Marlo Letter

Edward Marlo
2654 N. Sacramento Ave
Chicago, Illinois-60647
June-9-1986

To Harvey Rosenthal

Harvey -

Have waited several weeks, hoping you would take Randy Wakeman’s advice and address your complaints directly to me. Apparently, you have no such intentions, so decided to write to you. But first, let me state a few preliminary instances.

Remember, quite a number of years ago, at the Lawson Y.M.C.A. in Chicago, on Dearborn Street, I did for you the following effect. You selected a card, returned it to the deck, which I shuffled. Then, holding the deck in the so-called Biddle Grip, I asked you to name a number. I peeled off the top cards one at a time, up to the number you requested. I then double-checked this number without reversing the order of the cards, then showed that your card was at that exact number. I then explained to you that every card was fairly peeled off the top, but the card, on your number, was actually peeled off the bottom of the deck. The illusion was perfect.

As I stated, that was quite a number of years ago, but I never published that idea until 1982 in "Card Finesse" under the title of “Open Hockley” on page 195.

On August 23, 1971, I sent Jon Racherbaumer a variation of Tom Batchelor’s “Canadian Card Control”. On July 19, 1974, I sent Jon Racherbaumer another 4 Methods based on the Canadian Card Control. Yet, these methods were not published until 1984 in Hierophant - 7. The point is that just because an item is published at a certain date does not mean it was invented at that time.

Now, as regards the “Unit Up-Jog Addition” which seems to be your complaint.

After the Knoxville Convention of 1964, I started to play around with the “Unit Control” which I did at the convention. The method I used then was the “Block Push-Off”, but I felt this was too risky, so I decided to use a “Get Ready” of the cards to be added. This “Get Ready” consisted of obtaining a break under the cards to be added. The left fingers then pushed these cards to the right so that the left 4th finger could push them up and the left 3rd finger could maintain a break. This was fine if you only had to add the cards to a single selection; however, in an effect like the “Multiple Ace Routine”, where Aces are added to other Aces, the “Get Ready” was not only awkward but sometimes you would roll the Ace past the card but in out-jogging the pair the card would show on the right side. This meant you could not do the move on the first Ace, but you could do it for the next 3 Aces.

So that’s how I eventually came up with the “Unit Up-Jog Addition” which was published in Volume 1 - 1976; however, before I published it I showed the Unit Up-Jog Addition to Bill Simon in 1969. I did the move over a half-dozen times. After I explained it to Bill Simon, his comment was, “How come I can’t see the card added behind the Ace?” I then explained and demonstrated it over and over again, and then had him try it several times. I must have spent almost 2 hours on this one move.

The next time I met Bill Simon was in 1971. At that time Bill had a business acquaintance of his in the room. He asked me to do a couple of effects for his friend. I did the effect “Simplex or Complex” with Bill taking the part of 2 people, since the effect requires 2 spectators. The other effect I did was a Faro effect in which a mentally selected card, from a Blue deck, wound up being trapped between 2 surprising Red Back cards.

At that time, Bill Simon told me that he showed the Unit Up-jog Addition to a couple of his trusted card men and remarked that they thought it was a great idea.

Now, when Randy Wakeman showed me that sleazy anonymous card, I decided to call Bill Simon, which I did. Bill Simon vaguely remembered me showing him the...