Sundry Drive No. 10

In regards to Monday's trick, a few people emailed me to ask what a "thumper" is. What are you, dumb or something? You are dumb? Oh perfect, then you'll appreciate this description taken from Mentalism for Dummies.

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We're always counseled to make our sleights look as close to the real action as possible. What I mean is, we're told if we do a double lift it should look as close to the normal mechanics of turning over a card as it can. But then we abandon that level of verisimilitude with our presentations. I think your presentations should be just as realistic.

You know how some people will perform a trick and the presentation they will use is that of a "sobriety test"? Well, if you do that I think you should really take it all the way. When the person "fails" the test you should grab their collar and slam them against the wall. "You drove here today, you sick bastard? My fucking children are out on those streets, goddammit!" And then you should knock some of his teeth in.

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I really think people need to be more precise with the names they give their effects. Like some people call things The Levitating [Something] when really it's just The Floating [Something]. Also, this trick is called Countless Cookies, when really it should be called Eleven Cookies, or, based on this performance, Genuine Nightmare Material. 

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By now everyone is onboard the Rob Zabrecky train. It's clear he is doing great work with a strong style and original perspective. But I want to take the opportunity to pimp his old band, Possum Dixon. Back in the mid-90s, you were probably too busy listening to Hootie and the Blowfish, you bland honky, so you likely missed out on Rob's band. If you like alt-rock/power-pop, do yourself a favor a track down some of his music. Here is one of my favorite songs from their final album (with magic-related cover art).

Dear Jerxy: What Makes A Good Premise?

Dear Jerxy: I'm not sure I understand your position on premises/presentations. You say that the best ones are unbelievable but then you shit on ones like the ambitious card where the card keeps coming to the top because it's the most ambitious one in the deck. Isn't that an "unbelievable" premise? How do you differentiate a good unbelievable premise from a bad one? 

Oh No, I Can't Think of an Alliteration in Omaha

Dear Oh No: There is a very simple question you can ask yourself to discern if your unbelievable premise is a good one or a bad one. And that question is this: "Is this a thing?"

Examples -

Premise: "I'm going to restore this rope by going back in time to before I cut it."
"Is this a thing?" - Yes. The notion of time travel is a thing.

Premise: "The deck is going to whisper in my ear the name of the card you took."
"Is this a thing?" - No. The idea of a whispering deck of cards is something you just made up so you could do this trick.

Premise: "I'm going to float this dollar bill by trapping a ghostly spirit inside of it."
"Is this a thing?" - Yes. The concept of ghosts exist outside of your magic presentation.

Premise: "This coin will disappear from my hand and join the others because it's lonely."
"Is this a thing?" - No. Coins don't get lonely.

My favorite types of premises/presentations are unbelievable, interesting, and familiar. And by "familiar" I mean that they should deal with concepts that exist in the real world. Things an audience can relate to and grasp easily. The "Is this a thing?" question identifies the "familiar" concepts.  

When you use a familiar presentation you are engaging the spectator in the world they live in. This makes it easier for them to connect with the magic and it makes your presentations automatically more expansive because what you're doing is a part of the mythology of their real world. When your premise is completely unfamiliar, i.e. "The jacks are the most jealous cards in the deck," then your trick exists out on an island. It may still be a good, entertaining trick but it will be hard to make it resonant or relevant to the spectator. Here's a tip: If your premise involves anthropomorphizing something, you're probably on your way to Shit City presentationally.

So my process for creating a good presentation is to first find a familiar concept I can relate to the trick. Then I think of a way to make it interesting if the concept itself isn't particularly interesting. Then, if the concept itself isn't inherently unbelievable (like ghosts, or multi-dimensional travel), I ratchet up the impossibility of an effect until the premise it's based on is no longer believable as a means of accomplishing the effect. Why do I like an unbelievable premise so much? Because I know it's possible to present a trick that is so strong that, for a little while, people will believe the unbelievable. And to me that's much more fun than getting them to believe the believable.

The Dr. Phil Deck

Things you need to know to understand this post.

1. Dr. Phil - He is a television psychologist here in America (and undoubtedly in other parts of the world as well) who likes to build people up or break people down. 

