Four Ways to Vanish a Coin, Part Two

Here's a second way to vanish a coin. 

The Peek Backstage

"Can I get your help with something I'm working on?"

In a blog full of brilliant ideas, the notion that this line is all you really need when showing people magic in casual settings is one of the best.

It's the most disarming line in magic. In an art form where the relationship between performer and spectator is often seen as an adversarial one based on a challenge, this line does something pretty extraordinary: it puts you and your spectator on the same side.

Not only that, but it's a universal line that works as well for people who are into magic as people who don't care for it. As you'll see below.

And finally, this approach clarifies what kind of transaction you're looking for with the spectator. "I'm going to show you something, and there is some particular kind of input or feedback I'd like from you." This is a very calming thing when performing for someone you don't know well. Imagine an acquaintance or a new friend said to you, "I'm going to sing you a song! Sit in that chair and listen while I sing." You'd probably think, "Uh-oh... what is this? Am I supposed to clap at the end?" But if I said, "Could you do me a favor and listen to this song I wrote and tell me if it's clear what the lyrics are about?" It would be much less weird. Now you have a job to do other than "appreciate me for my singing abilities."

When I know my spectator well, it makes sense to come up with a presentation that is more intense and somewhat tailored to that person. But for new friends or people I've just met—people for whom I don't yet know their appreciation for magic—I almost never do anything outside of this style.

With something simple, like the vanish of a coin, there is a way to tweak it a little to make the whole thing a little more bizarre and intriguing.

Let's assume you have a one coin vanish that ends very clean, with empty hands.

"Can I get your help with something I'm working on?" you ask. "Just hold still, right there for a moment."

Go through the motions of your coin vanish but don't actually do the vanish. Let's say the coin is now sitting in the palm of your hand.

"Can you still see it there?" you ask. They indicate that yes, they can, and you say, "Damn. Uhmmm. Let's try this." Now you rotate your body a small amount to the left or right (whatever direction is more advantageous for your vanish).

Now you do the vanish again, but this time you actually make it disappear. "Can you still see it now?" you ask, as if there is a coin there still to be seen. "No? Awesome. Thanks for your help, What kind of angle are we standing at would you say? 30 degrees?"

The implication is that some minute change of angle allows this coin to no longer be seen in your hand. For someone who loves magic, this is a fascinating notion. And it's exciting for them to get this peek behind the scenes. 

But the real benefit is how this presentation plays for someone who may not like magic. When people say they don't like magic, what they almost always mean is they don't like magicians. No one "doesn't like" seeing one dollar bills turn into $100s. What they don't like is the smarmy magician, his attitude, and the performer/spectator dynamic. In this presentation style you're not playing "the magician," you don't have an attitude, and the dynamic is one of equals. If anything you're asking for their help so they're the higher status ones. I've found this method can completely turn around previously skeptical or actively antagonistic spectators. People just tend not to be dicks when they've agreed to help you in some way.

How does this address the Seinfeld critique? By giving people a peek backstage and asking for their assistance, you are eliminating the dynamic of the magician being the know-it-all and the spectator being the simpleton. The spectator is now part of your team

Tomorrow, the Distracted Artist vanishes a coin.

Four Ways to Vanish a Coin, Part One

"I don't think anything competes with a magic act for humiliating entertainment value. What is the point of the magician? He comes on, he fools you, you feel stupid, show's over. You never know what's actually happened. It's never explained. And that's kind of the attitude the magician seems to have as he's performing. It's like, 'Here's a quarter. Now it's gone. You're a jerk.' Sometimes they ask you to blow on it. There's something mature adults like to do, blow on a deck of cards. I also love that little pretend look of surprise they do when the trick works. Like,'Oh, I didn't know that was going to happen myself. I even amaze me.'"

-- Jerry Seinfeld

As we come to the end of this season of the blog, I thought I would go back and look at one of the first ideas I proffered on this site: the three styles of magic presentation I find get the best reactions. Specifically I'm going to look at how you might approach each style in the performance of a coin vanish. This is something I went into more detail into in JV1,  but if you've read the Presentation Week posts from last summer, then you're pretty much up to speed.

Here is the first way to vanish a coin. The standard way.  It was described by Jerry Seinfeld in this clip from almost 40 years ago:

The audience is not laughing so hard because the joke is so clever, they're laughing because it's an observation they connect with. 

Magic, presented in the traditional way, often comes across like this. We like to imagine it doesn't. We like to think people see it as a richer experience than just being fooled. But there's a reason Seinfeld didn't go onstage and say, "What's the deal with magicians? I mean, they really remind us of the wonder that surrounds us every day, don't they? It's like, 'Here's a quarter. Now it's gone. You're experiencing the astonishment we associate the a child-like state of mind. Now it's back. You're more open to the mystery of everyday existence.'" He doesn't say that because very few people would resonate with that observation, so it wouldn't be very funny.

