The [REDACTED]

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My collaborator, Dan Harlan, repping the GLOMM on Penguin Live. 

30 Jerx Points for Dan!

After last week's post on ways to make your magic un-googleable, friend of the site Stacy Smith emailed in to suggest another option. When you start a trick, call it by some other name. "This is a very famous trick called The Piano Card Trick." But then don't do the Piano Card Trick. Do something else entirely. Maybe some mentalism thing with cards. Or card to wallet. Or whatever. 

If you have someone in your audience who is intent on trying to find out the secret, they will, at the very least, waste some time looking through a bunch of versions of the actual Piano Card Trick.

I had a similar idea and that was to refer to the trick by a completely bogus name. But I wanted there to be a search result for the effect if someone was to search for it, so I wrote one up.

Here's how it works. The name of the fake effect is in the photo below. I'm not typing it because I don't want this post itself to come up in a Google search for the phrase.

If you google that exact phrase in quotes you will get one hit. Go ahead and try it.

So lets say you know one of your friends is a bit of a secret hound and just can't stand being fooled and will try and hunt down the method for anything you show him. Next time he's around, introduce your trick like this, "Okay, this next trick is very famous. It's called the C____ E__ M______ [the phrase above]." When the trick is over you mention the name of the effect again. "Hope you enjoyed the C_____ E__ M______." Your friend will stash that nugget away so he can look it up the first chance he gets. 

And when he does he'll find a page that suggests the trick would only fool a moron, and that anyone who it does fool will likely be dead in two weeks. 

Now, your friend isn't really supposed to believe he'll be dead soon. It's just a little punctuation mark to your effect that happens after you're gone. A way for you to say, "Yeah, I knew you'd be looking that up, you screwball. I'm ten steps ahead of you."

If you're worried it will lead him to this site and then he'll read through 100s of posts and learn the inner workings of modern magic as delineated by me... don't worry... this site doesn't interest most people who have a genuine interest in magic, much less a casual magic aficionado hoping to find exposure videos on youtube.

But if there's some magic wiki or something and you want to put an entry for the C____ E__ M______ on it, go ahead. Or perhaps we can get Vanishing Inc., or Penguin to have a listing of the effect (sadly Sold Out). If that happens, I'll remove the CEM page from this site. But until that time, I'll retain that page

Gardyloo #12

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Weekend Splooge

From April 5th to April 15th, my non-existent lifestyle blog, The Splooge, took over this site. This was a surprisingly successful break from the format in that nobody complained and a number of people wrote in to say how much they enjoyed it. 

With that in mind, I've decided to bring back non-magic posts on weekends here at The Jerx. This is not something I will do every weekend or even most weekends, we'll see how it pans out. 

I have all sorts of dumb ideas, not just related to magic. And I also like turning people on to the things I'm currently digging. Especially music-wise. While I know the subset of people interested in my views on these things is small, particularly in the magic community, I don't really care. Essentially these sorts of posts are like writing a letter or making a playlist for a couple people, which I'm always down for. The only difference is that the people who these posts will resonate with will have to find them.

If you find yourself not into them, just avoid the weekend posts (I don't normally post magic stuff on the weekends anyways).

Book Update

There's nothing to update. Which is a good thing. As far as I know they are on schedule to be delivered to us at the end of this month and then to you soon after that. 

A milestone was reached this past weekend when I received three consecutive emails from three different female readers. That is a first for this blog and a first for any magic website, for that matter. 

As someone who thinks magic would benefit from a little less wang and a little more 'tang, it was heartening. 

Friend of the site, Jason Leddington, had his essay, The Experience of Magic, published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 

Here is the abstract:

Despite its enduring popularity, theatrical magic remains all but ignored by art critics, art historians, and philosophers. This is unfortunate, since magic offers a unique and distinctively intellectual aesthetic experience and raises a host of interesting philosophical questions. Thus, this article initiates a philosophical investigation of the experience of magic. Section I dispels two widespread misconceptions about the nature of magic and discusses the sort of depiction it requires. Section II asks, “What cognitive attitude is involved in the experience of magic?” and criticizes three candidate replies; Section III then argues that Tamar Szabó Gendler's notion of “belief-discordant alief” holds the key to a correct answer. Finally, Section IV develops an account of the experience of magic and explores some of its consequences. The result is a philosophically rich view of the experience of magic that opens new avenues for inquiry and is relevant to core issues in contemporary aesthetics.

