Polarizing

Buy a Polaroid camera off of ebay for like $15.

Then search for "expired Polaroid film" and buy some of that. Once you have it in your possession, take it out of it's sealed wrapper and let it sit around for a few months in hot and humid environments.

Then put this film in your camera. The film will be usable, but the pictures will come out yellow and faded like they're decades old.

You can probably mimic this degradation process with new Polaroid film (which they still make) by actively fucking with the film. It's supposed to be kept sealed in a cool, dry place. So keep it unsealed in hot and wet places. Toss it in the oven for a few minutes on low heat, keep it in the bathroom when you're taking a shower. I've never really tried this, but it seems like it would work.

Why do this? There is great power in a printed prediction, there is also great power in a photo prediction. I think we all understand this. But I've found a Polaroid is an even stronger medium for exhibiting a prediction. Why? I'm guessing because we live in a time where things can be printed and photos can be modified with relative ease, but a Polaroid feels like something that can't be tampered with. If you're holding a seemingly old Polaroid picture you feel like it was a captured moment from many years ago. So if that moment ends up predicting something that happens in the present, there is a very strong and slightly spooky quality to it. Much more so than if you just showed them a prediction printed on paper, or a photo on your phone.

Above is one of the first pictures I ever took using aged film. When you hold it, it looks like it's 30 years old, but it came out of the camera looking like that. I use it as the finale of spectator cuts the aces routine, but simply substitute in these 4 cards for the aces. This is similar to the effect I wrote up during Presentation Week Part 4. 

There are a number of presentational possibilities as far as where you got this Polaroid and what it means to have access to such a thing, but for now I'll leave that to you to create.

One of my favorite uses of this is for the Osterlind/Thompson/Gardner effect where you predict the outcome of a tic-tac-toe game with your spectator. I saw Osterlind's version, Predict-Tac-Toe, on one of his DVDs where he used a picture as the reveal at the end. But to do it with a Polaroid of two little girls, in timeless dresses, playing tic-tac-toe in chalk on the street -- and to have this faded, old photograph, with one girl giving the camera an odd, intense stare, it just becomes a much stronger ending than a standard photograph.

I highly recommend considering this technique for use in any prediction type effects you do. The ideas you can have for this are really only limited by your imagination. So in your case you'll probably get half an idea.

Win A Girl's Heart With Magic

In this case I'm talking about an actual girl. Probably someone 6-12 year's old would be an ideal audience (although with some changes it could play well for someone of any age). Why would you want to win the heart of a 6-12 year old? Look, creep, what do you think I'm getting at? I'm saying this would be a great trick if you have a daughter, or a step-daughter, or a grand-daughter, or a niece, or a young family friend. Maybe you're dating someone who has a daughter from a previous relationship. Perform this for her kid and win both their hearts. If you, for a second, thought, "Hmmm, I hope this is a good trick to seduce a 6-12 year old girl." Please, go find a falling piano and stand under it.

It could also be performed for the birthday girl at a birthday party, or a kid at a particularly important table in a walk-around setting. I say "particularly important" because there is a bit of an investment each time you perform it ($5-$10) so it's not something you would do for every table with a young girl. I've only performed this once for the daughter of a friend of mine, but I will be doing it again the next time I see my niece.

I will kind of walk you through the effect, method and presentation all at once.

You tell the girl, "Hey, I bought you a necklace," and you bring out an empty chain.

Now, because most little girls are naturally sweet, she may be -- or at least act -- genuinely happy for this piece of nothing. However, if she's like, "This sucks, what a dumb gift," then I hope that's not your daughter or you're in for a life of misery. If it's the daughter of someone you're dating, then she learned that behavior somewhere, and it's probably from mommy. So your best bet is to say, "Deuces, bitch!" and run away and don't look back. 

Okay, so let's go back to the point that you pull out the chain. After a couple moments you should look at it and say something like, "Hmmm... this is kind of a boring necklace. I think you need something with a little more flare. I have an idea." You take the necklace back and at some point in the ensuing action (which can take anywhere from a minute or so to 10 to 15 minutes) you're going to switch it in your pocket for an identical chain with an origami crane pendant on it.

You pull that necklace so it hangs out of your pocket with the crane itself still in the pocket. In other words, you take the bare necklace chain back, put it in your pocket, and then pull out the chain for the necklace that has the pendant attached. You will probably want to have a wallet or something in that pocket to keep the two necklaces separate.

