Magic in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 3

If you haven’t done it before, now is the perfect time to connect with someone over video chat and show them a trick.

There’s never going to be a better excuse. “I have this trick I’m working on but I’ve run out of people to perform it on in person. Can you hop on Skype for a few minutes?”

This reasoning will actually make the trick stronger because of a subtle implication. The implication that you could do this in person, but it’s just this darn coronavirus that’s preventing you from doing so.

You should take advantage of this and not do something you could actually do in person. The window of the Skype frame makes switching and ditching and that sort of thing incredibly easy. You don’t need a pocket index, you can have stuff just sitting on your computer desk off frame. And it’s a good time to break out all your tricks that end up unexaminable.

Something I do pretty regularly over Skype—pandemic or not—is I have one of those small clear prediction boxes that were popular a few years ago (Clarity Box, Vision Box, Paragon 3d) sitting on a shelf behind me. I bring their attention to the box and the fact that there’s something inside. Then I can ask them to name anything, any word, shape, number, or whatever. I then cleanly grab the box and remove the prediction and it matches perfectly. This is very easy to do, of course, because as they’re naming their word, number, or picture, I’m just writing it on a card out of frame. As long as I’m looking at them and not in my lap or to the side, then they’re not going to suspect anything.

From their perspective, they see a clear box with a piece of folded paper in it sitting somewhere in the frame. I don’t go near it the entire time. At the end I remove the paper and unfold it revealing my prediction matches. I usually tell them to record the screen because they’re going to think I went near the box and did something funny and they’ll want to check again later. The truth is, the switch with these boxes can stand up to that sort of scrutiny. The only real sketchy part is what’s taking place out of frame.

This is a great trick to have your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/kid or whoever help you out with. They can just sit down to the side of you without the person on the other end of the Skype call ever knowing they were there. Have that person think of any dream they’ve ever had that they can remember and have them describe it to you. As they do, your accomplice draws a simple image depicting the dream, then folds the card getting it ready to be switched in. Because you’re not doing the drawing yourself, whatever is drawn or written can be more complicated without you looking distracted in the least. And your hands can be in frame and seen empty until the point that your accomplice hands you the prediction off screen.

I find this to be a trick people particularly enjoy helping out with. This sort of sneakiness (hiding off screen, secretly drawing the picture, slipping it to you without being seen) is more fun than many of the other things we ask secret assistants to do (e.g., “Scratch your nose when I get to the object people decided on.). So with this trick you get to do something fun for someone over Skype, but you also get to bond with your quarantine partner.

Look, you go on Instagram and you see—in a lot of places—people sitting at home doing puzzles and shit. Despite the fact we have tv and internet, people are still starving for some entertainment and interaction. Reaching out and showing someone a trick is, in itself, a nice gesture. And if you know someone who might be holed up without having many family members or friends to engage with—someone who might be feeling isolated or lonely—it can be a good excuse to reach out to them and check in on them. You might not have the type of relationship where you’d say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about you and I’m a little concerned and I want to see how you’re doing.” But you may feel comfortable saying, “Hey, I’ve got this thing I’ve been working on, can I try it out on you?” And the latter may serve the same purpose, and produce the same results, as the former.