I'm not a big believer that you can force people to see magic in some particular light, but I do believe you can present it in ways that lessen or remove the stigma Seinfeld is talking about above. And when you remove that, you put them in a position where they're more inclined to see it as a positive experience (occasionally even a transformative one) not your weird ego trip.

So the first way to vanish a coin is the traditional, meaningless, "You're an idiot" style that Seinfeld alludes to.

As the week progresses we'll look at other approaches.  

Part Two tomorrow.

Gardyloo #15

If you're a Jerx completist, there is an effect of mine in the latest Penguin Magic Monthly.

It's not a new trick. You can see it here. 

Just to emphasize what a savvy marketer of my material I am, I received an offer a couple weeks ago from a magician you all know asking if he could buy the rights for that trick and have me take it off my website. It would have been a nice little payday, the best this site has provided to this point. Instead, I had already given that trick to Penguin to put in their magazine for which I received... I don't think I received anything! I have to spend $50 if I even want to get a free copy of the magazine! And there's nothing I really want to get until the Milk to Light Bulb is back in stock.

It's a good thing I'm part-sociopath or this sort of thing would probably get to me. Instead I'm just delighted that one of the strongest, most direct effects in the history of magic is now hidden away to be forgotten about in Penguin's free monthly magic thingy. 

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Speaking of marketing. If you're a pro who does close-up gigs, you'll probably want to check out Andi Gladwin's second At the Table lecture. While it has a few tricks in it, the main selling point is the tips on marketing and crafting your website. It's like 8 bucks, so you don't have much to lose and the advice is really sound.

And it's always funny to watch Andi and Josh attempt to suppress the true nature of their relationship in public.

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Here's a throwback.

I used to use the effect "Milk to Light Bulb" as a punchline on my old site. It's such a stupid idea for a trick that more than one person thought I had made it up as a gag. No, it's a real trick.

(When I started this site I didn't mention Milk to Light Bulb much because I realized there was an equally arbitrary trick that people had convinced themselves was good: bill to lemon. It's not good. It's meaningless impossibility. Like so much of magic. )

At any rate, I found a couple old pictures in a defunct email address with the label "funtime" on them. They're pictures of a friend of mine dressed up as Steve Brooks' old profile picture on the Magic Cafe. They were taken for a post on a fake product I had created called "Light To Milk Carton." Sadly the other pictures and the post they go along with are lost to time. And those pictures included my friend in his Brooks get-up pouring milk all over himself, and the money shot of the light pouring out of the carton. He has his suspenders tucked into his underwear because he didn't want to get back on the subway with milk drenched jeans. Understandable.

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In fact, here is the first mention of Milk to Light Bulb from the old site:

Thursday, November 20, 2003

World's Dumbest Magic Trick? 

Why does this trick exist?

I don't get it. It seems so arbitrary. Milk to light bulb? Why not have an effect where a steel-toed work boot fills up with ravioli? Where's that effect? Why don't they sell an effect where a barbecue grill magically overflows with hooded sweatshirts?

It would be one thing if you could make a light bulb in your friend's house fill up with milk. It still wouldn't make any sense, but it would be very puzzling. But when you bring a lamp somewhere, turn it on, and then show that the light bulb is filled with milk, I think the natural reaction would be, "Hmmm, I guess he's a got a lamp that looks like it's lit even when the light bulb is filled with milk."

In fact your only defense would be to say, "Hey, if I was going to spend $275 on a magic trick, do you really think I'd buy one that caused milk to appear in a light bulb? That doesn't even make any fucking sense! So it must be real magic!" Although that logic is a little suspect as well.

What amazes me is that they claim to be better than all the other models on the market. There are other models!

Take a look at the pictures on that website. The guy pours the milk from a pitcher into a cone of newspaper, the milk vanishes, appears in a light bulb, which he pours back into the pitcher. Hey asshole! You should have saved us the time and energy and just left the milk in the pitcher to begin with!

If there is a more nonsensical trick out there, please let me know.

The Only Life Skill That Matters

[Weekends are for non-magic posts.]

It's amazing how much time people let tick-tick-tick away.

I travel a lot and so I spend a lot of time sitting next to strangers. There is some element of my personality or demeanor that makes people feel comfortable opening up to me. And I feel I have had conversations like this 100 times in my life.

Stranger: Yeah, well I just got out of a 16-year marriage.
Me: How long should the marriage have lasted? I mean, at what point did you know it wasn't going to work?
Stranger: Oh, after 8 months I knew we weren't right for each other.

Everyone is spending too much time in dead-end relationships, at dead-end jobs, and on dead-end paths. 

They're not confused or unsure. They might be scared or lazy. But either way, they're definitely paralyzed by the thought of action. Which is bizarre because action is the remedy for everything (depression, anxiety, boredom, fear, regret). Action is even the remedy for previously ill-thought out actions. It's like a drug that cures the complications from itself.

If there is something you want to do that you're not doing, I am going to propose to you a first step:

Take an improv class.

If you're anywhere near even a medium-sized city, you should be able to find an improv class. Go sign up for one.