Now you have a few options. You need a small paper crane folded from flash paper. Here are the three options:

The Pragmatic Option
Just have one already pre-folded in your wallet and take it out. Let the girl examine it. 

The Magic Option
You're going to magically produce a folded crane. There are a bunch of different ways you could do this. The simplest is probably to have the crane "palmed" in your left hand, and a thumbtip on your right thumb. You bring out a piece of tissue paper in your right hand stroke it between your hands, dropping of the thumbtip into your left hand. Then poke the tissue paper into the thumbtip and steal it out of your left hand. When you open your left hand up, the paper has "magically" folded itself into a crane.

The Arts and Crafts Option
This would only work in a casual situation, but I think it's the best option. Instead of producing the crane in some way, sit with her and teach her to fold one. She folds one with a piece of origami paper, and you fold one with a piece of "tissue" paper (in actuality, it's flash paper).

Either way, when you're done you tell her about the symbolism of the paper crane which is a long life, happiness, and good luck.

You remove the chain with the crane pendant from your pocket, hiding the pendant in your left hand which is holding the chain from the top and allowing the rest to dangle freely (Dangle Freely is my porn name.). You take your flash paper crane and wind the tail around the chain (alternatively you can just crush the crane around the chain, or you could try and attach the back of the crane to the chain so it more resembles what it will look like after the transformation, if that matters to you). Light the paper and in the flash of fire, drop the pendant from your left hand, it will appear where the paper crane was moments before.

Give the necklace to the girl.

Two things:

You can find these necklaces cheap online for about 5 to 7 dollars each. Buy a few. Some people try and sell the same ones you can get for cheap for like $25 bucks. Avoid those people.

You can, of course, find nicer versions of these necklaces, and you could do this as part of a real gift for a woman of any age. I only recommend it for a young girl because 1) you can do it with a less expensive necklace and not feel cheap and 2) a young girl will be happy with pretty much any necklace -- 8 year olds don't have a well established sense of style. Just because you can give this gift as part of a trick, doesn't make it a good gift for just any woman. Does she like origami, birds, or Japanese culture? Okay, then it might make sense as a gift. Otherwise, get her something she'd actually like and quit shoving your magic where it doesn't belong.

Two Story Deck Tricks

Here are a couple updated ideas from my old Magic Circle Jerk blog for some fake story deck tricks. These will be good for anyone attending the Genii Convention this week.

Scam the Bellend

Go up to someone and tell them you're working on a new story deck trick that starts from a shuffled pack. This should intrigue them. Ask them to shuffle and hand you their deck of cards. This has to be done with a borrowed deck.

You tell them that you can create a story from any shuffled deck after running through it just twice. Spread through the deck and cull these three cards to the top:

The Jack of Spades or Jack of Hearts
Any 8, 9, or 10
Any Queen

Close the deck and act like you're thinking of stuff. Then spread through again and cull these three cards to the top:

Any Ace
Any Two
Any number card

So, from the top down you have: Any number card, any two, any ace, any queen, any 8-10, and the JH or JS. 

Now you tell your story:

Did I tell you about the time I went to that club on 5th street? [Name whatever number you happen to turn over as the street. Congratulations, your story deck routine is already as clever as every other one.]

While I was there I felt a rumbling in my stomach and knew I had to drop a deuce. [Turn over the two and drop it from a small height onto the table.]

Just when I finished wiping my A-hole, [The ace]

This pretty lady comes into my stall. [The queen]

But I quickly realized it was no lady, it was actually a drag queen [Drag the queen across the table]

And he only had one thing in mind. To take all 10 inches [Use whatever number 8-10 comes up here.]

Of his one-eyed trouser snake, and shove it down my throat. [Turn over the one-eyed jack and point to the one eye as you say this.]

Do you know what happened next? [Turn over the top few cards towards yourself as if you're trying to remember the order of what's to come. Wait for the person to say that they don't know what happens next.]

He shot his load all over my fucking face. [Spring the deck all over the person's face. Then walk away.]

A Card Mystery

This one is much easier to remember and perform. Again tell someone you have a story deck trick that uses a shuffled deck and ask to borrow theirs. Once you have it, cut or cull an Ace to the top.

"This is the story of an Ace detective [Turn over the ace] who was hired to solve the Mystery of the Bent Over Idiot. Do you know the secret to the Mystery of the Bent Over Idiot?"

