Double Hemispherectomy

/

Imagine

"Whoever the dumbest person at this table is, everyone else will chip in and buy their meal. So what is your evidence that you're the dumbest person here?" 

We go around the table and say why we're the dumbest person in the group.

One guy tells a story about getting caught in a bathrobe and having to call 911.

One girl tells the story about her 12-year marriage to a guy she didn't like from their first date on. 

Another guy tells the story of how, in college, he didn't like his roommates so he would pee in a soda bottle in his room so he wouldn't have to walk by them in the living room on his way to the bathroom. He would also eat his dinner secluded in his room as well. And one time, while eating his dinner, he took a big swig from the wrong soda bottle. 

I told the story of the time I went on a three-day water fast to experience what it was like. After 72 hours I broke my fast then went to bed. The next day I wake up and I go to piss and it comes out a deep crimson. Apparently I had fucked myself up on this water fast and was now peeing blood. I went to the emergency room and told the doctor I had been fasting for three days and now my pee was coming out blood red. He thought that was unusual and asked what I'd had when I broke the fast the previous night. "I didn't eat anything," I said. "I just drank a 2 liter bottle of Hawaiian Punch."

"Oh... I'm an idiot," I said to the doctor, and walked out of the room.

After debating it, we decided the guy who got stuck in his bathrobe was the biggest idiot.

Later, we stood out on the sidewalk while a couple friends were smoking. "It's not fair," I said. "I'm definitely the biggest idiot. I had my brain removed when I was four because of a parasite."

"You had your whole brain removed?" someone asked.

"Yup. I mean, except for something the size of an almond. Completely empty up there."

"Look," I said. I turned on my camera's flashlight and held it to my ear. "Can you see it coming out the other side?" I asked. They said no. "My ear is just too tightly closed, I guess. Can you see the light coming out of my mouth?" I asked and opened wide. Again they said no. 

"Huh..." I said. "That dangly thing in the back must be blocking the light. Can you push it to the side?" I asked one of my friends.

"Your uvula?" he said. "That's disgusting."

"Oh, come on," I said and reached my thumb deep into my mouth to push my uvula out of the way. Light comes pouring out of my mouth. I pull my hand out and the light disappears. 

"See," I said. "Nothing up there. The light just ricochets around my empty skull."

Method

A white D'lite.

Or not even that. The whole point of this is to sit around with your friends trying to fight for your position as the dumbest person in the group. The trick is just the punchline.

 

 

Calen Morelli - 365 Days of Magic

/

In the history of magic on the internet, there have been three transcendent artistic achievements. The first was the Magic Circle Jerk blog, the third is this blog, and in between was Calen Morelli's 365 Days of Magic. This was a project where Calen would create a new magic trick every day for a year and put it up on youtube. And I mean create, as in new tricks and new methods. Other people have tried similar thing, but were just performing a different trick each day. Which is fine and all, but not quite as interesting to me. The magician in me would rather see half-assed new stuff, rather than a perfected old routine. 

Calen only made it half the year into his project before he had to give it up. That may seem like a failure, but why did he have to give it up? Well, because he had to move to Vegas because he was hired to work for David Copperfield. So it's kind of hard to see that as a failure. That would be like if you had pledged to post a video of you ejaculating onto a picture of Anne Hathaway every day for a year. And then six months in you're like, "Sorry guys... I have to stop posting. I won't have time anymore because I'm getting married to Anne Hathaway."

For a couple years now it seemed like the videos Calen created for this project weren't on his youtube channel, but now I see they're back and I encourage you to go check them out if you haven't. You want to look about 5 years back. Starting with the video "Bending the Rules" and ending with "Lose the Sugar." [UPDATE: They're gone again.]

I was inspired a ton by Calen and I ended up adding a number of the effects that got their start during this project to my repertoire. Below are a few of my favorites. These have the added bonus that, if you're interested, you can learn them from Calen's Penguin Live lecture. 

Stop Hating Rick Lax

/

Every time Rick Lax posts a video on his Facebook page, I get an email from somebody making fun of it, and suggesting I make fun of it too. Here is what I hear the most:

  1. Asking people to like a video before watching a video seems like the height of desperation (or implying that they need to hit like to "lock in their answer" or something like that). 
  2. He chastises people for "stealing" his tricks and making their own versions of his videos when he didn't create the tricks in the first place.
  3. A lot of his interactive tricks are awful.
  4. His voice is painful to listen to.

