MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Twenty-Three - Andeen

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In going back and re-reading my MCJ posts for the first time in ten years there were a few posts that I remembered very well, and then a bunch that I had a vague recollection of writing, and a few that I didn't even remember thinking of, much less writing. Of the last group, what follows is my favorite. I'm surprised I don't remember writing it because it's super complicated. I think I had been reading a lot of magic history at the time and inspired by Houdini, Hardeen, and other old magic rivalries, I introduced my brother, Andeen to the site. This is a needlessly complex series of posts that went on over multiple days over four different blogs. (Three of which still exist so I can link you to those posts directly.) 

This was pretty much the last thing I posted on the Magic Circle Jerk. A few days later all the posts would disappear and I would follow suit for the next ten years.

Screen Shot 2015-12-21 at 2.56.25 PM.png

Monday, November 14, 2005

Curious 

I received an interesting telegram from my brother yesterday.

Arriving home tomorrow [stop] Ship comes in at 2:00 [stop] Looking forward to seeing you [stop] Perhaps we might catch a New York Knickerbockers match [stop] Big plans [stop] Can't wait to discuss them with you [stop] Love, your brother [stop]

Yes, it seems my brother is returning from Europe tomorrow after a couple of years as that continent's most successful magic blogger. I'm actually not quite sure why he is returning and I am curious what his intentions might be. 

Of course I'm very happy to be seeing my brother again after all this time away, I'm just concerned about what these "big plans" might entail seeing as how he was doing so well for himself in Europe. Well, we shall see. I'll keep you updated.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Consarned It! 

I should have known my brother was up to something when I received his telegram yesterday. He has always been very jealous of me and the fame I've garnered with my magic blog. I was even kind enough to share with him some of my trade secrets as long as he did his blogging overseas and didn't infringe on my magic blogging here. 

Was that good enough for the old boy? Not by a long shot. 

My brother Andeen has now set up a magic blog here in the States. 

I'm just glad my dear departed mother isn't here to see this now.

Andeen, you haven't heard the last from me!

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

You Fucking Assholes 

I've been writing this site for two fucking years and my brother's site is up for one goddamn day and a few of you dicklickers are so quick to abandon this site in favor of my brother's? I saw your comments there. I know it's only a few people, but what's that old saying, "For every one rat you see there are fifty you don't see"? 

And don't think I don't totally recognize who some of you are. It's funny how you can be so buddy-buddy with me over e-mail these past two years, but then as soon as the "hot new thing" comes around -POOF- you're gone. Whatever happened to loyalty? So he has one hilariously well-written post. Is that all it takes?

Well, fuck the whole lot of you, I don't need you.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Boycott Magical Circular Jerkular 

It has come to my attention that my brother is now stealing my jokes. For instance, his recent joke about Albert Goshman being a particularly tidy masturbator because he has sponge balls is a joke that I have been finely honing in my workshop for 18 months now. Apparently Andeen saw this when he visited for dinner last Easter and now he has appropriated it for himself.

If that's the type of ethics you're looking for in the magic blog you read, then by all means, continue to enjoy my brother's abomination of a site. However if you'd like a higher standard in magic blogs then I urge you to boycott the Magical Circular Jerkular and any companies that do business with him. Including:

The Queen Mary 2 (the ship he came over on)
Illusion Ministry
Darkest Africa
Albert Goshman
Johnny Brilliant-pants brand men's slacks
Blogger.com

Eventually our faux rivalry was sniffed out by a third fake blog, The Magic Blog Watchdog.

And, if this hadn't gotten dumb enough, that blogger was now being confronted by his brother on The Magic Blog Watchdog Watcher.

MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Twenty-Two - The Least Interesting Thread

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Some people wonder if I'm happy that the Magic Cafe is much less relevant in the magic world. The answer is no. I preferred the time before facebook, instagram, twitter and snapchat where the Cafe was the place people would go to discuss magic. It kept all the morons in one place and it made Steve Brooks feel important. Guys, he had fucking Derren Brown as a special guest on the Cafe back in the day. Now he might as well have the cut-out of the kid in the Forgetful Freddie routine as a special guest. He would have as many interesting things to say and would be more popular than the people he's had in there recently.

No, I'm not happy that everyone has bolted the Cafe for greener pastures. Yes, I saw it coming 12 years ago and tried to warn Steve. And yes, instead of correcting people's grammar or getting his prodigious panties in a bunch about someone using the phrase "ding-dong," he should have been modifying his forum to allow people to more freely exchange ideas, allowing people to upvote content that was helpful, intelligent, or funny and downvote trolls, idiots, and inappropriate content to oblivion. If he had, he would have had a modern message board that could have been useful. Instead he has that pile of shit he has now.

And more importantly, because no one gives a shit about his site anymore, it's much less interesting for me to do fun things like completely take it over as I did in September of 2005 with my Least Interesting Thread contest.

Monday, September 12, 2005

New Contest

Alright, this contest is the balls. I'm really happy with it.

First, here's what you can win: Any book, DVD, or effect. (Be reasonable and try and pick something under $50.)

