Follow-Up & Update

I got a lot of positive feedback on yesterday's article on misdirection. It apparently bothered some people too. I guess because I was questioning Tommy Wonder or whatever. My bad! 

Here's the thing, I'll admit I don't have a ton of reverence for 20th century magic theory. But, to be fair to me, in that century the public's perception of magicians went from this:

"Magicians are people who can do amazing and strange things."

to this

"Magicians are amazingly strange people."

So while I'm happy to look to magic theory for guidance, ultimately, I'd rather just test things out and get genuine critical feedback from laypeople and then base my techniques on that. I want the audience to write my magic theory, not another magician. 

The good news is, I don't give a shit if you disagree with me. And, for that matter, I don't give a shit if you agree with me. So we're good either way. 

Jerx Deck Update

The paper proofs have been received. From what I've heard, we're still looking at getting the decks sometime around the new year. If that changes, I will let you know.

Redirecting Misdirection

There is a Tommy Wonder essay in The Books of Wonder that talks about misdirection that, I think, gets just about everything wrong. It starts off with a discussion saying we should call it "direction" rather than misdirection. His point being that we should focus on the thing we're trying to draw their attention to, rather the thing we're trying to draw their attention from. While this makes sense, it's also, essentially, just semantics. If you're "directing" someone towards something in order to take the focus off something else... that's misdirecting

He then writes:

[F]or our secret moves to avoid unwanted attention we must direct attention toward something else. From this it follows that we must have something else available at those times, something of interest. The more interesting this certain something is, the easier it will be to focus attention on it. The next time you wish to hide something, don’t think of hiding it, but rather think of what you can offer of interest in its place. Preferably this should be something thoroughly intriguing.

This is genuinely awful advice. 

Rattling your keys in front of the audience so you can do your secret move isn't misdirection. Nor is it "direction." It's simply distraction. 

Misdirection should be a secret action, but if I pull your focus to something "thoroughly intriguing," that's a very overt action. 

Let's say you write something down on a card and fold it into quarters and hand it to me and I hold it in my right fist. With my left hand I bring out a bismuth crystal. I tell you that bismuth is the "bism" part of Pepto Bismol and that we can actually extract the element back out from Pepto Bismol caplets. This beautiful, iridescent, rainbow crystal is actually keeping you from shitting your pants when you have diarrhea. And just like it binds up your intestines to keep you from spewing brown gold everywhere, it can also bind up your thoughts to keep them from pouring out of the butthole of your mind, allowing me to catch a thought before it evaporates into the ether. I then "read your mind" and tell you what you wrote on the card.

How clever of me! When your focus was on the crystal I got my peek. And you had no clue. 

The problem, of course, is that while you might not have seen me get the peek, you know your attention was directed away from the card with the word on it. If your attention is shifted away and then something changes: the magician knows the word you wrote down, the ball has disappeared, the card is in the magician's pocket. Well... that's all the explanation you need. You don't need to know exactly how it happened, just that there was an opportunity where something could have happened. That will knock something down from a miracle to a clever trick.

I'm going to give you some advice that has been very, very helpful to me in creating effects that I think truly feel like genuine mysteries to the audience:

Don't think about misdirection as being about the direction of someone's focus or interest. Instead, think about it as the direction of someone's suspicion.

If I tell you I'm going to sneak into your house tonight, the Tommy Wonder style of using misdirection to accomplish that task would be to set off a fireworks show so I can sneak in while you're distracted.

The type of misdirection I'm recommending is akin to climbing in the window while you're guarding the door.

An audience can feel it when their attention is redirected from their natural locus of interest. When we did the testing on card peeks, the worst performing one was the one that occurred when the participant's focus was drawn away from the deck and the magician.

What does it look like to direct someone's suspicion? Here's an example. When you use an impression pad, it can feel very clean and neat to have them write down a word, tear off the sheet, fold it up and put it in their pocket. Why wouldn't you do this given the pad allows you to? Well, one reason you might not want to do it is that now the pad is the only item in play that could offer a clue to what they wrote. Given that, your peek of the impression can't be awkward at all or else you're intensifying the suspicion on the pad, which is exactly where you don't want it.