Wait for them to say "no," then cut the deck into two parts and slowly spring the cards from each hand all over the floor while looking the person dead in the eye. 

"Mystery solved," you say, and walk away.

They might not get it at first, but as they pick their cards up off the floor they'll eventually realize that they are the Bent Over Idiot.

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Also, Genii Convetion-eers, remember to do this to indicate to others you're part of our secret club, and to find instant stooges without the need to actually speak to them beforehand. 

Cryptophasia

cryptophasia noun The development by twins (identical or fraternal) of a language that only they can understand.

Effect

You find your long lost twin.

Imagine

You walk up to a table consisting of two couples and introduce yourself to everyone. You take a particular interest in one of the guys there and tilt your head at him and scrunch up your eyes. "You seem so familiar...," you mutter.

"Okay, for my first trick... did you know some cards are more ambitious than others? It's true, and I'm going to prove it- Oh god," you gasp with a sudden realization. "I'm sorry," you say to the guy you were taken with earlier, "What's your birthday?" He says July 10th. "What year?" you ask. 1968 he says.

Your eyes get big. 

Everyone is looking at you.

"I'm sorry. Uhm, not to get too personal, but were you adopted?" He says he wasn't. "Oh," you say, "I can't believe they haven't told you...." You look back to your cards as if you're going to try and get back to your trick.

"Actually," you say, "I want to try something with you." You pull out a notebook and write something down in it then put your pencil away.

"I'm going to say a two digit number to you, but in a language you probably don't think you know, okay?" He nods. "Climpity-sklorf," you say. "Do you know what number that is?" He says he doesn't.

"Think about it," you say. "Climpity-sklorf. Climpity-sklorf. [Slowly] Climp-it-y? Sklorf. Nothing? Okay, then just guess, from 0-9, what do you think 'climpity' is. 7? [you smile] And sklorf? 2? So what would climpity-sklorf be?"

"72," he says.

You turn the pad over and it says "Climpity Sklorf - 72"

"Pitpop!!!" you exclaim.

You turn to everyone else. "Oh, my god, this is so exciting. Me and Pitpop here are twins. When mom gave birth to us she decided to give one of us up for adoption. She felt she didn't have the money to raise two kids because she really wanted to get a Jetski. So she gave Pitpop here to an adoptive family." You turn to the guy and say, "Yes, you're adopted. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you that." You address the rest of the table. "Of course Pitpop is just what I called him in the womb, and he called me Clonny. We had a whole twin language. Do you remember? I mean, obviously you do, in some part of your brain. I bet you remember everything."

You turn to the guy's wife. "Do me a favor, think of any simple word and write it down on the back of my business card. Make it a noun and something a young child would understand." She does and you tell her to show it to her husband. Then she slides it back in the stack of business cards, unseen by you. 

"Okay, now I want you to see if you can remember what the word we used in the womb for that word was. You can do it, Pitpop."

"I don't know," he says.

"Just try," you say. "Just pull up a nonsense word from your subconscious. Maybe you have it in the back of your mind somewhere."

After a while he says, "Chomby."

You say, "Chomby? Hmm. Chomby. Chomby, chomby, chomby. Uhm... I don't know... oh, wait... are you saying 'shomby'? Shomby as in, 'House'?" 

Everyone freaks out because "House" is exactly what she wrote down.

"It's so great to see you again, Pitpot. Oh my god, I shouldn't be calling you that. I'm sorry, what do you go by now?"

"Tom," he says.

"Tom! Right, exactly. Mom mentioned your new family named you that. Oh, in fact, I've had it on this thing that I've been carrying around with me for years." 

You open you wallet, unzip a compartment, and pull out an image of an old ultrasound. 

"You keep that Pitp- I'm sorry, Tom. You hold onto that. I have another copy at home."

You take a few steps away, then come back. "Oh, just FYI, mom died in a Jetski accident a few years ago. She didn't have any money, so don't come crawling around looking for your share."

Method

Set-Up:

A nail/thumb-writer in your right pocket.
A small notebook with "Climpity Sklorf" written on the top sheet. Above that sheet the ultrasound pic with "Me and Pitpot (                 ) at 3 months" written on it. Creased in the middle.
A card-to-wallet wallet or any wallet you can secretly load the picture in.

Part One:

You go over to the table and introduce yourself. You get everyone's name and make sure to remember the name of the target for your trick. Alternatively you could secretly figure out his name before you start. 