How do you win? Simple enough, you just start the least interesting thread on the Magic Café 

Here's how it works (Read this part carefully):

1. You start a thread at the Café that you feel will get the fewest views and the fewest replies.
2. You "register" that thread with me by sending me an e-mail with your username and a link to the thread. 

-- You must do steps one and two by Wednesday night at midnight, my time (New York City).

3. At some point on Sunday I will calculate the score for each entered thread. The score for each thread is calculated as: 

The number of views + (The number of replies squared) = Total score

4. The thread with the lowest score is the least interesting thread and is the winner.

Tips:

Play Offensively: Post in sections of the Café that not many people visit (You can post in any part of the Café except the sections that require a minimum number of posts to visit). Post really boring thread titles like, "Anybody know any good magic stores in Lidsville, Nebraska?" (Don't actually use that example, or anything too similar though.)

Play Defensively: You can try and sabotage other people's entries. If you see a thread that looks like someone trying to have the least interesting thread, start replying to it, hence raising (worsening) their score. Try to create drama in other people's boring threads which will make them interesting and cause other people to view and post in those threads.

So you may want to post uninteresting threads in unread parts of the Café; but that might draw too much attention to them, so you may want to post average threads in sections of the Café that have some readers and hope to fly under the radar. I don't know what the right strategy will be.

You can start and register as many threads with me as you want. My hope is that we'll flood the Café with really boring and idiotic threads. My suspicion is that this will happen but you won't be able to tell the difference.

Have fun.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Dear Jesus 

Dear Jesus,

Thanks for inspiring me to come up with such an awesome contest. This is the most fun I've had with a contest since this site began. This is even better than the Magic Café fan fiction contest which was pretty sweet.

Love,
Andy

PS- Okay everyone, you have until Midnight EST tonight to post your thread(s), and you should register them with me by sometime tomorrow at the latest. And as I mentioned yesterday, even if you're not participating I suggest heading to the Cafe and seeing if you can determine which threads are entries in this contest. There's some fun stuff going on there.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

The Time for Creating New Contest Threads Is Over 

If you created a thread before midnight last night, you can still register it with me anytime today.

There are literally hundreds of posts related to this contest on the Cafe right now. Some are obvious, some aren't so obvious. Some threads seem like obvious entries in this contest, but they're not. In fact, some threads are getting deleted that had nothing to do with this contest. This is exactly what I hoped to achieve. The Cafe staff can't tell the difference between someone trying to sound uninteresting and one of their normal member's postings. This is great.

Anyway, you have until Sunday to raise other people's scores, I'll announce a winner on Monday.

Monday, September 19, 2005

The Least Interesting Thread Winner 

Camcorder Case from Target(or Target.com online) 

Hey, I just came back from my local target and wanted to share this with you guys: 

[Link to camcorder case.]

If you look it is kinda like other close-up cases offered by magic dealers but this one has some good features like: 

-Inside is padded for your props
-There is a divider in main compartment
-Mesh pocket in lid can carry decks, ropes, ect

Also the shoulder strap is nice if you carry other cases with you in your hands. 

Good luck with this, and tell me how you like it!

That, friends, was the winner of the Most Boring Thread competition. It had the low score of 120 (or so, I don't have the details with me as I write this post). This post was made by Daegs, who also had the second lowest scoring thread Falling Cup by Robert Campbell(Hocus-Pocus).

There were certainly other posts that were probably technically more boring than this post, but there's a reason why Daegs won. I encouraged participants to sabotage each other's threads by posting responses to threads that they figured were part of the contest. That seemed like a good strategy to me when I mentioned it, but the way it played out is that once people found out you were sabotaging their threads, they found the thread you had posted and started sabotaging it. So Daegs decision to fly under the radar and not attempt to raise other people's scores is what allowed him to go unnoticed. 

He did two other things that threw people off his trail too: 

1) He encouraged people to comment on his post, "Good luck with this, and tell me how you like it!"
2) He replied to his own post.(A strategy, I believe only one or two other players used.)

Last night, at my direction, Daegs posted the following message on that thread to verify that he was the one I was communicating with via e-mail.

Ok, hot tip -- I just saw an almost identical box at
Walmart and it was 3 dollars cheaper. 

[Link to case.]

It is a different color, but they only want $5 for shipping instead of $8 at Target, saving you 10 dollars and also giving you a black box!!! 

Thank god for walmart!!!! 

Something I forgot to mention, but I also like that it has a key. It's very important to keep magic secrets safe.

And there you have it. The most boring thread at the Café. I'm going to save the rest of the stories for a post-mortem of this contest later in the week. I want to thank the people who have said I could disclose their username and I'm hoping to hear from some more of you as well. If anyone wants to write up a report of their experience with the contest, I'll post it later this week.

Oh, Daegs asked that I donate the $50 prize to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund, which I have done. I'd like to think that the people who read this site regularly would have faith in me to do this, but I know that the Steve Brooks and Glenn Bishops of the world would claim that I never made the donation, so here is a screenshot of my computer containing part of the online receipt.

