The ICUMMT - The Invisible Close-Up Magic Multi-Tool

As first mentioned in the last post, if you want to be rigged up to perform all sorts of magic effects with seemingly nothing on you, then I think this is one of the most versatile set-ups you can use. 

Required items:

• a rubber thumbtip
• a 1/4" neodymium disc magnet
• some type of pull apparatus. For the purpose of this explanation will just assume it's a piece of elastic cord that is safety-pinned up the sleeve of your jacket.
• a strong monofilament (fishing line)
• PK Ring

Glue the magnet inside the tip of the thumbtip (I used this stuff.)

Take about 8 inches of monofilament. Tie one end to the PK ring. Tie the other end to a length of elastic cord which is attached to a safety pin. This gets pinned up the sleeve of your jacket in typical pull fashion. When the elastic is not extended the ring should hang to about the middle of your forearm. 

When I used this regularly it was set up in a particular jacket that worked well for an up-the-sleeve type of pull (stiff, wide sleeves). I just pinned the apparatus inside and would have it on me any time I went out in that jacket. The thumbtip would be in the watch-pocket of my jeans.

Whenever I saw an opportunity to perform something, or, more frequently, when I sensed someone was going to ask me to show them something, I would push up my left sleeve slightly, grab the pk ring that was dangling there, and put it on my left ring finger or pinky finger. I now had half of a universal pull in position. But we'll get to that in a moment.

What can you do with this set-up? A better question is, what can't you do with this set-up. No... wait... that's a much worse question. There's a lot of things you can't do with this. Here are some of the types of effects you are prepared to go into from this set-up.

1. Unlike with Annemann's Invisible Pull, you can use the thumbtip as you would a normal thumbtip. So you're set for any thumbtip magic just by dipping your thumb in your watch pocket.

2. You're set-up for any pk ring based effects.

3. You're set-up for a watch stop from either hand via the pk ring or the magnet in your thumbtip.

4. You have the cleanest ring vanish imaginable. Just take your ring off (let the pull take it), apparently squeeze it, and it dissolves away. 

5. And the main purpose of this set-up is that it allows you to build a universal pull from seemingly empty hands as you perform.

Here's a basic example of that. Let's say you're at a bar and you decide to show someone a quick trick. Slide the ring off your finger and hold it in essentially a left finger palm. Get the thumbtip on your right thumb. This is all done before you "start" the effect. You pick up a bar napkin and let it unfold. You run it through your left-hand in standard thumbtip silk vanish technique and steal the thumbtip away. The magnet in the tip of the thumbtip connects with the pk ring, essentially creating a universal pull. The napkin is stuffed into the left fist and vanishes via the pull. You're completely clean at the end unless your spectator starts undressing you, which is entirely possible when she's so turned on by your napkin vanish.

What I did with this most frequently is I would be standing around outside a bar with some friends while they smoked. I don't smoke but I like being outside. Someone would light a cigarette and I'd ask for a drag. I'd give it a long inhale, then I'd put the lit cigarette in my left fist (it would get snuffed out on the magnet inside the thumbtip) then I'd take the lighter and push it in my fist as well (the thumbtip I used gripped a standard Bic lighter pretty well). Then I'd exhale the smoke and vanish the cigarette and lighter in the puff of smoke. 

Another nice thing about this set-up is that it can vanish things that aren't actually stuffed into the thumbtip. For example, with the ring part of the pull in finger palm and the thumbtip on your right thumb, you can take a napkin or a folded-in-half dollar bill with your right hand and place it in your left, pulling off the thumbtip as you take the item. The bill or napkin get's pinched between the two magnets and can be pulled away from there (In this case the vanish is very jacket-dependent. Make sure you have the sleeve space to accept something like that.)

I never played around with using it as an under-the-coat style pull, although I think you probably could.

I think there's a lot more that could be done with this, actually. I don't use the ICUMMT any more due to a shift in my philosophy on preparedness, but there are definitely times when I wish I had it on me. 

ALL MANUFACTURING RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE JER-- aw, fuck it, I'm never going to take the idea any further. If someone else wants to, knock yourself out.

