November Commercial

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[Once a month I'll be annoying you with a commercial message for this site.]

First I would like to talk about not this site, but sites and projects that are similar to it. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and I can't wait. (I make a mean cranberry sauce.) If there is a site out there that you're thankful for, or a band, or a youtube channel, or a podcast, or a performer of any sort, I'm recommending you reach out to them to see how you can best support them. I'm genuinely not talking about my site (although that would be nice), I'm talking about anybody who is producing content that you're thankful for. We're in a very transitional time for things like this. 10 years from now, this will just be seen as the accepted thing. Everyone will have a few specialty sites or podcasts that they donate $10 a month to and it will just be part of their entertainment budget. But now we're at a point in time where people under 30 all get this concept but may not have any disposable income, and people over 40 tend to look at things like blogs or youtube channels as hobbies or kid's stuff, so why should they be paying for it? 

I will tell you what I do. I put an item in my budget (I don't really have a budget, I just do this mentally) for $30 a month. Then I decide what my 3 favorite sites/performers/podcasts are and donate $10 a month to them. Of course, I support other content providers as well by buying the things they release or whatever, but this is what I do for the three entities that provide me the most joy on a regular basis. I don't just do it for them, I do it for my own peace of mind. Peace of mind in the sense that if the site I'm supporting does eventually shut down, I don't have to wonder if my contribution could have made a difference. (And when we're talking about very small enterprises (not something like NPR), a few donations a month one way or the other could very well be the deciding factor.)

Speaking of donations. Those of you who ordered the book during the initial donation period in October, and those of you who support the site with a monthly donation via the "Support the Site" link above, should have received the first installment of my reviews/ideas/bullshit newsletter, X-Communication, in your email on Tuesday. If you haven't, make sure you check the email address that is associated with your paypal account (as that is the one I'd use unless you told me to use another), then check your spam maybe, then check yourself (before you wreck yourself), then contact me and we'll sort it out. 

It's just been a few hours, but the reviews of my reviews are already coming in. 

My review of these reviews of my reviews is 4 Stars. Great reviews reviews!

November's Call to Action! - The holiday shopping season is coming up and the most painless way to support the site is to use the affiliate links to Amazon in the sidebar (there is now a link to Amazon UK as well). It's easy, you just click through that link to get to Amazon and order whatever you want just like you normally would. I'm surprised how seldom this is used by people. I mean, relative to something like buying the book which is a pretty big investment. You would think for every one person who bought the book, 20 would have used one of those links, but really it's almost the inverse. Only a few people have used those links. I bet it's because people want to have a more direct role in supporting the site, it's probably less fun to do it anonymously. I get that. You want the coffee guy to see you drop a dollar in the tip jar. But this doesn't even cost you anything, so perhaps people just forget. 

Let's come up with a simple mnemonic for when you're doing your shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and every other day of the year. Here's what you should think:

"I need to go to Amazon. Amazon. A maison. That means house in french. It's nice to have a house. When I lived in my college dorm I missed living in a house because one time I wanted to make a fried egg sandwich in the middle of the night and couldn't because I didn't have a kitchen. Is kitchen a german word? Let me look that up. Yup, it is. Or at least it's Latin and "Proto-Germanic," whatever that means. Germanic. Grrr... man...ick! That's what a talking dog would say after he licked some dude's a-hole. I bet if a dog wished to become human and it came true he would walk around for the first few days moving his arms in time with his legs, just because he's so used to having done that as a dog for so long. But eventually he'd figure it out. Figure it out. Figure 8 Out. One of my favorite songs on the album Figure 8 by Elliott Smith is Easy Way Out. What a heartbreaking song, but the harmonies are so pretty. I should buy that on vinyl. I know! I'll go to Amazon. Goddammit!!! My stupid mnemonic brought me right back to Amazon. Ok... how about this. Amazon. Amaz-ing. Magic is amazing. The Jerx is the best magic site online. I should go click through that link on his site before I go to Amazon." Bingo.

This is the cranberry sauce recipe I use.

