Magic Words

/

As I mentioned on Monday, I will occasionally be posting on the weekend in the future and these posts will be non-magic related, similar to the stuff I was writing during The Splooge days of this site.

Today I'm going to offer you some magic words.

I travel a lot so I spend a lot of time in hotels, restaurants, and on various means of transportation. I'm fairly low-maintenance so I don't like to spend a ton of money on these sorts of things. I do appreciate a really good meal, a nice room, or better travel accommodations, I just don't care enough about them to pay for them. I've read articles about ways to "socially engineer" your way into upgrades on these sorts of things and the advice is usually ridiculous or obvious. How do you get the best available room when you check in at a hotel? Smile when you approach the front desk, the articles say. Gee, thanks! I never would have thought of that. I've been scowling and hammering that little bell on the desk and screaming, "Where you at, cocksucker?!"

You can try to be funny or charming, but you never know how that is going to be received. The person might not find words like "cocksucker" funny. Or they might think you're hitting on them or something weird. 

I've found one line to work well in numerous situations. It works well with men and women, fun people and humorless people, regardless of if they're having a good or bad day. It's a line to use whenever you're asked for your preference in regards to something you don't have a particular preference on. I stumbled across it accidentally one day when I was checking into a hotel.

The girl behind the counter said, "And what floor would you like to be on? The first floor or a higher floor?"

And I said, "Hmmm... you know, I think I trust your judgment on this. Just put me in whatever room you would want yourself."

"Well, I would want to stay in one of our one-bedroom suites," she said. 

"Perfect," I said. And with that I got a $500 a night room for the $82 I paid on Priceline. 

That was the most extreme example, but I've since used variations on that statement with other hotel desk clerks, concierges, chefs, and travel staff and have had similarly good results with it. 

The other night I went out to dinner with four friends. The chef/owner greeted us at the restaurant and asked what we were considering for dinner. I said, "Hmmm... you know, I think I trust your judgment on this. Can you just bring me whatever your favorite is?" My friends agreed with this and we ended up getting a five course meal for about $20 a piece, which was 50% less than a single entree would have been.

Why does this work so well? Well, I guess it's probably obvious, but if someone was to say they trusted your judgment and then ask you to choose the best whatever for them, I think it's human nature to give that person the best you have to offer. You don't want to put someone in a shitty room with a window that faces an alleyway after they asked you for the room you would want for yourself. It would reflect poorly on you. 

I think it also helps that it's not just some line I give. For me it's true. I do trust the judgment of the person who works there to know what's best. 

You might think this is no different than asking for someone's recommendation. "What room do I want? Well, what do you recommend?" "What seat do I want on the plane? Well, what do you recommend?" The difference is that they hear that said to them all day everyday, so it carries significantly less weight. And also, a recommendation isn't binding. "You recommend the Tiramisu? Hmmm... actually I'll go with the chocolate cake." But when you give your power over to someone—when your attitude is, "I couldn't possibly know better than you. Just choose for me."—I think people take that as a sign of some respect and then want to do well by you. I mean, it's annoying when you're with a friend and they foist the decision making onto you. But this is a different situation. They're supposed to be the expert. And people in the service industry are often in a position where they're treated like shit, so showing some deference is probably an attitude they appreciate. Well, it's worked for me, at least. (To be fair, I'm super delightful and charming by nature. You on the other hand....)

Thinking Big and Small

/

If you could do any trick in the world, what would it be? Put aside the method for a moment. Just think of what would be the best trick that doesn't yet exist. 

For those of you who have ordered the book you're going to read about the greatest trick ever performed. It's the epilogue to the book, and I say it's the greatest trick ever performed without any hyperbole or my usual faux-pomposity (that's based on genuine pomposity) at all. It's legitimately the best magic trick ever performed. And it all started a year ago today with this post. I didn't end up following the timetable I had originally planned but it ended up working out better than I hoped.

