I KNEW JACK AVIS FOR OVER FIFTY YEARS. Ten years after I first met him I married his sister and whilst we didn’t discuss much magic whilst I was in business, for the first ten years of my retirement and my return to magic we met every week, sometimes more, had holidays together and talked much about the ancient art.

Despite the fact that we were from different sectors of magic ( I was into performance stage and close-up and he was a non -performer but a brilliant thinker and worker) we had many deep discussions and he was a most kindly and astute friend who helped me immeasurably in ideas for my stage work and close-up shows. But his skill and knowledge was way ahead of mine and he deserved the world reputation that he held with his close friends Roy Walton and Alex Elmsley. 

When he died I sadly had the job of disposing of his huge library of books that took a year to catalogue and sell world wide. He left me many little things – tricks, gizmos, books and odds that he had collected and later I found twenty eight notebooks in which he had recorded for years his original ideas and things he had seen in sessions with many of the greats. (He kept up a correspondence with Ed. Marlo for thirty years but sadly never got to meet him).

 Some of those  were published in a book Rara Avis (Latin for rare bird – apt eh?) but later I found even more private notes on his ideas which I have been going through. I am not a prolific or skilled card man as he was but there is some good thinking  to be found in these pages. Perhaps we will publish them sometime.

 As a taster he is one item that I thought really simple and powerful in performance.

“Make up a deck of of half normal index cards and half a deck of giant index card but both of the same size and back. Any card chosen from one half and replaced in the other is instantly located”.

He goes on.”Place a giant index card in a normal deck – back matching. Force a regular duplicate card and hand the deck to another spectator. Ask this second spectator to glance at the face of the cards and think of just one card. Of course he sees the giant index and will play along. Take back the pack and cut the giant index card to the bottom and if you’re sitting down lap it or palm off”.

“Give the pack back to the first spectator and ask him to remove his selected card and place it on the table. The second spectator names the card he thought of and the tabled card is turned over”

This is very much Jack’s style, simple and positive. Or as Alex used to say “Low Cunning!”

Filed under: Magic Ideas, Magic Miscellanea, Magic Thoughts