I'm kind of pissed because that's exactly what I was going to write a post about next week. Except with a lot more GIFS.

I can't post it online because of copyright issues, but if you'd like a copy of the essay, feel free to email Jason and he will send you a PDF. He's looking for "as much feedback as possible" as this essay will be part of a larger, forthcoming work. I think those of you who like to think of magic on a more conceptual level, not just about tricks, will enjoy this and I encourage you to reach out to Jason to get a copy and follow up with him with your thoughts on the essay.

Non-Magicians Talking Magic.

Matt Gourley and Mark McConville discuss their favorite illusionist on Pistol Shrimps Radio.

This guy apparently didn't read my post that we should stop hating on Rick Lax. 

I still get emails from time to time bashing Rick. One asked "how can people be so stupid to fall for these tricks?" First, let me reiterate, this is nothing for magicians to get worked up. Second, don't let yourself become seduced by the large numbers of likes on some of Rick's videos. You have to look at them in relation to the number of views. Yes, Rick has some videos with 2 million likes, but they also have 50 million views. Now, it's fair to say that if you truly believed someone was able to read your mind via a facebook video you would "like" that video. So that suggests that approximately 96% of the people who watch Rick's videos aren't fooled by the effect, or at the very least aren't affected by it enough to click "like." That's not a great ratio. If you had an effect that fooled 1 in 25 people, you wouldn't bother doing it. 

So the question, "How can people be so stupid to fall for these tricks?" isn't appropriate, because the overwhelming majority don't fall for the tricks. 

And finally, my pal, friend of the site, and Secret Hyper-Elite Platinum GLOMM member,  Toby Halbrooks co-wrote a movie coming out this weekend. The movie is the new Disney film, Pete's Dragon. 

You know how you're always complaining, "They should remake bad movies to make them better instead of remaking good movies." Well, here you go. They took that turd from the 70s and, from what I've read in the reviews, turned it into something pretty wonderful.

So get your children, or your nieces/nephews, or just some random kid from the street, and go see Pete's Dragon.

There's even some subtle tips-of-the-cap to sharp-eyed Jerx readers.

Buffet Blue Balls

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For the past 3920 days I have woken up, kicked the covers off, ran out of my bedroom and through the kitchen (shoving my girlfriend to the ground in the process), sat down in front of my computer, fired it up, and went to this thread on the Magic Cafe to see if today was the day Steve Brooks finally finished the scintillating tale of how The Magic Cafe came to be. Oh, please, please, please, Steve! Continue the saga! It was November 2005 when you said the story was "TO BE CONTINUED...." And then you just leave us hanging? How dare you!

The last we heard about the pre-history of the Cafe was...

"Writing down a dozen or so ideas and concepts that appealed to me at the time, I started thinking about which theme would suit my needs the best. After some serious thought, I dumped many of my initial ideas, and chose instead to only work those that showed any real promise of becoming successful."

You little tease! I need to know what were the 11 ideas you had that were somehow worse than a Cafe theme? Tell us, Steve!

For those who weren't around back in the day, I'm responsible for that section of the Cafe known as The Buffet.

I used to write a site called The Magic Circle Jerk (it doesn't exist anymore) and Steve and the Cafe staff hated that site. It might have had something to do with the fact that I'd have contests on my site where people would write disgusting erotic fiction involving the Cafe staff. Or that I'd expose things about the site like the fact that the staff frequently reads through your "private" messages, and that their active users are a small fraction of the number they claim. I didn't really care about any of this. I just thought it was fun to get them riled up.

After attempting to get my site taken down a couple different ways, Steve had the devious thought that perhaps the best way for the Cafe to win the battle would be to have some "blogs" of their own. Thus he created the Buffet. This is a section of the Cafe devoted to eight different people. Each has their own "blog." Almost all have been dead for 5-10 years. The blogs, I mean, not the people. (Although, honestly, a couple of them might be dead too. RIP.) Steve himself was the least productive. Managing only five threads before stopping altogether. Don't sweat it, Steve. It's hard to come up with interesting or funny posts all the time.

"B-b-b-b-b-but you make it look so easy!"

I know, sweetheart, I know. But I'm like a magic blogging savant. I've written as many posts in 15 months on this site as you and seven other people wrote over 11 years in the Buffet. I was made for this. (That's a sad fact. Not a brag.)