You take a cup of orange juice and cup of sugar and heat that up in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Then you dump in a bag of fresh cranberries (12 ounces). Then you just stir them around until the cranberries start popping like popcorn. Well, I mean, they make a popping noise. So you continue to stir and mash them with a fork for 15, 20, 30 minutes, whatever, until the cranberries are at the consistency you want. Then you're done. It will be pretty liquidy, but as it cools it will congeal. Add a little cinnamon and some orange zest if you like. Shablam!! You've got yourself some cranberry sauce. Tart but sweet and good hot or cold. (Like poontang, am I right guys? Hi-five!)

(Be on the look-out in the coming year for my new food blog where I compare everything to "poontang." It's called, "Shablam!!" (my patented catchphrase).)

Four Scoops of Vanilla

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No one has been more critical of Criss Angel than I have been. His schtick is corny as hell. He looks like the Crypt Keeper after a shopping spree at Hot Topic. And the dark and brooding bullshit is equally tired. Whenever I see someone trying to come off as a real sinister badass, I always picture them on the toilet trying to push out a real difficult shit.

I've long been an advocate for people just presenting magic and being normal, approachable humans as well. A lot of magicians fight against that because they want to be perceived as having a real power. And if they had a real power, then they'd surely be some mysterious kook, right? I guess. But that's not my style.

So it's been heartening to see a movement in the past few years to a more natural style in magic performances. But have we gone a little too far in the other direction? I mean, let's take a look at some of the bigger names in magic on tv and the internet...

They seem to all have something in common. Hmmm... what could it be. I mean there's no doubt these guys represent the rich cultural tapestry you see in modern magic. It's really great to see such diversity. For instance, do you want a magician who is a young, pleasant, unthreatening, white, male with dark hair that is two and a half inches long? Or do you want to go crazy and get a magician who is a young, pleasant, unthreatening, white, male with dark hair that is three and three-quarters of an inch long? The choice is yours. 

I don't have any issues with these guys as individuals; I enjoy a lot of their work. It's just when you look at them as a group that this current crop of magicians and their magic can seem a little... monochromatic. In fact I sometimes have trouble keeping them straight in my mind. 

Which is why I thought it would be a true test to see if I could discern which one you were thinking of throughout the course of an interactive magic trick!


The GIF of the Magi: Move Bitch, Get Out the Way

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As I mentioned in previous posts, I won't be writing up as many fully formed routines for the site because I'm saving them for the people who bought the book. But I still have plenty of half-baked ideas that may be of interest to people, and may, in fact, be more in their wheelhouse than my usual types of effects and presentations. I will be briefly describing these with some quick GIFs I made to illustrate things in a new feature called: The GIF of the Magi.

Move Bitch, Get Out the Way

The title of this trick comes from the Ludacris song that I enjoy singing while practicing the main sleight involved in this effect. Give it a go. Really hit the bitch part when you flick the card. You'll see.

This trick involves two things I like:

  1. Cards being split into component cards. Like a deuce being split into two aces. I like it because it's a bizarre concept, but it has an internal logic to it. 
  2. The concept/sleight -- and someone will have to help me as to where this originated -- where you use discarded cards to hide the extra card in a color change. It's a fun one to practice and the organic "black art" principle is an interesting thing to think about.

Set-up: Face-down from the the top down: red two, red ace, red ace, black ace, black ace, black two. Turn the bottom half of the deck face-up. Turn the entire deck over so your set up is face-up on the bottom of the deck.

Performance: Start dealing off the cards in a very messy pile, and ask your spectator to tell you when to stop.

When they do, draw attention to the pile and push the cards around a little with your right hand making some comment about how many you dealt while your left hand secretly flips the deck over. 

Say, "There's no way I could have any idea you'd have me deal this many cards, stopping at this one. [You pull off the top card of the deck, the red two, and hand it to him face down.] It could have been anything, a four, a king, but in this case it's a...?" While you're saying this, get a break under the top two cards.

He says, "Two," and at the same time you say, "Ace." Act confused, take the card back from him face-up onto the deck. Scratch the face of the card a little. Say, "It was suppose to be an ace. Maybe it got stuck to another one? That can happen. " Take of the top three cards as one, and flick the edge ("Move... bitch!") over the discards, secretly revolving the packet and splitting the 2 into two aces.