"But I don't want to be a comedian."

That's not why you're taking the class. The improv community will offer you a whole host of benefits they say improv can bring. They'll tell you it will make you more confident. That it will make you a better speaker. That it will make you a better performer. That it will allow you to live in the moment. That it will increase your communication skills. Those are all pretty much true.

Then they'll give you some fruity nonsense benefits about how improv is an opportunity to "play" and use your imagination and be a kid again. That may or may not be true.

But all those real or imagined benefits pale in comparison to the one life skill improv teaches you, and it's the only one that matters: The ability to minimize the time between inspiration and action.

In improv you are encouraged to act on every momentary impulse. In real life you don’t need or want to act on every whim. But your life will be improved when you act on those things that are a "calling" to you. And once you become a person of action you will quickly learn to differentiate between the two (the whims and the callings). Improv will give you practice at becoming a person of action.

When you first start with improv, you'll have an idea and you'll sit back wondering if you should offer it up and the moment will pass you by again and again. You'll gradually begin to shorten that time between the moment you have the idea and the moment you act upon it. You'll be rewarded for action because it moves things forward. Improper action will be corrected through more action. Improv, at the highest level, is a bunch of people taking action simultaneously with the inspiration. Your life, at the highest level, should probably be something similar.

Or, you know, you can mull over every moment of decision, put off action, and weigh the pros and cons over and over until you're dead.

by Scott Dikkers

Transgressive Anagrams

[See update at the end of this post.]

For me, this concept I'm about to explain has been an evolution in my thoughts as far as how to approach the presentation of progressive anagrams/branching anagrams. (If you're not already familiar with PAs, this will make no sense to you.) It has allowed me to have a lot more confidence with progressive anagrams, and allowed me to do effects that are much more interesting to me and to my audience than standard PA effects are. It's not really a change in technique, it's a change in approach and intent. 

While I wouldn't be surprised if others had looked at PAs from this angle, it apparently didn't catch on because I haven't seen them addressed from this perspective in the material I've read. I also wouldn't be surprised if others hadn't pursued this angle in the past because it's somewhat counterintuitive. That being said, it is now the focus of how I attack progressive anagrams.

The idea behind the Transgressive Anagram technique is this notion: the best thing that can happen with a progressive anagram is when you're able to transgress beyond the naming of letters to something more compelling.

Instead of looking at progressive anagrams as a type of effect, lets look at them as a tool for divining information. In this way we can get around what will be the biggest stumbling block for understanding what I'm proposing. That stumbling block is the thinking that the best case scenario with a PA is when you name all the letters without missing any. The truth is that is the best case scenario for one type of effect. An effect that is probably one of the less interesting ones you can utilize a PA for.

With the Transgressive Anagram, the best case scenario is actually two immediate wrong letters. And why is that? Because now you know the word they're thinking of without apparently knowing anything. Now, that's bad if you're stuck in the presentation of being the man who knows letters in the word someone is thinking of. But it's really, really good if you're someone who is willing to pivot into a new effect entirely. After two wrong letters early on, it's perfectly reasonable to say, "Hmm... this isn't working. Let's try something else." And if you do something interesting, that letter guessing thing is a distant memory. 

Here's part of why the Transgressive approach is so powerful. In general, people don't equate denying your guesses with giving you information. Even though they're technically the same thing. For example, let's imagine you, Tom, and I are all friends. Tom is going to cook me a meal for my birthday, but he won't tell me what he's making. I'm pestering Tom to find out what it is. "Is it pizza?" I ask. He tells me it's not. "It's probably some type of seafood," I say.

"Nope. You're way off," Tom says.

Later that night you meet up with Tom to discuss the plans for my birthday dinner. "Does Andy know what you're making for dinner?" you ask.

"He has no idea," Tom says.

What Tom doesn't say is this: "He knows I'm not making pizza or seafood."

That's just not the way most people think. If you break it down for them logically they understand that knowing something isn't true is the flip-side to knowing something that is true, but that's not the natural way people look at things. 

So, let's cycle back to a progressive anagram that is constructed so you know what they're thinking after two NOs. If you get those NOs early enough, then you can skip out on the "naming the letters" process without apparently having gained much information. 

Before we get to the details of the process. Let's take a look at how this might play out in the real world. I'll use Atlas Brooking's superhero anagram for an example since it's widely known. If you're not familiar with Atlas' work on anagrams you will want to check out his Penguin Live lecture and his book The Prodigal.

Traditional Progressive Anagram

Performer: I'm seeing an "A."
Spectator: No. No A.
Performer: Oh... I see what's happened. The top of what I thought was an A is actually rounder. The letter is an R. There's an R there, yes?
Spectator: Yes.
Performer: And an I.
Spectator: No.
Performer: Are you sure? I'm seeing a vertical line. Oh... actually that might the base of a T. I'm getting a T. And an O. Are you thinking of Thor?
Spectator: That's correct.