Magician Foolers Part Two: The Vanishing Vanishing Silk

This is one of the first tricks I ever created. I'm sure I couldn't have been the first to do this effect using this method. I was 13 or so when I came up with it, and I don't consider myself that precocious. 

There was a magic shop in my town. It was a real shit-show of a shop and I'm glad it's gone. But that's another story for another day. 

I had attended my first lecture there and afterwards, while people were eating stale popcorn from a large tin bucket, a few people were encouraging me to join the local branch of one of the magic organizations. I don't remember if it was the IBM or the SAM and the difference is too inconsequential for me to google it. I asked what it entailed to join and I was told that I would need to perform a routine. (I'm sure there were some other requirements too. Pay some dues? Fill out some forms? Kill a runaway?)

I was stymied by the idea of performing a trick for people who were likely to already know the secret. As a beginner magician, that's all magic was for me, the secret. There was one other young guy at the lecture. He was 17 and considered himself a bit of a hot-shot on the magic scene. For the purposes of this blog post we'll call him Jason, because... well... I'm pretty sure that was his name. I pulled him aside and asked him what type of thing I could perform for this group that would impress them. The average age there was "almost dead." What could I, as a kid, perform that would fool these wisened, wizened, wizards?

He told me there was a group of effects that people considered "magician foolers" and he would help me find some. I was enthralled by this notion. Magic that was so incredible and impossible it would fool magicians! And I spent a few weeks trying to come up with my own effect that would qualify as a magician fooler. I eventually stumbled across an idea that utilized some of the rudimentary knowledge that I possessed at that time that I thought might be able to fool some magicians. But certainly, I thought, this effect is not up to the mighty standards of a true "magician fooler" effect. 

At the next gathering I attended at the shop I cornered Jason again. I told him I'd come up with a trick and asked him for any help he could give me with it and if he could show me some other tricks that might fool these magicians. We sat down at a table and he pulled out a deck of cards. A few other guys joined us. Then he performed three "magician foolers" for me. After each trick the crowd around us grew. And all these guys were really enthusiastic about the magic. I was just sitting there, surrounded by heavyset, older, white guys, and I wish I could play that moment back for you, and you could see my expression, and hear my thoughts like I was Kevin Arnold in The Wonder Years. I think it would be funny to see the forced smile on my face, and watch my eyes dart side to side, and  hear the confusion and disbelief in my voice as I thought, What...in...the...fuck...is going on here?

They were the shittiest tricks I'd ever seen. And I looked around at these braying idiots with the dawning horror you would read in a novel where someone realizes, "Oh my god, this is a party for vampires!" or something like that.  Except my realization was, "Oh, these people are all terribly dull. And this hobby that I thought was about dazzling people can be wildly boring." I have since found dozens maybe 100s of magicians I admire and enjoy being around, but in that moment I was just like, "Ugh. These people suck." And I just wanted to be out of there.

"Magician foolers" weren't some ultra-impressive tricks. They were just tricks that were so convoluted and uninteresting that they only appealed to people whose sole criteria for a successful effect was: do I know how this is accomplished? They hadn't raised the bar. They'd lowered it to the point where no one other than magicians would care about the trick. 

Jason passed the deck over to me and suggested I show everyone the trick I was working on. "It's not a card trick," I said, and pulled out the little silk that came with the Klutz Book of Magic. 

It seemed my nerves had gotten the best of me because I was flashing the thumbtip on my right thumb wildly, forgetting to point it at the correct angle to make it invisble. (And yes, I use "thumbtip," one word, to describe the gimmick and differentiate it from your actual thumb tip. This should be standard in magic. Okay? Thanks, bye!!!!)

I stole the thumbtip with my left hand somewhat clumsily, then I poked the silk into my left fist with my right forefinger and then my thumb. I drew my right hand away. It was, perhaps, unnaturally tensed and awkwardly positioned, but at least I remembered to keep the tip of my right thumb pointing at the audience. I opened up my left hand to show the silk had disappeared. 

"I've just started working on it," I began.  

"You need to practice in front of a mirror," someone interrupted. "You flashed the thumbtip multiple times. We can see it," he said and gestured towards my right hand.