Here, so I don't have to field your emails anymore, are my responses to these issues.

  1. That's just playing the game. Even with the heavy-handed "please like my videos" stuff, he's looking at maybe a couple percent of the people who watch a video actually "liking" it. Likes and shares are the currency of Facebook. He's, understandably, trying what he can to get those numbers up.
  2. Yeah, but I understand the inclination on his part. First, he's not going to mention that a lot of these effects are ancient on videos he's making for the public. That doesn't help him in any way. Second, he's trying to set up a brand. He's a "deception expert" who does interactive tricks on Facebook. When people copy him it undermines that brand and undermines the notion that there's anything special about him as a performer. "Wait... is this 12-year-old who just performed the identical trick a 'deception expert' too?" It's a double-edged sword really. He can rack up millions of views on a video because it's not too provocative. But at the same time, because the videos aren't really personality-driven they're open for anyone to just make their own version. 
  3. Ok, I agree with you. (He had one recently where he asked you to think of how many calories were in a bagel and then you were supposed to be amazed when he determined the last number in those calories was 0. Everyone (in the U.S. at least) thinks of calories in factors of 10 because that's how they're labeled on our food.) The problem Rick has is that he can't limit himself to posting on Facebook when he has a good idea. It's a marketing tool for him, so he needs to churn out content whether it's good or not-so-good. So if he has three good ideas per month, that might be better than you or I would have in a similar position. But it feels worse because he has three good ideas a month but makes 30 videos. So his batting average seems so much lower 
  4. If Rick wants to transition into more TV work or stage work (and I have no idea if he does) he needs to try to come across as more genuine. This is based on feedback I got when I pitched him for a television project I was involved in. I think Rick speaks in what he thinks is a presentational and confident manner but it can seem inauthentic to adults (who are probably not his target audience).

That's the other thing. Rick's Facebook tricks are not, primarily, geared towards adults. (And certainly not towards magicians.) His most recent post, as of this writing, tells you to share a video or else be cursed and visited by a disembodied hand. And obviously any trick with a math formula like, "Choose a secret number, now add 4 to it, now subtract your secret number..." is not something you try on high school graduates. So to complain and say, "Blech, this isn't good magic," kind of misses the point. 

It would be like watching this kid's video and being like, "You know... I don't think he's a great hardcore rapper."

The thing is, Rick is trying to do something very difficult. There are three good interactive tricks and he burned through them in his first few videos, now he has to try and repackage that content and expand his brand to keep people entertained. It's easy to criticize an individual video but it's not like there are a bunch of other people doing what he's trying to do better. 

It would be especially easy for me to criticize. Rick and I have opposite goals in magic and in our online presence. I don't ask you to "like" my posts. In fact, I don't give a shit if you literally like my posts. You have to go out of your way to share things I write or interact with me.

But that doesn't mean I don't respect what Rick is trying to do.

And even if you can't respect it, don't waste energy hating the guy. There is a lot you can take from his Facebook success. Do yourself a favor and scroll through some of the videos. It might be a surprising education for you. Some videos have 50 million views. And some, while high, are nowhere near that much. And it has nothing to do with how strong the magic is. In fact, the videos that most magicians would think are the best tend to get significantly less views. 

No, it's not "the stronger the magic the more views" it's "the more interactive the magic the more views." I think this is telling. And while "views" aren't the sole metric to define good magic, they are a pretty good metric to define engagement. And don't you want your magic to be engaging? The truth is, Rick interacts more with his spectator's in a Facebook video than most magicians do when they're sitting across the table from them. When, in reality, it should be fifty times more powerful to be in the room with the person. 

Let that be what you take from Rick Lax's Facebook videos and extrapolate it into your live performances. Don't just be demonstrating an ability at your spectators. Instead make it clear that this moment requires their presence; that it's feeding off of their input and interaction like a living entity. 

Coming Soon: In a past issue of X-Communication, I mentioned a post I would be writing soon called Presenting the Unpresentable. That should be up in the next week or two. In the past few months I've approached presenting certain kinds of "process" heavy tricks from a different angle—partly inspired by what I was discussing above—and have had a lot of success with it. So that will be coming soon. If I get enough likes on this post.