But if you don't allow them to pocket their word—if, for example, you ask them to fold it up and let you hold it in your fist—their primary focus of suspicion is on something that's genuinely clean (your hand holding the paper). You're never going to do anything sneaky there, but that's where they would assume something sneaky would happen. So when you pick up the pad with your other hand, open it to the impression, peek the word, let a few pages fall over the impression, then set it down to write or draw on it—even if you do this awkwardly (which you likely will because you're doing it with one hand)—it won't seem strange because the focus of their suspicion is the paper in your other hand. They're waiting for you to try and get a peek at that. And when you never come anywhere near opening your fist to look at the paper, then they're at a dead end.

In this case, the folded up paper is the door they're guarding and the pad is the window I'm sneaking through. But that's an imperfect analogy, because if done correctly, they don't even know the window exists. All of a sudden you're just in the house with them.

By directing their attention with suspicion, rather than with interest, you get to use the power of their skepticism and distrust against them. On the other hand, if your focus is on directing their attention by focusing on that which is fleetingly interesting, you're just encouraging them to slough off the mystery by putting it down to mere distraction.

Issue #11

Coming tomorrow night to subscribers’ email-boxes, The JAMM #11. 

I like this one a lot. While the theme of the issue is using magic in the context of gift-giving, a number of the ideas provided can be utilized in a much broader range of contexts. The tricks that bookend the issue present frameworks that you can use for a number of different effects. 

Below is our JAMM Muse for December, Amanda, with a festive take on this James Randi promo shot.

The Four Stars

In the 90s, those star-shaped rubber bands came out and everyone thought, "Ah! I know! I'll do that thing where I weave a star out of a rubber band, but I'll do it with one of these. And then it will seem like the band magically became the star shape!" It's a pretty obvious idea. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for in simplicity and the fact that people seem to enjoy the trick. And it makes for a mildly cool souvenir.

I used to do this so much that one time, at a party, two women I had performed it for bumped into each other. They both had their star band on their wrist. Apparently it bummed them out. They had thought they were special. They were special. But me making them a star rubber band wasn't evidence of that.

It's also an ideal way to distract a kid who's spazzing out on a plane or something. I don't have a ton of stuff in my repertoire that's as good for kids as adults, but this is one of those things. 

I don't consider this some mind-bending miracle. But it's always something I thought was fun to perform in low-key situations. And I have a couple of things to add to the effect that may interest some of you. One is a way to bring in both rubber bands in a manner that makes it seem like both have been examined. The other is the story that goes along with it. It's just a dumb little spiel, but it affords me the opportunity to do my favorite style of presentation where I get to act like an idiot and brag about something stupid.

I'll start with the presentation first then give you details on the move I use to allow them to seemingly see both rubber bands as normal.

The Four Stars

I have two rubber bands on my wrist (just two). Occasionally someone would ask me what they were there for.

"Oh, I do rubberbandigami," I'd say quickly, like it was a thing, while keeping my attention on the tv or my drink or whatever.

"What?" they'd ask.

"Rubberbandigami," I'd say again. Then I'd turn my attention to them completely. "Wait... do you not know about rubberbandigami? Oh my god... you don't pay any attention to the world around you, do you? Rubberbandigami is like, sweeping the country. Well, the world, actually. Everyone is doing it."

I then rattle off a few celebrities. The first one is already dated and it only gets worse from there.

"Yeah, everyone. Jamie Lynn Spears. 'Blanket' Jackson. Jonathan Lipnicki. Adam Rich."

"I'll show you."

I pull one of the rubber bands off my wrist and toss it on the table. 

"Take a look. It looks like a regular rubber band, yeah? That's because it is. But rubberbandigami is about doing something extraordinary with them. It's about twisting and weaving them into photo-realistic representations of other items. I'm not bragging, but I'm pretty good at it."

I then demonstrate some rubberbandigami for them.

A piece of pizza

An hourglass

A uterus

"You can do it with multiple rubber bands too. Which actually makes it easier because there's more material to work with."

I pull the second band off my wrist and hand it to the person. 

"It just uses normal rubber bands that you can get at Staples or wherever."

"There's a ranking system. It's like karate with their belts. Except here the ranking is based on stars. Once you progress your way through the star system, and learn how to construct each star, you're considered a master rubberbandigamist. That's where I am."

"I'll show you. Here's level one. Two rubber bands. Two hands. One star."

"Next is level two. That's two rubber bands. Two hands. Two stars." 

"Level three is much more difficult because it uses one less rubber band. Can you hold this one in your fist for me? I'll show you something cool with that in a minute. Level three is one rubber band. One hand. One star. There are about three dozen people in the world who have reached this level. That looks like this...."