But let's drop that for now and get back to the question... what's an effect you would do if you could do anything?

I had an idea for a trick where a spectator would think of someone, living or dead, who they were not on good terms with, but they wished they were (or had been). They would carve that person's name on a log and that log would be tossed on a fire in the fireplace. As the log burned, a teakettle with water in it would be placed over the fire until the water was hot, but not boiling. As the water heated up, they could choose to tell me about this person or not.

When the water was hot I'd take it off the fire and let it cool a moment. I'd also bring out a wine glass and a sharpie and have my spectator draw a line anywhere she wanted, horizontally, on the wine glass. Then I'd pour the water into the wine glass to the rim. I'd have my spectator take a sip and then I'd have her make the wine glass sing (or if she didn't know how, I'd do it for her).

I'd have her drink a little more water and then make the glass sing again. And I'd have her note how the pitch changed. 

Then I'd have her drink down to the line she had marked on the glass. And, again, make her glass sing. This time the squeal of the glass would swell and transform into the voice of the person whose name she carved into the log. The voice would say, "I love you," or "I miss you," or "I forgive you," or whatever was appropriate.

Another trick I'd like to do is give my spectator a hand mirror and ask her to look into it and identify something on her face that she considers a flaw. 

Then I'd say, "I will make that flaw disappear."

Then I'd hand her a pair of plastic vampire teeth and have her put them in her mouth.

When she looks in the mirror again, the flaw is gone. Everything is gone. Like all vampires she no longer casts a reflection.

I'd like to do a version of the bill switch where the bill changes into a statement from their bank or creditor saying that their largest loan or credit card has been paid off. And when they check their account online they find it's true.

I have a friend who actually performed this once. He's not a magician but I taught him the bill switch so he could do it. He paid off his girlfriend's $22,000 in student loans. Not a huge amount compared to what other people have to pay in student loans, but still a significant amount, and an amount that she felt was overwhelming. Neither of them were well off. He raised the money by selling a bunch of his possessions, including his motorcycle, and working a part-time job at night without her knowing for almost 6 months (she, too, worked at night and assumed he was home sleeping). 

At a small gathering for her birthday he told her he couldn't afford to get her a real present so he learned a magic trick for her instead. He borrowed a dollar from her and asked what she'd like him to turn it into. She said she wanted him to turn it into a $100 bill. He folded the bill and unfolded it revealing a statement from her student loan provider saying the loan was paid off.

Later that night he proposed to her with a $200 ring with a tiny sliver of diamond. It was some good magic.

My ideal trick would be to do the bill change to loan payment statement, but to be able to do it impromptu for a stranger.

I'm thinking about this because recently the question was asked on the Cafe what the greatest trick was that hadn't been invented yet.

And, in a hilariously typical example of magician creativity, do you know what the answers are up the point of this writing?

  • You predict a playing card the spectator names.
  • You make a coin disappear.
  • Any Card at Any Number

(Oh, and one dude wants to throw a pitcher of water in the air and have the water stop in mid air. I give him credit for at least naming something that doesn't exist yet, but that still seems to be thinking kind of small and arbitrary. I think it would be much cooler to pull out your dong, point it to the heavens, unleash a blast of urine and have it freeze in mid arc. Claim it's part of some sick fetish where you love getting peed on, but not with someone else's urine. Ew gross. What are you, some kind of animal? So you just do this. Freeze the stream. Go lay under it. Unfreeze it.)

I think it's telling that when given complete creative freedom to come up with a trick, what we have is three standard magic effects. That was the best they could do. Oh, they put some constraints on the effects to make them impossible, but they still just chose dumb, boring magic tricks when they could have said anything. 

