Presentation: Limitless Ahead

This is a presentation for a one-ahead style routine. These routines are so basic that they're often included in beginner's books. It's a classic close-up mentalism effect, but it has a few inherent weaknesses:

1. You have to force something
2. The last thing you predict is often the least impressive. (Since the others are free choices and the last one is generally a force.)
3. People will balk at the idea that they have to tell you what they're thinking of in the midst of the routine. After all, you're the mindreader. And when you prefer to perform one-on-one like I do you can't use the excuse, "Okay, tell everyone here what you're thinking." And I think even when they don't know the exact choreography of the effect, they understand that you asking for information you supposedly already know is somehow part of the secret.

As I've said before, coming up with new methods is not my strength, so whenever there is an issue with an effect I try and address it presentationally. This presentation for the one-ahead routine eliminates the need for a force, justifies any weakness in the final prediction (and is perhaps strengthened by that weakness), eliminates any hesitation on the part of the spectator to give their answers out loud, and is more interesting and affecting to the spectator than any other presentation I've seen for this type of effect.

Below is a transcription of how the effect played out for me in one specific instance in the past. It will never play out this way for you because this is specific to me, the person I was showing this to, the items I had on hand, the layout of my apartment, etc. Let me reiterate, this is not intended as a script, but just an example of this presentational framework.

Limitless Ahead

"Do you trust me?" I ask.

"No. Not even a little bit," she deadpans.

I take a tiny ziploc bag with one red pill in it and toss it on the coffee table.

"I want you to take that. I promise it's completely safe. It's going to do something to you, but nothing bad. Once they begin, the effects wear off after a few minutes."

She picks up the little bag and looks at the pill. "What's it going to do to me?"

"Well, it gives you heightened senses. You'll be able to sense things on almost an unconscious level. But I promise you, it's very safe and there are no long-term..."

She's already taking it. She's my friend, she trusts me, she knows I'm not giving her roofies. And she probably understands this is just a little bit of interactive theater she's about to take part in.

"I don't feel anything," she says.

"It takes a while to kick in. And it's not going to feel like much, just a tingle in your head. It's not going to be this overwhelming rush of sensations. Everything will be heightened but your brain has a governor to make sure it's not overwhelmed with input from your senses. It's almost like hooking up a blu-ray DVD player to a shitty old tv. No matter how powerful and clear the information coming in is, the tv can only interpret that information and broadcast it at the level it was manufactured to."

"So my brain is a shitty old tv?" she asks.

"Precisely. Now you're going to be taking in a lot more information than you're used to, and in different ways than you are accustomed to. I'm going to be asking you some questions and when you answer I just want you to go with the first thought that comes to your mind. It will almost feel like you're guessing, but as long as you don't question yourself, you'll be fine. It's going to take a few minutes before it's in your system and once it is we don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to go get some stuff ready now. Watch some tv until I come back."

I then go into the next room and she can hear me rummaging through some things. After a few minutes I come out and toss some business cards, a pen, and some stickers on the table. I ask her to hold up her hand to me and place my hand against hers. "I'm thinking of one of my fingers," I say. "Which one is it?" She says the ring finger. I say, "No. It's not ready yet," and leave again. She hears me in the other room counting out change. After a few more minutes I return again and again put my hand against hers. "What finger am I thinking of?" She says the pinky and I nod and say, "Ok, let's get started."

Test One

I write something on one of the business cards, fold it up and put it in the front pocket of her jeans.

"In a moment I'm going to go into the bathroom, turn on the faucet, and whisper a word. I want you to sit here and just be still and see if you can pick up on the word. Don't stress about it. Just sit and let it come into your mind."

I go out and come back. She sits there looking uncertain.

"Don't question yourself. What word do you think I whispered?

"Uhm... pavement?" she says.

"Great! Let's try another one."

Test Two

This time I write something significantly longer on the card, fold it, and put it in her pocket.

"Okay. I've got an emotion in my mind. In a moment I'm going to turn my back to you and think about this emotion. More specifically I'm going to think about a time I felt that emotion. Give me a little while to get into the right state of mind, but when I say 'Okay' I want you to name the emotion that you believe I'm feeling."

I turn my back and after 30 seconds I say, "Okay."

"I think you're... happy," she says.