2. The Phil Deck - In the traditional version of this trick, you ask your spectator to think of a card and you say that you're going to name it. They think of a card and you say, "I'm going to name your card... it's Phil!" This is greeted with incredibly mild amusement. You then ask them to tell you what card they were thinking of. They say, for example, the three of diamonds. You say, "Yup, that's Phil." Then you pull out the deck and show them that the cards all have a different name on the back. And on the back of the three of diamonds, it says "Phil." 

It's a fun enough trick. Not earth-shattering, but decent. But the nice part of the Phil deck is that you can have whatever you want appear on the card they name. You can buy "blank" Phil decks and customize them. I've found most of the customization ideas somewhat underwhelming -- often it involves having numbers on the backs of the cards (instead of names) or putting a company name on the back for corporate work. I don't know, that's all fine, it's just not my scene.

I've probably bought a dozen blank Phil Decks in my life and have used them for a few different purposes. This post will cover one of those ways and I'll mention another one (probably my favorite one) in next Tuesday's post. I don't know how useful they'll be to others, but there's definitely something valuable in the idea that these decks can be used for something other than just having the punchline of the trick on the back of the cards.

The Dr. Phil Deck

Like Dr. Phil himself, this moment (it's not exactly a trick) can be used to build people up or tear them down. I generally only perform for people I like so I've only used it for the former, but I'll describe both ways. 

Build Them Up

Imagine you have a friend who's dealing with some upheaval in her life. A divorce, break-up, loss of a job, whatever. You've invited her over to watch a movie and order dinner and maybe take her mind off things for a few hours. She notices a book on your coffee-table. Something like the one below that you can pick up off Amazon for a few bucks used.

Maybe she thinks this is a little unusual for you because you normally don't go for this type of nonsense. You explain that it's just an offshoot of your interest in playing cards and you thought it would be a good idea to know what the meaning of each card supposedly is. "I don't really believe in the cards' ability to predict the future. But I do think there may be some validity to the idea that certain types of people gravitate towards certain cards, and you may be able to get some insight into yourself by knowing what the meaning of a card you're drawn to is." You pull out a deck of cards that you've created as "flash cards" for yourself in order to help you memorize the personality traits associated with each card. You spread through and show her how each one has a few words or sentences on the back with some personality traits. Then you pull out the Ace of Spades and the Queen of Hearts. "If you ask someone to think of all the cards in the deck: Ace thru King, clubs, hearts, spades or diamonds. And to let their mind scan thru all the cards and eventually settle on one, then you will have some understanding into who they are as a person. It's not magic. It's just an unconscious preference for certain things by different types of people. Which just makes sense. The numbers, letters, and symbols of a deck of cards aren't meaningless, so of course different types of people will be drawn to different cards in a manner that's not completely random. Like if you went through the visualization process and settled on the Ace of Spades, it would suggest that you are," you turn the card over and written on the back it says:

You are generally good natured but are easily manipulated and lack creativity. 

"So that's probably not the most flattering one," you say. "And if you named the Queen of Hearts it would suggest," you read the words off the back, "That 'You have a great capacity for love and a big heart, but often immature notions of what a relationship entails.' And that's because a lot of young girls tend to think of the Queen of Hearts, so you can see why that would be accurate."

You spread through the cards and show her other message that discuss people's work ethic, the way they handle finances, their tendency towards laziness and so on and so on.

"Let's try it with you," you say. "Imagine all the cards in a deck of cards spread out in front of you. Try to see all of them in your mind. The number cards, letter cards, clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds. Some of them might be visually appealing, but it's better to let yourself be drawn to one seemingly at random. Can you picture the cards in front of you? Okay. Now let all of them fade away except one. Which one are you left with?"

"The five of diamonds," she says.

"Okay, let's see what that means." You spread through the deck and pull out the 5 of diamonds and turn it over. It reads:

You underestimate your ability to deal with change. You have vast reserves of strength that will get you through times of turmoil. 

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So what have you done here? You haven't done a trick. You haven't told someone their fortune. You've just told them something about themselves that might be useful to remember in a particularly trying time.

I've performed this twice in my life for two different people and both got somewhat emotional and said almost identical remarks. Something along the lines of, "That is exactly what I needed to hear right now." 