"I what?" I said, letting my right hand relax and open. 

There was no silk. There was no thumbtip. My hands were truly empty.  

My "magician fooler" was not a silk vanish, but a thumbtip vanish. And I'd fooled them badly.

I promised to show them how I'd done it at the next meet-up at the shop. And then I just never, ever, ever went back when people were meeting up there. For a second time I'd fooled them with a disappearance.

I still like to use this trick when I'm meeting a group of magicians for the first time. Or, even better, when dealing with some dude who knows a little about magic and feels the need to pontificate on everything when I'm messing around at a party or something. This is a good trick to shut him the fuck up. 

Its a very satisfying structure to lower expectations and then destroy those expectations. I do it with women too. "For someone who was so excited about trying a Quesalupa," they say, "I never expected you to be such a vigorous lover." 

How did I do it? Simple. I had the silk and the thumbtip, but I also had a universal pull in my left hand and just used that to vanish the whole shebang.

(Can we take a moment to admire that ad for the universal pull? First, I like when it says, "This is not another pull," when, yes, that's exactly what it is. I'm also amazed by this line: "Its excusive [sic] design made it get the Inventions First Prize during the Second Argentinean National Congress, in 1981." Okay, that sounds perfectly reasona-- wait... what? I have no idea what the Second Argentinean National Congress is. The only reference I can find to it is in regards to this gimmick. Maybe it's just some cruddy Argentine magic conference. I don't know. But it sounds like something much more significant. And that only makes the idea that a pull won the "Inventions First Prize" there sound all that much more ridiculous. It would be like if you said, "And then he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his slush powder." Or, "And then he won the pulitzer for his magic blog."

I have a big affinity for pulls. You can do such visually astonishing magic with them. But it can be a pain in the ass to pin them into your coat and stuff. I'm lazy. It's strange. I'll spend 6 months preparing for some effects, but then bristle against setting up a pull. "I can't be opening and closing safety-pins all day! Jeez louise! I'm not a tailor for god's sake." But I'm going to get back into them I think. Well, when fall rolls around and we're back in jacket weather. (I did once use a pull that went up the leg of my shorts that I could use when sitting. I tried it once in real life and it whacked me in the balls hard as hell. That's another thing I wish we could go back and watch. Me being like, "And with just a blow your ring is gone- FUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKKK.")

Many years after I first performed this effect I read an idea in the Jinx, called the Invisible Pull, where Annemann combined a pull with a thumbtip. Alas, you can't really use it to vanish the thumbtip itself, as in the effect above, but it still seemed like a very versatile idea to me for other effects. I never really got accustomed to the handling for it, and I'm guessing not many other people did either, as it seems to not have caught on. But in experimenting with it I came up with a whole new set-up that I think a lot of you will find interesting. It's not just a pull or thumbtip. It's kind of an invisible close-up magic multi-tool. In fact, that's what I'll call it, The Invisible Close-Up Magic Multi-Tool (ICUMMT).

At the end of his write-up for the Invisible Pull, Annemann says:

And while I have had some things to say about that gimmick, he has been completely ignoring my emails. So instead I will be posting my evolution of the Invisible Pull, the ICUMMT, on this site next week. 

Magician Foolers Part One: No Glove, No Love

These days when I hear the term "magician fooler" I tend to think about things like this card to condom trick  on Ellusionist. This is the sort of trick that looks like it was put together by some concerned Jerx readers who were worried I didn't have enough to talk shit about. Thanks guys, but I don't need you to set the ball on the tee for me to that extent. I'm all set content-wise. 

The effect itself is neither here nor there. I could get away with performing it and I even have some interesting ideas for it presentationally, but I would never use it because it says Magix on the packaging. So even in the best of circumstances where you could pull the trick off in a clever, perhaps mildly risqué way, it ends with the spectator's "souvenir" being a direct link to the name of the magic product. I don't know who is responsible for that dipshittery, but it's completely fucking boneheaded. "Let's make a card vanish and reappear in an ordinary object." Okay, good idea. "But then let's make it clear via our branding that it's NOT an ordinary object. In fact, let's put the name of the trick itself on the trick." Oooohhh... savvy marketing!