Test Three

"I got these scratch and sniff stickers at the dollar store at the end of the block. Take a look, we have all these different fruits. I'm going to step into the other room, put a sticker on one of these cards, scratch it very gently and then wave the card into the air. When I come back I just want you to tell me the first thing you thought you smelled."

I leave and come back after a short while. I have a folded card in my hand which I then tuck into her pocket with the others. 

"What sticker do you think is on that card?" I ask, pointing at her pocket.

"It's banana, definitely." 

"Such confidence!" I say. "You're on a roll, let's try another."

Test Four

I go to the other room and come back with a glass full of pennies and an empty glass. 

"Okay, I counted these earlier. In a moment I'm going to pour the pennies from one glass to another. I want you to watch them as they fall and hear them as they land in the other glass." 

I write down something on a business card and put it in her pocket with the rest. Then I pour the pennies from one glass to another. 

"How many pennies are there?"

"64," she says.

"Hmmm, no. That's way off. Let's try again." I pour the coins back into the original glass. "What do you think?" I ask.

"84?"

"You're actually really close," I say, "but I think it's starting to wear off. There were 86 coins in the glass. But you did amazing. So much better than I did when I took the pill.  Here, take the cards out of your pocket."

She dumps the cards on the table. I open the last one which says 86. "I don't know if your last one was a guess or not, but if it was, you were actually strangely close."

The next one I open has a banana sticker on it. "You nailed that one. But you already knew that."

The next one says pavement on it.

The final one I open up says Happy (I was thinking of the first time we met on the subway). She melts a little because I'm a sweetheart, then looks at all the cards and says, "This is crazy!"

Method

You already know the method. Or at least you should. If you don't know how to do a one-ahead routine, I'm not sure how much of this blog makes any sense to you. But because there are a couple twists in this particular routine (the use of a sticker, leaving the room), I'll give you the quick rundown.

• The first card into her pocket says 86 on it.
• For the second card I write pavement but then pretend like I'm writing a lot more.
• For the third card, when I leave the room to apparently put the sticker on the card, I actually write the emotion she said and then a context for that emotion in parenthesis.
• For the fourth card, when I leave to get the pennies I put the correct sticker on the card and then just pretend to write on that card when I'm back in front of her.

Notes

1. You really need to label the cards with the category you're ostensibly testing as you give them to the spectator. In the above example those categories would be: whisper-emotion-scent-coins or something like that. This labeling procedure is probably standard, something that goes back to Corinda, but just for completeness, the way I do it is as follows: I have a stack of business cards in my hand, blank side up. On the opposite side of the top card, in one of the corners, it has the category for the last test (in this case "coins.") I do a double-turnover and say something like, "We'll label these to make things clear later." And I openly write "Whisper" in one of the corners of the card. Then I do another double-turnover, tip the cards toward me, write 86 on the card, then fold it into quarters with 86 on the inside and the word coins (where she would expect to see "whisper") on the folded-in part of the outside. If that makes any sense. Now you're set up to continue this ruse for the rest of the routine.

Okay, you don't need to label the cards, but I do it for four reasons. 1. It makes the effect bulletproof. 2. Some non-magicians are familiar with the one-ahead principle, but labeling the cards is an extra bit of deception that makes this something different. 3. It clarifies the effect. It makes sense that if you're going to put all the predictions (or "target ideas" or whatever they are) in one place together that you'd differentiate them from each other on both sides. 4. It allows you to open them in the order that is the most dramatically pleasing.

2. What do I use for a pill? A vitamin. A tic-tac. Whatever. One time I wanted to do this and I was at a place where I didn't have anything with me that could serve as a pill, so I did it like this... I went and filled up two paper cups with water. I came back and said to my friend, "Choose one for me to drink and one for you to drink." She did and we drank some. I said, "Don't freak out, but I did something to one of these cups of water. It's nothing gross or dangerous, don't worry. If it was I wouldn't have given you the choice of which one you would drink." I then lift the cups up and there is an X on the bottom of one of them. Regardless of which one it's on I say, "Okay, you drank the spiked one. That's good. It's more fun that way." And then I go on to explain the premise to her.

3. I have no issue putting something in the pocket of my friend's pants, man or woman. Maybe that doesn't fly if you're working tables at Dave and Busters, but otherwise you should be good. If you do this and come off creepy, then you're a creep. You need to work on that.

