David Greene is a wonderful thinker and student of mine. You will see my influence in his work, I am proud to say. David knows how to make things direct and practical. People remember David's routines when he performs them, and performers love them because they are so direct and simple to manage well.  -- Kenton Knepper

A COLLECTION OF TEN (PDF Book)

David Greene

Ten close up mysteries built around things that already belong in the real world.

Coins. A dollar bill. A die. Photographs. Puzzle pieces. Playing cards. Candy. A clock.

The objects are ordinary.

What happens to them is not.

These are practical routines designed to feel less like demonstrations of technique and more like strange little moments someone happens to witness.

Choices matter. Participants move things, change their minds, hide information, follow paths, and make decisions. The methods do the necessary work, leaving you free to concentrate on the person in front of you.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

ROOM FOR CHANGE
A dollar bill has room for eight pennies. Then a ninth enters the arrangement. Nothing grows. Nothing hangs over an edge. Nothing is removed.
Yet every side still contains exactly what it did before. A small impossibility about value, space, and discovering that something can change without becoming less.

IN CIRCULATION
Someone secretly takes any one of four coins while your head is turned. Its identity and date remain hidden.
A network (magic circle) is drawn on a dollar bill. The hidden coin is placed at its center. Different routes are freely chosen through the drawing, yet every route arrives at the same result.
Another coin fails the test.
The original coin is turned over.
The answer has been in their hand from the beginning.

FOUND
Six unrelated puzzle pieces are placed one at a time into a participant’s hand.
Before they open it, a sealed envelope marked LOST & FOUND is placed on the table. Their hand contains only five pieces.
They open the envelope themselves.
Inside is the missing piece.

THE TIME THAT MOVED
A vintage photograph shows six wristwatches, each stopped at a different time. One particular time is clearly identified and remembered.
The photograph is separated into three pieces and reassembled.
Same photograph.
Same three pieces.
Same six watches.
But the remembered time no longer exists.
Then comes the second realization.
Every time in the photograph has changed.
Nothing disappeared except the moment they were looking at.

CLOCK
Someone begins anywhere on an arrangement of number words positioned like a clock. They travel forward, backward, then forward again, with every move determined by the place they reached before it.
Different beginnings should produce different endings.
They do not.
However the journey begins, it quietly converges on the same destination.

THE WORD THAT WAITED
A sealed prediction is placed on the table before anything is chosen.
Three photographs are shown. A postcard. A journal entry. A manuscript page.
The participant freely chooses any one.
They secretly select any word in its first line and begin a journey through the writing, with each word determining where they move next.
You never know where they started.
You can even turn completely away while they work.
Eventually, the writing can carry them no farther.
Only then is the prediction opened.
Somehow, their freely chosen path has arrived exactly where it was predicted to end.

TRUTH OR LIE DIE
Two people secretly decide which of them will always tell the truth and which will always lie.
One hides a die.
With a single question, you determine who has it.
They are allowed to change its location. You find it again.
Then the same peculiar logic that located the object reveals something considerably more interesting.
Which person has been telling the truth and which has been lying from the beginning. No tells.
No body language.
Just the strange shape of a question.

SPOT OF INFLUENCE
A participant drops a die into either of two canisters while your back is turned.
One canister goes into a pocket. The other is held behind their back.
Then they are given a genuine opportunity to change their mind.
They may move the die.
Exchange the containers.
Change both.
Or change nothing.
Before anything is removed or opened, you reveal where each container is and which one contains the die.
For the final phase, a number is secretly chosen and sealed inside the nested containers. You reveal that too.
Perhaps influence is not found in the first decision.
Perhaps it begins when someone is allowed to reconsider it.

SCHRÖDINGER’S MONTE: A REALITY PARADOX
Two playing cards become a small argument about reality.
A card seems to change identity.
Then the cards appear to exchange what they are.
For the final phase, the participant takes control.
They remove the cards themselves and discover that the objects they remember seeing are no longer the objects in front of them.
The familiar Two Card Monte premise becomes something stranger.
Not a challenge about whether people are fooled.
A question about what they actually saw.

SWEET ISH
A clear jar of chocolate candies sits in full view from the beginning.
Inside is a folded prediction.
Three people freely contribute information and physically become part of the process. The audience completes the final calculation themselves.
Only then is the jar opened.
The prediction has been sitting among the candy since before anyone made a choice. The final result matches exactly.
And if anyone wants to verify the contents of the jar afterward, they may have just volunteered for a very long evening.

 

MORE THAN TEN METHODS
The collection includes the thinking behind each routine, complete presentations, handling, preparation, reset information, historical notes where appropriate, illustrations, and practical details intended to move the material from the page to performance.

You will also receive the prepared photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and supporting files required for the effects that use them.
Some of the material is based upon older principles.

A Collection of Ten is for performers who like magic that is unusual, thoughtful, practical, and built to be performed rather than merely read about.
Ten routines. Ordinary things. Unexpected consequences.

Get your copy of A Collection of Ten and put these mysteries to work for you right away.