In an ideal world you shouldn't carry anything with you that's obviously a magic prop. But if you have to, just go all out and carry around some plastic Tenyo prop before this thing. Here is the hierarchy of pathetic-ness in regards to what you can be caught carrying with you as a magician:

1. Non-magic props - Not pathetic
2. Deck of cards and/or Silver Dollars - Mildly pathetic
3. Obvious magic props - Pathetic, but potentially charming in a sad-nerd way
4. A fake non-magic prop that is clearly a magic prop - Embarrassing for you and everyone around you who either has to be a jerk and call you out on it or play along with your transparent bullshit
5. A fake non-magic prop that is clearly a magic prop that is meant to look like a condom - Heartbreakingly pathetic. If I had a son and I walked into his room one day to find him dead from auto-erotic asphyxiation, wearing his mother's panties on his face like a bandit's bandana, holding a picture of a bull terrier's butthole in his hand and he had one of these fake condom's in his pocket, the first bit of scene staging I would do would be to get rid of this fake condom magic trick. He just can't be remembered that way.

I call the trick a "magician fooler" because it's really trying to take advantage of 13-17 year-old boys, and older awkward virgins, who think that if they do a trick with something that's related to sex it will make them seem like sexual entities. Sorry, boys, it's not going to work. A condom is maybe mildly racy, because your dick goes in it, but by that logic you could try and woo women with a color-changing Depends diaper. Condoms may be "sexy" in a very abstract, "this guy is looking out for my health and safety" kind of way. But removed from the act itself they're just going to be weird and off-putting to those girls in your earth science class. "Here's the little rubber tube I put my ding-dong in so when I squirt my jiz I don't give you gonorrhea " Oooo, daddy, so sexy! Trying to seduce a woman (as the ad suggests) with this type of trick would be like adding this song to your fuck-mix.

And finally, Ellusionist, don't hesitate to put me on your payroll. I could have fixed this for you. "Let's come up with a presentation that justifies the usage of a condom," I would have said. "Let's not put the name the trick is marketed under on the trick itself," I would have suggested. Then I would have offered you a new name for this effect. The perfect triple entendre of a name that would invoke conjuring, dick-slang, and a safe-sex cautionary tale. What would that name be? Simple. Two words: Magic Johnson.

The Jerx App

Hey guys, if you ordered the book and you have an iPhone then the Jerx app is available for you.

Some things to note:

1. This is free for the people who bought the book. You'll probably eventually be able to find it in the iTunes store as well, but it's going to have some absurd price on it.

2. Rather than try to hide the app behind some phony financial app or something, it's hidden behind itself. If someone tries to go into the app or asks you what it is, you can open it and it will show L'il Jerxy and his magic trick or tip of the day. These are just going to be stupid bits of "advice" or tricks. The real app is hidden behind this opening screen.

3. The app has one main purpose  (Codename: Chocolate & Vanilla) that is not currently listed on it. I'm waiting to release that functionality until the book comes out because it goes along with one of the effects in the book. But it's much bigger than that too. In a sense it's a utility gimmick. It does one very simple thing, but the simple thing it does can be used for a variety of different effects: close-up, stage, magic, and mentalism.

4. While the purpose of the app is the Chocolate & Vanilla capability, there are going to be other mini-tricks on it as well for you to screw around with. The first mini-trick that's loaded on the app right now is Wish List. Wish List is a version of this idea that I mentioned last summer. It's a way to get into a five item equivoque. You go to your friend's house and tell them you want to try this psychological test but it requires 5 very specific items. "You might not even have all these things," you say. You open your phone to get the instructions for the test and then rattle off the items you need. You and your friend then notice those are the exact 5 things sitting on your friend's kitchen table. "What a coincidence," you say. She doesn't believe you but you can immediately show her the directions you copied earlier into your phone that have those as the required items and those five things are listed throughout the brief instructions. You tell her you don't want her to read the whole thing because you don't want it to affect the test. So you send a screenshot of the instructions to her phone to check later. She selects an item through "process of elimination" (wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink-wink) and when she opens the the photo of the instructions you sent her it states that item is the one that will be selected when those group of items are laid out in that particular order. 