4. There is a very good opportunity for a hit on the final test if you use the coin test I mention above. If you tell someone there is less than 100 coins, and they can see there are a significant amount, their guess is likely to be between 60 and 90, I've found. And if you give them two chances with some leeway on either side to be close, you almost always end with a pseudo hit. But I don't do it that way anymore. I actually like them to be way off on the last one. To me it emphasizes that there was something affecting her in the previous tests. Plus I enjoy the humor of a completely incorrect guess on the last one more than I do the impossibility of four perfect or near-perfect predictions.

5. I go with four tests total (as opposed to the three predictions you usually see in these types of effects) knowing that the last one won't work. 

6. The idea of writing not just the emotion, but also the memory you were drawing on for that emotion is a good one. Not only does it further camouflage the method, but it's just more compelling. If the card says "Jealousy," that's fine, but if it says, "Jealousy (8th-grade dance)," there's more depth and interest to that reveal.

7. Again, what I delineated above was just an example. If you were to perform this you would come up with your own tests and scenarios. Part of the fun of this is coming up with these ideas in the moment, because they can literally be pretty much anything. Just try and make it so they appeal to different senses. That's much more interesting than "Read my mind three times in a row," or something like that. Some of the other tests I've done in this Limitless framework are:

• Gone outside with a person and flashed them a word written on a card from 100 feet away which she successfully read.
• Said, "I want you to imagine an invisible keyboard hanging in the air between us. It goes from here to here. I'm going to type a short sentence in the air at normal typing speed. I want you to try and pick up on what it is I'm typing. Remember, the keyboard is backwards from your perspective, so you'll have to flip it around in your mind." She "correctly" determined I had typed "Joy to the world."
• Had her wave her hand over my body and determine what part of my body I was thinking of. (It was my right wrist, you sicko.)
• Brushed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash and then made-out with a girl I was seeing to test if she could taste what I had for lunch. (Kind of the reverse of my Breakfart app).

The Purpose of Magic in the Early 21st Century

I'm just fucking with you. I don't really want to write about the purpose of magic in the early 21st century, I just want to ramble a little. And I thought it would be funny if a post with that title followed a post on a hypothetical app that you fart into. You see what I'm going for, yes? I want you to come here every day and not know if this is going to be the smartest or dumbest thing you'll read all day. 

This is the locus of pure possibility, he thought, his neck prickling. What a man can be the next minute bears no relation to what he is or what he was the minute before. (Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman)

I'm reading a book called, Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected. I'm not far enough into it to tell if it's any good or not, but I do think it is a book you'll find interesting at the very least. Early in the book they talk about the concept of surprise in this way:

When something unexpected or misexpected happens... [a] brain wave grips your attention, stops everything else you’re doing, and plugs you into the moment. If you have a cell phone, computer, TV, and sprawling to-do list, you probably already see the power of this effect. Our attention is so splintered that having a single focus is almost impossible. Unless we’re surprised. Surprise unifies our attention and gives us a deep experience right here in the present.

That last line may not encapsulate the purpose of magic in the 21st century, but I think it definitely suggests one of the benefits of magic. It's similar to Paul Harris' idea of magic bringing the spectator to a child-like state of astonishment. But it highlights that moment without infantilizing the spectator in the process. And as a concept, it's one I'd be much more inclined to discuss with someone as being an actual benefit of magic. To say, "Magic brings you back to a childhood state of astonishment," is too easily turned into this in a spectator's mind: "Magic will make your feel dumb. You know, like a dumbass baby who doesn't understand shit. Here, let me take you back to the time when you were the dumbest and most vulnerable as my gift to you." And on top of that, is it even true? Are babies constantly in amazement? If so they seem pretty chill about it for the most part. So I would have a hard time saying that to someone.

On the other hand, I could see myself saying to someone, "When you watch tv, or listen to music, or even go to a play or the ballet, you can enjoy yourself and yet your mind might not be fully there. Even with more intense situations, if you're at a funeral or having sex you can split your attention. This is especially true if you're having sex at a funeral. But when you see good magic there will be a point, however brief, where everything else falls away and you are 100% here in the moment and the only things that exist are you and I and this experience."

It is much better to characterize the moment of astonishment as one of connection and presence rather than putting the emphasis on their instant of ignorance.