"Finally," I say, "is level four. Six people have attained level four status. Level four is: One rubber band. One star. NO hands. Let's see if I can get this."

I toss the band in my hands aside and breathe deeply a few times and then catch my breath and hold it, then let it out after a few moments. 

"I think I got it," I say. "Open up your hand." She does and finds a rubber band in a permanent star shape.

You can find instructions for the different star shapes on youtube, I'm not going to go through that here. 

I will describe the one move in the routine which is something I came up with myself, but I don't have much background in rubber band magic and it certainly could be part of the literature and I'll happily give credit if someone can provide it.

So I have two rubber bands on my left wrist (more than two makes the upcoming move less clean). One of the bands is a star band. I take off the normal band and hand it to the spectator to look at. I take it back and then make a few shapes with it on my left hand. When I'm done I leave it wrapped around my left hand at the base of my fingers.

I then say, "You can add another rubber band too." And grab and pull up on the star band on my wrist with my middle finger and ring finger of my right hand.

I start pulling that band off my wrist and as I'm passing the band on my fingers, I pinch that band between the forefinger and thumb of my right hand and drop the other band off my right-hand fingers, leaving it in place of the original band that was wrapped around my left palm.

Here's what it looks like in motion. 

To say this happens on the offbeat is an understatement. It happens before anyone even knows a trick is going to happen. So there is no heat on the move at all. 

Here it is with different colored bands so the switch is clearer. 

And here's a kind of slowed down version from behind.

It's a fun little 2-3 minute bit. Give the star away as a souvenir and people will say of you, as the Spinners did of that other Rubberband Man:

Oh boy, this dude is outta sight!
Everything he does seems to come out right

The Jerx 2017 Gift Taking Guide, Part Three

This is the third and final part of the Jerx guide for magic adjacent gifts you may want to ask for this Christmas.

Polaroid Zip Mobile Printer

This printer is about the size of a cell phone and it's something I've used quite frequently in the past in magic tricks, see The Look of Love and Variations on the Konami Code.

There are undoubtedly other small printers that are on the market now that I don't know about as I've just been using this one for a few years now. I'm sure any of those would work just as well. The only thing I might be concerned about with a different printer is that it might not be as quiet as this one, which would make it not quite as good for use in a covert sense. 

I've found tricks incorporating photographs to play extremely well. Photographs have always had an emotional resonance with people. And with actual physical pictures being less and less common, I think that's even more true now. These types of portable printers are great for creating these tricks and moments on the fly.

Puzzle Boxes

I've just linked to an example, but there are all sorts of different types of puzzle boxes to be found out there. You can find some that take dozens of steps to open. 

What to do with them? 

Well, I just think they add a general air of mystery to the proceedings. If you want to pull out some strange artifact, it becomes even stranger if it's stored in this box. Or if you keep a prediction in there, it makes the prediction somewhat more intriguing than if it's just in an envelope or something. You could have the steps to open the box written on different cards, have them mixed and laid out in a row by the spectator and it turns they've somehow placed out the cards in the order required to open the box.

Or just stick your weed in it, you fucking burnout.

Optical Illusion Cards

For a long time I thought of optical illusions as things that 10-year-old boys liked and no one else really cared about. But in recent months I've been working on a number of pieces where I transition from an optical illusion into a magic trick and I've found it remarkably easy to not only make that transition in a seamless way, but to capture people's interest in the first place with an optical illusion. The key is to look for illusions that retain some element of surprise in them. The ones where it's like, "Which line is longer? Actually they're the same size," are so well known that nobody really cares.

Having a deck of cards like this has been useful for me both in generating ideas for effects and also as a Hook that can be left out on an end-table to capture the unsuspecting little minnows who pick it up.

App Store and iTunes Gift Cards

Gift cards are a bit of a cheat. I mean, as a gift it's pretty lazy. And maybe it's even a bit of a cheat for me to include them on this list. But there's no denying that they fall into the category of being a not overtly magical gift that you can easily use in your practice of magic. 

The obvious manner to do this is, of course, with magic apps. I recommend Marc Kerstein's apps, just because those are the ones I'm most familiar with and actually use. I know there are other great apps out there but I just haven't played around with them enough to recommend them. 

Another app I'd recommend that isn't a magic app, but I use it all the time to help in keeping my magic repertoire orgainzed, is called Tap Forms. It's a personal database that lets you track pretty much anything. I have two main databases that I keep in this.