[2015: The screenshot has been lost to time.]

One last point (until my final post on this subject), there were 278 threads started on the Cafe between September 12th and the 14th. Just over half of these were entries in this competition. In e-mails to me, more threads were misidentified as being part of this contest than were accurately determined to be participants.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

The Least Interesting Thread Post-Contest Wrap-Up 

This isn't as complete as it could be, but I just don't have the time to write up about every thing that went on during the contest so some of my favorite stories and posts are going to be left out. I'll just have to save them for the MCJ book that's coming out which is going to chronicle the life of this site from behind the scenes including full text of all the legal threats and hate-mail that I've received over the last two years. I'm kidding, there is no book. I just said that to freak some people out.

So here then, are some of my own personal highlights of The Least Interesting Thread contest.

The first submission and the first thread to be deleted:

Mattisdx's thread with a title that was something like: Ungimmicked handcuffs for sale, $599.99

It wouldn't have counted anyway because it was in a restricted section.

Words used to describe this contest in e-mails to me (and how many times they were used) 

Great (12), pure genius (3), a blast, brilliant (8), glorious, inspired, ingenious(3), awesome, the best, fantastic, sweet, killer, diabolical

A few of the threads people thought were in the contest, but weren't:

Sleepless In Seattle [2015: This one ended up getting deleted.]

Sam Drawse

Neil Patrick Harris aka Doogie Howser

Things that I liked the best about the contest.

That people who were in on it and people who weren't in on it were interacting in the same threads and the people who weren't in on it didn't seem to notice that anything was awry.

That threads were started and conversations were had about non-existent people and places.

That a community of saboteurs arose.

Some of my favorite posts because they were so dumb: 

Hi, 
I've just been thinking, why not have the number of posts to join the banquet room set at 52 instead of 50, like a deck of cards. 
Just a thought. 

David
__________________________

I'm looking for egg bag effects that would be considered magician foolers. I'm new to egg bag effects, so another criterion would be that it not be too difficult - too technical. 
Not looking for reputation makers, but magician foolers. 
Thanks,
__________________________

The other day, I was walking around in the park when a family asked me to take their picture. I did, and we got to talking, and they found out I'm a magician. I had a deck of cards on me, and ended up giving them an impromptu show. They liked it so much, they bought me lunch at the concession stand. That was a tasty tip!

(Timmy had a lot of dumb posts. This is my favorite of his.)

The Jordan Malfreed Saga

A guy going by the username JordanMalfreed had a pretty good strategy. 

First, he made this post in the "Oldies...but goodies" section of the Cafe which was a favorite section for people in this contest. (You'll notice that this post has the only overt reference to the contest during the contest by Tyler Wilson.)

He then went and posted messages on about 50 other threads in the Oldies…but goodies section which pushed his thread off the first page. Very clever. But the Café doesn't like it when you start posting a lot, they get suspicious. So they deleted a most of his posts, whether they had reason to or not. I don't know if they knew exactly what was going on, but poor Jordan's strategy was blown.

That led to Jordan's next entry in the contest.

You can read the PMs between Jordan and the "Chief of Staff" Dave Scribner here.

(I think) This is the only thread in the contest that seemed so legit that it didn't get any replies. 

I read somewhere in an old issue of Genii Magazine that there is an early version of the Zombie Ball done by Howard Thurston, in which the gimmick was constructed so that it could be performed using a partly transparent foulard. I don't care so much for the info on the prop or the maker so much as actually possessing it. If anyone owns the gimmick, I am willing to buy it for a high price. Please email me at majickman152@earthlink.net if you have such a gimmick as soon as possible. Thank you.

[That thread has been delete too.]

Things people wrote to me in e-mail that made me happy:

I'm a simple man. I'm happy when other people are having a good time so I was very happy to receive a lot of e-mails from people saying how much they were enjoying themselves. Here are some of the things that it pleased me to hear during the course of the contest...

"Love the blog, the laughs I've had looking for entries to the latest contest on the cafe made the hours at work fly by."

"Pete Biro is merrily joining in with spoof threads as if they're genuine ... the sad old fool ... or maybe he's one of your agents ... only you know!!!!"

"Congrats on the funniest contest ever. I am laughing so hard from the posts I'm crying."

"What I found most fascinating of all was that I would browse through and find threads which were obviously and blatantly competition entries yet when I looked they were actually started sometime before the competition began, like one in the "thats funny" forum about pulling a worm out of the ground."

Clever idea

Before the winner actually went ahead and did donate his winnings to the Hurricane Katrina fund, I received this idea in an e-mail…

I thought of a way to win the competition, I was going to write a post `Magic Circle Jerk competition, don't read this and I'll donate the $50 to Katrina fund'.

I thought that was a pretty good idea, but it probably wouldn't have worked.

My personal favorite saboteur

Asper [2015: That link no longer works as Asper, predictably, got the boot.]

There were a lot of people who made me laugh with their follow-up posts to obvious contest entries, but Asper's stuff was really brilliant.