Whenever I'm in a bad mood I remember that the Cafe used to have a staff of people called "Grammar Hosts" who would read every post and correct spelling and grammar. "But Andy, how could that be? I mean, just logically speaking. Certainly anyone who was in a position in their life where they thought that was a good use of their time would have been long dead by their own hand, yes?" You would think so. But they had them. (And apparently still do, but I don't think they actually correct grammar anymore. Who knows what they do.)

Why is the Cafe and the it's Buffet on my mind? Well, because we are now weeks away from The Jerx, Volume One being sent out and I was reminded about one of my plans for it early on. 

Originally I had contemplated just copying and pasting Steve's five Buffet posts into the text of the book and repeating it over and over for 400 pages. Then I would ship them all out and just when everyone was getting their book I would shut down this site and stop replying to emails. Eventually, a few weeks later, they would get the real book, but not before I had infuriated the people who had been most generous to me. 

I had thought this was a fine idea until my friend, who is handling the paypal transactions, vetoed it because he didn't want to get thrown in jail. And I reconsidered if it would be worth it to spend 1000s of dollars producing and shipping a book as a joke.

It was the smart choice. I have dumb ideas, but I'm not crazy. And that would have been crazy. That's like "Let's waste this one precious life we have correcting other people's spelling on a magic message board" level crazy.

8 Ways to Make Your Magic Un-Googleable

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#1 - Avoid Tricks With Distinctive Props

If all you need to do to find out how a trick works is google the main props and the word "magic" that's not a great trick for the 21st century magician.

Of all the reasons not to do the Bill in Lemon trick, you can add the fact that the first thing someone would google is: bill lemon magic.

Let's see how that would play out. 

#2 - If You Must Do Those Tricks, Modify the Props So They're Unique To You

Ok, you just have to do a Bill in Lemon style effect. Well, let's switch out the props. Let's use an orange instead of a lemon. That shouldn't be a problem as it still has the properties we need for the trick. And instead of a bill use... I don't know... anything you want. A giant fortune-cookie fortune. Whatever.

You offer your spectator a choice of a dozen fortunes. Each are (conveniently) on a dollar bill sized piece of paper. They choose one and sign it. You say that you were hired by the Chinese Food Association of America to make a healthier alternative to Fortune Cookies, so you created a way to get a fortune inside an orange. They pick an orange from a bowl, you cut it open and inside is their signed fortune.

Is this a good trick? I don't know. I'd give it a C-. But it's at least better than "I MADE A DOLLAR GO TO A LEMON FOR NO REASON!" Which is the standard presentation.

And it has the added benefit that if someone searches: orange "fortune cookie" magic, they come up empty.

#3 - Recontextualize Effects

You don't have to change the props. You can also redefine what the effect is. An example from this blog is Cryptophasia. What is, essentially, the effect of a magician predicting a spectator's freely named number was changed into a spectator being able to interpret a language he didn't think he knew. The other two phases of the effect recontextualize two other classics of magic/mentalism.

How about ambitious card. If you do four phases and talk about how the card always "rises to the top." It doesn't take much for someone to google the method to make the card rise to the top. So what if, instead, you said the card was drawn to the palm of your hand. And, in fact, this was some new type of "super-palming." "I can actually palm the card through half of the deck." Now you draw the card to the top a couple times. Draw it to the bottom once. Draw it to the top with a bend so they can see it this time. And then you say, "Even if I put my hand in my pocket the card is still drawn to it." The spectator pushes (what they believe to be) their card into the deck and you remove your hand from your pocket, there's nothing in it. You empty out your pocket, but no card. "Huh," you say. You poke through the items that were in your pocket, eventually opening up your wallet and finding the card stuck in there. "I haven't perfected the technique," you say.

Again, this is just an idea I'm making up as I type. But it's a little more interesting than "the card rises to the top." (It also justifies the card to wallet some people end an ambitious card routine with.) And it allows you to perform one of the most classic effects in card magic with no trail to be found online. If they start googling "card drawn to hand" or "superpalming" they'll find nothing. 

Well... now they'll find this post. Sorry bro. 

#4 Combine Effects

By combining two effects you may be able to blur the line of what each individual effect is. Thus making it harder to google.

The two effects mentioned above—Cryptophasia and the Ambitious Card presentation—would also be examples of that. Another is the previous post, All Seeing Eye of the Beholder.

#5 Overwhelm Them With Possibilities

The previous ideas have looked at ways to make your performances more unique and thus less googleable. But you can go the opposite way as well. If you do a poker routine or a routine where coins change, these effects are so generic that anyone googling will just be overwhelmed with avenues to explore and won't be able to find that specific coin change or poker routine.