The first is for people I meet. My lifestyle has me coming into contact with new people almost daily. You may think it's creepy or nerdy to create a database of people like this, but whatever, it's pretty much a necessity for me. It's nothing weird. It's not like, "Karen: The redhead. Her boobies are a 10. But her face is just a 5." I'm not an asshole. I'm just keeping track of people's names, where we met, when we met, their birthday, their job, if they're married and/or have kids (and the names of those family members). This is all stuff I find out from them directly, I don't do research behind their back. And it's all the sort of thing that I think most people would hope people would remember about them.

I also keep track of the tricks I've performed for them.

And that is the second major database I keep in this app, the tricks in my repertoire. I keep track of: the name of the effect, where it can be found, who created it, what the requirements are, how long it takes to perform, when I've performed it, the reactions it got, and so on.

So now I can search for any combination of things in regards to the tricks in my repertoire. I can look for what tricks are impromptu and coin tricks, for example. I can look for the ones I haven't performed in over two years. I can look for the ones that consistently don't seem to get the reaction I would expect and either modify them or ditch them altogether. Or I can look up a particular person and see exactly what tricks I've performed for them and which type of trick seemed to generate the strongest reaction from them.

Tracking people and tricks like this may seem excessive, I get that. But if you're performing a lot and meeting a lot of new people it won't feel that way. And this database app has been the easiest way I've found to keep track of it all.

The Lollipopter

This is a piece of "playable art" that goes from a helix form to a burst form with a twist.

I think it's just generally a neat little thing. But I have also used it in a magic context as an Imp. Essentially as a form of a magic wand that is visually representing the "magic" that is happening. Think of any trick where something goes from chaos to order, like a shuffled deck returning to new deck order (via a double indexed deck). I spread the cards, showing a mixed up deck, then square them. Then I twist the "lollipopter" making it go from spread out to the helix form. Then I spread the deck and now it's in new deck order.

If you had two of these and two double indexed decks, you could do a transposition where the shuffled deck follows the "shuffled" lollipopter.

GLOMM "Elite" Level Membership Kit

I know I mentioned just a week or two ago that I don't ever believe in lowering the prices on things because I think it screws over the people who've supported this site early on. However I have made an exception here. You can direct your loved one to this page on the GLOMM site and they can purchase a GLOMM Membership Kit as a gift for you for one penny less than it normally sells. And the kit will arrive with one piece of tinsel. 

Coming in the JAMM #11

The penultimate issue of the JAMM features three tricks related to gift giving. One to be done with a group at a holiday gathering, another that can be done across vast distances, and a simple trick utilizing an item that I buy in bulk (for about $5/each) and carry with me throughout the holiday season (and much of the rest of the year) as a cool giveaway that everybody keeps.

While I've crammed all of these effects into the theme of gift-giving, the truth is they are effects that you can use year-round in other contexts as well.

You can still buy full volumes and individual issues of the JAMM here.

The Jerx Amateur Magic Monthly, the gift that keeps on giving. Until January. Then it stops.

The Jerx 2017 Gift Taking Guide, Part Two

We continue the list of magic adjacent gifts you may want to ask for this holiday season...

Storage Boxes

The biggest change I made that transformed me from someone who dicked around with magic and performed mainly for my couch cushions, to someone who had an ever ready workable repertoire of material that I showed real people on a regular basis, was getting my shit together organizationally. I covered the basics of my system in this post on organization. 

Organizing your ideas and your props makes rehearsing the effects in your repertoire so much easier, which makes you more likely to rehearse regularly, broadening your repertoire, and not limiting you to the same two tricks you always do. 

I like to have my repertoire broken up by the requirements of the effect: The effects that just require a normal deck, the ones that require a deck and a marker, the ones that require a normal deck and one or two gimmicked cards, the ones that require a special deck, the ones that use normal coins, the ones that require gimmicked coins, the ones that require everyday objects, the ones that require small gimmicks. 

I then store all of the requirements for each grouping together so I can run through them regularly and rapidly. I don't just keep my magic gimmicks organized, but also normal objects that I might need for a trick. That way I'm not constantly looking around for the right coins I need, or a pen, paper clips, rubber bands, or whatever. It's all ready to go.

Here are some of the storage boxes that I use:

Akro Mills Hardware and Craft Cabinet - For storing all types of small gimmicks. Tell people you want it to put your nails and screws in, like a real man. But don't oversell it. Don't be like, "I promise you, I'm not going to be keeping fake thumbs and manipulation thimbles in there, like a bitch. It's more for tools and tool parts. Things which I definitely know the name of."