B-b-b-b-but Andy, you've always said you don't like when magicians or mentalists play things as real. Aren't you playing this as real? Isn't this being manipulative?

Here's what I don't like. I don't like when people try to make others believe they have a power they don't really have. What I mean is, I don't like magicians who want others to walk away from their performance believing something untrue. I think that's bad for the spectator, bad for magicians, and bad for the art of magic. 

This, however, is not a magic trick. It is a way of you sneakily introducing just what someone might need to be reminded of at a vulnerable time in their life. And shining a spotlight on that message in a way which might allow it to be accepted more than it would if you were just to offer it as some advice.

This isn't like trying to justify being a fake psychic by saying, "Well, I make people feel better." That's just a bullshit rationalization. You're not taking money for this. You're not invoking some phony power. And you're not lying.

I can comfortably say you're not lying because what's written on that card is true of essentially everyone. Are you in the midst of some upheaval in your life that feels overwhelming? I promise you that you are underestimating your ability to deal with that change and that you have vast reserves of strength that will get you through this time. 

We may need to be reminded of it from time to time, but that's just a statement that's true of the human animal. It's essentially a self-fulfilling belief. You might say, "Oh no, not me, I'm bad with change." But look, if 99.99% of the population, including everyone you know and love, died in a zombie outbreak, within two days you would be doing a fucking shoulder roll out from behind a parked car to blast some zombie's head off. You have the capacity to adapt to change, you just don't like to because it's a pain in the ass. I get that.

You can put some other positive message on the backs, of course. Just try to make it something that A) is true, and B) protects or enhances the other person's self esteem. (That should generally be your goal with any interaction with someone you care about.)

Tear Them Down

Of course, this can be used for the opposite purpose as well. In fact, I'm sure this idea will be much more popular than the previous one.

You're performing magic, maybe at a party with friends, or even in a professional walk-around situation. Some guy is being a total cocksucker and annoying you and everyone else. You've put up with him for a while but now you've had enough.

"You're a lot of fun," you say to the a-hole. "Can I try something with you real quick? I've been studying some psychological research that says people's choice of playing card says a lot about them. This isn't like fortune telling or something. Essentially they reverse engineered it by interviewing 1000s of people, asking them to name any card in the deck, and then they seeing what the people who named those cards tended to have in common."

You pull out a deck with phrases on the back of each card. 

"I've actually been conducting the test myself in an unofficial way and it's astounding how accurate this is. I don't want to influence you by showing you the front of these cards just yet, but for example, people who named this card tended to be entrepreneurs, people who named this card tend to excel with languages, people who named this card were generally children of divorce." The cards indicate these qualities with definitive statements and the percentage likelihood of this being true based on the study.

For example, those three cards would read:

96% - You are an entrepreneur
99% - You are good with languages
98% - You are a child of divorce

You continue to spread and show all the different traits that the cards might indicate. Most are positive or neutral.

"So, just for fun, name the first card that comes to your mind? The Queen of Clubs? Okay, let's see... Oh this is interesting, and pretty specific." You turn it over and it reads:

100% - Your dog's butthole smells like your cock

"It's consensual, though, right? I mean, I'm not sure if it's defensible either way. But I truly hope you're not forcing yourself on him. Or are you just rubbing up against it without actual penetration? I guess that's better..."

Okay, so it doesn't need to be that crude (although that's probably how I would do it). It could say something like, "100% - The last time someone referred to you when you weren't in the room it was as, 'That idiot.'" Or, "100% - You are the most dispensable one in your circle of friends. Deep down, you know this." Or simply, "100% - You are not exceptional in any way."

Again, this is not really a trick. Is it a heckler stopper? Kind of. I mean, if you consider making someone cry or instigating a fistfight to be stopping them from heckling, then it definitely is. 

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Tuesday: Like the indians did with the buffalo, we're going to butcher up the Phil Deck and use every part of it. It will serve as an emotional hook, presentation, method, misdirection, and surprise ending for a trick called The Mad Lib Ploy.

Field Report: Beginner's Magic

"I want to learn magic!" she says. Which usually means, "I would like to immediately have the knowledge and skill to do the cool, fun stuff you've shown me after you've practiced magic 20+ years. What I don't want to do is have to trudge my way through the dull, boring things and practice to actually learn this stuff."