#6 Don't Buy the Latest Big Thing

Sorry Penguin and Ellusionist. I love you, but you're just too good at marketing. Many of the effects you release, and really get behind, end up overexposed. Not only that, but a good portion of your customer base are the most pube-less members of the magic community. And so you have a lot of shifty 12-year-olds uploading videos of themselves performing the latests sensation in their dull monotone to youtube. So not only can your audience quickly discover that your little miracle is available to anyone with $15 dollars. They can immediately learn how it's done via some kid's poor performance which serves as an explanation.

#7 Get Your Material From Books

This is the flip-side of #6. I don't want to sound like Grandpa Jerx here, but there is so much good material in books that there is no record of online. 

Honestly, I'm as guilty of eschewing effects found solely in books as anybody. I will overlook an effect in a book for years and then hop on it once it's released as its own instant download. I know it's lazy on my part, but sometimes it takes someone really shining a spotlight on an effect for me to give it the attention it deserves. 

So do as I say, not as I do with this one. If you're looking for material with no online paper-trail, look to books.

#8 Remove Yourself From the Magic

This has been a theme of this site since the beginning. The most tolerable and enjoyable amateur, informal magic presentations are the ones that aren't centered around your ego. They're the ones where you shift the focus off yourself and let the audience put as much of the focus back on you as they choose to.

This style won't necessarily make your effects un-googleable, but it will make them less likely to be googled. It pulls the rug out from under the 10% a-holes I mentioned above. Their compulsion to "expose" you goes away almost completely when you're not looking for credit or validation. 

If this post has its detractors it will be people saying, "Oh, come on. You're worried about a few people googling a trick and finding out... that it's a trick? As you said, they already know that, so who cares? It's all a bit of fun. You're taking it way too seriously. Isn't your ego the thing that is dictating you scramble to make all your material seem original and not traceable on Google?" 

So let me preemptively say no, that's not what this is about. I don't want an effect to be un-googleable for my sake. It's for the sake of the person I perform for. I want them to feel the experience we just had isn't some cookie-cutter thing that comes in a box.

Have you ever watched Dr. Phil when he has some older woman on who's involved in some Nigerian catfish scam? She's always a hefty woman in her late 60s who thinks she's talking to some handsome silver fox across the sea who is perpetually just days away from visiting her. She's about $200,000 in at this point (but he's assured her she'll get it back). Dr. Phil will read some of these love-letters the guy has sent the woman and she will just be beaming at how romantic they are and how special they make her feel. Then Dr. Phil plugs the love-letters into Google and he shows her 100s of results for the same email and you can see her crumble inside. I think, on a much smaller level, some spectators can have a similar letdown when they realize this is just a "routine" and not a genuine rare moment.

You want your spectators to feel like what just occurred was unusual in some way. You want every performance to be a little love-letter to your audience that hasn't been sent 1000 times already. And it turns out the best way to do this is to actually strive to make something unique. If you look at those steps above, that's what most are designed to do. That's why, if an electromagnetic bomb takes out the internet tomorrow and you don't need to worry about people googling anything, it's still a good idea to follow many of the suggestions above. 

All Seeing Eye of the Beholder

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What follows is one of the strongest word/drawing revelations I've ever done. Although it doesn't involve a big time commitment, I would consider it an immersive effect due to the levels of deception and intensity of the effect.

Dan Harlan and I have been collaborating. You're probably pretty excited by that idea, and you have every right to be, given that we're two of magic's best thinkers. 

I should be clear that Dan doesn't know we're collaborating. (So what? Does the lady whose bushes I stand in and masturbate while I watch her change through the window know she's my girlfriend? No. But does that mean she's not?)

What follows is my version of Dan's effect All Seeing Eye which was recently released as its own download, but was also explained in Dan's second Penguin lecture. It was probably also released back on one of his old VHS tapes. The ones you used to watch and mistakenly think, "Well... his hair can't possibly get worse than this."

Dan's All Seeing Eye is essentially a billet reading technique whose choreography gives you a nice long peek at a full billet's worth of information. What it looks like in performance is that your spectator writes down something (a word, picture, or anything else) on a blank business card, folds it, and holds it in her hand. You draw a picture of an eye on another business card (your "third eye"), fold it, and drop it in her closed hands with the other billet. Then, via the "All Seeing Eye," you are able to tell her what she wrote down on the billet. 

