Jules Gems

THE BLURB:
A collection of material derived from Jules Lenier's books.
His three best effects!

Includes:
# The Act
# Mindability
# I'll Get Them All

Pages 13 - Booklet

MY COMMENTS:
The blurb really doesn't tell you all that much, so I'll
expand on the description. This is a book of three strong
mentalism effects using a deck of playing cards. All of
these were originally created by the late Jules Lenier and
put together into one act by David Eldridge, who added his
touches. There are five sections to this book. The first
describes the act and the subsequent sections describe the
preparation and each of the routines within the act.

In the first effect, Mirror Image, the performer removes the
spades and hearts from a freely shuffled pack and hands them
to a participant. Without looking, one of these cards is
selected. The performer looks through the other half for
one card. When both cards are revealed, they are the mates.
This is David Eldridge's favorite of the bunch, according to
what he wrote. Though good, I'm not as enthusiastic about
it as the other two effects in the book. It just doesn't
make sense to me for the performer to find the mate. Why
doesn't the performer simply call out the card selected?!

The second effect, Mindability, is Jules' clever
presentation of the classic The Twenty One Card Trick, which
many laymen know and is the bane of many cardicians.
Unfortunately, when most present it, the presentation sucks
(and I'm being kind). This is one of the card effects that
has a terrific principle but the presentation was never
fully thought through. But I've been having fun performing
Jules' version for about ten years now. Unfortunately, I'd
never perform this professionally because of its
recognizability, or recommend doing so. I usually perform
this for my students, friends, and family, and work in
patter that it's an exercise that a colleague used. This
way, if anyone recognizes it, I can claim that my colleague
wasn't using real psychic powers, etc. Still, it always
entertains, even when laymen or others recognize it as a
card trick they know. It's a very strong presentation and
an invaluable lesson in how to take old tricks and make them
fresh.

The final effect is my favorite and, according to David
Eldridge, is one that Jules often used to close his shows.
It's Jules' version of the classic Twenty-Card Trick, recently
featured by Richard Osterlind on his No Camera Tricks DVDs
and appeared originally in The Jinx. The basic routine is
that over a dozen people select cards which are shuffled
back into the deck. The performer is blindfolded and is
able to find each selected card. When magicians perform
mulitiple card selection routines, it is always very strong
and well-received. This is a mentalists' version of that
and it is equally powerful. What Jules has done is bring a
method and handling that makes it even easier to do. To the
audience, it would appear to be exactly the same as the
classic, but due to a different handling which leads to an
easier use of memory, it facilitates a much smoother
performance.

Sadly, David didn't think much of Jules' work to put decent
production values into this booklet. It looks like a grade
schooler's report with the plastic cover and plastic slip-on
binding. Worse, the darkened edges on the paper reveals it
was made on an inferior copy machine. The layout is, well,
non-existent. I can also note that I'm not entirely
convinced that Jules Lenier gave David permission as this
book's byline is clearly marked "by David Eldridge," and not
"by Jules Lenier and David Eldridge," as it should be.
However, since I have no proof one way or the other, and
since the book is very clear that these effects were created
by Jules, I'm not going to press the matter. Finally, I'm
not so sure that the three routines presented here go well
together, since one is clearly close-up and another is
clearly for a parlor-sized audience, but that is entirely a
matter of style and taste and is a very minor quibble.

Mentalism lost a very valuable creative asset this year when
Jules Lenier left us, but hopefully we can see more of his
work released so his legacy can continue. If you're a
mentalist who doesn't mind using playing cards, you'll
probably like this material.