Monday Night Magic

/

Andy (me) and the GLOMM get a shout-out at Monday Night Magic in New York City. Thanks Patrick and David!

Next, David Copperfield, maybe? I mean, why wouldn't he? Unless he doesn't adhere to the GLOMM's Code of Ethics. Every day that passes without him mentioning the GLOMM makes me wonder.

Final Day

/

Tomorrow I finalize the details in regards to how many copies of The Jerx, Volume One will actually be printed, so today is your last day to get your order in or reserve a copy at the current price and with the bonuses. See my June 24th post for details.

I want to thank everyone who has donated to the site in order to receive the book. Your support has allowed me to take a chunk of my time every week that I should be working and devote it to this site instead. I especially want to thank those who were on board that first week—that first day even. When I think of it, it's a huge compliment that there was a not-insignificant number of people who ponied up a not-insignificant amount of money, for something they wouldn't receive for many months to come, by a first-time author, who writes anonymously—especially in the world of magic that's filled with a-holes taking money and then never actually delivering what they claimed. Everyone who likes this site owes the people who stepped-up early on a debt of gratitude because the site wouldn't be here without them. 

And it's nice to get a bump in orders in these final weeks too. So don't think I don't appreciate you, you slackers and loafers. You're my people. And that's going to help keep posting fairly regular at least until Fall rolls around.

Also thanks to Jerx: France. I'm not sure what happened but I ended up with a handful of orders from there in the past week or so. I can't imagine reading this site if English isn't your first language. And I'm sure it's a total abortion if it goes through an online translator, so it amazes me that anyone can sift their way through this site in that way.

So, just generally, thanks to everyone who has supported the site via buying the book. I would happily sell-out in a minute if Ellusionist, or whoever, dropped a nickel and it rolled my way. But until that time, I'm happy to keep this baby independent and user supported. 

By the way, when I asked how long it would take for the book to be ready I was told "a few weeks after the file has been approved." My hope is that means I should be able to ship the book in August. I think that's a conservative date, but maybe I'm being naive. I will keep everyone who orders updated on that.

For those who are curious about things like this:

About 60% of the book orders came from the U.S.

About 25% of those U.S. orders came from LA.

About 50% of the non-U.S. orders came from England.

One person in China ordered the book. He's literally 1 in a billion.

Nobody in any of the following states ordered the book. (If you're in one of these states and think you did, make sure to email me.)

  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Arkansas
  • Colorado
  • Delaware
  • Idaho
  • Kentucky
  • Maine
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • New Hampshire
  • New Mexico
  • North Dakota
  • Rhode Island
  • South Dakota
  • Utah
  • Vermont
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin
  • Wyoming

Magic is fun; We're dead

/

I love this commercial for the movie Magic. The movie was the inspiration for one of the tricks in The Jerx, Volume 1. And the poem in the ad gives that trick its name

This may be apocryphal but apparently this commercial only ran once and it scared kids so much, and parents complained so much, that it was taken off the air. I like to think that's true.

If you're a horror movie fan, there's a service called Shudder which is like Netflix but only for horror. It's $4.99 a month. And Magic is one of the movies in their library. They also have a link there for Shudder TV which is constantly streaming horror movies and it's free.

Speaking of horrors. This fucking mutant has been identified as David Drowley aka Twister the Clown. Rot in hell, old man. And you're out of the GLOMM.  

Oh, and going forward I will be including people's shitty magic names (e.g., Twister the Clown) with their real name on the banned members page of the GLOMM website. You're not going to dodge being associated with that name for eternity. 

Regarding "eternity," I was informed that one of the guys on the banned list died in prison recently. Tough. When you get banned from the GLOMM it's everlasting.

Thanks to Kamal "The Pedo Hunter" Farmer for going through the court records and tracking down the name of this guy.

I knew this looked familiar.