It was my girlfriend, Lynn's, birthday and since she had shown an interest in learning magic I had planned this moment for her.

She opens up one of her presents and it's a beginner's magic book. "That one looks pretty good," I say. "It comes with a DVD which will probably make things easier to learn."

Later that evening we are laying together, flipping through the book. "Oh, that's a good trick," I say. "Let me try it for you."

I ask her to pick a card. She slides out one card, the ace of diamonds, and slides it back into the deck. I ask her to shuffle the deck. She hands it back to me. "Now watch this," I say. I cut the cards numerous times, each time reciting a letter to go along with the cut. "H-A-P-P-Y-B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y. Now, you had a free choice of any card in the deck, and you shuffled it back into the deck, correct? All I did was spell "Happy Birthday" and we landed on one card, your card, the four of spades," I say, flipping the card over. 

"That wasn't it," she says.

"Ok... Oh, it's the one after the last letter. Sorry. Your card... the eight of spades?"

"No," she says.

I fan through the cards. "Huh.... well... whatever, when you learn the trick you'll have to show it to me because I guess I forgot it." We turn on the tv and watch for a few moments.

"Sorry," I say, "this is driving me crazy." I flip through the magic book and start reading and say under my breath, "But that's exactly what I did." I pause a moment. "Would it be okay if I watched the explanation off the DVD? If I don't it's going to bug me all night." She says that of course it's okay and I take the DVD and pop it into my laptop. I cue it up to the right segment and start watching the explanation with her.

The magician/author on the screen says, "At this point the selected card should be seventh from the top." He executes a series of cuts and says, "And that will bring their selection to the top of the deck. In this case, the king of clubs."

"Of course, the king of clubs wasn't your selection, was it Lynn?" the guy on the DVD asks my girlfriend. 

"Oh my god," she says.

"No," the magician says, "I think this was your card." He gives the King a flick and it turns into the Ace of Diamonds. "Happy Birthday, Lynn."

She sets the laptop aside and climbs on top of me and grabs my collar in mock anger. "I knew it!" she says. 

"Knew what?" I ask. "That the author of that magic book would make a special video for you where he changed a card into the card you freely picked earlier?"

She sighs. "No... I didn't know that. I just knew something was up. You wouldn't mess up my birthday trick."

"Good point," I say.

She leans down so our noses almost touch. "Tell me," she growls.

"Tell you what?"

"How he knew my card!" she whimpers.

"Oh," I say, "it's in the book."

It wasn't in the book. It was a one-way force deck with some indifferent cards thrown is as convincers. But I knew it would get her to read the book more carefully.

How did I do it?

Well, the first thing you need to do is write a somewhat popular magic blog and garner a few fans, one of whom should be a latent beginner's magic book author who is a good enough guy to be generous with his time for someone he doesn't know. This guy should be a Joshua Jay type. For me it was, in fact, Joshua Jay.

Then, five years after you shut down your blog you should email this guy and say, "Hey, I plan on getting my girlfriend one of your books for her birthday. Would you mind shooting a video and emailing me the file so I can use it as part of the gift?" Once you get the file you just have it on your computer and act like you're playing the DVD, but really you're just firing up the file that was sent to you. Presto. 

Am I a Pretender or an Addict?

I got this intriguing email from Daniel Madison a few days ago.

Oooohhhh... what a juicy little question. Am I a pretender or an addict? You know, the embarrassing thing is... I've never even thought to ask myself that! Talk about the unexamined life not being worth living.

Well I thought I owed it to myself to really dig deep and find out. You know, considering it is Cheat Week and all. (Cheat Week is when we go down to the docks and operate the business end of a glory-hole. Wait... no... that's Fleet Week. Cheat Week is... hold on... I have no idea. Let me find out. Oh... got it... it's some uninspired Ellusionist promo.)

Okay, now... I think I may be a Pretender. I've acquired my skills "for entertainment, not survival." Although there was that one time, while traveling through darkest Africa, when I bashed that guy's skull in with one of those wooden ducks that finds a card from Collectors Workshop. Of course, it turned out that the guy I killed was my interpreter and traveling partner, Obatku, and not a spooky ghosty or a bear as I had thought in the moment, so it's questionable how much I needed to kill him for my "survival." In retrospect, when he screamed, "Andrew, it's me, Obatku, please stop beating me with that duck!" I should have taken a step back and reassessed the situation. But as it was happening I just thought, "Fuck no. This bear can talk and imitate people? That's the most dangerous creature in the world. This ends now!"