But while I could see myself saying what I wrote above to a spectator, I doubt I ever would. The truth is, your goal should be to do work that is so fun or interesting that you don't have to justify it with some grand rationale. If you sing and play guitar and when you're done with a song someone says, "Why are you doing that?" that's a bad sign. Plus it's much more powerful to a person to let them identify the nature of the experience, rather than to try and force it on them. Just give them the moment.

For me, giving people those surprising, mysterious, fun, unusual moments to interpret and assign their own meaning to is the purpose of magic in the early 21st century. See? I dipsy-doodled my way back around to a topic I didn't really intend to discuss.

I should say that despite what might come off as a dismissal of Paul Harris' groundbreaking philosophy, I still think he's a genius and is right about most everything. Oh, except he wrote that movie "Nice Girls Don't Explode," and frankly slut-shaming squirters in the early 21st century is just NOT okay. Nice girls DO explode, Mr. Harris. And if you want to debate that, take it up with my duvet cover.

The Killer BrrrAPP!

Continuing yesterday's discussion about magic with cellphones, I need someone to build an app for me. 

For a couple years now when someone asks me what I do for a living, and I really don't feel like getting into specifics, I've been saying, "I'm working on an iphone app." And when they ask what the app does I say, "You can fart into your phone and it tells you what you had for breakfast." 

Can someone build this for me already or what?

I mean, I get that the technology isn't really there, but we could fake it easily enough. All you would have to do is know what your friend had for breakfast and punch it into the app at some point in the day without him knowing. Then when he has a fart brewed up you tell him to fart into the phone and the app acts like it's running some calculations:

beepbopboopbeepbeepbopboopbeepbop -- DING!

Eggs Benedict

And the app would be called something like, "My Breakfart App: Test Version 1.6." And you could personalize it with your name and stuff and tell people you built the app yourself. And maybe you could convince 1 out of 10 people that Apple had put some kind of sensor in iphones so that they can be used to detect carbon dioxide or smoke in the air. And you're just harnessing that sensor and using it to break down the gas produced in a fart to its food components.  You have some dumb friends. They would believe that.

Oh, and the app records the sound of the fart. So you have this app that's filled with all your friend's farts. And you can assign them as ringtones. So when your friend calls you, you hear his ass like pthhhflllbbbbbbbbb.

Cell Phone Magic

I know what you're thinking. The real magic would be if I could get one of these darned things to make a phone call! Hahahah, oh you rascal, you are bad! 

Sorry, I'm high... on life! (and copier toner)

I don't want to sound like Old Man Willoughby, but when I was writing my first site, magic with cell phones was barely a thing. It's easy for me to forget how things have changed. But we were a couple of years from the first iphone. Facebook didn't exist. Twitter didn't exist. Or netflix. In my day a mousepad was what you gave your mouse when it was menstruating. Flash mobs were called gang rapes. Black presidents were the stuff of scary science fiction. Mirrors were for rich people; we styled our hair by looking at our shadow. We didn't even think of ourselves as "single-celled" organisms, because what else was there?

Anyway, there are a few different ways people have incorporated phones into magic;

Physically altering the phone itself - There are effects where you move the logo, or twist the phone in half, or cause it to become clear. These all look pretty cool, but they're usually tied to a specific version of a specific type of phone, and by the time these gimmicks are ready to be released, that phone is on the way out. So I've never purchased one of these tricks. I can't imagine very many people do and they seem to have faded from the marketplace in the past couple of years.

App-based magic - There are so many magic apps or effects that utilize a quirk of the OS as part of the method. I'm very open to the idea of these and have spent 100s of dollars on them but haven't really fallen in love with any of them so far. I'm not one of those people who thinks people are automatically suspect of any trick done with a phone, but I just generally tend to get stronger reactions on things where technology is never brought into the equation in the spectators mind. 

You really need to find a sweet-spot when performing this kind of app magic. If your spectator is too technologically savvy they will be hip to things like voice recognition and accelerometers, or they will recognize inconsistencies in fake screens that are meant to replicate real screens on an iphone, for instance. But at the same time, if they don't have a grasp on technology at all, then everything about the phone is kind of amazing, and everything you do with it just gets lumped into "here's another thing he did with this technology that I don't understand." When you can point your phone at an airplane in the sky and get all the flight details about it, that can feel as amazing to someone as what a lot of these apps do. It would be like if I brought you into a quantum physics laboratory and I did "tricks" where I made hydrogen atoms vanish, appear, or change color, you would be like "All of this is crazy to me, so I don't even know which things I'm supposed to find particularly amazing."