The Most Popular Least Popluar Thread

Of the threads that were registered for the contest, the one that got the highest score (the most popular one) was this idiotic idea by Jon Townsend:

This is to folks who have silver shifters and the copenetro item as well. 

I like that trick. A lot. Late last night it hit me that it might be possible to make the thing MORE mysterious if the coins could appear SILENTLY. So before plunking down a hundred dollars just to get started I figured to ask here if someone has gotten the thing to work with their silver shifter? I have no problem doing a switch our AFTER the appearances, and might even go for a mirror glass in the method somewhere, BUT I still NEED the coins to appear in SILENCE. 

To those who have the items, do you think the thing would work with silver shifters? I thought about asking for a clear latex glass, but figured that would be a long shot. 

Thanks in advance.

An interesting experiment

This is a great experiment because it has a control built into it. Here's the exact same thread posted twice. 

First, when the contest wasn't going on.

One reply, not much help.

Then, when the contest was going on.

A whole bunch of replies, still not much help.

Why hasn't Brooks deleted the winning thread?

There are two possibilities here.

1. He's using it as bait to bring out MCJ fans and then ban them all at once. 

2. Maybe he realizes that this contest was ultimately harmless and fun and he's not that mad about it. There was a time, when there were only a couple magic blogs, that any reference to a blog on the Cafe would get deleted. I don't know that they can keep up that tactic anymore. So maybe he decided that he's got to pick his battles and not get worked up over every little thing. I hope that's the case. He might think that by not responding to the contest and not banning people or deleting posts that he will be taking ammunition away from me. I don't need ammunition. This site will thrive with or without Brooks acting like a douchebag.

MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Twenty-One - The Time L&L Publishing Offered a Michael Ammar Poster as an Incentive

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In 2004, Volumes 7, 8, and 9 of the Easy To Master Card Miracles series by Michael Ammar were released. If you were on the fence about getting these, L&L Publishing knew exactly what would push you over the edge... a poster of Michael Ammar! Who wouldn't want that? Clearly there's a proud lineage of posters that Ammar's would fit in with perfectly.

Friday, May 07, 2004

Difficult to Fathom 

Easy to Master Card Miracles volumes 7-9 have been released by L and L Publishing. People have a lot of issues with these things. Some say that Ammar should have to get permission from the person, or the estate of the person, who created any given effect before including it on these tapes (I agree). Some say that these tapes compile too much good information in one place and that beginners should have to wade through the shit, just as they had to, in order to find good tricks (I disagree)

But to me, the bigger, more fascinating issue is the fact that L and L is giving away a Michael Ammar poster to people who buy the set from them . And really, when you think about it, what room wouldn't be improved by a poster of Michael Ammar's big mug hanging on the wall? Wait...wait, I am really thinking about it. Hmmm, you know, I guess I don't think any room could use an Ammar poster. Well, maybe like a Nazi era gas chamber could. There it might be amusingly incongruous and horrifying enough to allow you to more openly embrace your oncoming death.

Certainly don't hang this poster in any room you're hoping to have sex in. If a girl is prepared to spread her legs for you in the same room as a Michael Ammar poster, then there is a high probability she is retarded. Or maybe blind. But even if she is blind, are you going to tell me that you can be balls-deep, banging away at some blind chick and look up and see a grinning Ammar and still keep your erection? You'd have to be some kind of superman. That poster would drive you slowly insane. You'd be sitting on the edge of the bed, hair all fucked-up, haven't washed in days, glazed-over eyes staring at the poster; and you're saying to your girl, "We need to fuck. The Ammar poster is telling me. He says I need to tap that ass. He's saying 'Tap it! Tap it!'" No he's not. He's saying, "Topit. Topit." Regardless, that poster would get in your brain, man, YOUR BRAIN!

Even if you don't have a girlfriend that poster would fuck you up. He may have some Easy to Master Card Miracles, but frankly, I think it would be a Miracle if you find it Easy to Masturbate in the presence of that gleaming melon of his.

This is nothing against Michael Ammar, he seems like a good guy with an honest desire to make magic better. I mean, I love the work of Nicholson Baker, Elliott Smith, and Descartes , but I don't want any of their faces looking down on me, especially if I'm about to shoot my load all over some girl's sloppy chin. 

And while I have no real personal issue with Ammar, he is a bit of a bookish-looking goober, so I don't see how he ended up with such a fox for a wife. I'm guessing that the poster of Michael isn't the only thing in the Ammar household that's well-hung. 

MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Twenty - Zagat

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This was, I believe, my first time putting the performances of people who are well-known in the magic world, in front of people to whom they are pretty much completely unknown, i.e. the rest of the world. This is something I would do a dozen or so more times in the intervening years in a more structured way (for a real cross-section of people rather than just for my friends), and it was always very interesting to hear how awful they thought some of the big names in magic were. As I was packing up for my move I found a whole bunch of notes from other focus-groups where some of these performances were shown, I may end up posting them in the future.