"Yeah, sometimes if two aces are next to each other, they get stuck and become a two. You know, depending on the weather and whatnot."

You now give the deck an in-the-hands false-cut that doesn't expose the reversed bottom half (or you can adjust the reversed half via a halfpass during your previous bullshitting). Say something like, "Since you found an ace, now it's my turn." Do a triple-turnover to show another two. (You can spread the cards to get a break before that.) When you're done you have a two face-up with two face-up aces underneath. (I spread the cards in the GIF below, but that's just to show the condition, you don't actually do that.)

Say, "Goddamn this humidity! It happened again."

You take the three cards as one. The action that follows will be more easily explained via the GIF. Essentially you want to make it look like you rip the 2 into two aces. You hold the card(s) as if you're going to tear it. Then you push the top card into your right hand and pull down the bottom cards with your left, in a tearing motion. Your right hand makes an upward motion to draw their eyes, while your left dumps the deuce on the discards.

Now you're clean and you have four aces with which to go into your least favorite four ace trick. 

The discard camouflage pile is a fun thing to mess around with. I think it works particularly well in casual performances. I first read about it in use as a straight color change, but I can't remember where.

But I've also used it to merge cards together in order to find a spectator's card.

Or -- if you can justify the flicking movement -- you can use it as part of a delayed change: changing the back of a card or having writing appear on it.

Gardyloo #1

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Hey guys, what's your favorite song about fucking your lady on a hayride after your mom suggests that might be a fun activity?

Mine is probably this one:

Dear Steve Brooks,

I think you accidentally deleted a thread about this site off the Magic Cafe. Joe Mckay wrote the embarrassingly complimentary post below in the Latest and Greatest section, but it doesn't seem to be there anymore. Any idea what could have happened? Maybe one of your staff members was a little over-zealous and thought you were so delicate that you couldn't withstand some gentle teasing (even though I haven't really mentioned you at all in months.) Maybe someone got mad that all the responses to the post were positive? I'm sure you didn't delete the thread. You're not that much of a puss. 

I say you put the thread back up as a gesture to people that there are no hard feelings between us and that you're perfectly capable of taking a joke. You don't need to censor things; you're not a baby. I mean, I'd happily post anything you wanted me to here, unedited and unannotated. I ain't scurred. Or, maybe I've got you all wrong, maybe you want our old antagonistic relationship back. If so, don't put that thread back and I'll take that as my cue. I'm a nice guy and I want to indulge you with whatever type of relationship you want. Frankly, for me, it's better to be viewed as the guy whose site you can't mention on the Cafe. You're just helping my brand. So don't do it for my sake. Do it for your sake. (Unless you think there's something flattering about being perceived as someone who deletes posts just because he doesn't like the subject matter.)

I'm finalizing the first installment of X-Communication, the email newsletter that goes out to people who ordered the book during the initial donation period or who have signed up for a monthly donation here. The newsletter will consist of reviews and presentational ideas I have for (mostly) new products. There will be just a few reviews each month but that's because I really only want to write about things that I've performed for people, that have been performed for me, or that I've seen a friend perform live. 

The first installment is written and you should get it before Thanksgiving. I'm just trying to determine the best way to send it and present it; whether as a pdf, a normal email, or via some newsletter service. If any of you who will be receiving it have a preference, let me know. 

Originally I had planned to make it look like one of those xeroxed magic publications from the mid-80s. But I think I nailed the style a little too well, to the point where it's annoying to read. I'll probably go with something more straightforward when it comes time to actually send it out.

An Example of 3rd Wave Equivoque

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My friend was showing me a Russian Roulette style effect where he held his hands over styrofoam cups and there was a nail or a knife or something under one of them. I was encouraging him to do the effect with one upright dildo in a series of brown paper bags that he would violently sit on with his bare bottom. "Just think of how many hits you'll get on youtube when you inevitably fuck the trick up!" I said, in the spirit of genial goodfellowship. Despite my encouragement to consider this Russian Poo-lette, he wasn't having it. [Edit: According to Denis Behr, this exact routine was done in a German magic competition in 2008. Germany, you sick fucks. Prior to this I've had no issue with anything you've done as a country. But this is taking things a little too far.]