The Importance of Combining Methods

/

I'm a big believer in testing magic methods, techniques, and concepts, as I've mentioned since the beginning of this site, and most recently in this post. When I bring this up to people they will often object. They'll suggest that it is, in some way, like deconstructing and quantifying poetry or something like that. But, while magic is an art, it also has a lot of practical and testable elements to it as well and I think it has suffered because of our fear of rigorously examining those things. We think, "I don't need to test anything. I know when a trick fools them and when it doesn't." But no. No you don't. It's almost impossible to remove yourself from your role as the magician and look at things objectively. And unless you present things plainly and ask your audience pointed questions, you have no idea what they're thinking. "But they laughed and clapped after my trick. Clearly they enjoyed it, so it must have fooled them." Maybe. Or maybe they're just being nice people who were watching a magic performance.

Most people are nice like that. They're not hypercritical and they don't question every unusual action. And we take advantage of that by presenting magic that relies on their charitable view of the proceedings. In fact, if someone does approach our performance with a hard-line, critical assessment, we think he's an asshole. "Lighten up, buddy, it's just a magic show." But, with testing, you can create material that does fool the harshest critics. And you know it will because you've paid people to take the most unforgiving look at your methods and effects. You can't get this feedback from an audience that paid to see you. You can't get it from other magicians. (I would submit that they're the least equipped to tell you what will fool an audience.) Your best hope is a smart, layman friend. But after testing enough tricks with him/her they're not really laymen anymore.

That's why I like recruiting people, focus group style, and having them come off the street knowing their job that day is to find the weaknesses in the effects we're presenting them. It's a hassle and it's expensive but I would split the cost with other magician friends and it wasn't too bad. You could bring in 12 people for 90 minutes and pay $240 total. Split a few ways it was just 60 or 80 dollars every few months. I just considered it an entertainment expense. To me it was fascinating to see what things flew by people and what things they immediately busted.

And what you end up with if you really work this process is magic that is bulletproof and doesn't require a spectator to drop their critical faculties. I find that this alone is a fairly wild feeling for a spectator -- to not have to be forgiving in any way when they had intended to be. It's like going to lift what you think is a heavy bag and it turns out to be filled with styrofoam. Or if you were going out on a blind date and you approached the door thinking, "Well, no matter how she appears, I'll let her know how pretty she looks. That's the kind thing to do." And then she opens the door and she's truly the most jawdropping woman you've ever seen. It's a great feeling to not have to compensate for something when you thought you would.

A great trick is more than just a fooling trick, of course, my only point in stressing the testing of method is because it's something you can test and improve on without sacrificing anything you bring to the artistic side of the effect. 

If you like this notion of testing magic in a more formal setting, I suggest you keep an eye out for an article by Joshua Jay in an upcoming MAGIC magazine. He worked with a university research group to gather some data about people's opinions and thoughts about magic and magicians and it's pretty interesting stuff. It's a little different than the focus-group style I conducted, but it came to many similar conclusions.

I told him I wouldn't spoil any of the results, but I will say if you're someone who does a lot of straightforward card routines with a normal deck, you'll probably not be enthused when you learn the results of how forgettable these types of tricks are to people. 

As I wrote to Josh:

We also did something similar to your study where we invited people back a week or two later and asked them for details about three card tricks we had shown them at their previous visit [Performed live and via video by legends in magic]. Less than 20% (and it may have been closer to 10) could tell us anything other than in the broadest of terms ("Cards changed" or "It was a poker trick"). Anyone who tells you their card tricks are truly memorable are (with rare exceptions) lying to you or themselves. Other than a few transcendent card tricks, most are forgettable. And I don't think that means they're not worth performing, but don't kid yourself and think you're creating some memorable moment. I've made the comparison on my site to these types of card tricks being like action movies. Or maybe a massage. Or an average hand-job. It's fun in the moment and maybe you think about it later that evening, but it's not something that stays with you long term. And I'm perfectly fine with that. I like to do really big, memorable things, but I'm also cool with people just remembering they had a fun time.

Today I want to talk about one of the results of the testing I helped conduct that deals with something that is not unintuitive, but is, I think, undervalued. And that is the idea of combining methods.

Before I go further I want to admit I don't have the exact results of this testing in front of me (it's all in storage at the moment) but my numbers are correct within a couple percentage points.

Here's what we did.

First we would have someone slide a card out of a face-down spread, peek at it, and the magician would guess what it was. When pressed for an explanation, 78% said maybe the cards were marked in some way.

