Method
First, I want to thank Leo Reed for sending along the idea that formed the basis for this trick.
Leo informed me about a puzzle called Jigazo. I'd never heard of this thing. Maybe it was the most popular thing outside of the US, but as far as I know, it wasn't here. Or maybe it was a big deal in the US. If you're like me and you have a DVR and you never watch a single commercial, you'll often miss out on things entirely. "The McRib is back? How did I miss that?"
Anyway, Jigazo is a puzzle you put together that can be put together to be anything you want. It's a pixelated image, but it's definitely the thing you intend it to be. How this works, I have no idea. I mean, I guess I understand how it works (you put a picture into the software that comes with the puzzle and it spits out the instructions on how to assemble it to make that picture). But the fact that it works at all is amazing to me. And you can find it on Amazon for, like, $6. It was created, at least in part, by magician Mark Setteducati—a name I had heard but not someone whose work I was familiar with.
So Leo wrote and clued me in about the existence of this puzzle and included a really nice "Jerx inspired idea," as he put it, for a presentation.
His idea was to invite someone over, have them write down any friend or relative of theirs and you would attempt to read their mind. You get the information via a center tear, but then act like you've failed to figure it out. "Don't tell me who it is. Maybe it will come to me later," you say.
Instead you suggest working on this weird puzzle you got at the thrift store and you dump out the pieces on the table out of a plain brown box. Noticing the instructions are missing you run upstairs to get them. While you're upstairs you find a picture via facebook of that person's friend or relative and print out the instructions to make that person's face. Then you go downstairs and construct the puzzle and they find it's their aunt or whomever they had thought of.
I thought it was a great idea, but there were a few issues I had with it.
1. If the person is familiar with this puzzle (it was at least publicized enough to have a commercial for it) or they google around about a pixelated puzzle or they tell someone the story and that person is familiar with the puzzle, then it all falls apart. They would say, "Oh, he must have went upstairs, found a picture of my aunt via facebook and printed out the instructions." I don't necessarily mind when things fall apart later, but if I can prevent it, that's great.
2. The other problem was that it might become clear to the person what the puzzle is going to be halfway through. And then it becomes a mildly awkward situation where it's like... are we going to complete the puzzle or stop now because we already see where this is going? I wanted more control over when the climax of the experience is.
3. While I love the personal nature of having one of their friends/relatives be the subject of the puzzle, as a narrative, it doesn't really make sense. It too quickly suggest that the whole thing was a trick that I'm behind. (As there's no rational reason a thrift store would have a puzzle of her aunt.) Doing it with a celebrity (an idea Leo mentioned as well) might make it a little more possible that it was a magical coincidence, rather than a "trick." But you'd still have the other issues.
The way I addressed the first issue is that I decided the instructions couldn't be something I went and got. They needed to be in with the puzzle pieces from the start. But how do we do that? Well, the instructions are going to be in an envelope, and then you are just going to use any headline prediction technique to load the instructions or switch the instructions. There are undoubtedly techniques you can use that would let the spectator open up a sealed envelope and remove the instructions herself. There are a lot of ways to go with this. I'll be honest and say the time I performed this (like 4 hours ago). I simply had the instructions folded and palmed and just "dumped" them out of the envelope with the other piece of paper (the note) that was pre-loaded in there. This is not a technique that's strong enough for a headline prediction, of course, but in this type of situation, where they don't even know a trick has started, it flew by.
And now it doesn't matter if she knows about this puzzle or learns about it later. The question becomes, "Yeah, that's a puzzle that can make any person's face... but how could he have known to have the instructions for that particular person in there?" Either way, they're fooled.
Well, then you can't use a freely selected person for the puzzle. Yes, that's true, for the most part. So that's when I had the idea that I would leave the puzzle with the person for some time and let nature "freely select" the subject. I would give a sealed box of puzzle pieces to someone and say, "Hey, next time a celebrity dies, give me a call." Two weeks later, Queen Latifah dies, I go over to my friend's house and we assemble the puzzle and it's Latifah.
While I liked that idea a lot, it didn't solve issue 2. After half the puzzle, they'd know who it was. I really wanted the mystery of putting together a puzzle that, supposedly, neither of you knows who it is, or what it will be.
And that version wouldn't really make sense. If I'm saying I can predict who will die, then I'd just write that information down and seal it in an envelope. I wouldn't do the whole puzzle thing.
So that's when I came up with the presentation above. It simply involves looking in that morning's obituaries on the day you plan to perform it and picking out someone who died. Then you use the software that comes with the Jizago puzzle to create the instructions to build their face from the puzzle pieces.
If you have a friend to help you out, you can do the texting business like I did.
If not you just say, "This person looks so familiar." It dawns on you that the person is one of your puzzle group members and you google their name to show your friend a picture. It's at that point you learn they died just the past day. And yet your spectator was holding on to this puzzle and the instructions for days.
Is it morbid or profane to "use" someone who just died for such a thing? You know, that's a question you have to answer for yourself. Not in my world, it's not. If I was dead I would have no problem with someone I didn't know using my likeness to entertain another person I didn't know. Nor would I have an issue as a living person if someone used a recently deceased relative for such a thing. But maybe I'm weird.
All in all, I really enjoyed working on this and performing it. Putting together a mystery puzzle is a very compelling lazy Sunday activity. And the idea of The Puzzlemaster, and some secret club, and the notion that maybe he comes and kills you if you suck at the puzzles too much—that all has a freaky, Outer Limits style weirdness that I appreciate.
