Jerx Christmas - Matt Mello - 6:29 AM

From the other room, I heard the front door bang open and loud bellowing voice saying, “Let’s get this party started, baby!!”

What the hell? I thought. It’s after six in the morning.

And I went in the other room to see Matt Mello.

“Matt,” I said, “I wasn’t expecting you. You didn’t RSVP that you were coming.”

“You asked me like a month ago,” he said. “I have know idea what I’m doing a month out. I’m like the guys in The Fast and Furious… I live my life… a quarter mile at a time.”

I just shrugged like, what in the hell does that mean.

“It’s good to see you,” I said. “What have you been up to recently.”

“Well, I just released a hard cover version of my totally propless effect, Thought Control, on my site The Outer Mind.”

“That’s great,” I said. “That’s one of the few pieces of strong, pretty-much-sure-fire, propless mentalism effects that I’ve come across. I’m glad it’s getting a hard cover release. But… uhm… things were just winding down here so….”

“Really?” he said. “My night’s just getting started.”

Just getting started? What is this guy on? I wondered.

“Hey, before I leave,” he said, “Can I share something on your blog?”

“Go right ahead,” I said, and he typed out the following.

107 by Matt Mello

Effect: The performer removed his watch, his business card and a marker, placing them on the table. He wrote something on the card, rolled it into a cigarette and placed it down. Picking up the watch, he said, “I’m going to show you how our subconscious mind can be influenced. Watch the hands as they spin around and around, trying to get a sense of how much it moves on every turn of the dial.”

The performer turned the watch towards himself now and continued to spin. “Allow your subconscious to keep track of the dial. Don’t think about the time, that it could be one or seven, just watch the spinning dial.”

After a few moments he handed the watch to the participant facedown. “Keep spinning it and stop whenever it feels right.”

Following a few more turns of the dial the participant stopped.

“Turn it over and let’s see how you’ve done.”

The watch read 1:07.

“It’s amazing how our subconscious minds can be influenced by things we see only subliminally.”

He unrolled the business card to reveal: Set the watch to 1:07.

Reactions ensued and as they died down, he said, “Do you think your subconscious followed the movements of the marker? Did it react to me saying, ‘it could be one oh seven’ when you thought I said, ‘it could be one or seven’? Or did it react to the flash of this image just before I picked up the watch.”

He placed the watch back onto the table between the rerolled business card and the still open marker. The participant noticed the card created a one. The watch sat in the middle, a perfect zero. And the uncapped marker created a seven.

Method: I’ve always been a fan of random objects spelling out a word as a reveal, but it always felt awkward carrying cards with pictures of objects rather than using organic objects in the performance space. I’ve created a lot of these in English for close-up and stage, and the trick is to not pull a pair of handcuffs out of your pocket to form the number 8 or pull a banana out of your pocket for the letter I, etc. Unless being kinky is part of your character, you want to use objects that feel natural.

This is my presentation for the classic double pin watch force, and the workings should be obvious, so I will mostly cover the choreography.

We start by taking off our watch and placing it on the table. Remove a business card and a sharpie from your pocket. Pull the cap off the marker and place it to the right of the watch.

Write (Set the watch to 1:07) and then place the marker down at an angle near the cap to form the seven.

Roll up the business card and place it to the left of the watch. Leave it for a second and then pick up the watch. It is during this moment that the image of (107) is supposedly being “subconsciously” implanted.

We now perform the classic time force using the double pin feature, ideally with a borrowed watch if you can find one. I set it right in front of them after having them watch the spinning hands. When I’m getting a couple hours from my predicted time, I turn it to myself for them to subconsciously track the time as I set it to 1:07.

All that remains is to work our way through all the supposed implantations of 107 and then place the watch back in the center for the big finish.

And if you can perform the effect and time it to actually end on 1:07 pm during the day, or if you perform it on January 7th , you have an extra bonus to really take it to another level.