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ew principle that will no doubt leave countless audiences seriously in doubt of theirsenses. It will also delight those of us in the dark, deceptive arts with a fondness fore ects so deceptive they border on mental cruelty. After all, it is clearly insane tosuppose that a single, unfaked business card can be torn into two inter-linkedsquares. Or that this can be done in real-time, while the audience watch, withnothing to hide or steal away. Or that the resulting linked squares of card can bc

given away to bc studied and e amined !and they will be"#, since there is nothing to$nd. %hat&s the good thing about 'oshua( he keeps having these insane ideas andthen $nds a way to make them into practical pieces of delightful magic. )on*unctionrepresents a signi$cant leap forward in the art and science of +impossible+ linkage.It is practical, albeit some diligent study will be required by those wishing tomaster this particular miracle. It should also become one of the most performed,and most talked-about pieces of modern close-up magic !given how often we tendto hand out business cards#. /uite simply, magic doesn&t get more impossible thanthis. 0110)% 2efore handing out your business card to someone with whom you&dlike to leave a strong impression, you give the card a series of folds and tears, in theprocess trans$guring it into an impossible ob*ect( two unbroken paper rings whichend up linked through one another. 3o what&s the di erence between this and theprofusion of other e ects that have cards linking together4 3imple( 5ou do it for real.

%he rings are given away in their genuinely linked state, from which they can&t beunlinked without ripping them. %hey can be e amined inde$nitely with no danger ofanyone $nding any seams, *oins or tears, because there aren&t any. 1urthermore, noglue, tape, or adhesive of any kind is used. Only one card is involved, with no ga s,gimmicks or e tra pieces, and nothing to ring in, linked squares of card can bc given

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away to bc studied and e amined !and they will be"#, since there is nothing to $nd. %hat&s the good thing about 'oshua( he keeps having these insane ideas and then$nds a way to make them into practical pieces of delightful magic. )on*unctionrepresents a signi$cant but *ust didn&t like it as well. I mention this only so youwon&t read through the whole thing e pecting to get to the point where you tear the

pieces into circle shapes, only to be will be in familiar territory here.# 6on&t closeyour eyes, because you&ll never want to do that in real life7 instead, practice lookingup away from your hands, at the spot where a spectator&s eyes would be if therewere one there. 2eing able to look someone in the eye rather than constantly staelaborate than this, provided you bear in mind which parts will be peeled o andyou plan the placement of your te t and graphics accordingly. 8 Also note that it&sokay to have graphic elements that end up getting peeled o completely, providedthey won&t be obviously missed and call attention to the method through theirabsence. %he only problem is if you have something that gets only partway peeled,thus giving away what you did( %hat&s bad. 6on&t do that. 9A%0:IA; )O<)0:<3 Ifyou&re going to get custom cards to use for this e ect, there are basically two waysto go about it( have them printed, or do it yourself. If you decide to have themprinted, all you yourself, besides a desktop printer, you&ll also probably want tomake one other investment( an odd but e tremely handy piece of o=ce equipmentknown as a +business card cutter.&+ It&s basically a plastic, loaf-of-bread-si>edthingamabob that lakes an ?.@ piece of paper and cuts it into ten businesscards. 5ou feed a piece of paper into it, turn the handle, and it comes out the otherend sliced into two long strips. %hen you turn those strips degrees, feed theminto a di erent slot, turn the handle again, and they come out the other end slicedinto business cards. I love the thing because I&m constantly $ddling with di erentcard designs and types of paper, and it lets me try them out without ordering athousand at a time. If you too like to tinker with such things, you may well $nd it tobe a worthwhile investment. 1or me it&s been an absolute godsend. I found mine one2ay for about si ty dollars, and since then there have always been a few up forauction at any given time. A search for the phrase +business card cutter&+ or+business card slitter+ will turn them up. %here are also electric ones available thatdon&t require you to turn a handle, but they&re considerably more 84 e pensive, andfor me the added cost wasn&t worth the minimal added convenience. Of course bothoptions have their advantages and disadvantages. Baving cards printedprofessionally is more convenient, and the print quality may be better than whatyou can get at home !though ink*ets have come a long way#. On the other hand,

doing them yourself allows for more e perimentation and doesn&t stick you with awhole bunch of cards that you then have to either use or waste. And now forsomething that many people have told me I&m a fool for tipping( the :olls :oyce ofcard stock paper and how to get it. <umerous friends have opined that rather thanrevealing the origin of this stu , I should *ust buy a crop. %hey hide the work well,they practically peel themselves, and they make great looking cards. %he samplesyou got with this booklet are made from one of those. I9CO:%A<%( Dhatever kindyou get, you&ll have to specify the weight you want it in !which, in paper bi> terms,

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means how thick it the paper is#. %he weight you want is +? - pound cover.+ <otethat both parts of that phrase - the +? -pound+ part and the +cover+ part - areimportant. 5ou don&t want ? -pound te t, which is regular writing paper, and youdon&t want E@-pound cover, which is Fimsier, tougher-to-work-with card stock. <owthat you know what to get, the tricky part is $nding it. %he only place I&ve found that

carries both brands, and will sell them in quantities from individual sheets tocartons, is a company called Glodan, reachable on the web at wvvw.glodan.com.

