The Buena Vista Shuffle Club by Matt Baker – Book

The Buena Vista Shuffle Club is unlike any other magic book you’ve read. It combines original methods, plots, and scripts with “jam sessions” between a fictitious group of magicians who analyze and deconstruct the effects in the book. Memorized deck aficionados will have a field day: there are nearly 100 pages devoted to effects with a memorized deck. But the book also contains blockbuster mentalism, impromptu effects with cards and coins, new applications of underground math principles, and “one degree” touches on classics of magic such as Matrix, Shuffle-Bored, and Bill in Lemon. Inside these pages you will find:

• An interactive murder mystery based on the game of “Clue”.
• A baffling Three Card Monte routine done with coins.
• A magician-slaying, radically new approach to the classic 21 Card Trick.
• Fascinating new uses for the Gilbreath Principle.
• Routines which surreptitiously restore your memorized stack from a shuffled deck.
• An impromptu mentalism effect, done with borrowed change, in which the spectators make all of the choices (including the prediction itself!).
• A new presentation AND new method for Simon Aronson’s classic “Shuffle-Bored”.
• A re-imagining of Paul Harris’s “The Anything Deck” (which Dan Harlan has called the best version ever).
• And much, much more…

“Matt Baker creates the kind of ‘thinking man’s’ magic that I admire. He’s constantly pushing the envelope, so even when you think you might know what’s happening, there’s an extra ‘twist’ that renders it impossible. Matt’s creativity, combined with his humor and his imagination, make it a pleasure to spend time with the Buena Vista Shuffle Club.”
– Simon Aronson

“The Buena Vista Shuffle Club is an excellent, funny, and personal collection of magic that is a joy to read. Matt’s memorized deck work was smart and novel.”
– Joshua Jay

“I’ve just finished the first of what I expect to be many enjoyable readings of The Buena Vista Shuffle Club. Matt Baker’s charming magic creations hit the sweet spot of being both clever and practical, but the concept and style of the writing make reading his book an entertainment experience in its own right. This is a valuable contribution to the art.”
– Joe M. Turner