The diary effect is a classic for many reasons. I like it, but many of the existing methods are a bit complicated. This changed when Patrick Page showed me his Good Old Moore’s Diary trick. Here was the perfect solution for walk-around work. Nothing to remember, no sleight of hand and best of all, the trick resets after the performance.
The other trick that inspired me was the ‚FRED‘ trick (a freely named card with the name Fred on the back). This trick was sold by Ken Brooke and is the technical solution for revealing the lucky card in my version of the diary trick.
The Deck
I liked the idea of the cards being written in the calendar and made my own set. But I changed the layout a little. I use 26 cards that rotate through the calendar. In the beginning, I took the first 26 cards from the Tamariz deck, because I thought that would make for some interesting possibilities. It turned out to be useless.
So I changed the setup and now use the 26 cards from Eddie Joseph’s Premonition trick. These are visually balanced, you can’t tell a setup by looking at the calendar, and they allow you to do a very interesting variation of the trick (see the end of this article).
Setup
These are the cards written in the calendar: A 4 5 8 9 Q K. That is, the two black aces, the two black 4s, 5s and so on. Then all the red cards: J 10 7 6 3 2 (two red Jacks, two red 10s…). These 26 cards are the ones used in the Eddie Joseph setup of Premonition. I have built a special watch for this trick, which I wear and which allows me to quickly check whether a named card is no. 1 or no. 2.
These 26 cards are spread throughout the calendar. I only omitted the Ace of Spades a few times because it is a suspicious card that stands out. I designed the calendar in InDesign and had it printed.
From a deck with a red back, I removed these cards and printed ‚HAPPY BIRTHDAY‘ boldly on the back. From a deck with a high contrast back design (in my case a black pirate design), the other 26 cards are removed to make a complete deck. The 26 red cards are on the front of the deck, so I can remove them and show the deck as a ‚black‘ deck by spreading out the first 26 cards.
Performance
Take out the calendar and give it to the spectator. Then I take the deck out of the case and show the black backs. At this point I do an Erdnase Overhand False Shuffle, which maintains the order of the cards. I modified it a bit by doing a cut at the last stage, which puts half of the black cards in front of the red cards. So the red cards are a block between the black cards. The deck is then spread face up on the table.
The spectator then looks at the card on his birthday. It is, of course, one of the 26 cards spread across the calendar. Remove it from the deck and show the writing on the back. Put the card back in the red part of the deck and cut it so that the black cards are in front of the red cards on the back. The cards are again divided into red and black and the trick is set up for the next table.
Of course, you could make something more out of showing the deck to be black by using various techniques from the colour changing deck routines. However, I did not find this necessary. The casual display of the 26 black backs along with the shuffle is enough.
Why the Eddie Joseph setup?
Because there is an interesting variation you can do with the Premonition deck. Basically, you can do the Premonition effect as written by Eddie Joseph. The only difference is that the first deck is replaced by the calendar!
The idea is that the card looked up in the calendar is missing from the second deck, which is on the table from the start. The spectator doesn’t even have to say the card out loud! He just looks it up, then shuffles the deck a lá Premonition and there are only 51 cards and his lucky card is missing. Of course, you can make it from your pocket using the index system described by Joseph. But it is more practical because your index only has to contain 26 cards. If they are of the extra thin kind (like Cardshark’s Doubledecker Cards) they could even be in a wallet index.
This trick possibility was the reason I decided to put the premonition cards in the diary.