5ou can also order 3undance paper direct from the manufacturer at(www.gilbertpaper.comHfo HpapersH don&t say never gave you nothin&. I1 5O &6:A%B0: 1IGB% %BA< 3DI%)B reali>e that many of you reading this will not want tohave new cards made up for this e ect, either because you&re attached to thedesign of your current card, andHor because designing a new one to meet therequirements of the e ect seems like too much trouble. And that&s $ne. I&m not hurt.<o, really. I mean, I only put three years of sweat and toil into developing this e ect,tenderly nurturing it from its promising but problematic conceptual infancy, onwardthrough a long, clumsy, awkward adolescence fraught with impractical handlings,elaborate preparations, imperfect method concealment, and draconian designrequirements, before $nally seeing it through to its maturation into the elegantpiece of mystery so lovingly presented to you here. 3o there&s absolutely no reasonfor me to be upset if people get this far only to decide not to use it because theycan&t be bothered to spend a pleasant evening&s work making up a new businesscard. :eally, it&s no problem at all. I&ll *ust be in the corner wailing and gnashing myteeth. 2ut seriously, there arc a number of options that don&t require changing yourcurrent card, for those of you who are unwaveringly intent on riding roughshod overthe creative e orts of one of your fellow J3top it. - ed.K :ight, sorry. 2asically, if thepiece of paper you use for the e ect is not your business card at all, but rather acompletely separate card that you utili>e to demonstrate something interesting andimpossible, then a whole world of choices opens up to you. %he easiest and mostobvious one is to use a blank card. Dhy blank4 Dell, maybe something about ablank piece of paper representing in$nite possibilities, andHor impossibilities, andeven the gray areas where the two intersect... but that will be for you to work out.Or the card could bear a pre-printed message that tics in with your presentation -something like, +I am impossible,+ +I can&t e ist,+ &+Impossible is only a word,+ etc.Another option is to start with a blank card but write something on it that lendsitself to the circumstances. If you&re performing for a couple, a nice idea is to havethem write their names in the appropriate spots, and end with them &&*oined

together.+ Or if you&re working a corporate event or trade show. I+m sure you cancome up with some word or phrase that would be bene$cial to make &&intrinsicallylinked+ to the company or product you&re representing. !Ah, I can smell thecorporate cheese already( +3ome people will tell you it&s impossible to make customer satisfaction an integral part of a company&s identity, but here at3chmuck%ech, we do the impossible...+ I confess I look forward to my e ect beingused for such purposes with the same anticipation with which one looks forward toone&s daughter becoming a whore.# 5et another possibility is to have a diagram of

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two linked rings printed on the card, and use that picture as a starting point fordiscussion. I hope the above provides enough alternative ideas that those of youwho were e pecting to use your current card can now be persuaded to put down thepitchforks and torches. 88 DBA%&3 5O : 1 <)%IO<4 I&ll be the $rst to admit that ase ects go. )on*unction is an odd bird. It doesn&t $t within any of the standard

categories of magic plots - vanishes, appearances, transformations, transpositions,penetrations, levitations, etc. Dhen I&ve described the e ect to magicians, many ofthem have said, +Oh, so you mean it&s a one-card link.+ Dell... no. %hough thesimilarity is obvious, there&s a subtle but important di erence. In a one-card link, therings start out separate and then link together, so the impossible act is the passingof solid ob*ects through one another - a standard and easily de$ned plot. %hat neverhappens with )on*unction, as the rings are linked from the moment they come intoe istence. 3o the impossible act becomes the very creation of an ob*ect that shouldbe uncreatable - not e actly a soundbyte-friendly premise. 3o, you may askyourself, what&s it good for then4 As with many things in our $eld, the answer is,+whatever you choose to make of it.+ Dith the right framing it can be a $ne piece touse as an e ect within a close-up performance, be it formal or impromptu oranywhere in between. Cersonally I tend to use it more as a thought- andconversation-provoking promotional and marketing tool - a way to make myself andmy business card more memorable and more likely to be talked about after I&mgone. I&ve found it&s an e ective thing to do for someone whom you&re trying toconvince to hire you, as it leaves them with a tangible piece of impossibility thatserves as a constant, hard-to-ignore reminder of you. And in a $eld where the word+pu>>le+ has become one of the most derogatory terms in the le icon, it can makefor a $ne one in the best sense of the word7 not something to be solved anddefeated, but something with which to challenge people to think about what is andisn&t possible. %ruth be told, it&s also a great way to win free drinks from engineersand topologists. <ote also that this doesn&t have to be performed as an 0 ect with acapital 0, with all attention focused on it. In a casual environment you can *ust graba card and start $ddling with it, without calling attention to what you&re doing untilthe appropriate time. It&s worth pointing out that when I perform, I do so as amentalist, with no +straight+ magic included7 I deal solely with abilities of the mind,and I don&t ever make things vanish, appear, transpose, levitate, or *ump to the topof the deck. 2ut I do use )on*unction, because although it has nothing to do withwhat we think of as the standard mentalism feats !demonstrations of telepathy,precognition, telekinesis, etc.#, it is a $ne e ample of the power of the human mind

to overcome accepted limitations and accomplish things that are consideredimpossible. And it helps that unlike most premises and *usti$cations in mentalism,that happens to be an accurate characteri>ation rather than a line of unmitigatedbullshit. 3imilar ground has been e plored by such mentalists