Seven performance pieces with an ordinary deck

Finger Flicker
Only one finger is used for one of the coolest demonstrations of precision and skill with a deck of cards. Easy to perform with any deck, anywhere, anytime, Finger Flicker may easily become a modern classic.

Master of the Mess
A lesson in routining: Complete face-up/face-down chaos magically returns to order. While not easy to perform, Master of the Mess is one of the most emotionally convincing and memorable handlings of “Triumph” to date.

Colour Sense
This unusual phenomenon of feeling colours through a table has never failed to fascinate everybody who has seen it. Colour Sense effectively replaces sleight-of-hand with memory-work and psychology to achieve a seemingly impossible effect.

High Noon
Providing what many consider the perfect climax to Paul Harris’ wonderful “Reflex”, High Noon is a real reputation-maker. Done in the right situation, this is the piece they will remember you for in years.

Cincinnati Pit
From a shuffled deck, the performer stacks four perfect Poker hands in less than ten seconds. Solid dramatic structure and simplicity of plot make Cincinnati Pit one of the most powerful demonstrations of card-control for the professional performer.

Triple Countdown
The most “impossible” piece in the book: Three selected cards are found at three named positions under impossible conditions: The performer never touches the deck after the numbers are named, the spectators can change their numbers up to the last moment and -as usual- Triple Countdown is performed with a borrowed, shuffled deck.

Unforgettable
A true performance piece in three phases: Demonstrating the amazing effect a certain drink has on the performer’s memory, he instantly and repeatedly recalls the order of a thoroughly shuffled deck. The playful presentation and dramatic structure truly make this routine Unforgettable.

Method and Style and The Performing Mode
This essay describes a psychological strategy that allows you to do all sorts of secret, method-related business quite openly without the need for directing attention elsewhere. Your spectators will see what you are doing, but, done correctly, crucial actions will be edited-out by the spectator’s perception, making their memory of your performance “impossible”.

Inducing Challenges
This essay tries to identify some of the mechanisms that cause challenges. It allows you not only to avoid being challenged, but more importantly to induce challenges you are well prepared to meet. Spectators’ spontaneous challenges can lead to some of the strongest moments possible in the performance of Close-Up Magic. This essay shows how this can be made to work for you.

The Book
Card Fictions is beautifully bound in black linen cloth with the title and the image of a card embossed in the cover. The layout and graphic art is the work of Till Hergenhan; the 94 pages of text are accompanied by 59 clear black-and-white photographs by Michelle Spillner.

“A triumph of brevity, creativity and quality from beginning to end.”
– Eric Mead – (Genii magazine)

“This stuff is beyond clever.”
– Max Maven –

“High-caliber thinking at its best. Highly recommended “
– Michael Close – (MAGIC magazine)

“Somebody like Pit Hartling comes along only once in twenty years – at best.”
– Roberto Giobbi –

“Quite simply one of the best card books I’ve read in years.”
– Simon Aronson –