"Falling For You" booklet by Andrew Gerard
Suggested Retail USD$25.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 7 Out of 10

“Falling For You”, a booklet by Andrew Gerard, is one of those things that, while actually very good, falls far short of the marketing hype surrounding it and runs the risk of disappointing many a consumer.

Let's take a look at the ad copy first. It goes something like this:

“A spectator is shown a small bunch of cards and is asked to remember one. The cards are mixed and dropped to the ground by a spectator or magician one at a time landing in a neat little pile… except for one. One card takes off and flies towards the person that thought of a card! The card is named, turned over and shown to be the one they thought of!”

Pretty amazing, isn't it? Or at least it reads like it is. Unfortunately, this description is playing on your imagination way more than it is on reality.

The bit about the spectator remembering a card from a small bunch of cards and mixing them and dropping them to the ground… all of that's pretty accurate. The copy does play with this a tad, but it's what you'd expect in order to hide part of the method. No harm, no foul on here.

It's the next piece that stretches credulity and patience to the breaking point, to wit: “One card takes off and flies towards the person that thought of a card.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. Get all those ideas of floating, spinning, hurtling-through-space cards out of your mind.

What really happens is that the cards do land in a relatively neat little pile except for one. That one, which later will be found to be the remembered card, actually falls a bit farther away from the neat little pile and toward the spectator who thought of it.

No flying, no taking off, nothing what you probably think would happen from that description. In reality, it's more like a controlled crash than a flight.

I make a big deal of this for a reason: I really do love “Falling For You”. I figured, long before I had the little booklet in my grubby paws, that this was a superior take on the classic card revelation we all learned from some book or the other. I wasn't disappointed in the least (and I'll get to the details in just a second).

But I'm not the only one buying this, and I'm not the only one reading the ad copy and salivating. Those fine folks are going to be bitterly disappointed and will shout “Shenanigans!” at the top of their ever-lovin' lungs and, to my way of thinking, rightfully so.

It's a shame, too, because “Falling For You” can be a bona fide jaw-dropping, brain-freezing, “moment of astonishment”-type piece of magic and, I'd be willing to bet, will make many a performer quite happy. It sure has me.

So, with what we'll politely call “discrepancies” out of the way, let's take a real look at what “Falling For You” is or isn't.

First up, the actual routine as taught in the booklet goes something like this:

A deck of cards is shown and a spectator asked to pick a number from between 5 and 10. The card at that number is shown and the spectator asked to remember it. Other cards are dealt (if necessary) so that a packet of ten cards is dealt. The performer then takes the cards, one at a time, and drops them to the floor where they land in a small pile. One card doesn't join the pile, though; it falls away from it and closer to the spectator who is remembering the card. The performer bends down and turns this one card over: it is the remembered card.

There. That's much closer to the truth of things. But it's also only part of the story.

Gerard's work here can make this one very “hands-off”. In fact, he recommends letting a spectator do the dropping (a good recommendation – doing it that way absolutely knocks people for a loop). He also has the idea of using this as a “living/dead test” type of thing with index cards and as a really strange color separation routine, with all the black cards ending up to one side of the pile, all the red to the other side, and in the middle all the court cards in what is probably one of the most other-worldly “Out of This World” variants out there.

All of this is accomplished with a gimmick that in its simplest incarnation will take you about a few seconds to put together with the bare minimum of crafting using extremely common household items. There is a cleaner version of the gimmick that is more difficult to make if you're so inclined, but the simple one will get the job done.

Okay, so let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of “Falling For You”.

On the “strength” side of things, this is incredibly self-working: just drop the cards. That's all there is to it. You can also use any deck of cards (or card-like objects: I've already mentioned index cards, but it can be done with business cards as well); simply add the gimmick and you're ready to go. The real strength of “Falling For You” is it's flexibility: there is simply a ton of stuff you can do with this idea and a ton of room for exploration.

The weaknesses? While set-up/re-set is a breeze, you'll find repeating it problematic; you'll need to solve that one on your own (you'll have plenty of ideas, I'm sure, once you see the method Gerard came up with). Also, environment is definitely something to consider; you won't be doing this one outside or where there's some moving air to interfere with your work. And while the spectator can do a good bit of the work here, turning over that card is pretty much your job unless you make the more complicated gimmick which, honestly, I mention for the sake of completeness; the impact on the spectator is just as strong regardless of who turns over the darn card.

Make no mistake: “Falling For You”, done with a proper presentation with a bit of thought behind it, really is strong. Done “out of the box” (or envelope in this case) will still garner good reactions.

For those willing to do that, the price for what you get is just about right. Others will have the argument that $25 bucks for five single-sided pages of what amounts to a skeletal routine and a bullet-item list of ideas is simply way too much. It's a good argument. If you're buying this to perform a couple of times for family and friends then you're not going to feel you got your money's worth and the term “rip-off” may cross your mind.

But if you're looking for something offbeat that you'll do a lot, something that could be a worker for you, then the price is far below the value of this one and you'll likely be very happy with it. I know I was.

So if the more accurate description above is to your liking, if you see the potential in this one, and you see yourself doing this more than a few times, by all means pick up “Falling For You”; you're the type of performer that this was released for.

Everyone else need not apply.

"Falling For You" booklet by Andrew Gerard
In a Blink: 7 Out of 10

Material: 10
It's all about the basic idea here -- a simple, elementary one -- and it's a really good one. A far cry from what's advertised, it's nonetheless a different and interesting card revelation with few drawbacks and a whole lot of pluses going for it.

Quality: 5
The writing is sketchy, consisting of skeletal outlines and a bullet-list here and there, but it's enough to get you going with this one.

Illustrations: 5
Three illustrations in the form of black-and-white photos are supplied. That's good enough to get the point across.

Presentation: 8
Beyond "Watch this" and a so-so visual, the whole theme here is bizarre and unique enough to make this one play well. Add some of your own touches and this one goes through the roof quickly.

Shane