I think Eugene Burger gets a bit of a raw deal here. I'm sure in real life he comes off as very avuncular and charming, but perhaps out of context, on video, his sing-songy, slow delivery can come across as condescending. Or maybe I just feel that way because I want to like him (which is what this whole enterprise was meant to combat -- our tendency to assume a creator we like is a good performer). Who knows. Anyway, here, from 2005, is the first installment of Zagat Magic Reviews.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Zagat Magician Reviews 

Is everyone familiar with Zagat? I assume so, but that assumption is just based on the fact that everyone in NYC is familiar with these books, but in case that doesn't hold true for the rest of the world, here's a brief explanation. Zagat does books that are reviews/guides to local restaurants, bars, stores, etc. But the reviews are created based on surveys that are conducted so the reviews contain quotes gathered from those surveys. 

For example, here's the listing for Grimaldi's Pizza:

"Pizza perfection" perseveres at this Brooklyn Heights "slice of heaven" (again voted No. 1 pizzeria in this Survey), where they've "nailed down the science" of coal-oven pies; sure, there may be "long lines", but it "doesn't get more authentic than this."

See? It's a review made up of quotes that were gathered via their survey. Quotes that are, in some way, representative of the consensus of that survey. (There is also a numerical rating portion of the survey, but we won't concern ourselves with that.)

Where am I going with this? Well, about a month ago I was watching Derren Brown's Russian Roulette special with a friend of mine. At the climax of the show, where Derren is purportedly playing Russian Roulette with a real gun on live tv, (well, on the night it originally aired it was live, not on the night we were watching it) my friend turned to me and said, "This is terrifying." Now, my friend has zero interest in magic, but she was really enthralled with the whole show and I was happy that she enjoyed it so much, and I was impressed that Derren was able to evoke that type of reaction because I think it's a difficult thing to do. When David Copperfield suspended himself over that pit of fire or whatever he called it and escaped from a straight-jacket, I think some people were probably interested, but I doubt many people were actually frightened for him. (Probably because the whole thing was too "show-biz." Note to performers: If you want people to really believe you're putting your life on the line, tone down the theatrics. Someone in a real life and death situation would have a hard time remembering the choreography to whatever soft-rock, Peter Gabriel, bullshit they're supposed to be dancing to.)

So anyway, after hearing my friend's comments I began to get interested in how other regular people (non-magicians) would view some magicians that you and I might be very familiar with, but who they have probably never even heard of.

So over the course of the next few weeks I showed some performances of a few different magicians to some friends of mine. I didn't make them sit through a whole DVD I just showed them a couple effects for each performer. It was interesting (and somewhat surprising) and I plan on doing some more of these. 

Enough of this ridiculously long prelude…

Zagat Magic Reviews

David Regal:

All found him "enjoyable." Some said he was "sweet." One said he was "the best." Meaning, he does the best magic? "No, he seems the most normal." Although watching a couple of effects on his DVDs left some wondering, "Who are these people," (referring to L&L's audience).

Darwin Ortiz:

Reviews were widely mixed for this magician. Well many believed he "seems to know what he's doing." And one found him to be "incredible," a female said he was "boring." When I told her she was living up to the stereotype of women not liking card tricks she said that Ortiz was "living up to the stereotype of magicians being boring."

Eugene Burger:

While most people found the magic to be "fine," and one considered him "charmingly effeminate," the overwhelming opinion was that he was "ridiculously condescending." One viewer commented, "I know I'm not retarded, but he made me feel like maybe I am retarded."

MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Nineteen - Squinchy

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This may be the quintessential interaction between my Magic Circle Jerk blog and the people I would write about. The way it would work is that I would find something dumb that person had written online, then I would post what they wrote on my site as if I enthusiastically agreed with them, then they would get mad at ME for posting their own dumb ideas on my site. 

Now, this kid was a teenager at the time, and I'm sure he'd be the first to tell us that he was a genuine fucking idiot. I originally just mentioned him in passing on a longer post (that I've edited below), and then he did the moronic thing of going back to the Cafe to talk shit about me. And the Cafe -- as if to prove their ineptness -- went back to edit his post made many weeks before so he looked less like a creep. (Around this point in time I was the most powerful editor on the Cafe. I would end up finding some racist, sexist, or otherwise inappropriate post, link to it on my site months after the post had been made, and immediately the Cafe would try and delete the post as if it had never been there.)

And that's precisely what happened with the story of Kyle The Great, Foo-Ling-Yu, and the Squinchy-Eyed Chinese.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Making the Band(wagon) [UPDATED] 

Steve Brooks doesn't jump on a bandwagon so much as he swings one leg up on to the side of the bandwagon then pays some kids a dollar to push their little hands into his doughy flesh and try and heave his wheezing body up on to the bandwagon, then once he flops up onto the bandwagon somebody on the bandwagon will turn to someone else and say, "Did both axels just break? And what the fuck is that smell?" So yes, Steve Brooks is on the bandwagon, there just wasn't any jumping involved.