So, perhaps I'm actually an "addict."

Let's look at these criteria again:

• They McMillan switch their credit card for yours.
• They haven't picked-up a tab in years, and they probably won't EVER.
• Cheating consumes their life,
• and their only real friends [are] the court cards. 

Well... I'm enough of an "addict" to know it's actually the MacMillan switch. So I guess that's a point in my favor. But can you imagine what a badass you would be to switch out your credit card for someone else's! I can see myself doing that. Like my buddy puts his credit card down to pay for dinner and I -- super nonchalantly -- just MacMillan switch in my own credit card! Hahaha, the sucker! Oh, fuck... wait... now that means I'm paying for dinner. Waitress! Come back! What the fuck did I just do? Why would I ever switch in my credit card. That's something only a moron would do...

Wait.

Ohhh... I see now. Is "addict" some kind of code word for having an intellectual disability? I mean, if you met someone and they're like, "This is our son Petey. Look out, because Petey will switch in his credit card for yours. He's been racking up a hell of a credit card bill this way, which he is in no position to pay off. In fact he hasn't picked up a tab in years, and probably won't EVER. How could he? He's essentially unemployable. Pick up a tab? He's 34 and wears a diaper and you want him to buy your club sandwich, you creep? Look at him. His only friends are the court cards. If that's not the most depressing thing you've heard in your life, you don't have a heart. Excuse me... what's that, sweetie? The Jack of Clubs wants to look at trucks out the window? Okay, darling, you two go do that."

What are some other indications of being an "addict"? Your walls are smeared with feces? You don't know your multiplication tables?

Of course, Daniel Madison, who is incredible with a deck of cards and has some brilliant ideas, is the perfect person to differentiate between a "pretender" and a real cheating "addict." He has been pretending to be a card cheat since he arrived on the scene in magic. He has a whole goofball origin story of how he used to be a crooked underground gambler until he was nearly beaten to death after he was caught cheating, which led him to take up magic. The story is ridiculous and blatantly untrue (although Magic Magazine did, embarrassingly, write a profile on him where they reported it as if it was completely credible). I mean, I have no doubt he got the shit kicked out of him early and often, but that goes for 90% of you in magic. However, "The boys at school stuck my head in the toilet, gave me a swirlie, and now my only friends are the court cards," doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Daniel had enough esthetic sense to not want to be associated with magic so he made up the story of magic being his fallback. I understand why he did it, but unfortunately he couldn't really keep his story straight and the timeline was in no way believable. (It was essentially, "I sprouted my first pube, and then I became an underground gambling legend.") I completely get why he didn't want to come out originally as just a guy who was really into magic. But I think we're approaching a tipping point in magic's perception. Not where it's cool, but where it's not inherently uncool. And I think Daniel Madison, with his skill and style, could help in that transition if he wasn't so apologetic about why he's in magic in the first place. So come clean, Daniel. Join us. Become a pretender. Embrace it.

Whiskeys up!

Oh, and before I end this post commenting on an email ad I received, I'd like to quickly mention another one. Did anyone else get this sick email?

Uhmmm... okay.... I admit I didn't read this super carefully, but it appears that Vanishing Inc is planning on selling Andi's baby and Josh's wife? Or maybe raffling them off as some sort of promo? This is some sick, twisted shit. I'm sorry... I like to have fun on this site, but sponsoring white-slavery in order to push a few more copies of Blomberg Laboratories, or whatever, is simply not acceptable to me. Sorry, Vanishing Inc, but this demented little promotion gets a big "No Thanks" from the Jerx.

100

This site has now been running with daily posts for 100 straight days. You all owe me big time.