It's a weird trick because the magic moment doesn't come at the end, but the beginning. And then everything that happens after that is meant to legitimize that moment including the "trick" itself.

5. Eventually everyone who buys the book and who has an iPhone or iPod touch will get the app. But be patient because we're limited by how many we can give away at one time before we update it and things like that. "Why not just make it a free app?" I don't want it to be free. I want it to be free for the people who support the site by buying the book. Everyone else can go screw.

6. Have an idea for a magic app? Hire Marc Kerstein to build it. I don't even know if he's looking for those types of gigs. But if he is and you could use his services, definitely check him out. He can probably do non-magic apps too. That one to track your period, for instance. But again, I don't really know. He didn't ask me to say any of this, I'm just saying it because he's handled the creation of the Jerx app for me. And I'll say, "Hey, can you make it do this?" And then 13 minutes later there is a new build of the app with that feature. 

Catch you on the flippety-flappety, Flappy-pants-pappy.

The Look of Love

Imagine

I'm out getting a late-night meal with a group of friends. It's a pretty low-key affair. There are maybe 8 of us. A few different conversations are going on. I'm just screwing around on my phone waiting for my loaded potato skins. One of my friends who also does magic is trying to make a move on one of the girls there that he just met that night.

"Did you ever do the soulmate test?" he asks.

"I don't think so," she says. "What's that?"

"My grandfather told me about it," he begins. "Apparently it was big in the 50s. Guys would carry a picture in their wallets of a random object, then when they'd meet a girl they'd ask her to name any object in the world. The closer the girl got to the object, the better suited they were for each other. Supposedly. It was created by some psychologist back in the day. It's probably horse-shit but I guess it got popular because there was some 1950s dating show called The Look of Love where people were paired up, in part, based on a similar type of matching pictures thing. It was apparently a big deal because it was like the first dating show ever and it was maybe a little scandalous at the time. Do you want to try it?"

"Sure," she says. But the positive kind of "sure" not the dismissive kind.

"Okay," he says. "Think of any object in the world. Something in your home. Something in your school. Something at work. Or just anything out in the world at all. Got one?"

"Uhmm.... okay... a basketball."

"Really? Now... okay... wait. Uhm... just for the sake of... of... getting a clear mental picture, I want you to imagine the basketball is a particular color. It doesn't have to be basketball-color. What color is it?"

"Green," she says.

"A green basketball." He sits there quietly for a moment, nonplussed. "I mean... I've asked maybe 50 girls to do this and none of them even said anything sports related in any way. Much less a ball. Much less a basketball. This is just.... And green! I mean, I only made it green so it could be definitive and not ever just be a lucky guess. But I never thought it would actually work. Oh... sorry," he says, stopping his rambling.

He reaches into his wallet and pulls out an envelope that says "Soulmate Test" on it. He rips off the end and dumps out a photo onto the table.

A photo of a green basketball.

Method

Look, I'm not saying telling people which hand holds a coin is a bad trick. I have dozens of types of interesting little moments in my repertoire. I love those things. But sometimes you don't want to make someone scratch their head, you want to make them drop their jaw. You want to make their heart skip a beat. 

When I was originally going through my unpublished effects for inclusion in the Jerx Book, I thought I would put a bunch of my most practical routines in there. Borrowed deck stuff, impromptu stuff, because I figured that would be what people wanted: things they could perform a lot. But after talking with some magic friends I decided that the only criteria I would use is what gets me the best reactions. You guys have more than enough resources for hyper-practical routines if that's what you need. Buy John Bannon's books and you'll be set for life. Hell, buy Easy To Master Card Miracles and you'll have more than enough routines to do entertaining magic. We're not lacking in practical magic effects.

I think there is something of a dearth of breathtaking magic effects. Effects that really rattle spectators in a personal and overwhelming way. You can't perform these effects one after another for someone. It's just too much. It would be like if you did some staggeringly romantic gesture every night for your wife. The first few nights she would be swooning, but then it just becomes standard. Much better to just be a low-key romantic guy on a day-to-day basis, and then do something over-the-top every few months. You'll get more credit. 

