The Card Activist

Peter Duffie
Overlooked by Al Smith

Ebook, available from the author at Peter Duffie.com aka Alternative Magic. Price: $15.00 (about £10.00).

Get in quick and there’s a bonus trick included. This is an individually marketed item called Psy Fi. It’s a variation of the Diary Trick.


Recent books from Peter Duffie have largely been collections of material culled from his back catalogue. Books and manuscripts no longer in print. The Card Activist is new material. Variations on themes, of course, but it’s the variations that make all the difference.

The book features a compact baker’s dozen tricks in 44 photo-illustrated pages. That’s 13, for those who prefer to work in metric.

The Roy Walton classic Collectors theme is a favourite of magicians in general and Peter in particular likes to offer thoughts and observations on the premise. In here he revisits The Bottom Collectors, an approach much favoured by Father Cyprian in his early 1970s book of the same name.


As an aside, last weekend I spent a pleasant afternoon with the Sheffield Shufflers in Russell Hall’s Magic Lounge. Among a newly acquired collection of books was the Cyprian affair. I haven’t seen it in years, but it was gaining a lot of attention.

The general mix of the material is one of almost self-working and definitely not self-working. I say “almost self-working” I mean that the tricks require steady and competent handling by means of fairly easy moves. That said, the first trick in the book is self-working. Procedures need to be monitored and maintained, but that applies to all tricks, however there is nothing technical about the handling.

I particularly liked a Triumph style routine, that isn’t self working. It requires a Zarrow Shuffle which shouldn’t put anybody off, but might.
As I’ve noted before prior to the appearance of ebooks, Peter Duffie published any number of limited edition booklets, all of which are out of print and those in circulation are very hard to find these days.

I have always liked the Duffie approach to cards, which unsurprisingly is not a million miles removed from Roy Walton.

The effects are fine, but I suspect as ever, card fans will enjoy sifting through the thinking behind them.

Well worth checking out. It’s cheap enough.

 

© A E Smith, October 2012

 

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