If you go to the Café you'll see some new sections under the heading of "The Buffet." Looks like Steve has decided to have some blogs within the Café itself. What a great idea. (That's me challenging the notion that sarcasm doesn't come through in text.) You asked for it, you said, "I want to read blogs but within the shitty structure of a message board. In fact, let's remove the one redeeming aspect of a message board – the free exchange of ideas – by making it so people can't reply to these posts." Well friends, your wish has been granted. I have little to no interest in the people writing these, least of all Brooks himself. The fact that he thought this new section was a good idea shows exactly how out of touch he is. If you have something worthwhile to write why can't you just put it in the section that it's relevant to? Were people really clamoring for a separate section where Bill Palmer can lecture us about shit? No. Nobody was. Oh, who am I kidding, we're all very much looking forward to reading Brooks and Company's completely uncandid, sponsor-approved messages.

Who knows, maybe I will check in frequently. I found a lot of great stuff on the Café today because I haven't been there in a while.

[...] in the section that I call "Boring Stories and Lies" there is this great story and great line (spelling and punctuation come courtesy of the original poster and, I can only assume, the grammar hosts at the Café.)

"I was doing a magic show at a chinese restaraunt. Now of course chinese people work there. So I am performing and I have this one trick where I use a box and a huge dice which dissappears in the box and reappears somewhere else. The patter goes something like this: 

'This trick is wonderful and old. As a matter of fact it was taught to me by the ancient chinese magician Foo-Ling-Yu (a pun Foo-Ling-Yu=Fooling you in case you did not get that).'

and from this point on I usually present the whole trick with a bad chinese accent. Well... It just so happens that I had forgotton that I was in a chinese restaraunt. I begin the trick and I get to Foo-Ling-Yu... Suddenly it dawns on me. OH CRAP I am in a chinese restaraunt full of chinese people!!! I start looking around and I felt like horizontal squinchy eyes were burning through me."

Hahahaha. Man, those chinks and their horizontal squinchy eyes, I hear you. That reminds of this time I was performing at a soul-food restaurant and I was doing my patter for a sandwich effect where the two black jacks capture the queen of diamonds and I say, "We gotta lynch the niggers for messing with our women!" Man, I could almost feel the grease from their jheri curl as their heads whipped around toward me. I felt like I was being poked and prodded by their wide noses and huge cocks. Fortunately I was able to break the tension by saying, "Oh don't worry about it, it's a redheaded girl which probably means she's Irish and drunk. Get the garden-shears and filet this cunt."

[...]

[UPDATE 8/1/2005: The "squinchy eyes" thread above has been cleaned up by one of the Cafe's staff members and that part of it has been deleted. Way to stay on top of things Magic Cafe, you cleaned it up a mere 6 weeks after the post was made. You're doing a real bang-up job there. You're a beacon of decency. Might as well put me on staff, I find all the good stuff anyway. There's been a spike of action on that thread since my post yesterday and the original poster is now having to defend himself. Good. If you visit his website you'll see that he needs some serious self-examination anyway. 

The thread starter wrote me an e-mail saying "Ah so, me so sorry. Me love you long time." No, I'm kidding. He did write me an e-mail asking me to remove this post because his "internet reputation among magicians is at stake." The thing is, I don't care about my internet reputation among magicians, so I sure as shit don't care about his. It's not my job to protect people from stuff they wrote. And for what it's worth, I don't even have the guy's name on my site so it's not like it will show up in a search.

I'm not Chinese, as far as you Occidentals know, but I can see someone being offended by his post. Not because it's not true that, in general, Europeans have eyes that appear more round than a Chinese person's. But maybe they might feel it would be nice if they weren't defined by something so fucking inconsequential as their "squinchy eyes." Squinchy? It would be like if I talked about a conversation I had with the guy who started that thread and said, "His eyes bore at me out of that zit-riddled face." See how that might be offensive?

And I'll state here that I don't think he is a racist or a bigot, I just think he's an idiot and he doesn't think about what he writes or the way he thinks and how that might be offensive to someone. Well, now is his chance to think about it.]

[2015 - And that's where things stood for a little while until he decided to go back to that thread and go off on me. He could have left things like this, with no mention of his name anywhere, instead he wanted to keep things going. So I helped him out by giving his apology a larger audience and attached his username to it so no one would miss it.]

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Kyle the Great Apologizes 

This is one of those subjects that I never thought I'd be making multiple posts on and I'd be more than happy to drop if the discussion wasn't being continued outside of this site.

Kyle the Great made a post in that same thread on the Café and I don't know how long it will stay up because it mentions me, but he wanted to make some points, so I'll reiterate them here.

1. He is sorry.
2. He needs support in taking down MCJ.
3. I (meaning me) have a small penis and no decency.

Kyle is very upset with me. He thinks I'm trying to take him down and ruin his reputation. I find this strange considering the only value judgment I've ever made about him is that I think he is probably not a racist and a bigot.

This all springs from me publishing Kyle's own words and then relating a similarly amusing anecdote that happened to myself. That seems a relatively benign way of trying to destroy someone's career. "Oh heavens, he published my own words, completely in context, and now I'm catching shit for them!" Accountability for your own words sucks.