Here is, I think, why magicians sometimes seem to neglect or overlook the need for powerful effects in their repertoire. Let's say you're 12 and you start seriously pursuing magic. And you have all these ideas in your head for the type of bold effects you want to do. "I'm going to make a dozen roses appear for this girl." "I'm going to levitate in front of the school." "I'm going to make Tony disappear." Your brain at this point in time is mostly layperson-brain. So the effects you want to do are big and powerful. But as you grow in magic, you grow your magician brain, and your magician brain knows that everything is fake and is more interested in the process of fakery than the outcome of the fakery. It's just as interesting to fake doing something dull as it is to fake doing something spectacular, because the process is often very similar.

It's like if you were an artist capable of creating photo-realistic drawings. And for you, the process is fairly similar whether you're drawing an apple or drawing Aubrey Plaza 69'ing Alison Brie. They're both just exercises in light and shadow and color. But for an audience, one is a nice picture of an apple and the other is going to move them (to jack off).

This goes back to the audience-centric approach to magic. You need to fall out of love with methods and back in love with effects, like you were when you first started magic. Especially now that you have the knowledge to pull off some harder-hitting effects. 

Quit dicking us around. The method?

Okay, this is an effect I love, but it didn't make the book because it requires a couple things not everyone is going to have access to. The first is something I just mentioned the other day, the Polaroid Zip printer. The second thing you need is me, hanging out with you, pretending to play Candy Crush, but secretly listening in to the conversation and sending a picture to the printer that's in your lap. (The printer, if it's not clear, is the size of a cell phone.) Or if not me, some other competent person you trust.

Your confidant listens in, does a google image search for whatever is named, sends that picture to the printer. Maybe 30 seconds after the object is named, a perfectly-palmable photo of it is being silently printed right into your hand. And you just load it into your card-to-wallet wallet.

And yes, you can add any color to any object in the world and google images will have a picture of it. 

Brown rose
Yellow dolphin
Green stapler

You can't stump it, so don't worry about that.

This effect has multiple layers of deception: the secret use of a non-standard technology, a secret accomplice, and the card-to-wallet technique. And while any trick using only one of those layers might be easy to unravel, together they present a fairly impenetrable mystery. The spectator doesn't know to break up the trick into the component parts. She just sees the end result, so it's very deceptive. You know the elements of the trick. You know that you need to get a real photo printed mid-trick, you know you need to have someone else to send it to the printer, you know you need a way to load it into an envelope in a wallet. Spectators don't break down tricks like this.

On top of the deceptive methodology, it's couched in a kind of gentle presentation that doesn't encourage someone to "debunk" you. It's not, "I was graced with the power to predict the future. Earlier today I put a photo in my wallet...." They'll fight that presentation. Here you let them choose the narrative. Maybe it's just a crazy coincidence. Maybe there is some kind of connection between you two. Or maybe it was just a cool magic trick. 

Even if you don't use this effect, you can still reference the old tv show, The Look of Love, in a drawing duplication presentation or something like that. They really did used to pair people up on that show based on similarities in random drawings and things like that. 

Ok, no, that's not true. No such show ever existed. But you can picture it can't you? Young people being put through the paces and subjected to tests and games to be paired off on innocent 1950s dates? "Calgon presents, The Look of Love, with your host, Bud Collyer [orchestra swells]" 

Postscript:

I could probably write a book just on effects I've used that little printer for. But I won't because that would make a dull book. But here are two more quick ideas.

1. Want to do the above effect in the context of your stage show or your ABC hour long special? You could rig the printer up inside your jacket so it hangs down and the photo falls right into your CTW wallet. Imagine, any person or item named, you reach into your pocket with empty hands and remove your wallet, remove a sealed envelope from your wallet, and inside is a picture of that person or thing. Your offstage assistant just needs to send the photo to the printer. Easy. 

This is one of those ideas that no one will do because I'm giving it away for free. if I had packaged the printer with a CTW wallet and sold it for $750 it would be used in every Magic Castle parlor performance until California falls off into the sea.