When you go to supposedly write down the number, you are actually writing down the guy's name, and his birth month and year, minus 6 months. So if he said he was born in July of 1968, you'd write down Jan. '68 on the picture.

After you've filled in this information in the guise of writing down the number, you'll fold the ultrasound picture and palm it off and load it in your wallet as you put the pencil away. Don't fear this move. It's not like loading a card in the wallet because there is no heat on anything yet. The trick hasn't even begun as far as they're concerned. And you have all the time in the world to load the wallet as you're repeating your made-up numbers over and over.

As you go through this process with them, you get your nail writer on at some point. And when your spectator gives you the breakdown of what he thinks each number means, you have plenty of time to do your nail-writing. Now, this may seem like just a more interesting context to put a nail writer effect into, and that's true enough. But it's also a presentation that helps methodologically as well. If I just ask you to name a number, and then I nail write it, I have to take a beat to do the work. And most mentalists cover it by saying, "And why did you name that number?" or some other not-particularly-interesting question because everyone just wants to see if it matches what you wrote. But here you're asking someone to translate a non-existent language, so the primary focal point is already up and away from the paper -- it's the interaction between you two. And because it's a two digit number based on an unknown language, it makes sense to break it into its two component numbers. So look at all the time that gives you...

You: What do you think climpity is?

Them: 7

You: [While nail-writing 7 on the pad] And what do you think sklorf is?

Them: 2

You: [While nail-writing 2 on the pad] So climpity-sklorf would be?

Them: 72.

And you immediately turn the pad over. There's not that blatant pause after they name the number. That pause always feels wrong. "I wrote down a two-digit number on this pad. What do you think it is? 86? Okay...86?... why did you choose that number?" It's just phony. If you were doing it for real you wouldn't pause at that point, not when everyone just wants to see what you wrote. 

Part Two:

This is just any business card peek that you know. You could use a gimmicked stack of business cards, or a peek wallet (assuming it also has a CTW function). Or an ungimmicked peek of some kind. The method could not be less important. Just try it with whatever method you have. 

When his wife/friend/girlfriend thinks of a word, then he makes up some nonsense translation of that word, and then you are able to translate it back to her original word, that's an incredibly fun and amazing moment for your spectator, trust me.

Part Three:

This part is already done. You have the ultrasound picture with his name and birth information already in your wallet. Now you just ask for his name as if it's the first time you're hearing it and go for the revelation. (You're not hiding the fact that you got his name during the original introductions, you're just acting as if you've forgotten it (as many of us do after an initial introduction).)

---

• This is an especially enjoyable effect to do for someone who is much older, younger, or a different race than you. I've only performed it a handful of times, but I find that people are more than willing to agree to the possibility that yes, you might just be long-lost twins.
• I wrote this up as if it was a table-hopping effect, because it could be. But essentially it's just an effect you want to perform on a stranger, for the purposes of the reveal in Part 3. The first time I performed this effect was in the dining car of an Amtrak train. You get stuck at a table with people you don't know, so that presented a perfect opportunity for this. I've been able to perform it a few other times since, but sadly I don't have that many opportunities where I can talk to strangers for an extended period of time. 
• Look, I know that I don't have a great many converts to my style of performance. But I'm telling you that -- for me, at least -- people are equally amazed, and much more interested, amused, and charmed by this type of thing than they are you just saying, "Name a number. It's the number I wrote down. Now write down a word. It's house, right?" If I gave a layman a nail writer and a way to peek a word, those are the first two things she would think to do with them. The fact that so much of mentalism is based on the most obvious way of using these tools is probably not great news for the art as a whole.
• If you want to extend the fun, ask the guy if you can recreate your ultrasound photo and then have someone snap a picture while you roll around in the restaurant booth together.

Abracadildo

This post is solely to establish provenance for another brilliant idea I just had. I did a quick mock-up in photoshop as you can see below. This will likely be the first release in the Jerx Elite line of products. It will not be less than $600 and the onyx and ivory version will be in the thousands. I know that Magic Makers and all the rip-off companies are going to put out their own version, but this is going to be the only licensed version built off a mold of my actual cock. If you choose not to support this site and instead wait for some Chinese knock-off, you and your lover are going to be greatly disappointed. Great for ass-to-ass, scissoring, or just keep it on its mahogany display stand to lend any room a touch of class. Abracadildo by The Jerx.