Transgressive Anagram

Performer: I'm seeing an A.
Spectator: No.
Performer: Ooookay... hmmm. It could be an R.
Spectator: Yes.
Performer: And an I.
Spectator: No.
Performer: What the... seriously? Is there a G maybe? Never mind. Screw it. This isn't working. Let's try something more fun. You seem like more of a visual person. I tend to think in words but I'm betting you think more in pictures. So I want you to imagine this superhero, and if there's some kind of classic pose or move they're associated with, or something they're known for, I want you to try and project that to me.

[The performer stands about 10 feet away, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, with the rest of his body hanging loosely, ragdoll-ish. For a few moments, nothing happens.]

Performer: Seriously though, I want you to imagine that hero—their presence—entering me. Really send it [A few seconds pass.] It won't work if--

[The performer's body jerks to attention. He does a jump and lands in a superhero three-point pose, pounding down with his right forearm as if he holds something in that hand. This is like a brief momentary spasm and then it's over. The performer sits loosely on the ground, laughing.]

Performer: AAAAHHH-hahahaha. That was amazing. [He stands up.] It's the dude. The guy with the hammer. [He snaps rapidly with both hands as if trying to remember the name.] The god guy.
Spectator: Thor.
Performer: Thor!

How do you think a spectator will remember that experience? Will they think, "He knew I was thinking of Thor because he knew there was an R in the name." Will they even remember the uninteresting, failed letter-guessing portion?

This is the Transgressive Anagram. Whenever possible, using the progressive anagram as a mental peek to get the word and move on rather than making it the process of the effect itself. 

Let's talk more about the actual workings...

The Transgressive Anagram is not just about transitioning the effect if you get a couple of NOs in a row. That's something people do frequently. Instead it's about setting up your presentation of the PA in a way which makes it natural and forgettable if you ditch it. The goal of the TA is to get out of the PA effect. The fallback—if it's not possible to get out—is to then do a more standard PA effect. If you think naming letters is already the most interesting way you have to reveal information, then there's no use performing the Transgressive Anagram. Just follow the rules of the standard PA.

This started because I was doing the astrology divination a lot. And I realized I was getting a better response when the letter portion failed early on than I was if it went well all the way through. When it failed early on I was in a position where I knew their sign, but they didn't know that yet. So I would act like we were going to try something completely different, and then do whatever I wanted. Something interesting. Something that grabs people's attention more than naming letters does. So I might ask them to step outside with me, close their eyes and turn their body slowly, stopping wherever they wanted. Then I would say, "Okay, you were drawn to this direction." I'd look off into that area of the night sky. "Hmmm... okay... at this time of the year that's going to be the area of the archer. You're a sagittarius." And they'd flip out. (It's pretty safe to fake where the stars are. Oddly enough, people who are interested in astrology have little interest in astronomy.) Then they'd go back into the bar and be like, "He could tell my zodiac sign by what part of the sky my body was drawn to!"  

They didn't say, "First he guessed some letters. That didn't really work out. So we went outside and he was able to figure it out." The letter part is a non-event. When they "remember the hits and forget the misses," I think a good portion of them forget the letter part altogether. Or they just give it no weight. So while they may not forget it immediately, it's something they will certainly forget months down the road looking back on this.

The Rules to the Transgressive Anagram

The whole idea behind the structure of the TA is to get you out of the PA early without drawing too much attention to itself. You can't speak with a lot of authority and justify your misses early on or else it will make no sense to abandon the effect. So the rules below—which are in contrast to much of what is taught with modern PAs—are designed to de-emphasize the first four guesses in the PA. 

For our purposes we'll break the PAs up into the first four letters, and all the letters that come after.

Rules:
1. Never justify any misses in the first four letters.
2. No matter where your first miss occurs, you brush past it with a mildly confused "Huh...Okay."
2. Don't speak with certainty and authority unless and until you've gotten past the four letter mark.
3. If you get two misses within the first four letters, abort the process. Say it's "not working," and move onto something intrinsically more interesting where you can reveal the information you now know.

That's our goal. To get out of this letter naming process and into something more fun. You should be able to do this just under half the time within the first four letters of a normal sized PA. I will, in fact, sabotage the PA to get out of it if I know the word in under four letters and and still haven't gotten two misses. For example, in the superhero anagram you will know Daredevil after three letters: one right, one wrong, and one right again. Instead of just listing off the rest of the letters in Daredevil, I will purposely get the next letter wrong. That puts me at 50% and it makes sense for me to say, "Oh, this isn't really working. Let's try something else." (Given the option between continuing to spell out letters or "absorbing" the spirit of the superhero they're mentally sending me, and then acting like I'm blind and tripping over my sofa, I will go with the latter 100% of the time.)

If you haven't figured out what their word is by the fourth letter, then you're too committed to back out and say it "not working" because, by definition, you will have only missed one letter at most by that point. So instead we're going to do our fall back effect which is the standard PA. 

