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ew principle that will no doubt leave countless audiences seriously in doubt of their
senses. It will also delight those of us in the dark, deceptive arts with a fondness for
effects so deceptive they border on mental cruelty. After all, it is clearly insane to
suppose that a single, unfaked business card can be torn into two inter-linked
squares. Or that this can be done in real-time, while the audience watch, with
nothing to hide or steal away. Or that the resulting linked squares of card can bc
given away to bc studied and examined (and they will be!), since there is nothing to
find. That's the good thing about Joshua: he keeps having these insane ideas and
then finds a way to make them into practical pieces of delightful magic. Conjunction
represents a significant leap forward in the art and science of "impossible" linkage.
It is 100% practical, albeit some diligent study will be required by those wishing to
master 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 tend
to hand out business cards). Quite simply, magic doesn't get more impossible than
this. EFFECT Before handing out your business card to someone with whom you'd
like to leave a strong impression, you give the card a series of folds and tears, in the
process transfiguring it into an impossible object: two unbroken paper rings which
end up linked through one another. So what's the difference between this and the
profusion of other effects that have cards linking together? Simple: You do it for real.
The rings are given away in their genuinely linked state, from which they can't be

unlinked without ripping them. They can be examined indefinitely with no danger of
anyone finding any seams, joins or tears, because there aren't any. Furthermore, no
glue, tape, or adhesive of any kind is used. Only one card is involved, with no gaffs,
gimmicks or extra pieces, and nothing to ring in, linked squares of card can bc given
away to bc studied and examined (and they will be!), since there is nothing to find.
That's the good thing about Joshua: he keeps having these insane ideas and then
finds a way to make them into practical pieces of delightful magic. Conjunction
represents a significant but 1 just didn't like it as well. I mention this only so you
won't read through the whole thing expecting to get to the point where you tear the
pieces into circle shapes, only to be disappointed with their rectangularity in the
end. 2 All right then, lo start with you'll need: Some business cards A pen or
pencil A razor knife A cutting surface Don't worry, when you do this in real life
you won't need anything but a business card, but for now you'll need thing to say,
and getting comfortable saying it while making the link. The first part I can't give
you much help with; your spiel will depend entirely on things like your persona and
your audience and your performing conditions and what you want to convey. I'm not
including mine here because it wouldn't fit anyone but me. But the one thing I can
tell you is to be sure to impress upon your audience the fact that tearing a piece of
paper into two solid, linked rings is impossible. Without having that established in
advance, people won't quite know what to make of the result, and it will take a few
minutes of contemplation for them to decide whether they should be amazed or
not. As for the second part, I have some more concrete tips. Obviously, you'll need
to practice making the link while delivering your spiel out loud. But before you start
doing 39 that, you may find it helpful to practice looking away from your hands as
much as possible while making the link. (Those of you who have worked on a center
tear will be in familiar territory here.) Don't close your eyes, because you'll never
want to do that in real life; instead, practice looking up away from your hands, at
the spot where a spectator's eyes would be if there were one there. Being able to
look someone in the eye rather than constantly staring at your hands will go a long
way toward keeping people engaged all by itself. Once you can do that, speaking at
the same time will come easier. Also, get in the habit of holding your hands up
toward your face rather than down in front of your chest. That way when you do
have to look at your hands, you'll have less distance to travel and you'll seem
proportionately less disconnected. DESIGN MATTERS When it comes to where you
can and can't have printing on the card, this picture of the reassembled demo card
pretty much tells the story: The peeled parts will end up blank, and the discarded
parts will be, well, discarded. So plan the placement of the crucial information
accordingly. Here's one basic but effective design... 40 ...which ends up looking like
this: The title line ends up being discarded, but if people don't remember the basic
gist of what you do by the time you give them something like this, then you're doing
something very wrong. Of course your design can be a good deal more elaborate
than this, provided you bear in mind which parts will be peeled off and you plan the
placement of your text and graphics accordingly. 41 Also note that it's okay to have
graphic elements that end up getting peeled off completely, provided they won't be

obviously missed and call attention to the method through their absence. The only
problem is if you have something that gets only partway peeled, thus giving away
what you did: That's bad. Don't do that. MATERIAL CONCERNS If you're going to get
custom cards to use for this effect, there are basically two ways to go about it: have
them printed, or do it yourself. If you decide to have them printed, all you have to
do is find a printer that has suitable paper, and give them your design and your
credit card number. But if possible. I would recommend going to several different
printers and getting samples of their paper to try out before choosing one. This is
because not all card stock paper is created equal. For one thing, some is easier to
peel than others. For another, sometimes the inside looks slightly different than the
outside, making the peeled sections more apparent. So it will be worth your while to
find the best kind that's readily available to you. If you want to make them yourself,
besides a desktop printer, you'll also probably want to make one other investment:
an odd but extremely handy piece of office equipment known as a "business card
cutter.'" It's basically a plastic, loaf-of-bread-sized thingamabob that lakes an 8.5 x
11 piece of paper and cuts it into ten business cards. You feed a piece of paper into
it, turn the handle, and it comes out the other end sliced into two long strips. Then
you turn those strips 90 degrees, feed them into a different slot, turn the handle
again, and they come out the other end sliced into business cards. I love the thing
because I'm constantly fiddling with different card designs and types of paper, and
it lets me try them out without ordering a thousand at a time. If you too like to
tinker with such things, you may well find it to be a worthwhile investment. For me
it's been an absolute godsend. I found mine on eBay for about sixty dollars, and
since then there have always been a few up for auction at any given time. A search
for the phrase "business card cutter'" or "business card slitter" will turn them up.