I think it's a really solid routine. I don't know that I would use it by itself in lieu of another peek because the "third eye" thing doesn't really mesh with any routine I use at the moment. But I do think it's good and I wanted to build a routine around it because there are some features of the method that can be taken advantage of to produce an even stronger effect when combined with something else... which you shall see below. 

Imagine

You ask your friend to draw a picture on a the back of a business card while you are turned away. Something not too simple and with some unique detail to it. When they are done you have them fold it in half three times. This little packet is placed in their non-dominant hand to hold tightly.

On the back of another business card you draw an eye. You then remove a red marker from your pocket and ask your friend to scribble in the iris of the eye with the red marker. When she finishes you have something that looks like this.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before? If you've ever been on an Indian reservation you might have. It's called the All Seeing Eye. When I was in high school one of my friends lived on the reservation and from time to time we would go there to screw around and we would see this image everywhere: above the doorframe going into the mini-mart on the reservation, on the street signs, just everywhere. And I asked my friend Running Bear about it... I'm just kidding, his name was Kyle. I asked Kyle about it and he said it was the All Seeing Eye. And he said that, historically, the chief of the tribe would be able to look out from wherever he was and see through this image of an eye. Not only see which was visible, but what was hidden too."

"And me, being 16 and a prick, took great delight in mocking this notion. And I was saying how this is the type of stuff that holds native americans back, relying on symbolism and that sort of thing. And he stopped me and said it wasn't symbolic. It was something real. And I didn't believe at first, but then he demonstrated it and now I believe."

"I'd like to try something with you, if that's alright. You see, it's not just an Indian custom. This is something that is still used today all over the world. Let me show you."

"I'm going to use the All Seeing Eye to see the drawing in your hand."

You fold up the All Seeing Eye into a packet and ask your friend to open her hand so you can add it in, but before you do, you open it again and stare into the eye drawing with your left eye. "This helps align then energy," you say. After 10-15 seconds you refold the eye card and toss it in your spectator's cupped hands with the card that has her drawing on it. You ask her to shake them up for a moment then clench both cards between her hands.

You close your eyes and place one of your hands on top of hers.

You breathe deeply in and out three times. Then you stop mid-breath.

"I'm in," you say.

You open your eyes and your left eye is now a deep red.

Your eyes jitter around, seemingly looking at something far off in the distance. You then begin to describe the drawing.

"It's... okay it's a tree. There are three, like... roots at the bottom. There are four lines on the trunk. The first three are mostly straight, but the fourth is bent at, maybe, a 30 degree angle. There's like a cloud shape thing denoting the leaves of the tree and it consists of one, two, three, four, five, six... seven curves."

It's clear that this is not just something you "peeked." You are somehow looking at this image in this moment and describing it in complete detail.

You sharply exhale and look down. "Can you hand me the eye card?" you ask. 

She opens her hand and dumps out the cards, unfolds one (or both) to find the eye card and is shocked to find that it is now drained of all the red color she drew in (or she could find that the eye isn't red anymore but it's the color of your natural eye).

You take the eye card, fold it, and press it to your eye for a few seconds, then toss the card onto the table. You open your eye and it's normal again. When the spectator opens the card, the drawn eye is red again.

"So that just happened," you say.

Method

As mentioned, this is Dan Harlan's All Seeing Eye, and half of Berk Eratay's Biokinesis. And I think it is perhaps even greater than the sum of its parts. 

A couple nice things about Dan's effect is that you get an extended peek (essentially as long as you want) of the whole card. I really wanted to take advantage of that so when you recall the information later on it feels like you're seeing it in real time. In addition, the method behind Dan's peek allows the eye card to seemingly change in the spectator's hand.

The only thing not mentioned is the uncolored eye card changing back to the red-eye card. And that's just any billet switch you know. The trick seems over at this point. Attention is still on your eye and how you could know the information. You're in a good position to switch at that moment.

There it is. 

UPDATED: Sweet Christ, Someone Actually Did It

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From the June 19th post about Jerx Points:

"A GLOMM tattoo. With video proof. You're an idiot - 100 points"

Well, folks, it's been done. 

Courtesy of Jean-Thomas Sexton, the very first GLOMM tattoo.

It's time to step your game up, Jerx point collectors. I look forward to seeing future tattoos. A full back piece. Your forehead. Your scrotum. Keep them coming.

There should always be at least one unobtained Jerx point goal to keep everyone hungry. So I've added the following:

Name your child "Glomm" - 150 Jerx Points.