You see, you're not losing anything by hoping to get out of this via the Transgressive Anagram, you're just putting yourself in a position to do something more interesting. You're only gaining something. That "best case scenario" of nailing every letter is already lost to you at that point. The idea is to transform a scenario with multiple early misses into its own best case scenario.

Let's say we don't get two misses in the first four, so we're stuck in the PA. Here is how I personally handle the possible situations going forward. 

Actually, before I get into that, one note about justifications. I don't try to overly justify misses. Sometimes it can come off a little like you're covering your ass. "Ah, yes. Not an M, but an N." I think for some audience members (not all) that comes off as a little phony. And I think you might be better off leaving things a little open-ended instead of immediately trying to cover your tracks and offering something too pat. Your experience may be different. 

This is how I handle the three potential PA situations assuming I don't get out of the PA within the first four letters.

First Possibility - I get two misses total. One in the first four letters, and one after that.

After the first miss my reaction is slight confusion, but I immediately press on. I just say something like, "Hmmm...okay." Upon the second miss I will try and justify my mistake. But I act as if it's for my own benefit than for the spectator's. And I keep it rather abstract. I think you're better off not knowing exactly what the issue is but apparently working it out later on. For example:

Performer: There's an A.
Spectator: No.
Performer: Hmmm... really? Okay, this might not work. I'm getting an R.
Spectator: Yes.
Performer: And an I.
Spectator: Uhm... yes.
Performer: An E.
Spectator: Uh-huh.
Performer: I'm seeing an H.
Spectator: No
Performer: [Second miss, now an implied justification.] You're sure? That's what I'm getting. Wait... are you seeing these in capital or lower case letters? Or some kind of mixture? [Regardless of what they answer.] Oh, I thought I mentioned to think in upper case [or whatever the opposite of what they say is]. Ooh! That's why the first one was off. Okay, okay.

[Here you're reaching back to imply that that's why that first letter was wrong too. You were anticipating the letters coming through in a different manner. Now I ask for a slight change of procedure. I ask them to imagine the whole word written out in front of them and I spell it directly. Now that we're on the same page it makes sense to finish it off quickly.]

Performer: See your whole word floating in the air in front of you. All capital letters. [I hold my hands out to indicate the area he is to picture it in.] Okay, first letter is an E. Sorry no. I'm looking at it backwards. W-O-L-V-E-R... Wolverine. You're thinking of Wolverine.

Second Possibility - I get two misses total. Both after the first four letters.

Here you've just rattled off four or five letters correctly then you get a couple wrong in quick succession. It doesn't make sense to try and justify those misses when you had been so clear and decisive on things up until that point. Instead I will shift the blame to them a little. 

[First miss] "Hmm... okay."
[Second miss] "Ah, you're losing focus. Let's switch it up."

The truth is, the longer someone concentrates on something the likelier they are to lose focus. So telling them they're concentrating less is something I think most people would see as true. It's almost a minor "hit." Then I will change the procedure so I'm making physical contact with the spectator and I'm getting the rest of the word by some physical means. This is not the same as the TA procedure.

TA Procedure = "That didn't work. Let's try something completely different."
This Procedure = "This has stopped working. Let's try a different technique to finish what we started."

Third Possibility - I get no misses or one miss.

I treat both of these the same, as, essentially, a perfect demonstration of pulling the letters from their mind. Give them the chance to forget or ignore the miss instead of feeling the need to justify it. Rattling off all the letters with one imperfection is close enough. It's not going to present a solution to the spectator. If one were to ever ask after a performance about the one misstep, then I'd make up some justification on the spot. "Why did I guess what? B? Did I say B? I have no idea. I kind of zone out during it and just say what I see. I could have misread something or sometimes letters get flipped."

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People who teach progressive anagrams will tell you that you need to speak with confidence to fool people with the trick. You can't act like you're asking, you need to make it seem like you're telling them the letters that are there. That sort of confidence would be incongruous with the TA procedure where you're trying to move away from that part of the process as being a failure. So for our first four letters we don't act overly confident and don't justify things. We just say, "I see a B. I see an A." Etc. You might think this will weaken the effect if we have to stay in the PA past the first four letters. It doesn't and here's why: Only one of three things can happen with these first four letters.

1. You get two letters wrong. In which case you're bailing on the procedure anyway and confidence would draw unnecessary focus on a process you want forgotten.
2. You get all the letters right. In which case acting like you're confident is unnecessary. Your swift and accurate naming of four letters right off the bat is a demonstration of your confidence.
3. You get one letter wrong. Remember your reaction to your first miss is just a quick, mildly-confused "Hmm... okay." This can be seen in two lights depending on how the trick progresses. It can be seen as someone trying and failing at something. Or it can be seen as someone confident enough in what they're doing that they're not going to flip out over one misstep. Depending on where the trick goes after that miss, their interpretation of your reaction to that miss will be whatever seems more appropriate.

After you've made it past the first four letters, then you can ratchet up your confidence for the rest of the PA.