It would be like if I said you could design your ideal sex robot. She would look and feel exactly like a real woman. Someone famous, or your high school girlfriend, or whatever you want. And you said, "Oh wow... anyone? Hmmm. Like a celebrity? Anyone at all? Could I take one woman's face and put it on another's body? I can? Completely mix and match however I want? Or just create a dream girl from my imagination? However I want to do it? Hmmm... okay... think think think.... Oh! I know what I want her to look like! My wife in her prettiest dress." It's like, come on, dude, you can barely tolerate that slob of a wife.

The argument will be that they were trying to come up with realistic tricks that hadn't been invented yet. But that's not what was going on. They were coming up with magician-centric tricks that hadn't been invented yet. You can tell this because they're naming constraints that only a magician would put that much weight on. The difference between a normal ACAAN, and the one described in that thread is marginal at best and would get only a slightly better reaction. The coin vanish described would be on par with using a Raven. Hell, with a Raven they see it vanish. And the card trick described (spec names a card, it's the one on their hand) is something we can get very close to 1000 different ways. That's the "greatest" trick that hasn't been invented yet? Hell, there are a couple dozen effects on this blog that will get a significantly better reaction than that.

Magic doesn't need us to come up with some more rational and reasonable ideas for effects. We've got plenty. I'm not saying the guys in that thread are uncreative, but magic has a tendency to have you thinking along certain lines. (I mean, at the very least, isn't it a better trick if you put a baseball card in someone's hand and it turns out to to be whatever player from history they're thinking of?)

You might say the ideas I mention at the top of this post aren't possible and that's true enough, but it doesn't mean they're fruitless to think about. All those ideas have lead to other effects that are doable.

It's in its early stages but I have a very rough version of an effect where a wine glass plays a mentally selected song, and it started with me thinking about the effect mentioned at the top.

Working on the vampire effect led directly to the idea behind the Jerx App which the book buyers are getting, and the effects possible with that thing are insane. With the functionality that will be added to the Jerx app upon the release of the book you will have the ability to:

  • have concrete evidence that you were able to hypnotize someone or cause selective amnesia in them
  • press on someone's head in such a way that their reading comprehension goes to a 2nd grade level
  • convince people you've implanted false memories in their head
  • have spectators read each other's minds and not know how they did it
  • have one spectator unknowingly instant stooge another spectator without the second one ever realizing he's been stooged or the first one ever realizing they played a part in the stooging (wrap your head around that)

And all this came out of trying to come up with a way for a spectator not to see their reflection.

If you're a creative type, please think big. For my sake. I don't have a Jerx blog that I get to read. (Well, I have this one, but I had to write the goddamn thing.) I want more cool ideas to read and think about. Come up with crazy shit. Even if you only get 10% of the way there, the idea is bound to be better than a card prediction, or another ACAAN, or another version of that trick where you slide a card through a folded card or dollar. (That effect is covered guys. We got it. Thanks. Let's move on to something else.)

Multiocular

/

I got a lot of nice feedback on All Seeing Eye of the Beholder (read that post first if you haven't, or this one won't make sense) but very few can perform it due to the unavailability of Biokinesis, as well as—let's face it—the questionable wisdom of doing Biokinesis in the first place. A lot of people get a little squeamish when it comes to fucking around with their eyes for some reason. Chill out, people. That's why god gave you two eyes, ya pussy, so you can screw one up via an ill-conceived magic trick.

I think it's worth investing time to look for variations on Dan's structure because there are a couple aspects of his handling that are sort-of unique compared to other glimpses and perhaps worthy of capitalizing on. The first is that you get a full glimpse of the drawing (or word/whatever) for as long as you want, allowing you to take in all sorts of details. To be able to not just say, "You drew a boat," but to then be able to describe the number of lines used, the number of waves, the angle of the sail, all of these things make it seem like you're actually viewing the image in that moment rather than just having "glimpsed" it at some point along the way.

The other quality of Dan's handling that it might be worth taking advantage of is that the billet that goes into their hand can change when it is removed. Now, in general, this is probably not a good idea, as it points to the method somewhat. But, if you have a really strong visual moment (like your eyeball changing color, or the one in Variation 1 below) I think the card changing can be seen as another part of the whole effect, and not a hint towards the method (assuming the change of the card is tied to the visual moment).