But while I don't have a ton of enthusiasm about those uses of cell phones in magic, I do use mine quite frequently, but in a few different manners, one of which I want to go into detail on today.

One of my favorite ways of using my iphone is to record video of a non-magical interaction with someone that then becomes magical only when they watch it back on video. It's dual reality, but not the shitty kind between an audience and a lone spectator -- where if they compare "realities" the effect is ruined. This a dual reality between a spectator and a camera. Where the comparison of those realities is the effect.

Let me try to explain. Earlier this year I invited a friend over for the evening. I wanted to perform something that had the feel of the finale of a Derren Brown theater show, but do so in a one-on-one situation. I will try to explain it but there is one extra perspective you need to keep in mind. Normally you have the spectator's perception of what happened and what actually happened. In this case you're going to have the spectator's perception of what happened, what actually happened, and the camera's perspective of what happened.

So let me break down each of these three areas, then I'll tell you how I incorporated that into the full performance, and then I'll tell you what I do with these videos which is to me the really good secret. So first...

Her Perspective: We're sitting on the couch together. I have my camera out and I'm recording this interaction. I ask her to close her eyes and turn the other way. As her eyes are closed she hears me say that I'm writing a word on the card case. I'm writing the word very big and clear in all capital letters. She hears me narrating to the camera that this is the word I'm about to show her. I ask her to turn towards me and open her eyes and read to herself the word written on the cardbox. She reads the word, and as I said it's very clear in big capital letters, and it reads "LINGER." 

It's important to reiterate that from her perspective, nothing magical has happened.

The Camera's Perspective: On the video you see my friend cover her eyes and turn away. Then it goes down to the cardbox and you hear me talk about writing a word on the box, but I'm clearly moving the marker several inches above it and not writing anything. You hear me say, "Let me just darken this a little," but I'm not even writing. I'm spinning the marker around my thumb. I hold up the box to the camera and say, "This is the word I'm about to show her," but there's nothing written there. I turn the box towards her, she opens her eyes, and I aks her to read the word on the box. I ask her if it's clear and if she has the word locked in her mind. She says she does and turns away again. The box is turned back towards the camera and it's clear again that nothing is written on the box.

My Perspective: I bought the effect Offset, and set the box up so the word Linger would appear. Then I just made it show up when I turned the box towards her and made it disappear when I turned the box towards the camera. She doesn't see the effect and the camera doesn't see the effect. It's just a way of establishing two different realities. 

Putting it all together: We had been together for a few hours. Mainly just talking and hanging out, but I'd performed some tricks for her and some games/experiments, all part of "something I'm working on." The people I spend time with are used to indulging me in these sorts of things. Later in the evening I said I wanted to try one last thing. I took out my iphone and said I wanted to record this just to make sure it works. And then I recorded the interaction above. She closes her eyes, I "write a word," she looks at it. A non-incident.

When the camera is shut off I say, "What word did you see?"

She says, "Linger."

"Hmmm... interesting."

She scrunches her eyes at me accusingly, "What. What was that all about?"

"Look," I say, "Don't get mad. Would you believe me if I told you I never wrote a word on that box? That what you saw was in your mind and that you saw the word because you expected a word to be there? I know it sounds crazy. But since we met I could tell you were super-perceptive and I just kind of wanted to test that and see if I could get you to pick up on a word or concept without ever explicitly telling you to think of it."

She doesn't believe me. 

"Let's watch the video," I say.

We watch it and it clearly shows me not writing anything on the cardcase and showing her a blank box.

"What the fuck," she says. "Send me that video." After a moment she asks, "Wait, but why did I say linger?"

I then go on to show her:

1. My email from a week before where the first letter of each sentence spells that word.

2. My text from that morning that ends with that word.

3. The lingerie catalog on my coffee-table with the folded over cover so it says, Linger-.

4. The song that was playing when she came into my apartment, Linger by the Cranberries.

5. How that nonsense phrase I asked her to record when played backwards says, "I'll see linger." (Joshua Quinn)

6. How that random number we generated, when read upside-down reads "Linger." (Haim Goldenberg)

7. And a few other places where that word was hidden in the environment or in one of the activities we engaged in earlier in the night.