There are also electric ones available that don't require you to turn a handle, but
they're considerably more 4? expensive, and for me the added cost wasn't worth
the minimal added convenience. Of course both options have their advantages and
disadvantages. Having cards printed professionally is more convenient, and the
print quality may be better than what you can get at home (though inkjets have
come a long way). On the other hand, doing them yourself allows for more
experimentation and doesn't stick you with a whole bunch of cards that you then
have to either use or waste. And now for something that many people have told me
I'm a fool for tipping: the Rolls Royce of card stock paper and how to get it.
Numerous friends have opined that rather than revealing the origin of this stuff, I
should just buy a bunch of it wholesale and then sell it to Conjunction users at a
reprehensible markup. And while the idea is not without a certain appeal, the
bottom line is that dealing with receiving, storing, and shipping large quantities of
heavy paper is not my idea of a good time. Hence, my hedonistic laziness is your
gain. I mentioned earlier that having a visual pattern in the paper is more helpful
than having physically textured paper, and that's true - but it's even better to have
both. The best is a combination of a good visual pattern and what's known in the
paper biz as a "felt" texture, which consists of small, random bumps and ridges not
unlike, well, felt. It's the closest thing you can get to the actual texture of paper

that's been peeled apart. It's not identical, but when combined with the visual
pattern, the difference really is unnoticeable. There are a number of brands out
there that fit the bill, but as of this writing the best ones available are: Sundance
Felt paper, made by the Fox River division of the Gilbert Paper Company, in the
Navajo White or Maize colors. Via Felt paper, made by Mohawk Paper, in the Flax
or Jute colors. Out of the hundreds of papers I tried, these two in the colors I've
listed are the cream of the crop. They hide the work well, they practically peel
themselves, and they make great looking cards. The samples you got with this
booklet are made from one of those. IMPORTANT: Whatever kind you get, you'll have
to specify the weight you want it in (which, in paper biz terms, means how thick it
the paper is). The weight you want is "80- pound cover." Note that both parts of that
phrase - the "80-pound" part and the "cover" part - are important. You don't want
80-pound text, which is regular writing paper, and you don't want 65-pound cover,
which is flimsier, tougher-to-work-with card stock. Now that you know what to get,
the tricky part is finding it. The only place I've found that carries both brands, and
will sell them in quantities from individual sheets to cartons, is a company called
Glodan, reachable on the web at wvvw.glodan.com. You can also order Sundance
paper direct from the manufacturer at:
www.gilbertpaper.com/fox/papers/sundance/buy 43 I also had some luck with The
Paper Mill Store (.com), who didn't stock any of the ones I wanted but offered to
order it for a good price, provided I bought a carton (500 sheets). There. Now don't
say 1 never gave you nothin'. IF YOU'D RATHER FIGHT THAN SWITCH 1 realize that
many of you reading this will not want to have new cards made up for this effect,
either because you're attached to the design of your current card, and/or because
designing a new one to meet the requirements of the effect seems like too much
trouble. And that's fine. I'm not hurt. No, really. I mean, I only put three years of
sweat and toil into developing this effect, tenderly nurturing it from its promising
but problematic conceptual infancy, onward through a long, clumsy, awkward
adolescence fraught with impractical handlings, elaborate preparations, imperfect
method concealment, and draconian design requirements, before finally seeing it
through to its maturation into the elegant piece of mystery so lovingly presented to
you here. So there's absolutely no reason for me to be upset if people get this far
only to decide not to use it because they can't be bothered to spend a pleasant
evening's work making up a new business card. Really, it's no problem at all. I'll just
be in the corner wailing and gnashing my teeth. But seriously, there arc a number of
options that don't require changing your current card, for those of you who are
unwaveringly intent on riding roughshod over the creative efforts of one of your
fellow [Stop it. - ed.] Right, sorry. Basically, if the piece of paper you use for the