Kyle claims to be getting hate messages from people based on this issue. I never want anyone to get involved in any of the disagreements that this site might generate. I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't need help and I don't need back-up. However, if someone is motivated to get involved based on the issue itself (and not my relationship to it) then I can't begrudge someone their right to continue on their own to pursue this issue.

Kyle is now on the Café over-apologizing about this. That's not a bad tactic. Now that the offensive parts of his post have been deleted it makes it look more like people are being overly-sensitive to the issue (which perhaps they are). I think he should just let it drop. I'd be happy to.

[That's pretty much where things ended, until hurricane Katrina struck and Kyle graced us with this bit of wisdom...]

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Apologies to Kyle the Great 

You all remember a while ago when we had the incident with Kyle the Great and his insensitivity towards Asian people. At that time I really got on Kyle's case and had a little fun at his expense. I feel bad about that now because I think Kyle might actually be retarded.

This comes from a recent post of his on the Cafe about Hurricane Katrina:

"This is a rough and dangerous situation we are in. Some people think it is the end of the world...I do not think so...I believe this is just God's way of saying "slow down and think for a second!". You notice that the area (new orleans) mostly knocked out is full of casinos and home of the mardi gra.[sic] Some have nicknamed it 'Baby Vegas'. I am beginning to believe that God hit it on purpose as a sign...similar to Soddom [sic]and Gamora [sic]. But this is just some things I have been thinking about...maybe [sic] or may not be true... "

Kyle, nobody thinks it's the end of the worlds except inbred fundamentalist idiots. If god wanted to send a message, why didn't he have a hurricane knock out Vegas? That would have been a miracle. You're such a total fucking dork. I envy the kids who you go to school with who get to make fun of you every day. So god wanted to send a message that Mardi Gras is evil so he sent a hurricane that killed and displaced a bunch of people who live in the same state or a neighboring state? Way to go, God! Kyle, it's interesting that you choose to believe in a god who is a complete bumbling fucking idiot. This, I think, is probably another instance where it's not so much about god making us in his image, but you making him in yours.

[2015 - If you miss Kyle's brand of dull comedy based on broad stereotypes, you can catch him now as the Hillbilly Hypnotist.]

MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Eighteen - Psychic Petting Zoo

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The title of the post below is "A Bad Idea." Reading back on it now, I don't think the idea is "bad," it just in its nascent stages. In fact, when I'm done writing the book next year, my next "big" magic project is likely going to be writing a parlor/theatrical show. And even though it wouldn't really incorporate the following bit, it would take the basic premise (of an outside story that affects the performance) and apply it to the entire show. We'll see how that goes. Until then...

Monday, June 20, 2005

A Bad Idea 

Magic, at least in my lifetime, has always been a kind light entertainment (or entertainment-lite, if you prefer). Even when it deals with darker themes nobody really seems to take it all that seriously. You can be plunging swords through your assistant's body and people will still think, "The kids have got to see this." Some people, in an attempt to make their magic performances darker, and hopefully more significant, will perform "bizarre" magic. Bizarre magic seems to mean dressing like a douchebag and mentioning Jack the Ripper a lot, or something. 

Anyway, a lot of people who have seen Batman Begins have told me how much they enjoyed it because it was so "dark." I don't know what the hell they're talking about because Batman Begins isn't dark, it's just not intentionally goofy like some of the other Batman movies were. Big deal. Just because you're not campy doesn't mean your dark, in fact it could very well mean that you're kind of boring (as I thought much of Batman Begins was, but that's another blog).

So, I was thinking about a truly, truly dark presentation of magic and I came up with an idea that is probably a little contrived and artistically undoable, but I think it's an interesting thing to consider. I was thinking of what I've read about Richiardi's performance of sawing a woman in two, where he would cut into his daughter, without a box, and blood would spew everywhere and there was no implication that what you're seeing was a trick. And then I came across a passage in Chuck Palahniuk's new book "Haunted" which I'll reproduce at the end of this post. And those two things commingled to produce this idea…

You will need one stooge.

The magician is on stage. Actually, if it makes a difference to you it's a mentalist not a magician. The mentalist states that for his final effect he is going to perform a demonstration of psychometry. Five spectators are chosen in a seemingly random fashion and each is given a small drawstring cloth bag into which they are asked to put some personal object that they have with them (lipstick, comb, keychain, whatever). These bags are gathered up and given to the mentalist. 

One by one the bags are opened and the mentalist gives a reading of the person based on the item and then correctly announces who the item belongs to. "I get a sense that there are many people living in a small house. There's a great deal of noise and celebration…or, let's see… it looks like maybe a drunken celebration, but it's not a special occasion. It doesn't look like anybody actually works in this place; they all look very drunk and lazy." He says, while handing the sombrero back to its rightful owner. 

I'm kidding, calm down.

So we get to the fourth bag and the mentalist takes out a pair of sunglasses. "I'm getting a very powerful image here of a young girl and it looks like she's maybe camping or something."

At this point a man in the audience gets up and shuffles out of the aisle he's in and leaves the theater while the mentalist continues.