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To reiterate, the Transgressive Anagram is an approach to the Progressive Anagram technique that allows you to do a hardcore bail on the procedure in what is usually seen as the worst-case scenario (multiple incorrect letters early on in the procedure). By making the process unremarkable—something where you had at best a couple lucky guesses—you are giving it the chance to be forgotten about. The letter-guessing process will get lost in the shadow of the more interesting effect you erect instead. 

With a traditional PA you will have a couple mistakes (or guesses that need justification/clarification) within the first four letters almost half the time. Instead of pushing forward (which can be seen as an admission that even your wrong letters are helping you proceed), you will act like a normal human who is hitting 50% on his guesses and say, "Fuck this. Let's try something different."

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Notes:

• From the anagrams I've worked on and used (which are not overly long), I've found that you should be able to either transgress out of the PA or complete it with one or fewer mistakes about 75% of the time. The other 25% of the time requires a little more dancing. 
• Before this concept really unravelled for me, I used a similar idea in my effect Pale Horse and Rider from The Jerx, Volume One. That effect is all about turning weaknesses into strengths. The TA is all about that too. Taking the weakest scenario in a PA and making it the strongest.
• While I tend to think and write with the amateur performer in mind, this makes sense for the professional too. Perhaps you sheepishly begin to send someone back to the seat after the initial failure. Then you change your mind and try to do something completely different.
• If you transgress out of the PA, then revealing the superhero (or anything) by acting as if you can't remember his name (i.e., "Uhm... whatshisface... the Robert Downey Jr., dude.") is a nice, subtle convincer that you were picking up on something other than letters of the character's name.
• Why did I use 9/11 hijackers for my trick Pale Horse and Rider? Three reasons. One is I needed them to think of a dead person for the trick. The second is that "Who is your favorite 9/11 hijacker" is a particularly stupid question I enjoy asking. The third is this cheeky bit of bullshit: No one knows the names of all but a couple of them. So I just made up names that sounded right and also made the anagram super easy. I made up a fake wikipedia page screenshot. And now they can pick any of them off the list. You could probably do something similar and less offensive by making up a list of high school friends or distant relatives or something.

UPDATE: I'm happy to have received a lot of positive feedback on this idea because as I was writing it I had no idea if it was making sense. I expected to be dealing with a lot of emails that said, "No, no, Andy. You WANT to get all the letters right." And what I spent 20 paragraphs trying to explain would have been for naught. 

But people seem to be on board. So much so that a few people have suggested the idea that maybe there's some way to re-construct a PA in order to get more NOs so you can move on to something else. I considered the same thing too and I was going to make Michael Weber figure it out for me because it's the type of logic-based method I don't excel at wrapping my head around. But after considering it, I don't really believe it's possible. Every outcome of a PA needs a unique string of responses from the spectator. And no string of responses can be an extension of another one. In other words, you can't have NO-NO lead to an outcome and have NO-NO-YES lead to an outcome as well. You would never get to NO-NO-YES, because you would have stopped at NO-NO. So you can't really front-load a lot of NO responses for the purpose of bailing on the anagram and finding out the word quickly.

I mean, what you could do is create some kind of reverse progressive anagram (henceforth known as a Regressive Anagram). Which means you'd know what the word was after two YESs. Now, if the goal was just to get more NOs than YESs, this would be a smart thing to do. But the goal with the Transgressive Anagram is not to get a lot of NOs, it's to get two NOs quickly and move on. A reverse anagram wouldn't accomplish this. Instead you'd have lots of long strings of NOs, often with you bailing on the procedure after the 6th or 7th letter. Sometimes after you finally got a yes. It wouldn't really make sense. And, in fact, you would essentially eliminate the outcome you want: a short, unsuccessful, unmemorable letter guessing sequence.

I bet there is some value in a Regressive Anagram, but not for the TA approach. I'm not sure what it would be.... Maybe some kind of comedy presentation. You walk on stage with a 6-foot tall trophy and a certificate of achievement and a big smile on your face. "Ladies and gentlemen... bask in my presence. You're looking at the world's worst hangman player. Officially recognized by the United Hangman Organization. Never got more than two letters right in my life. I'm not trying to brag or nothing." Then you go on to play a game of hangman. After at most two right letters, you know which letters to avoid. You're drawing every last body part until you're down to drawing individual pubes sprouting from his crotch.

"Is there a B?" No. "Is there a D?" No. "Is there an L?" No. "Is there a U?" No. "Is there an X?" No. "Is there a G?" No. "Is there an M?" No. 

That could make for a kind of funny back and forth. And if you had an index system of the possible outcomes then you could end the effect with a genuine surprise where there is some sort of natural prediction that matches up with the spectators mentally selected word. Maybe they're thinking of the word "canoe" and you say, "Dammit, I should have known. That's exactly the word I played today when the president of the United Hangman Organization beat me at the game." And you turn over your certificate of achievement and there is a completed Hangman game drawn on the back for the word "Canoe."