The idea is, of course, that I've inserted this word into all these areas making it somehow psychologically attractive to her and that when I then show her the blank card case and strongly imply she'll see a word there, she will then manifest this word that's on the tip of her brain. Or something like that.

However she interprets it, she ends up rather stunned and won't ever be able to hear that word again without linking it to that night.

The Follow-Up:

I don't actually use the above routine anymore. It falls too much on the line of almost believable for some people. And I'm continuing to enjoy more presenting things that are clearly unbelievable. But I have about half a dozen other camera-dual-reality routines I am doing these days and they are a ton of fun to perform. But my favorite element of them is this follow-up that I do 4 or 5 days after the performance. 

People always want a copy of the video, which I text them immediately. Then a few days later I send them another copy of the video. This time with some simple iphone editing and music added, usually with the original audio cut out. Why? Because I want to recontextualize the video. The purpose of the original video is "proof." Proof that they were fooled, or that something strange happened, or whatever. It's proof first, and then something of a souvenir second. By stripping out some elements and adding others the video is now not intended to be a document of a specific moment, but more about the memory of what was hopefully a fun and pleasant experience for that person. It becomes a memento first but still carries with it the association to whatever strange experience you shared with them.

A Thought Experiment

Let's imagine the greatest stage manipulator in the world, Cardoni, is performing a show. (I'm using stage manipulation as an easy example, but the point will hold true for close-up, mentalism, whatever.) In the audience are Charles and Lynn, two very intelligent and perceptive spectators.

Two Scenarios:

Scenario One

Cardoni stands at the foot of the stage. "Ladies and Gentleman, what you see tonight is all real. I was gifted by the universe with the power to manipulate an object's reality. Tonight you will see objects appear, change, and disappear through no other means than magic. Please open your minds to experience true wonder."

He then commences his stage manipulation routine. It is flawless. As he is making cards appear and disappear, grow and diminish, he turns to the audience and says, "Just a reminder, this is all accomplished by the power of real Magic."

Lynn turns to Charles and whispers, "Yeah, right. I think he's hiding the cards behind his hand somehow."

Scenario Two

Cardoni stands at the foot of the stage. "Ladies and Gentleman, what you see tonight is a kind of juggling. But instead of just trying to keep objects in the air, this type of juggling is meant to fool your eye. I will manipulate the objects in such a way that they will seem to appear, change, and disappear as if by magic. I hope you appreciate the illusion created by this style of juggling."

He then commences his stage manipulation routine. It is flawless. As he is making cards appear and disappear, grow and diminish, he turns to the audience and says, "Just a reminder, this is all just a clever juggling trick."

Lynn turns to Charles and whispers, "But it seems so real!"

---

If your goal is to create intrigue and amazement with your performance, there is a good chance the approach you've been using is completely backwards.

Li'l Andy is Back!

Those of you who were readers in the MCJ days might remember my 3-year-old son, Li'l Andy, who would take over the writing of that blog when I was too busy. Yes, much like when Billy fills in for his father on the Family Circus.

Well, Li'l Andy is somehow still three, and he's giving me the day off as a father's day gift, the little sweetheart. Enjoy his comically skewed take on magic.

Li'l Andy's Da Jurx

Waddup mommyfukkers///// oops dats not a qwestyin mark. me forgot to hit shift key. Is yu reddy for my comeggly skewd take on magic? 

Red Mint - Me think this trik is byootiful. But whut is last line of instruggshins? "Run as fast as yu can da udder way"? Becuz dont peeple just say "lemme see that"? Dats wut I wood say. Dats wut my frends wood say. Peeple who make triks no have frends?

Joshewa Jay - Get well sewn!! Joshewa is grate guy, frend of dis site, and he also rote da best introduckery magic book prety much ever. Hope his hand heel sewn. Espeshally sinse he had devestating hand injery a fyew yeers ago. But me think he will be bak shufflin aggen soon. Becuz he no take da hint. God obbyously wants you to take up a more cereebral, less dextarity-centric hobby joshewa! Feel free to ignor his wornings but expect a thresher agsident in 2016.

Maverik - Get reddy to be disapointed!!! Rus Andrews is cuming owt wid a new trik. If yu tink it will look anyting like it duz in da youtoob vid, yu dummer than I thot. Yu shood famillyerize yorself with changeling fiasko. Rus no like fooling spectaters. Rus like fooling magishins. He been lying to magishins sinse I was a tikkle in my daddys underpants. No way dis demo looks like da reel effect. Rus will say it looks like what da spectater remembers. But troof is he not the tipe of performer spectaters remember at all. 

