The concept of the Junk Drawer Challenge is to address those odd, quirky tricks that seemed good at the time but ultimately for want of a good presentation went into the junk drawer. The challenge is to bring them back out and work on a presentation. Hopefully, the presentation would be shown to the club. The previous challenge was the Steel Ball and Tube. This months’ challenge will be the Baffling Boomerang trick or more secularly known as the Jastrow Illusion.

The Jastrow illusion occurs when two curved pieces of the same arc and length are shown one above the other. It appears the bottom piece is longer than the top, but when the places are exchanged the seemingly shorter piece is now longer than the previously longer piece. It is a very confusing optical illusion. There have been several attempts to make this optical illusion and entertainment piece but it has always been relegated to children’s magic and presented as a puzzle.

In everyday life, we come across examples of the Jastrow illusion and don’t even notice. For example, sleeves for coffee cups and the tracks for play train sets are perfect examples of Jastrow illusions. Peter Prevos of magicperspectives.net has written an e-book on the history, science and magical applications of the Jastrow illusion. He feels compelled to re-energize the magic community on not just this but other illusions that have entered into the magic performance venue but waned after a few years. The struggle is always the same, how do we take what is an obvious physical illusion and breath magical life into it. If you are looking for a challenge, I would love to see a great presentation of this illusion that makes sense and has appeal. So go steal some Brio train tracks or coffee sleeves and figure out a presentation. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the next entry into Peter Prevo’s book