He started with 6 or 7 cups but was now down to two. The cups had been mixed by a third party so neither of us knew where the knife was. Well, at least I didn't. He held his right hand over one cup and his left hand over another. I knew this last move was magician's choice. He would ask me to point to a hand and then he would take that as me eliminating that hand or me saying that's the one he should slam onto the cup.

But he didn't do that. Instead he said, "I'm going to slam down one of these hands. And you're going to make the decision as to which hand I do. So which hand is safe?" he asked. I perked up a little because this isn't where I thought he was going. 

"The left one," I said.

"My left hand? Or the one on your left side? I want to be very clear about this," he said. I was thrown again by this. I thought maybe he was going to try and take advantage of the left/right ambiguity.

"Your left hand," I said.

"My left hand is safe?" he said, raising the hand slowly. I again found this odd. The slow, deliberate way he was allowing me to make the choice. 

"You have one chance to change your mind," he said.

"Okay, your right hand is safe," I said, casually, because he seemed too content with me saying the left hand. 

"Okay, I hope you're correct," he said, raising his right hand and slamming it down on the cup. It was empty. He tipped the left-hand cup over to reveal the gleaming knife standing upright. "Thanks for changing your mind."

I was confused at first. I thought maybe he was using rubber knives or something that allowed me a free choice at the end. But he assured me it was equivoque. I didn't immediately get it. I did quite a bit of equivoque work, but it always felt very different -- done at a rapid pace and without clear choices being made. "We're going to do this by process of elimination. Point to a hand. Okay, that's your selection." Or, "We're going to do this by process of elimination. Point to a hand. Okay, that's eliminated." And then move on quickly. I was tripped up by the deliberate way in which he asked the question.

"Show me the other outcome," I said.

He held his left hand over the knife and his right hand over the empty cup.

"I'm going to slam down one of these hands. And you're going to make the decision as to which hand I do. So which hand is safe?" he said for a second time.

"The left hand," I said, as it rested above the upturned knife. 

"You're sure?" he asked, raising that hand slowly. 

"Yes," 

"Okay," he said, continuing to raise the hand away from the table and then in the same motion shift it behind his back. "You've decided the left hand should be safe. But this one," he said, motioning to his right hand, "is still in danger. That was your choice. I hope you're correct." And he slammed his hand down on the empty cup. 

For a moment I was still seduced by the cleanliness and freedom of the choice that I almost forgot how we got to that point. And then everything came into focus in regards to what he was doing and that is what set me on a path of working to make all my equivoque this strong.

I received a couple emails asking me to explain what I mean by 3rd Wave Equivoque. It will be explained in full in the upcoming book, but the example above was the first time I saw it in a performance. Or at least the first time I recognized it as something slightly different than standard equivoque. Here's what makes it different:

1. It can be done slowly.

2. The choices seem to have some value. Saying something is "safe" seems to be a statement that carries some meaning. Whereas, "Point to a hand," does not.

3. You can reiterate the choice and give them a chance to change their mind after they know the apparent ramifications of their choice. In this case he could ask me if I was sure that was the hand I wanted to be "safe." In traditional equivoque they can only change their mind before you tell them what their choice means. That's a huge difference.

4. And finally, what makes it so deceptive is that the two choices are not complementary to each other. When you say, "We're going to flip one of these two coins. Hand me one. Okay, we'll eliminate it." It's not that difficult to realize that, "We're going to flip one of these two coins. Hand me one. Okay, that's the one we'll flip," is a complementary phrase that could be used if the person gave you the other coin. This is especially true in a long series of equivoque where the person soon recognizes that the result of their choices isn't necessarily what they thought they would be.

In this case we're relying on the richness of what it means to designate a hand as "safe." 

It means there is no knife under that hand. 

That makes perfect sense.

It means that's not the hand you're going to slam down.

That too makes perfect sense. And neither phrase automatically suggests the other (as happens with complementary phrases.) 

To put it another way, both statements are logically true. "There is no knife under that hand, so that hand is safe." And, "You're not going to slam that hand on a cup, so that hand is safe." Either statement will be accepted 100% because they're 100% logical. "You turned that card face-down, so that's your selection," is not a logical sentence in the sense that the second part of the sentence doesn't necessarily follow from the first part.