Sundry Drive No. 13

When I was a child, I had a dream effect I wanted to perform. I wanted to show someone a series of 6 meaningless symbols. Then I wanted to ask them to name a number between one and six. Then I wanted to show them that I wasn't talking about the position of the symbols, but an arbitrary number they were assigned on the back. Then I wanted to blow their minds out their shitholes buy explaining to them that I had kinda sorta predicted which symbol they'd unwittingly choose via their number choice, in the sense that I knew what other shapes would make up that symbol. What could be a more beautiful example of magic than that?

Ladies and gentleman, I give you, Easy Symbol Prediction.

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Have you ever seen foil wrapped chocolate quarters that are the size of actual quarters? I have an idea for a way I'd like to use them, but the ones I've seen are all bigger than actual quarters. Is it even possible to make them that small with that level of detail? I'm guessing you probably can't get them that thin, but if I could get them that small, that would work.

I realize the likelihood of this site being read by a master chocolatier is small, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

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Dear At The Table,

I'm willing to forgive a lot of your faults because your lectures are like $5, which is a steal. But you are now officially 0-120 with the Skype calls. The questions are terrible, the need to see the questioner is non-existent, it puts the brakes on any momentum you've established, and you don't seem to have mastered the technology in the first place. I'm not sure what magic lectures you've attended, but I haven't been to one where I was like, "Ooohh... I hope we get to really know the people who have questions to ask!" If anything my only thoughts towards questioners are, "Oh, christ. Shut the fuck up, dummy." So, in that sense, it really does feel like a real lecture when I watch the At the Table series.

I get it, you're trying to differentiate yourself from the Penguin lectures. That makes sense. But if you own a restaurant you don't put a shit-sandwich on the menu just because the place next door doesn't offer one. 

Instead, why don't you emphasize the genuinely good things you have to offer? Like the time Bobby Motta and Greg Wilson rhapsodized about their mutual love of titty-fucking.

Dear Mentalists: You're Not Going To Keep Using This Ploy, Are You?

There is a verbal technique used in mentalism that doesn't fool anyone except the mentalist himself. And that is the following sentence structure used in a fishing procedure:

It wasn't a black card, was it?

Mentalists will claim that regardless of if the person is thinking of a red card or a black card, they will interpret this sentence as a "hit." No. They won't. They will think of it as exactly what it is: a question. 

I noticed this a few years ago while watching a very good mentalist do some fishing.

Performer: "It's a high card."

Spectator: [Smiles] "Yes..."

Performer: "It's odd."

Spectator: [Crinkles her eyes.] "How are you doing this?"

Performer: "It's not a black card, is it?"

Spectator: "No, it's red."

Performer: "I thought so."

Spectator: [No reaction.]

Then I started noticing it in other people's routines as well. It never gets the reaction of a hit. And it dawned on me that of course it doesn't, because that's not how it comes off to the spectator.

If we were married and you started putting on your coat one evening and I said, "You're not going out, are you?" That is the same as me saying, "Are you going out?" Those sentences mean the same thing. The former suggests maybe I have an opinion on what I would like the answer to be, but it doesn't suggest any knowledge about your actual intent.

If you don't believe this sentence structure is only said in the context of not knowing, rather than knowing, try to put an obviously declarative sentence into the same structure and see how stupid it sounds.

"I'm not wearing a red shirt, am I?"

Of course there is a way to punctuate that statement so it is declarative. If you say:

"It's not a black card. Is it?" And you say it without an upward inflection at the end. Then that does mean "It's not a black card." But that sentence now has a definite meaning and doesn't suit your purpose.

I think the reason we think it's considered a hit is because the spectator doesn't say, "No, you're wrong." But of course they don't say you're wrong. You've just asked a question and not made a statement, how could you be wrong?

I don't really have an all-purpose alternative for this -- it would depend on the actual routine you were doing. I'm guessing in most circumstances it would be better to just simply say straight out, "It's a black card" (for example). You'll be right half the time. The other half of the time you will be wrong, of course, but often in these routines, once you're wrong you know exactly what the person is thinking. And even if you don't, you can take the miss and use it as an opportunity to change tactics. So maybe you say things aren't coming through clear enough reading their mind so instead you want to try and read their aura instead (or whatever nonsense you like to use). It's not an ideal solution, obviously, but if my options are to be right 50% of the time or to ask a weaselly-pseudo-statement-question 100% of the time, I will always choose the former.