2. This also requires a secret helper, but they don't have to do much.

Effect: You ask your wife to get your photo printer from upstairs. While she's gone you take a picture of your friend Dave. When your wife returns she hands you the printer and you print out the photo of Dave. Then you burn it or cut it up (you can't tear the photo really) and restore it. 

Method: So your wife goes to the other room to get the printer You take a picture of Dave and immediately send it to the printer. Once it prints out she places the photo under the printer, and that's where it is when she hands it to you. Dave gets the sense that he's watching you print out a one-of-a-kind photo of a moment that just occurred and then destroying it. But you have a duplicate to swap in as the restored photo. 

Non-Starters

So I have a list of ideas for posts for this site in an Excel spreadsheet. Every time the list gets over 200 items I go in and clean out 50 of them. Here are some of the ideas that I recently cleared out that you won't be seeing on this site.

-- Joshua Jay's Big Magic For Little Penises

That's all I had written down. I don't really know what my intention was with this. I think I was just going to photoshop the cover of this book so it said penises instead of hands, maybe? Oh, and I was going to turn the kid around so he's facing Josh's crotch. But I don't have the photoshop skills for either. Very little is too dumb for me to invest my time in, but this was.

UPDATE - Well, that didn't take long. Thanks to MK. Come on, guys, knock it off. This is just immature.

-- The Magic Starbucks

Back when I wrote my old blog, the Magic Cafe was a big subject of conversation. 10-12 years ago it used to be relevant. So when I started this site I thought I'd end up writing more about the Cafe, but it's always way down on my list of priorities. One of my ideas before starting this blog was to start a message board in conjunction with it called The Magic Starbucks. As I wrote in an email to a friend of the site:

I considered starting a new forum called The Magic Starbucks (as in Starbucks coming into towns and putting Cafes out of business). But I have no desire to manage a message board and it wouldn't get any traction anyway. The Cafe is too established. And you need volume for lively conversations and there just isn't really a large number of magicians I would want to have discussions with. I'm fortunate that because of my site I have people writing in and discussing ideas and things like that, so I've managed to side-step the whole issue.

-- Magically Delicious

This was going to be a Field Report but the post never came together because it didn't pan out in real life the way I wanted it to. And I realize I could just lie and say something happened that didn't. Hardly any of you know who I really am, and even if you did there's no way you would know if something didn't actually happen. But I'm pretty adamant about avoiding that type of thing. When I was writing my old blog people would often complain that my anonymity prevented them from getting to know me. But I get that less now. I think now people realize it allows me to be more open and authentic than I might be able to be otherwise. And my feeling is that --regardless of whether you like me or the site or not-- you're getting a genuine sense of who I am. (Which is pretty incredible when you realize this site is written by 20 people. There is no "Andy." This is all part of a viral marketing plan for Tannen's Magic. Tannen's Magic: Feel the RUSH!)

So when I was a freshman in college I dated a girl named Amy. One day at the dining hall, I was having breakfast with her and I was eating Lucky Charms, because I appreciate a finely crafted artisan cereal. "One time I picked all the marshmallows out of a box of Lucky Charms and just ate a bowl of those marshmallows for breakfast," Amy told me. "Later my dad poured himself a bowl of Lucky Charms and it was just the dull brown kibble part and he threw a fit. I was 'grounded' from sweet cereal for three months. But it was worth it."

She tells me this story and it goes into my brain where it is lost in the flotsam of anecdotes from everyone I've met in my life.

Eight years later, Amy is visiting me in NYC for a weekend. Saturday morning I pull out a box of Lucky Charms for breakfast and she tells me the story again. It was a story I never would have remembered unprompted, but once she started telling me it, it came back to me. And when you hear a story like that twice from someone it somehow seems significant even when it's not a significant story.

So when I was getting ready to pack up from Brooklyn I met up with Amy again. This was many years after the last meet up. For some reason the cereal story was rattling in my head. I was sure she would have no recollection of telling it to me the first or second time. Why would she? So I thought maybe if I brought out a box for breakfast I could prompt her to tell it to me again. And when you can get someone to "spontaneously" bring something up that they don't know you know... well, you're in a very good position to do something incredible.