I don't know if I'm over-explaining this or not explaining it enough.

I'm not claiming to have invented these types of equivoque questions. Many of the ones I use I have stolen from other, longer, equivoque routines. The problem I had with those routines is that they'll have one really strong phase that is almost always followed by more traditional equivoque options ("hand me," "turn over," "point to") that I think undermine the strength of the style I'm writing about here. In the book I give a couple more examples of this style, including a way to equivoque down to one card from an imaginary full deck with no unclear decisions made along the way. (And I teach this in a manner that I think is going to make you cream your jeans. I'm legitimately excited for you people who have ordered the book. I'm seriously going to ruin you for other magic books.)

Some Junk I Found

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Here is some junk I found on the internet while working on some future posts.

Here's a guy who is trying to explain the concept of sin via the professor's nightmare trick. Because... why not? (Now, is he just trying to cram a patter over the top of a trick that it doesn't apply to? Or is it true that god doesn't differentiate between rapists and people who commit some minor sin? That's fucking moronic if that's the case. Yeah, I'll question god. And if he doesn't like it, may he strike me de

Damn, I died before I had a chance to close the parentheses.

Zach King with another nice illusion...

I was doing a google image search for "Joshua Jay" for something dumb I'm working on. If you do that search you get a surprising number of mugshots. But I think my favorite row of results that I came across was this one. (And I do mean came across.) 

I specifically like it because the third pic makes it look like he's miming a blowjob to the fourth pic.

The $10 Peek Wallet

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Testing Peeks

I have a number of very strong revelations for peeked information, but I don't have what I would consider to be a perfect peek. I think it's very difficult to know with any certainty what an audience will find suspicious when it comes to a peek. Last year I did some testing where the audience could register as they watched a performance when they thought something fishy was going on. They did this via swiping up and down on an iphone to register their suspicion. Swiping up meant they were skeptical about what was going on, swiping down meant they were believing what they were seeing. It's like those dials they give people to watch the presidential debates and register if they agree or disagree with what the candidates are saying. What we had after this testing was a little seismograph of audience suspicion that we could play along with the performance and see exactly where they were calling bullshit in their minds as they watched the performance. This may seem like a lot of effort to go to, and it was, but I've been on the lookout for a perfect peek for years now and I knew doing this would point me in that direction, or at least let me know what techniques I should avoid. 

The main thing I learned from this testing is that if you want to avoid suspicion you can't ever look in the area where the information supposedly is. This may seem beyond obvious, but many peeks do just that.

For example, putting a card with an unknown word on it in your wallet raised suspicion slightly. If you then re-open that wallet to get something, suspicion goes off the chart. (And this is the exact choreography of a number of peek wallets.) The problem is, unless you draw undue attention to it, the spectator's aren't focusing on the layout of your wallet. So they will remember you putting it in, but when you go back to your wallet they don't remember if you put it in a section that somehow precluded you from seeing the other side, so they'll just assume that's what you're doing.

Similarly, if you tear up a billet with your head clearly facing left and your hands outstretched to the right, there is little suspicion. But if you even glance at the pieces in the process, the action is completely suspect. It was disheartening to watch people be unimpressed by world-class mentalists peeking the word in real time as they tore up the card. Then to watch those same people get fooled by my friend who would tear up the card (eyes tightly closed, head facing the opposite direction), and drop the pieces in the spectator's hands to go flush down the toilet, then take all the time he needed to read the word on the stolen piece while they were in the bathroom.

So that principle, as basic and obvious as it may sound, is what guides me when looking for a new peek. The one you'll read below isn't perfect, but it's one of my new favorites.

The $10 Peek Wallet

A month or so ago, my friend showed up with a new peek wallet. It cost him ten dollars and it was pretty much the dumbest, simplest peek wallet you could imagine. But its simplicity allowed me to come up with what I found to be a very disarming handling for it. 

The wallet comes with The Ultimate Networking Tool. I do not have a clue of what the Ultimate Networking Tool is, but I do know that the package includes this wallet and it's 10 bucks total. What do you have to lose?

I should mention that it's not an actual wallet. Like it doesn't hold cash. It's meant to hold business cards. But it's not unlike the type of wallet I do often use in my everyday life which is designed to hold a few credit cards (I just keep my cash in pocket).