Then, for a different group, we did a trick where someone slid a card out from a face-up spread and the magician, who was blindfolded, was able to tell them the card. 86% said he could probably see through or around the blindfold somehow. 

Then, for another group, we performed the trick with the deck face down and with the magician in a blindfold. So we just combined two somewhat transparent methodologies. But when we did, only like 8% suggested the method was a see-thru blindfold AND a marked deck.

I was amazed at how strong a method could arise from combining two weak methods. I would have thought, "Well, 86% understand you might be able to see through a blindfold, and three-quarters are familiar with marked decks. So... at the very least we're looking at like 60% who get both concepts. And I would expect most of them to be able to put the two together." But that's not how it happened. And we repeated this test and similar ones often enough to show that it was consistent.

Why does it work like that? I can't say for sure. It's tempting to think you'd be more likely to get busted when you use two methods that aren't that strong. But that's not how it works out at all. I suppose it's just a matter of people looking for the (singular) solution and their mind is not set to parse a trick in order to look at its component parts. If you walk them through it, they can figure it out, but I don't think looking at the pieces of an effect comes naturally to non-magicians. 

Perhaps it's like being a perfumer and being capable of pulling out all the notes that comprise a particular fragrance. But a perfume layperson, like myself, would just say, "Oh, this is summery," or, "This is earthy." I honestly don't even know enough about perfume to know if that's an apt analogy.

All I know is that it works. I am 100% on board with the power of combining methods. To the extent that I almost believe if Bernie Madoff was not just running a Ponzi scheme, but was also counterfeiting money as well, he might not have been caught. Like maybe each action might have covered for the other. 

In my mind I think of methods as horses, and if you just have one it will run free. But if you tie that horse's tail to another horse's tail they will pull at each other to get free and not make much, if any, forward progress. In the forthcoming book, the last effect is about a camera that takes pictures of the future. You do it with any cellphone camera, no apps. It takes something like 40 steps to describe because it layers so many methods on top of one another. In my head I see a dozen horses all tied at the tail. 

In magic there is the saying, which I generally agree with, that a trick that can be described in one sentence is probably a good trick. But I think a corollary to that is that a method that can be described in one sentence is probably a bad method.

That's why you should always be combining methods to make your mysteries impenetrable. It's like that movie says: ABCM.

And finally, I'll hide a pro-tip for the mentalists here at the bottom of this post.

A traditional center-tear involves a few different deceptions. First, the manner of folding and ripping to preserve the information. Second, the stealing out of the target piece. Third, some type of peek of the information you stole out after a time delay. It's a very solid, deceptive method.

But many mentalists have taken a giant step backwards by performing a center tear where they peek the information while they tear it. This is only more deceptive to magicians/mentalists. For the rest of the universe it is exactly what they would think you're doing. It's a perfect straight line method. 

Perform a center tear for people with a real-time peek in it. Or have people watch a video of it being performed by whoever you think does it best (as long as the video includes their entire upper body so the person will experience it similar to what they'd see in real life). When it's over ask them, "If you had to guess how it's done, what would be your guess?" An overwhelming majority will say something like, "Maybe he looked at the word as he tore the paper?" I know this to be true because I've done just this for people.

No, they won't understand the intricate details of the folding and the ripping. They will just know they saw you glance at the paper while you were tearing it up (which, when you're tearing to destroy something, there is no justification for). That's all they need to know. But you don't understand, Andy, I barely glance at the pieces as I tear them up. It doesn't matter. It is not possible to look at the torn pieces so quickly that people won't catch you. (Ask any woman who has worn a low-cut top if even the quickest glance can go unnoticed.) And, in fact, the quicker your glance, the sketchier it is. You may get lucky and the person may not be looking at your eyes when you get your peek, but then you are relying on luck. If they see or sense your eyes going to that paper—or even just imagine it's a possibility—then you're sunk. 

I realize I won't get many mentalists who agree with me. That's fine. Mentalists, even more than traditional magicians, hate the idea of testing effects in front of real people. That's why they're fans of so many awful methods. Which is just as well. Even shitty mentalism can have a strong effect on people. When you proactively take steps to make your mentalism irreproachable you end up with something more powerful than I trust most of those goofballs with.