UPDATE: I've been asked if the 100 Jerx Points are still on the table for tattoos. Yes, absolutely. Also, if you want to go the tattoo route to 150 Jerx Points, here's how you do it (you must document everything on video). First, go and get a Magic Cafe tattoo. Wait for it to heal. Next, go back to the tattoo shop and tell them how embarrassed and ashamed you are of your tattoo and ask to get it covered up with a swastika.

UPDATE 2: Jerx Points don’t exist anymore.

Gardyloo #11

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Book fuck-up-date

So we're still looking towards an end of August delivery of The Jerx, Volume One. The most recent delay came after looking at the page proofs. I was all about to give them the okay, when I looked again at my computer from a sharp angle and what I thought was a clean illustration now had a muddy yellowish tinge to it. What the hell was going on? I could only see it when I tilted my screen away from me. Otherwise it was pretty much invisible in InDesign or looking at it on a pdf.

So we had to go in and clean-up the illustrations which was sort of easy, but sort of hard because you couldn't see what needed to be cleaned up unless you were on a laptop with the screen tilted back. 

Hopefully it's only a setback of a day or two. And a couple hundred dollars to re-run the page proofs. But it's okay because it allowed me to make a couple changes to the text as well. And I want the books to be as clean as possible before you get them. Look, I'll leave it up to you to soil the book with your ejaculate and vaginal fluids. But until that time, you deserve a tight, clean product.

In Michael Murray's book A Piece of My Mind, there's an effect called Sublime Influence. It's an effect that I've always enjoyed performing. But there weren't enough opportunities to perform it in the wild, so I bought a set of these shot glasses.

If you have the book, then you'll understand why these work perfectly.

I set it up as if I'm going to do a numerology reading with Uno cards. "We need to invoke the elements," I say. What does that mean? I don't know. Here's the thing, after a spectator has agreed to a "numerology reading" you can say whatever the hell you want. They've already bought in. 

So I light a candle and then say, "We need a little water too." I go to my kitchen and fill up the shot glass with water. I sit back down with my friend and have her stare into the shot glass while I gently shake it causing the water to ripple. I tell her to concentrate on the rippling water while I count down from 10. 

So she's concentrating and staring at this thing that I will later claim influenced her, but she's not really seeing it because she thinks this is about the water. Then I go through the process with her to generate her "life number" or whatever. Only at the end do I bring up subliminal advertising and say this was an experiment in that. I prefer it that way rather than stating it up front like Michael does. Just a personal preference. I like the idea of getting them to think that there is one thing going on, then you flip the script at the end so they have to reorient themselves and you give them a big moment to demonstrate this different reality. "You thought you were on an alien planet full of apes, but really that planet is Earth, and that's the Statue of Liberty!"

Let's say you get the sense your friend genuinely wanted a numerology reading. Great! Now you can say, "Oh hey... do you want to try some actual fortune-telling with cards? Just as a goof, I mean?" And you can segue into an effect like that. (May I recommend Applied Cartomancy from The Jerx, Volume 1?) In this way you easily get to perform two effects in an organic way without resorting to some horrible "routining." (Routining should not be in the amateur's vocabulary. See Amateur at the Kitchen Table for more details on that.)

I'm bummed the video with images of magician's shushing people while palming a card is seemingly no longer available.

Maybe they'll re-upload it. Or make another version and include this beauty. It's Alan Rorrison in that hack pose. And, ironically, he's lecturing all of us to be more creative.

Here's an analogy I somewhat like, but ended up cutting out of the book. I was writing about what types of subjects I think make good presentations. And I was saying how it can't just be something interesting it really needs to be something fascinating. For our purposes, the distinction I was making was that a "fascinating" thing is an interesting thing but with some element of the unknown or mysterious to it.

That element of the unknown or the mysterious is a powerful thing. It essentially allows your audience the opportunity to view the presentation in a way that they find most appealing. It would be like parading a decent looking woman on stage in front of an audience of heterosexual men. Let’s say 65% of the men are intrigued by her and would like to spend time with her. But what if we put that same woman in silhouette? Ah, now maybe 95% of the men are intrigued by her. By withholding some information we are affording them the opportunity to project what they’re interested in onto this woman. Similarly, by offering a presentation that involves some element of the unknown, you are allowing them the opportunity to decide how much the presentation is meant to be taken seriously, and how much they WANT to take the presentation seriously.