effect is not your business card at all, but rather a completely separate card that
you utilize to demonstrate something interesting and impossible, then a whole
world of choices opens up to you. The easiest and most obvious one is to use a
blank card. Why blank? Well, maybe something about a blank piece of paper
representing infinite possibilities, and/or impossibilities, and even 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 exist," '"Impossible is only a word," etc. Another option is to
start with a blank card but write something on it that lends itself to the
circumstances. If you're performing for a couple, a nice idea is to have them write
their names in the appropriate spots, and end with them ''joined together." Or if
you're working a corporate event or trade show. I"m sure you can come up with
some word or phrase that would be beneficial to make ''intrinsically linked" to the
company or product you're representing. (Ah, I can smell the corporate cheese
already: "Some people will tell you it's impossible to make 100% customer
satisfaction an integral part of a company's identity, but here at SchmuckTech, we
do the impossible..." I confess I look forward to my effect being used for such
purposes with the same anticipation with which one looks forward to one's daughter
becoming a whore.) Yet another possibility is to have a diagram of two linked rings
printed on the card, and use that picture as a starting point for discussion. I hope
the above provides enough alternative ideas that those of you who were expecting
to use your current card can now be persuaded to put down the pitchforks and
torches. 44 WHAT'S YOUR FUNCTION? I'll be the first to admit that as effects go.
Conjunction is an odd bird. It doesn't fit within any of the standard categories of
magic plots - vanishes, appearances, transformations, transpositions, penetrations,
levitations, etc. When I've described the effect to magicians, many of them have
said, "Oh, so you mean it's a one-card link." Well... no. Though the similarity is
obvious, there's a subtle but important difference. In a one-card link, the rings start
out separate and then link together, so the impossible act is the passing of solid
objects through one another - a standard and easily defined plot. That never
happens with Conjunction, as the rings are linked from the moment they come into
existence. So the impossible act becomes the very creation of an object that should
be uncreatable - not exactly a soundbyte-friendly premise. So, you may ask
yourself, what's it good for then? As with many things in our field, the answer is,
"whatever you choose to make of it." With the right framing it can be a fine piece to
use as an effect within a close-up performance, be it formal or impromptu or
anywhere in between. Personally I tend to use it more as a thought- and
conversation-provoking promotional and marketing tool - a way to make myself and
my business card more memorable and more likely to be talked about after I'm
gone. I've found it's an effective thing to do for someone whom you're trying to
convince to hire you, as it leaves them with a tangible piece of impossibility that
serves as a constant, hard-to-ignore reminder of you. And in a field where the word
"puzzle" has become one of the most derogatory terms in the lexicon, it can make
for a fine one in the best sense of the word; not something to be solved and
defeated, but something with which to challenge people to think about what is and
isn't possible. Truth be told, it's also a great way to win free drinks from engineers
and topologists. Note also that this doesn't have to be performed as an Effect with a
capital E, with all attention focused on it. In a casual environment you can just grab
a card and start fiddling with it, without calling attention to what you're doing until
the appropriate time. It's worth pointing out that when I perform, I do so as a

mentalist, with no "straight" magic included; I deal solely with abilities of the mind,
and I don't ever make things vanish, appear, transpose, levitate, or jump to the top
of the deck. But I do use Conjunction, because although it has nothing to do with
what we think of as the standard mentalism feats (demonstrations of telepathy,
precognition, telekinesis, etc.), it is a fine example of the power of the human mind
to overcome accepted limitations and accomplish things that are considered
impossible. And it helps that unlike most premises and justifications in mentalism,
that happens to be an accurate characterization rather than a line of unmitigated
bullshit. Similar ground has been explored by such mentalists