We recently reviewed Peter Egglink's Heatwave, which we loved, and now, in Ripped-Up, he offers his take on the torn and restored card. Here, Egglink offers a method that allows you to seemingly tear apart a signed card and instantly restore it. The effect is based on a clever gimmick and requires no palming and almost instantly resets. On the other hand, the given handling felt somewhat clumsy to me, and to effectively pull off the trick, I think that you need a bit of distance from spectators.
Signed, Torn and Restored
A spectator chooses a card and signs it, the magician tears it up, the torn pieces are placed on the bottom of the deck and instantly, the card is fully restored in the blink of an eye. You can immediately hand the restored card to spectators for examination.Because of the gimmick, which is printed on Bicycle card stock, the effect quickly resets with little effort and requires no palming. You're not left clean, but to most lay audiences, you will look clean.
Handling
While the effect requires no knuckle busting manipulations, I found the initial moves to be rather awkward (Egglink does not use these moves in his video referred to earlier). But after working a bit, I easily adapted the effect to moves that I already confidently perform. The instructions are a bit confusing in the middle section. But if you watch the video referenced earlier, you'll be able to figure it out. The hardest move to learn and perform comes when you restore the card. For this, you can also rely on Marc DeSouza's Shapeshifter move.From a Distance
Just before the final move where you restore the card, there's a point where you might need to keep a little distance from spectators to pull off the effect, at least a step back, or you'll at least want to keep things in motion. I noticed that Egglink himself uses a bit of distance in his promo video when demonstrating the trick.Ripped-Up indeed delivers its intended effect. But it will take some work on your part to adapt the gimmick to your way of handling cards. And watch that distance.
-Wayne N. Kawamoto
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