This Is the Zodiac Speaking

There was something in X-Communication #11 that I wanted to address here. And no, it's not the part where I thought I was supposed to review Nicholas Lawrence's Fleshlight (a disgusting crusty mess) instead of Nicholas Lawrence's Flash Flight (a cheap, fun and unique T&R routine.)

No, it was the part about astrology divination. Specifically Peter Turner's Astronomical, but it applies to any similar effect. As I wrote...

"This effect shouldn’t work. If I have you think of one of 12 things and then I have to fish around for the information and start naming letters that might be in the word and happen to name the most frequently used letters in the English language and then, after a "no," I’m kind of able to guess what your star sign is, your response should be, “Well... okay.” If you asked a non-magician to guess what your star sign is by guessing letters, they would essentially do the same thing as you’re doing here. Obviously you would be employing some subtleties that disguise the method somewhat as Peter does in this download. But essentially it would be the same thing. 

And the trick doesn’t, in fact, work for a lot of people. You’ll start naming off letters and it will be clear immediately what is going on. It will come across as a well planned guessing game to those people. 

Standard zodiac divination in progress.

But what I’ve found is this trick does work well with the people you are likely to perform it on, namely female spectators with some belief or interest in astrology. [Not necessarily female spectator's. But women are more likely to believe in or be interested in astrology.]There’s no reason to do this trick for anyone else. And since it does work for that group it’s a trick I recommend. I have a theory as to why it works with that group as well that I’ll be explaining in a future post on my site."

Well guys, it's the future now. Amazing, huh? Are you enjoying flying dinners and the cars you can eat in pill form? Or however that goes?

Before I get to the point of what I was driving at in that last paragraph, I want to reiterate that I don't think these types of effects are good for people who don't have an interest in astrology. "Yeah, that's obvious, Andy." You would think so, yes. But then you see Texas Hold 'Em based routines advertised as being something you can perform for people even if they don't know Texas Hold 'Em. Which seems like a bizarre way to get into an effect. "Do you play Texas Hold 'Em? You don't? Uh... yeah, well anyway, here's a trick based on something you have no familiarity with or interest in."

I've seen astrology divination routines crash and burn for people without an interest in astrology. But it's not just because you're performing something for someone without a familiarity with the subject, although that's part of it. And it's not because people who are really interested in astrology are idiots. I mean... there's a good chance they are, but it's also possible to be really intelligent and just enjoy placing the filter of astrology over the world at times. It can just be a little game people play with themselves. 

And here's the reason why even smart people who believe in astrology are susceptible to an astrological divination—even if it's not very good. I kind of figured this out as I was talking to a woman at an outdoor concert a week or so ago. We had been camped out near each other before the event and struck up a conversation. At some point in the evening astrology came up. If I'm remembering correctly, it came up because we were talking about the actual night sky above us, and how nice it was to see live music outdoors in the early fall. Then she says, "What's your star sign. No! Let me guess." And this is verbatim, because I had her repeat it and I recorded it.

"I am going to guess you are a Scorpio. I would also say Gemini but you would have to have some planets in Scorpio. So I will probably be way off and you will say you are a Virgo. Or maybe you're an Aquarian."

"I'm a Capricorn," I said.

"I thought so," she said, grabbing my forearm. "That's why you like music so much. And it's why you're into traditions and things like that."

"I'm kidding," I said. "I'm a Libra."

"I knew it!" she said.

This is why people interested in astrology make such good spectators for a standard astrological divination sequence: A lifetime belief in astrology has trained them to remember the hits and forget the misses. 

In this case she didn't even get a hit. I told her what I was. But still, that moment where she considered Libra in her mind was enough to over-ride the five other zodiac signs that were actually suggested before that. 

And of course this would be the case. Anyone who doesn't "forget the misses" when it comes to astrology will have given up on astrology long ago. 

I'm no expert. I've been doing astrological divinations for all of 10 days. I watched a friend of mine perform Astrological in a bar a dozen times and get a pretty good response, and then I had this experience with the girl at the concert. Since then I've probably performed it 20 times and I enjoy it as a quick moment with the right person. (If they don't answer "yes" to, "Do you read your horoscope at all?" then I don't bother with it.)

You might think this doesn't fit in my wheelhouse. Guessing someone's zodiac sign has a bit of a "look at me" parlor trick aspect to it. I don't disagree with that. But the weird thing I've noticed—and it's certainly something I played up once I realized it—is that spectators will often take credit for the effect. I feel like most people who are interested in astrology like to identify with the traits they supposedly possess based on their sign. So when I say, "You're a Virgo," I don't get people saying, "Oh my god! He read my mind and knew my sign!" The feeling is more like, "Oh my god! I'm such a Virgo that he could tell just by talking to me." Even though they just when through a process of me offering letters. I feel like they forget that, just like they forget all their initial guesses before you finally tell them your sign. Or, at least that's been my experience. 