Both variations below are slightly more intense than your standard drawing or word reveal. But the great thing about amateur magic is you usually know your audience and know when you can push the envelope a little.

Variation 1

I haven't done this version myself, but I think it's workable.

This starts off the same: they hold a picture in their hand, you place another picture of a red eye in their hands as well. Then you kind of stare off into the void. After a moment you start describing the drawing, but you act like this is hurting your eye in some way so you rush through it but get in as much detail as you can. Finally, when you can't stand it anymore, you reach up to your eye, with an empty hand, start rubbing around it a little, then a stream of red liquid comes shooting out of your eye, splashing onto the wall or floor or your spectator. When the eye card is removed from their hand, the red color has drained from it as well (don't bring it back as in the original ASEotB). The implication here is that somehow via this strange ritual the red of the All Seeing Eye absorbed the essence of their image and then via some ethereal osmosis you were able to soak up that red into your actual eye so you could tell them what was drawn on the paper. But then you had to expel it out. 

The method? Does anyone remember this gimmick? That's all there is to it. You'll just have to load it with something that isn't going to blind you when you, invariably, shoot it right back into your eye like an idiot. I'm not quite sure what that would be, but I'd probably start my search with something like thinned out Kryolan eye blood or something like that.

Variation 2

This is similar to something I have done for a long time, but not with Dan's handling, although I think the ideas work very well together. Your spectator draws something and holds it in their hand. You draw a stick man on a separate business card and say that this will serve as your avatar. "I know it seems a little hokey, but there's a little more to it than just this." Then you take out a diabetic testing lancet, poke your finger, and smear the blood on your stick man. You take a moment to "align yourself" with your avatar, then you place the card in your spectator's hands. 

It's probably a good idea to go sit in a chair at this point. Slow your breathing. "Something's going to happen in a moment. Don't worry. Everything is fine. Keep your hands tightly closed. If I'm not back in five minutes then you can call-" Immediately your body slumps and you slide out of the chair to a pile on the ground, as if your "essence" has left your body. After 30 seconds to a minute, start to "come to" and get up and stretch your limbs. "Dammit that hurts," you say. Then you begin to describe their drawing to the tiniest detail. As if... what exactly?... your consciousness left your body and was projected into your avatar in the spectator's hands? I don't know. I just know as a bit of theater it's more intriguing than "Project your word letter by letter onto a blank screen in your mind." If you're going to do something bogus, why not do something intriguingly bogus rather than some mental spelling test?

Diabetic testing lancets are like 5-10 bucks. I think every magician should have one. There is something unsettlingly interesting about using your blood in an effect, and this is a painless way to obtain some. I'm a big fan of bodily fluids in magic. Well, spit and blood, at least. Hell, I'd consider other ones too. It gives things a little witchcraft-y/medieval element which can be an interesting break from more traditional presentations. No, it's not something you'd do professionally. And you wouldn't do it for the boys when you're showing them your new gambling routine. But for the right audience it works. Just last weekend I was showing something to my younger female cousin and her teenage friends. At one point we all spit in the palm of our hands and piled our hands on top of one another as part of an effect. It was gross, and they were all squeamish about it, but uncontrollably laughing the whole time as well. 

In general I don't explain too much with this sort of presentation. I don't turn it into some long storytelling bizarre magick type thing. It's all just a part of the process. Let them fill in the blanks. 

(And please don't email me to lecture me about hygiene and safety. I try to write as if my audience is full of reasonably intelligent people. Yes, don't do anything where your blood is coming in direct contact with others. If you have hepatitis B or something, don't go spreading your blood around people. Don't cum on objects your audience is handling. You know this stuff.)

The [REDACTED]

/

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

/

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

/

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

/

#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.