Monday Mailbag #47

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Just had my first full gig in over a year. […]

Just thought this might be of interest - I decided to try your 'Unkown Edible' idea and I decided to use it as a pre-show item. It was really good that I did, because the guy took a really long time to think of something and ended up pulling out his phone to look something up. I was setting up anyway so no biggie, but I guess I wasn't expecting that to be such a hard question. Maybe it was just unique to this guy, but I could see this being hard for some people in retrospect.

I'm not super into pre-show in general, but occasionally use it when I want to try out a new imp device or something. Well, in this case - I'll be doing it again and specifically saying something along the lines of "I want to set this up now so that you have time to think, so I don't put you on the spot later".

I'm not sure if that's a 'normal' excuse for preshow, but in this case it ended up making a lot of sense. Just raised the idea of choosing things that might inherently take a little thinking or reflection as a 'reason' for preshow.

Obviously you don't do preshow exactly, but I imagine there is an analogy in the social performing world. —MP

Yeah, that’s smart. One of the benefits of using “unknown personals” in social performing is because it can take a bit of thought and energy to come up with an answer. The longer it takes them to formulate an answer, the less they can think, “That must the obvious response,” or, “I guess everyone says that.” So using that as part of the rationale for pre-show work makes sense to me. And that’s the case whether it’s the type of pre-show where it’s obvious to the rest of the audience that you spoke to the person before the show or not.

The absolute dumbest thing I’ve seen done with pre-show is when the mentalist will say, “Before the show I asked you to think of a card.” Or “think of a celebrity” or “think of the name of someone close to you.” There’s (usually) no reason given why this was done pre-show. (As I wrote in an early post on pre-show work.)

But using a particularly meaty “Unknown Personal” question completely justifies the process. “Often people accuse me of doing research on the people in my audience. If I tell you your zodiac sign or you mother’s first name, you’re much more likely to think I have rudimentary web search skills than that I have extraordinary mind reading skills. That’s why, before the show, I asked Josh to think of something that I couldn’t find online. Something he didn’t even know himself before I asked him. Now, Josh, this took you a while to think of, yes? And you’d never thought of it before? And since you thought of it, you’ve never told another soul, correct?”

That makes a lot more sense than, “Before the show I asked Josh to think of an important person in his life.” People don’t generally need ample warning to think of the name of their loved ones.

Will you be releasing the information from your, “How Much Money Do You Make” question which you posed a little while ago? —DE

Probably not. The answers I got were really kind of interesting. But I didn’t really get enough responses for the answers to be meaningful in any broader way. That’s probably because the majority of my audience doesn’t perform professionally. But I’ll leave the question up a little while longer. If there is an influx of new responses then maybe I’ll do a post on it at some point.

How do you handle people asking you to do a trick again? You’ve said you try not to “break the spell” even after the trick is over, but if they ask you to do it again and you refuse, isn’t that a big flashing light that what they’re seeing is a trick? —BE

One of the benefits of non-magician-centric premises, is that you can usually build in a rationale why what you’re showing them can’t be repeated. If it’s a ritual, then it’s a ritual that can only be done once. If it’s a psychological game, then it’s one that only works once, because after you see it your mind blocks the psychological mechanism by which it works. If it’s a crazy coincidence, then yes, it just happens that one time. That’s how coincidences work. If it’s something that depends on the positioning of the stars in the sky, then we only have this brief window to do this—our next opportunity will be in 2034. If it’s a manifestation of spirit-energy, then the spirit energy gets “burned off” after being manifested and that spirit can’t be contacted for usually 60-90 days (well, that’s what all the books about spiritualism tell us).

So if it’s the sort of trick they’ll want to see repeated, and I can’t repeat it, then I’ll try and build that into the story.

But even if I have an excuse why it won’t work again, I will often try to do it again. What I mean is, let’s say we manifest a spirit that moves an object across the table. If someone says, “Do it again,” I don’t just say, “No. We can’t. The spirit energy has dissipated.” That feels too much like an excuse.

Instead I’ll say, “Hmmm… okay, yeah, let’s try. I think they say it probably won’t work without some sort of spiritual refractory period, but I don’t know if I really believe that.” Then we’ll go through the manifestation procedure again and… nothing happens. “Huh… I guess maybe it does need that waiting period before trying again.”

The thing is, I don’t want it to feel like I’m brushing them off. “No. We can’t do it again because [reason].” Instead, if someone asks to see something again, my attitude is, “Yeah, let’s try that again. They say it probably won’t work, but who knows….”

The traditional recommendation when people ask to see something for a second time is to “put the trick away and go on to another effect.” I’m not sure that’s good advice in any situation, but it’s especially bad advice when performing socially. Put yourself in the spectator’s shoes. You asked me to pay attention to this thing you wanted to show me, and now that I’m expressing interest in it you’re going to put it away and move on to something else? That’s a very bizarre way to interact with someone and it undercuts the notion that this thing you were showing them was interesting or special in some way. It’s almost like fucking someone and then walking out the door after you shoot your load. Stick around and cuddle for a while.

Now, you might say, “Okay, but I don’t want to end on the trick not working. I want to stop after it’s a success.” That makes sense, but in social magic you have to try and look at it as a holistic experience. How you get into an effect and out of an effect are part of the experience.

So if I show you a trick with my lucky crystal and afterwards you ask me to do it again, and I say, “Hey, get your own lucky crystal!” and put it away in my pocket, or I say, “If you think that’s good, wait until I tell you about this time I played 3 Card Monte.” Then the trick is ending in an awkward way. The trick itself was a success but then the interaction took a weird turn, and that likely undercuts the experience of the trick.

But if I show you a trick with my lucky crystal and afterwards you ask me to repeat it, and my attitude is, “Sure, let’s give it a shot.” But I give some caveat on why it might not work again, and it turns out that it doesn’t work again, I don’t think that takes away from the trick’s initial success. And it can, in some cases, even reinforce the story you’re telling. If it was “just a trick” then of course it could be repeated over and over… but if it really somehow relies on this crystal that can be drained of its energy… well then I guess maybe you could only do it occasionally.

The point being, I think it’s much easier to come up with a reasonable rationale for why something didn’t work a second time, than it is to come up with a reasonable rationale for why you wouldn’t want to try, or a reasonable rationale for why you’re moving on to something else.