Bye!!!!

An Open Letter to Steve Brooks

Dear Steve,

What up, Boo?

I understand yesterday's post created a bit of a stir in the Magic Cafe's private forum for staff members. I think now would be a good time to define the nature of our relationship before we get off to a bad start like we did all those years ago. I don't think your reaction to this site should be "how do we shut it down?" or, "what can we sue him for?" like it has been in the past. Instead I think you should try to enjoy this site. Find the humor in it. Recognize that your site is the "establishment" in the online magic world, and there is always going to be someone poking fun at the establishment. But if Obama decided to try and take down MAD magazine, you'd think that was moronic, right? I know you're thinking, "But Andy, you're not MAD magazine. You're the voice of a generation, a tastemaker, and a trendsetter." And hmmm... yes, I guess that's all true. But that doesn't change the fact that getting worked up about someone making jokes about you is ultimately not flattering for you.

Under different circumstances, I bet we would be friends. That's a joke, of course. But I truly don't have ill will towards you. There were things you did in the past that I found pretty sketchy, and I delighted in busting you on them, but you never raised my blood pressure in the slightest. That may bum out some of the people who liked my old site to know that I was never really worked up about anything, but tough tits. I was writing a comedy site, not a magic justice site. I recognize some of the stuff I wrote got people, including yourself, to re-examine some of the things they were saying and doing, but that's not why I was doing it. I just like dicking around and making jokes, or coming up with dumb ideas, or coming up with interesting ideas.

So maybe I make too many fat jokes, or suggest you probably don't smell all that pleasant, or that you make poor sartorial choices, or that you're hair is a mess, or that you're likely an unsatisfying lover. These are all just jokes. It's fun to paint you as a bumbling doofus, but really: I don't care what anybody weighs, you don't necessarily smell, it doesn't matter to me what you wear or how your hair looks, and I'm sure you fuck like a machine. You have to understand, I come from a group of friends where, whenever we reach a milestone birthday like 30 or 40, we all get together and roast each other in front of a hundred people. And the shit I say about you would be the tamest of the remarks someone might say on one of those nights. So I just come from a universe where people don't get worked up by these sorts of things. 

And if I say something that you just find too offensive, just write me and ask me to take it down. I will. I'm not looking to hurt people's feelings. I don't have feelings of my own, but I have too many mirror neurons. You could put me onstage in front of 500 people with nothing prepared, and I would happily try and keep them entertained for as long as you asked without even a bead of sweat. But if I have to watch a youtube video of one-person fumbling through a speech in front of an audience of 10 I will practically crawl up into my own asshole to get away. So I will continue to take you to task if I feel you're doing something shady, but if I say something that upsets you on a personal level just let me know. I don't really think that's an issue for you, I'm just making the offer. I think you have pretty thick skin. Like really thick. (Ahhhh!!! I can't help myself. To be fair, while it's true you could shed a few pounds, compared to most middle-aged magicians you're practically Dolph Lundgren.)

I'm not asking for a truce. You will still often be my muse, and the butt of my jokes. I'm just recommending you roll with it and put things in perspective. I'm not suggesting you do this for my benefit. Do it for yours. What's the alternative? You could try and find ways to shut this site down, and you could delete any references to it that pop up on your site, and ban anyone who mentions it. You could make it very antagonistic and give me a reason to really go after you and start targeting your advertisers. That would be fine by me, I have nothing to lose, you'd just be giving me more things to write about. But I don't need the ammunition, I already have more ideas than I know what to do with for this site. And you would just be preventing me from doing something we both appreciate: making fun of the dummies on your site.

So consider that. Have a good weekend. 

True love always,

Andy

PS - Can I join the Cafe Staff? I would like to have the job of responding to people who complain about the ads they get in their PMs. Do they write the newspaper too to complain about ads? "Dear USA Today, I write you today with great consternation about what I originally thought was a news story about Kraft Macaroni and Cheese...." I think what happens is they see they have a PM and they think, "A friend! I have a friend!" And then it's just from you and they get all bummed out. 

PPS - I would like to buy every banner ad on your site for July. How much would this be? I am serious.