect of "Connected" is fairly simple, "pick-a-card" plot. A card is chosen by a spectator who rips it into four pieces. The spectator gives these to the performer who takes three and give one back to the spectator as the proverbial "receipt". The three pieces then vanish. The spectator opens their own wallet and finds inside the three pieces, restored and matching the piece the spectator is holding.

Now, that's miracle-class stuff there. That's mind-blowing, unfathomable magic.

But it's also only half the story. And the other half is what makes this one for discriminating performers who have more flexibility in their work environments than some.

You see, you have a lead-in effect, a simple transposition, that must be done prior to the point as described in the ads. No big deal, that; it's a tactic we've used for centuries. But then next Harrison explains that you'll need to do two or more other transpositions between that lead-in and the "Connected" climax in order to keep the theme going (and to build the time misdirection you will definitely need). That leads to an interesting situation: you need the time to do all the effects and they are all, by nature, similar card effects. One can almost picture eyes glazing over until you get to the big finish, but it's hard to picture that all performers will have the necessary time to do all of that and anything else (wait staff with trays come immediately to mind).

Then there's the problem of having the wrong spectators around for this one. Because the wallet gets brought into play early, awareness of it is hard to dismiss. Granted, the time misdirection will help, as will the casualness of things, but it's too obvious a strategy here to prevent a particularly smug spectator from thinking -- and likely saying -- exactly why you asked for a wallet to begin with. The rest of the structure of the routine will thankfully prevent full backtracking (there's just too much work going on for them to get every single piece of it in a bout of reverse engineering), but that one thought, by the wrong spectator, can be dreadful.

This is, luckily, not a huge problem. Pick the right folks, smaller groups just to get the numbers on your side and keep everything personable, and you're likely to be alright. But it is an issue.

Much bigger an issue is the amount of iron-clad routining you'll have to deal with. Personally, I don't like bowling a spectator over with four or more card tricks in a row. It's not my style. More, in most situations I don't have the time to do all of that every single time I break out a deck of cards -- interruptions from dinners and drunks almost assure that. But that's me and other performers; it might not be you.

If it isn't, "Connected" is a powerful card-to-wallet with an extra dose of magic thrown in. Thanks to Harrison's routine, that extra magic doesn't detract at all from the effect; it's an integral part of it. And it's a neat thing indeed and really can be a reputation-maker.

As for the other bits of this, "Connected" is not terribly difficult to do. There are some basic card sleights involved, along with a couple of things that are almost "non-sleights" in their working. Set-up is easy, though repeating this will require some spare cards and privacy. All in all, "Connected" is one of those things that probably should be done as a stand-alone, one-shot climax; Harrison seemed to design it that way and it works best there.

Is "Connected" for you? If the routining and audience issues aren't a concern for you, and if you're looking for a killer climax to your act, "Connected" is worth looking at. It's powerful, unexpected, and staggering magic that packs an impact. You can hardly ask for more.

"Connected" by Peter Harrison
In a Blink: 7 Out of 10

Material: 10
There's no doubt about it: this trick is a wonder. Done correctly (with the proper framing and timing), at the right place and time, this is one that comes close to be a reputation-maker.

Practicality: 5
The set-up is a moderate one, and repeating it will require some privacy. The biggest problem is going to be one of timing: there is a lead-in effect you must perform, then allow for a good bit of time to pass, before you can go into the killer bit of this. Not many performers are going to have the capability to do as Harrison says in that regard.

Quality of Production: 10
Another great production from BBM. Great video, great audio, excellent navigation... a fantastic job all the way around here.

Quality of Instruction: 10
Harrison and perpetual on-disc assistant Packard, do a fantastic job of teaching everything you need to know here. As usual, Packard brings some much needed entertainment to things, as well as drawing out even more detail from Harrison. Great work.

Presentation: 7
This is a mind-boggling effect. The only problem -- and its a fairly sizable one -- is bringing in a piece of the work a bit oddly. The issue of that one piece being backtracked does diminish this one slightly. With the right audience, though, that becomes a non-issue quickly.

Shane

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