My Handling

You should have your license in the peek area and a couple credit cards and a business card in the wallet.

You take the business card out of your wallet and have your friend write whatever you plan to reveal on it. You're turned away throughout this. When she's done you turn back to her and say, "Hold it between... actually... hand it to me...." And you take the card and put it in the wallet (sliding it under your license and leaving a couple millimeters hanging out so it can be removed easily). 

Justifying the Wallet
People are always looking for a justification for putting the card back into the wallet. I don't know that anyone has found a good reason for this. So instead of giving a rationale (which might come off as bullshitty), you're going to imply one. And since you're not actually stating it outright, there's nothing for your audience to push back against. They're not going to call you out on a rationale that they themselves have concocted in their mind. 

The implication you make is that you were first just going to ask them to hold the card between their hands, then you "decide" to put it in the wallet as something of an extra barrier. You then have her put the wallet between her hands. And then you place your hands on either side of hers. The wallet is now just one of many layers of protection between you and the card. 

What makes this so disarming is that you're handing the wallet in the "peekable" state to your spectator immediately after you put the card in. And getting the peek as you do so. In action this looks like this (except placed onto the spectator's hand, and not your own):

The card is in the wallet, the wallet is between her hands, her hands are between yours. At this point you will act as if you're receiving/reading part of the information. So if she wrote down a name you'll be able to guess the gender or the first initial. And if it's a number you might be able to say how many digits and if it's even or odd. Then you act like you're stumped, that the information isn't coming through as clear as you'd like, and you say something like, "Can you?... actually, no... I don't want to see it." At this point you are going to have your spectator clean up for you. Walk across the room and turn your back to your friend. "Can you open the wallet and pull out the card? Toss the wallet aside, we don't need it anymore." Now you have your friend crumple up the card and hold it in a fist or sit on it or put it in her bra or go outside and bury it. Whatever you want. The point is that the effect ends with the wallet out of play and the card in a completely unreadable position and that's when you do the bulk of the effect.

But Andy, you can't put a peek wallet in the spectator's hands and have them handle it and remove the card.

Sure you can. This handling puts very little heat on the wallet and the likelihood of something going wrong is greatly diminished by the choreography of the effect. Consider:

  • There is an implied justification for the wallet.

  • It's immediately placed in the spectator's hands once the card is in there. And then it's sandwiched between her hands, meaning there isn't time for her to fiddle around with it.

  • People are less likely to suspect an object that you've placed in their hands.

  • The wallet is only not sandwiched in her hands once she's given the task of opening it and removing the card. Most spectators are more engaged in following your directions than screwing around at that point.

  • The main part of the trick is done after the card is removed from the wallet. And after the card is removed, the wallet is completely examinable. So the only time they can bust you is before the heart of the trick happens, when their guard isn't up as much.

You can test the safety of this without actually doing the trick. Take a bifold wallet and ask your friend to watch you put a card in one of the slots. Then have them hold the wallet between their hands. Then ask them to open the wallet and remove the card. At no point will they turn the wallet over. It doesn't aid in any of those actions. 

And in a worst case scenario, where for some reason they start looking the wallet over rather than opening it and removing the card when you tell them to, here is what you do.

Them: Hey! You can see the card through here...

You: [turning around] What's that? Whoa, hey! Don't show it to me, you dingbat! Just put it in a different slot or something or fold it up and put it in your pocket.

Unlike most peek wallets that have some features that are clearly not normal, with this wallet you're just taking advantage of a fairly standard wallet construction. So even when the card is in peek position, it's not really unnatural and you can easily pass it off as just a mistake if it was noticed. Because the peek itself is so smooth and motivated it draws no attention to itself. The brief moment where you are holding the wallet with the card in it isn't memorable enough for them to zero in on as being the moment where you did what you needed to do.

Again, I don't know what makes this the "Ultimate Networking Tool." (It really should be called the Conjurer's Ultimate Networking Tool -- you know, so people will know it's for magicians. No other reason. None at all.) But at this point in time it is the only peek wallet I have in rotation and it allows an innocent handling that many of the $100 wallets don't.