Vaultz Locking Utility Box - I've mentioned this before. This is a small pencil-box sized box. I use it for the stuff I'm currently most excited to work on and/or perform. Then it's almost like a toiletry bag. I travel a lot so when I go somewhere I can just grab this and know that it will have the stuff I'm most interested in playing around with. 

Quiver Game Card Carrying Case - In my old organization post, I was using wooden cassette cases to store my decks of cards. Once I left my place in Brooklyn though, I ditched those. Like a Seven Mary Three song, they would be too cumbersome to lug around with me. Instead I got these Quiver cases. Each case holds around 22 decks. I wouldn't suggest buying them for your fancy decks you want to display. But if you have a number of gimmicked decks, these are a good option for holding those. Each of my gimmicked decks or one trick decks has a little code written on the bottom so I know what it's for. And when I want to rehearse them, I just pull out the full case and go through the decks one at a time to keep the working and the handling fresh.

Just search around for storage boxes that fit your needs. For my purposes I don't want a big huge box with everything in it. Instead I prefer a series of smaller boxes and cases set up for a specific type of material. But you may have your own organizational style. And for you, maybe some big thing like this would fit that style. Whatever keeps you organized and makes performing and practicing easier is a good thing.

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Cards and Coins

These things aren't "magic adjacent." These are examples of props you can use in your actual performances, but that you don't have to send someone off to an online magic store to buy them for you.

It seems that most of the collectible decks of playing cards that are put out by Ellusionist or Dan and Dave can be found on Amazon. For instance, I asked for the Rocket Deck this year.

I prefer to ask for one of these collectible types of decks of cards rather than just a brick of Bicycle cards or something. That may be more "useful," but it's like asking for a 24-pack of paper towels for Christmas. Practicality isn't very festive.

When I get a gift of a deck of cards, I'll generally put it with my other collectible decks and have it stacked for a specific trick. Then if the person who gave it to me visits and comments on the deck, I'm ready to go into a trick on the spur of the moment.

Coins are also a great option for a technically non-magical gift that you can, obviously, get a lot of usage from as a magician. I don't do too much coin work with half-dollars/silver dollars, so I'm not the best to comment on that. But if I did, I'd take the opportunity to maybe ask for some semi-rare (or at least unusual) coins. Imagine I ask for four Walking Liberty half dollars. The person who gave me those as a gift is now going to bring a different level of interest when I perform something with them. And, if after the fact I buy a matching shell or something, that will add to the deceptiveness of the trick, because they're thinking of the items being used as seemingly being limited to those items they bought. They almost have the innocence of borrowed items.

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Books

You can ask for magic books, of course. But what I'm really talking about are books you could buy to serve as Hooks to allow you to get into your material.

Some examples:

The Book of Forbidden Knowledge: Black Magic, Superstition, Charms, and Divination

Spirit Boards for Beginners: The History & Mystery of Talking to the Other Side

Connecting with Coincidence: The New Science for Using Synchronicity and Serendipity in Your Life

The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing: The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn

Psychic Empowerment for Everyone: You Have the Power, Learn How to Use It

The Grand Grimoire

The idea is not to use these things as part of your presentation. The idea is—as described in the Hooks post—just use them as that first domino your friend knocks over that eventually gets you to a trick. 

This isn't about turning tricks into bizarre magic. If you make these things part of your presentation you will lessen the interest they can generate. That's been my experience. Once you start going into some long-winded dissertation about this stuff it becomes a "show" not an experience. 

Be casual about it and let the other person draw the connections.

For example, they pick up The Grand Grimoire. "What the hell is this?" they ask, flipping through it.

"Oh, it's nothing. Well... supposedly it teaches you how to summon and control demons but I don't really-- Actually... do you want to try something weird?"

That's going to grab people. That's going to intrigue people. It may even scare people.

But if you're like, "In 1521, Antonio Venitiana del Rabina, prepared a book transcribed from the genuine writings of the mighty King Solomon, which were obtained by pure chance...." And you go on and on with some lecture, you've turned your Hook into just a prop. And now you're doing something that has been rehearsed and planned, which is the enemy of gripping amateur magic.

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Coming Friday, the final half-dozen or so items you might want to ask Santa to bring you if you haven't been a naughty little boy.