People often email me asking what my plan is with the site and if I'm going to keep posting on this schedule. When I started this site I had a backlog of 80 topics I wanted to get to. It is now 100 days later and I have a backlog of 126 topics. The site itself is kind of self-perpetuating. I'm always finding something new to write about in magic and I every time I write up an effect or presentation I think of two new ones. So you can expect daily posts to continue for as long as I have the time to write this site. (It's time, not content, that will be in short supply eventually. Unless Ellusionist or somebody wises up and hires me on full-time as a blogger to create content for their site. I can do it, Brad Christian! We'll invert the colors on this site, making it mostly black. And put some cool skulls over the cats faces. And I'll be the guy at the beginning of demos to say stuff like, "Hi, I'm the Jerx, and this... is Cum-Stain," and then I'll kind of cover the lens with the palm of my hand as if I just don't give a shit, cause I'm a total badass. Of course for this specific example you'll need a trick called Cum-Stain. Maybe a trick where you slide a cum-stain around on your shirt or something? And then you slide it off your shirt and onto your spectator's shirt. And then she slaps the shit out of you? I'm just spitballing here. Wait, wait... "I'm the Jerx, and this... is Spitball." See? I'm a natural.)

Okay everyone, see you at 101.

The Baby Who Knows

Effect

Your friend's unborn baby is clairvoyant.

Imagine

I'm visiting my friend Rebekka who is pregnant with her second child. 

"This is one of the oldest tests there is for psychic powers," I say. I give her a die and a little plastic canister and ask her to hold both behind her back. I tell her to roll the die around in the palm of her hand a little and then to put it in the canister and cap it. I ask her to hand the canister to me and I slide it into another plastic canister and set the whole thing on the table. 

"That die is now inside an plastic canister, which is inside another plastic canister. In the field of psychic research this is what's known as a "double blind" test." [Yes, of course I know it's not, but that's never stopped me.] "Imagine we opened the larger container and removed the smaller container, and then we opened the smaller container and looked down on the die inside there. Some number will be pointed up at us, yes?" She agrees. "Do you know what number that would be?" She says she doesn't. "Right, because you did it randomly. And if you don't know what it is, then I surely can't know what it is. And there's no way to tell by looking at the canister is there?" She picks it up and examines it and shakes her head.

"If someone in this room was psychic they could know what it is, but I'm not, and you're not." I pause for a little bit. "But maybe she is," I say, pointing to her stomach. 

"I can't wait to see where this is going," she says.

"Many people believe it's possible that unborn children are able to perceive and pick up on things that they can't after they leave the womb. But it's almost impossible to test because they don't understand language so we can't communicate with them in that way. But we're going to try and see if we can get her to tell us how many spots are pointing up on the die inside this canister. Are you ready to try?"

She says she is. 

I ask her to hold onto the canister between both hands. "I can't just ask your kid to answer the question. No one can. At least not with language. But there are those who believe you can with your thoughts. Let's try it. I want you to close your eyes. Now picture the canister you hold in your hand. I want you to see it sharp and focused in your mind. Now picture opening it up and removing the smaller canister. Still keep it a sharp image until I tell you otherwise. Now imagine popping the top off the smaller canister but don't look inside yet. So take off the cap in your imagination, keeping everything in focus. In a moment I want you to imagine looking into the canister, but when you do I want you to imagine that what you see is unclear and unfocused and kind of hazy, like a dream, okay? Okay, look in the canister and I want you to see a blank white cube. And there are black spots floating above it. They are fading in and out. Sometimes one dot, sometimes two, all the way up to six. Do you see that? Okay. In a moment I want you to take that image that you're picturing and I want you to imagine pushing it towards the back of your brain and down your spinal cord. Almost like you're swallowing that image in your mind. And when you're done I want you to open you eyes." After a second she opens her eyes. 

I ask her for the canister and hold it in my right hand between my thumb and forefinger. I shift myself closer to her and place my left hand gently on her stomach. 

"With your mind, and with visual images, you've painted a clear picture except for one aspect. Now, the idea is that your child may be able to sense that void of information in your thoughts and and answer the question even though you never explicitly asked it. If this works, she's going to tell us how many spots are on top of the die. In a moment you should feel something. I want you to keep your eyes on my hand on your stomach and make sure I'm not moving it. I'm just acting as a bridge from your body to the canister. I'm not going to move at all. You're going to feel something and it might feel like a kick, or maybe like she's waving her arm, or tickling the inside of your stomach, or just a weird sensation of some kind. This is not doing any harm to her at all. Anything she does is because she wants to, because she wants to play with her mom, and answer her mom's question, okay? Now just sit still."

