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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 or product you&re representing.!Ah, I can smell the corporate cheese already( +3ome people will tell you it&simpossible to make customer satisfaction an integral part of a company&sidentity, but here at 3chmuck%ech, we do the impossible...+ I confess I look forward

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to my e ect being used for such purposes with the same anticipation with whichone looks forward to one&s daughter becoming a whore.# 5et another possibility is tohave a diagram of two linked rings printed on the card, and use that picture as astarting point for discussion. I hope the above provides enough alternative ideasthat those of you who were e pecting to use your current card can now be

persuaded to put down the pitchforks and torches. 88 CBA%&3 5OD: 1D<)%IO<4 I&llbe the $rst to admit that as e ects go. )on*unction is an odd bird. It doesn&t $twithin any of the standard categories of magic plots - vanishes, appearances,transformations, transpositions, penetrations, levitations, etc. Chen I&ve describedthe e ect to magicians, many of them have said, +Oh, so you mean it&s a one-cardlink.+ Cell... no. %hough the similarity is obvious, there&s a subtle but importantdi erence. In a one-card link, the rings start out separate and then link together, sothe impossible act is the passing of solid ob*ects through one another - a standardand easily de$ned plot. %hat never happens with )on*unction, as the rings arelinked from the moment they come into e istence. 3o the impossible act becomesthe very creation of an ob*ect that should be uncreatable - not e actly a soundbyte-friendly premise. 3o, you may ask yourself, what&s it good for then4 As with manythings in our $eld, the answer is, +whatever you choose to make of it.+ Cith theright framing it can be a $ne piece to use as an e ect within a close-upperformance, be it formal or impromptu or anywhere in between. Eersonally I tendto use it more as a thought- and conversation-provoking promotional and marketingtool - a way to make myself and my business card more memorable and more likelyto be talked about after I&m gone. I&ve found it&s an e ective thing to do for someonewhom you&re trying to convince to hire you, as it leaves them with a tangible pieceof impossibility that serves as a constant, hard-to-ignore reminder of you. And in a$eld where the word +pu>>le+ has become one of the most derogatory terms in thele icon, it can make for a $ne one in the best sense of the word7 not something tobe solved and defeated, but something with which to challenge people to thinkabout what is and isn&t possible. %ruth be told, it&s also a great way to win free drinksfrom engineers and topologists. <ote also that this doesn&t have to be performed asan 0 ect with a capital 0, with all attention focused on it. In a casual environmentyou can *ust grab a card and start $ddling with it, without calling attention to whatyou&re doing until the appropriate time. It&s worth pointing out that when I perform, Ido so as a mentalist, with no +straight+ magic included7 I deal solely with abilities ofthe mind, and I don&t ever make things vanish, appear, transpose, levitate, or *umpto the top of the deck. 2ut I do use )on*unction, because although it has nothing to

do with what we think of as the standard mentalism feats !demonstrations oftelepathy, precognition, telekinesis, etc.#, it is a $ne e ample of the power of thehuman mind to overcome accepted limitations and accomplish things that areconsidered impossible. And it helps that unlike most premises and *usti$cations inmentalism, that happens to be an accurate characteri>ation rather than a line ofunmitigated bullshit. 3imilar ground has been e plored by such mentalists