Prior to this I've only done one branching anagram effect regularly. And that was one of my own design. "Who's your favorite 9/11 hijacker?" I'd ask. As if people had a "favorite" one. Then I'd show them a list of their names so they could choose one. Then I'd use that name in the effect Pale Horse and Rider from The Jerx, Volume One which is something of a meta-presentation for branching anagram effects. 

Having done this astrology one so much over the past week or so, I've developed some thoughts on the branching anagram technique in general that I will write up for my next post. 

Until then... BEWARE I AM STALKING YOUR GIRLS NOW.

450 Minutes: Thumb-Writing Conclusion

30 days ago (from the time of this writing) I committed myself to a month of working on my thumb-writing skills every day for 15 minutes.

I used a Vernet band writer because that immediately felt good to me when I tried it out. I could never get the pressure I wanted with things that went under the nail or stuck to the pad of the thumb. And the full thumb-tip writers seem a little too bulky.

My method of practice was this:

1. First I worked my way through a kid's "Learn to Print" book.

2. For the rest of the days I would watch tv with the closed captioning on. I would read the text on the screen and write the last word on a pad with my thumb. Then when I was done I would write the new last word on the screen and so on and so on. So it was something of an organic random word generator.

This was where I was at on Day 1 (the video was sped up 50% to fit it into the GIF length)

Here is where I'm at as of Day 30 (this is also sped up 50%, but just for comparison's sake).

For me, this was a success. The writing tightened, is neater, and is completed in about 40% less time. You may look at that and still see it as messy, but it's about 85% as neat as my normal, everyday handwriting. And that's done one handed on a business card which is a fairly "hard" way to do this. 

For example, let's say I had a small pad in my hands. I write a word on the pad and set the pencil down on the table. I ask you to name any short word and I hold the pad against my chest with two hands as if to keep what I've written secret. In that case—with two hands, with my hands up to my chest, and writing on the support of a pad—the writing is certainly neat enough that I don't have to justify its messiness in any way (i.e., "I wrote a word down when I had just awoken from my nap. I was wearing oven mitts and resting the paper on the back of my dog.") It could be argued that the first version of "Love" in the picture below, which was thumb-written in the manner I just describe, may actually be neater than the second version which is just my normal handwriting.

You can see the progress throughout the month in this gif. From day to day there are no big differences, but at the end when it loops around to the beginning, there is a real Flowers for Algernon vibe to it, so I'd say there is definitely progress there. 

The purpose of this was to see if it was worth putting in the effort—15 minutes a day for a month. For me I'd say it definitely was. More than anything, I think the month of practice has made me hyper confident with things I was previously only ok at. Numbers and initials which used to look a little wonky are now pretty much indistinguishable from my normal handwriting. And I'm pretty comfortable writing any word with two hands on a pad, which I don't think looks that awkward. I may still insert some some time cushion into routines that use full words, because that's still helpful. For example, instead of having one person think of a word, have four people build the word letter by letter. That's probably actually more interesting anyway. 

One thing I haven't tried is thumb-writing with one hand with my head turned away and my hand at my side. When I was practicing I could always see what I was writing in my peripheral vision and my hand was in front of me. I'm curious to see what kind of results I get...hold on...

Okay, I'm pretty comfortable with that. Especially for a first time. If I had a routine that required that particular handling I'd work on it more.

I don't really have a ton of routines that require thumb writing, but it strikes me as one of the more valuable tools to have in your repertoire for creating magic seemingly off the cuff. For making predictions, reading minds, or having them read yours, there aren't many more direct methods than this. And as someone who values process-less mentalism over prop-less mentalism, it's definitely something I intend to keep up with. I will put the band writer and a pad on the back of my toilet. That way I should have a couple minutes a day to practice with it and keep from losing whatever advancements I made in technique.

The reason I wanted to get better with the thumb writer is because I love the trick where you're sitting a table with a group of people. You write a word on a piece of paper, then set the pencil on the table. You propose a game of word association and you whisper a word into the ear of the person on your left. That person is supposed to think of the first word that comes to their mind based on your word, and then whisper that word into the ear of the person on their left. And so it goes around the table until it gets back to the person on your right. They then announce their word to the table and you show you predicted it. It's nice because you only predict one word but it seems like you must have read everyone's mind around the table. If you want to give yourself an extra few seconds to write the word you can have everyone go around and say what their word was and what the association they made was. Before it even gets back around to you your prediction can be on the table well away from you. 

My thumb writing skills were never up to snuff for this, but I used to fake it all the time. It requires a reasonably nimble-minded friend sitting to your right. You "predict" the word tree, and then just tell your friend to say tree at the end of the chain. When everyone is giving their word and their thought-process for why that word came to them based on the previous word, your friend just needs to think of some correlation between the word that was said to him and the word tree. He's last in line so he has some time. If worse comes to worse there's an out. He just says, "When she said 'waffle' to me, it made me think of this tree outside my house when I was a kid. Someone had carved the word 'waffle' into it. Then we started seeing it all over the neighborhood on other trees. The police were called. It became a whole big thing on my street that summer.  And no one was ever able to figure out who did it or what it meant."