After a few moments my friend's eyes go very wide. "What... was... that!" she says.

"You felt something? Okay let's just wait and see if you feel more."

After a second she starts laughing. "Yes. There it is again." Then a moment later she feels it again. "What on earth is that?" she says.

We sit for a few more moments. "Anything else?" I ask. She shakes her head no. "So how many was that? How many times did you feel it?" She says she felt it three times.

"Okay," I say, "let's take a look." I open the larger canister and dump out the smaller one, then hand it to her. "She indicated "three," yes? Take a look."

My friend opens up the small canister, the die inside shows three spots.

She looks at me. "Andy... what was that? That was so strange. Sweet but strange," she says, her eyes tearing up a little. She squints them at me and gives me an accusing look. Then she smiles, grabs her stomach with both hands and coos, "You did a magic trick, sweetheart!"

Method

I often have the desire to use a method that is not intended for one person, on one person. This is what inspired some of the one-person dual reality effects I've worked on that I've mentioned in the past.

This particular effect was spawned by the idea of doing a trick one-on-one where the method was an instant stooge. Obviously that seems impossible. And I didn't exactly accomplish it, but that was the genesis of the idea.

The method is pretty simple. Obviously the dice part is just Crazy Cube. One of the best $2.50 investments you can make in magic. But you don't need to do this particular effect with dice. You just need a way to have your spectator thinking of a number that you apparently don't know, and I think it's better if she doesn't know the number either (although you could easily argue the other way). So you could force a playing card or an Uno card on her. Just keep the number relatively low. 6 is about as high as you want to go. 

The "kicking" of the baby is, of course, not that at all. You have a remote-controlled thumper on your left wrist. The remote is in your right hand (you pull it from your pocket while her eyes are closed during the visualization part) which also holds the canister during the main part of the effect. You will activate it to vibrate your hand which the woman will feel as a sensation on her stomach. To be clear, the vibrating part of the thumper is not being pressed against her, it's just sending the vibrations into your hand and out into your spectator. The thumper I use was made by a friend of mine out of a remote-controlled vibrator. You probably have some of them lying around, you horny little sicko.

So the way this effect evolved is this.... One time, while doing an electronic version of a "which hand" effect with a coin, my hand got too close to the spectator's and she felt the vibration emanate from my hand (well, from the thumper strapped to my wrist and through my hand). "I felt that," she said. But she didn't mean it like, "Hey, I felt the vibration of the electronic gizmo on your wrist that goes off when it senses a magnet nearby." She meant it like, "Wow, I felt the energy of you doing this effect coming from your hand." It was part of the trick to her. 

I wanted to repeat this kind of moment in a more deliberate way and I began wondering if that sensation could masquerade as something else. Like could you maybe hold someone's stomach and say you could make it growl, or something like that. I had a couple other ideas that were all okay, but then I hit on the idea of the sensation being caused by a woman's child in utero and it was perfect. It's perfect because you don't say exactly how the child is causing the sensation so it doesn't have to exactly mimic any known feeling. Plus the concept of a child in a woman's stomach who is poking her or tickling her from inside to communicate -- I mean -- that's like one of the greatest images anyone has ever come up with in the history of magic.

I would also like to highlight the concept of "swallowing" a thought. The notion that you can have an idea at the front of your mind and then imagine sucking it back into your head and down your spinal cord and perhaps into your central nervous system and then down to an unborn child or out to your fingertips is one that I find people have a surprisingly easy time grasping, given what nonsense it is. And I've used it in many situations to have them send a thought from their brain, down into their hand and into mine; or into a glass of water for me to drink; or things like that.

Now go knock someone up so you can do this trick.

Update (2/13/17): I was just informed that Christopher Taylor at Taylor Imagineering has a product called Impulse that looks like it would be great for this effect or similar effects where the spectator feels some kind of unknown sensation. While I don't own it myself, I've only ever heard great things about his products so I would definitely check it out if you're interested in this sort of thing. I can think of dozens of uses for this and will definitely be picking up one in the future. I don't know if Christopher was the first person to use a thumper like this in order for the spectator to feel "something," but it's the only other example of it that I've seen, and I look forward to playing around with the idea more once I have Impulse.