"Now, these are men's sunglasses so I'm guessing that it's your daughter or perhaps a niece…actually, it doesn't seem like a familial relationship but there is certainly a unique bond between you both. This is in the woods somewhere, I don't know if it has anything to do with camping, but it's definitely in the woods and it's a beautiful day. Is there maybe an M in her name? I can't see her face because she's walking in front of me but I'd guess she's maybe 6 or 7. This is great because I don't often get such a vivid image. It looks like it's sometime in autumn because I can see leaves over the ground. And now the sun is going behind the clouds. I…it looks…okay, she's turning around…."

"She's screaming…"

The mentalist stands there silently for 20 seconds or so, as if watching a movie in the distance, he looks incredibly confused and increasingly disturbed.

He blinks out of his trance.

"No…wait…I mean, whose are these?" He holds up the sunglasses. The crowd is silent. 

A woman says that the man who had been sitting next to her had put them in the bag, but he hurried out after the reading began. 

The mentalist turns and walks in the direction of the wings, he turns again and walks back towards the mic, changes his mind and walks off stage. 

Nothing happens for a couple minutes. Then the assistant comes on stage and says that the show is over for this evening. She gives back the item in the final unopened bag to whoever it belonged to and the crowd exits the theater into the dark night.
_________________________________________________________________

From "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk

Even with the security cameras watching her. Claire treats an antique shop as a psychic petting zoo. A museum where you can touch each exhibit. 

According to Claire, everything ever seen in a mirror is still there. Layered. Everything ever reflected in a Christmas ornament or a silver tray, she says she can still see it. Everything shiny is a psychic photo album or a home movie of the images that occurred around it. 

In an antique store, Claire can fondle objects all afternoon, reading them the way people read books. Looking for the past reflected there. 

"It's a science," the Countess Foresight says. "It's called psychometry." 

Claire will tell you not to pick up a silver-handled carving knife because she can still see the reflection of a murder victim screaming in its blade. She can see the blood on the policeman's glove as he pulls it out of someone's dead chest. Claire can see the darkness of the evidence room. Then a wool-paneled courtroom. A judge in black robes. A long wash in warm, soapy water. Then the police auction. This is all still reflected in the blade. 

The next reflections is right now, you standing here in an antique store ready to pick up the knife and take it home. You just thinking it's pretty. Not knowing its past. 

"Anything pretty," Claire will tell you, "it's only for sale because no one wants it." 

And if no one wants something pretty and polished and old, there's a terrible reason why.

MCJ Advent Calendar - Day Seventeen - Course Correction

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My history of writing this site and my previous one has always been one of push and pull with the readers. I was never interested in getting as many people as possible to read my old blog. Even with this site, where the site's existence is predicated on reader support, I have zero interest in a large number of casual readers. I'm only interested in speaking to the small percentage who feel a connection with this site, being sustained by their support, and fuck everyone else.

For that reason, occasionally I need to make a course correction when the site starts getting too many casual visitors (some might say this whole month is part of such a course correction). On MCJ I would often just take off for a few months at a time. Or I would make a post on a subject like...oh...say, the one below.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Magic Brings Out The Kid In You! 

There are many professions whose practitioners have found magic to be beneficial in some way to enhance their work.

I've heard of pediatricians who use magic to calm their patients and take their mind off of pending procedures. 

Sometimes teachers will use magic in the classroom in order to demonstrate, say, a mathematical theorem or a historical event. Quantum physics (color-changing deck), the branches of government (Professor's Nightmare), and logic (Silver Shifter), can all be easily illustrated through simple magic tricks. "Where did that dollar bill go? I don't know, but I'd guess it was taken by Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of Self-Interest. Turn to page 87 in your textbook...."

And, of course, many priests have taken up performing magic and it has created it's own branch of conjuring known as Gospel Magic. These priests recognize that the altar boys are less likely to go home and say, "Father Don has been gargling my nutsack," if they believe Father Don to be a warlock allied with the powers of Christ. That's an intimidating combination. 

Yet there are many vocations that could utilize magic but don't. As I said there are pediatricians who use magic to entertain their patients, but other doctors seem to have failed to see magic's potential in their field. And of course I'm talking about abortion doctors. 

Here are some great ideas I have for effects for the good-natured abortion doctor who wishes to lighten the mood in his office and with his patients.

1. It's never too late to learn this lesson. See? You can entertain and educate your patients about the dangers of unprotected sex and exponential population growth. Maybe she's in a bad situation this time, but the power of your message will guarantee you don't end up with a repeat customer.

2. Right before the procedure, load some of these and one of these into her vagina. Then start pulling stuff out, and say, "What the heck's going on in here?" Both you and your patient will be having so much fun, the procedure will be over before either of you know it. 

3. I think a needle through balloon with one of these, would be a great effect. (Be sure to pop the balloon at the end for a built-in applause cue.) 

4. You could do that version of ring-flite that David Copperfield made famous, wherein the ring appears on a baby shoe that has been in your back pocket. For realism you should have a bloody stump poking out of the shoe.

5. And of course, what abortion magic routine would be complete without this effect?