I'd purchased a box of Lucky Charms, and I went online and bought a couple bags of cereal marshmallows. Yes, you can buy them separately. That fact alone may make this whole blog post worth it to you.

I gently unsealed the box and then the bag inside, dumped out the cereal and replaced it with all marshmallows. Then I re-sealed the bag and the box to their original condition. The plan was to just wait for her to bring up her story. I snap my fingers, wiggle my nose, or whatever. And bam! Now this bag is all marshmallows just like she wanted as a little girl.

The morning rolls around and we're sitting in my kitchen. I put the box on the table. She doesn't mention anything. I keep waiting and delaying. I have really no non-obvious way to get into this unless she brings it up. Time passes. She talks about everything else other than the goddamn cereal. Eventually I realize it's not going to happen. I open up the box and say, "What the hell... this is all marshmallows?" 

"That's crazy! One time I picked all the marshmallows out of a box of Lucky Charms and just ate a bowl of those marshmallows for breakfast," she begins.

"Yeah. I know," I say, in mostly feigned annoyance. Then I tell her about how I'd planned this moment. Flashing back to when we were both 17 and in our college's dining hall. No, it's not as good as if I got to play it off as a miraculous trick. But it's still pretty memorable in its own way. And then we got to eat big bowls of cereal marshmallows for breakfast which was fucking delicious.

-- The Seduction of Charlotte Pendragon

This was going to be a series of posts where I move to Las Vegas, conspire to meet Charlotte Pendragon, worm my way into her life, become the man of her dreams, convey to her how much I appreciate her talent and elegance and the athleticism and grace she brought to the art, and then bang her everloving brains out. 

She's 60? So what. I don't care. You know who else doesn't care? My cock, and his two buddies, my balls. 

Unfortunately, I think she's engaged or remarried now. So until she dumps that dude and hits me up, the story will only exist in my mind and in the 14-act erotic play I'm working on.

Gardyloo #9 - OOTW Edition

Regarding Out of This World, Andrew Skinner reminded me of the Derren Brown presentation with photographs separated between living and dead. And with that in mind I will once again remind you of an incredibly versatile non-magic magic purchase, the Polaroid ZIP mobile printer, first mentioned in this post in conjunction with a Tomas Blomberg effect. I like the idea of OOTW with photos and I like it even better if we're talking about pictures that were just taken. Imagine a 60th birthday party and you take photos of everyone there, then later when things are winding down you show the person whose birthday it is an OOTW style effect with the photos. 

Maybe you have two piles "Invite back next year" and "Don't invite next year." Then the birthday-boy separates the photos and it's found that all his white friends are in one pile and his ethnic friends are in another. You give him a wink and a nod. "Good. I'm glad we're on the same page about this." you say.

You can have them separate photos face down, of course, or face-up and have something be on the back of the photos as in Derren's version linked above. Or you can have them separate them face-up with nothing on the back, but then it turns out there is some hidden aspect that all of the photos have in common, like, "Now, I asked you to just use your subconscious and separate the cards that gave you a good vibe from the ones that gave you a bad vibe." And then you give him a magnifying glass and point out that way in the background of all the "bad vibe" photos is his wife.

Whatever direction you go with it, you pop the photos in an album at the end of the effect and you have a perfect, personalized gift.

---

Pete McCabe thinks I should have called the electro-shock presentation, Ow! of This World.

Sorry I failed you, pun-nerds. 

---

Does anyone remember this hunk of shit?

Late 80s, first-run syndicated sitcoms all make me feel sick. Small Wonder, Mama's Family, It's a Living, Charles in Charge, She's the Sheriff. 

Or how about What a Dummy? I can't find any video of it anywhere. It was like Alf but with a living ventriloquist dummy instead of an alien. This is one of the few promo shots you can find online and it legit looks like it was torn from some serial-killer's inspiration journal.

---

If you want to up the ante on the electric shock presentation from the last post, or if the Pavlok mentioned in the previous post is too expensive, may I recommend the Eastern Delights® Elite Erotic Electro Stimulation Sex Cock Enlarge Expander Penis Ring Cock Ring Male Genital Desensitizer Delay WITH Red Pouch.

It's only $25.