Confession

Yesterday I walked into Tannen's magic shop in NYC, told everyone I write the Jerx, and I was immediately propositioned by half a dozen guys who wanted me to make love to their filthy bottoms. 

How? Why?

Confession time. My recent posts on misdirection have been a con job. It's all been an experiment in NLP and subliminal messages.

How did I start off yesterday's post? "This is a long one." This got you primed to be thinking about my dong.

And the whole subject itself... "misdirection."

Misdirection.

Missed erection.

I got you all feeling like you really "missed" an "erection" in your life. I had you craving it. 

Did I just blow your mind?

Now, granted, as a heterosexual male, I probably should have picked a more target-rich environment to test out my wonderful secret seduction techniques than my overwhelmingly male audience.

I just couldn't help myself.

But I promise I'm done with that now. I swear I'm not going to say anything else to try and get you to want to act as a power bottom for me.

Say... do you think I should review Super Hole? Like, not just a cursory overview, but really go deep into Super Hole?

Ok. I'll stop now. I'm going to go outside for a walk. I love to hear the crunch of the snow on the ground below me. The sky is beautiful tonight.

(blow me. this guy is beautiful tonight.)

Guys, I'm totally Wonder-Wording your asses, Kenton Knepper style!

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Practical Misdirection for the Amateur Magician

[This is a long one.]

In regards to some of the recent discussion here about misdirection, I received an email from a magician who certainly has the credentials to know what works and what doesn't when it comes to that subject. I don't want to name names, but he's someone who has been performing professionally for most of his life, has authored half a dozen books, operates an online magic-shop with his life partner, and his name is something like Smoshua Smay (but replace the SMs with Js). Ok, no more hints!

In his email, he expressed that there was a part of Tommy Wonder's essay on misdirection that I hadn't addressed or had perhaps overlooked. He wrote:

"I think the part of his worldview on misdirection that is accurate (and, at the time, new) is that it is continuous. It's not something you turn on when you're ready to get the peek, or steal the load. The idea, as I understand Tommy, is that you're a tour guide, and as a tour guide you show things of interest seamlessly, flowing from one interesting object to an interesting premise, to an instruction for the spectator, to a funny line, and so on. In essence, that every second of a trick has something interesting happening to occupy the spectator's attention."

Okay, where to start...

1. If you don't know the Tommy Wonder essay we're referring to, you can read it, and dozens of other essays on magic, in this free ebook from Vanishing Inc

2. I believe Smosh beautifully paraphrases Tommy Wonder's thoughts as expressed in the section of his essay called "Continuous Direction."

3. I agree with Tommy's thoughts. If you're putting on a magic show, then you do want to guide people from point to point, continually leading them from one moment of interest to another, like jumping from one rock to another in order to cross a stream, and, in doing so, bringing them to the precise location you want them to be at on the opposite bank.

In that way, moments of misdirection (or direction) will blend in with all the other moments around them where you aren't diverting them away from something, but just onward to the next moment of significance.

Not only do I agree with Tommy on this point, it borders on common sense to do so in a theatrical context. 

And that's kind of the point. While this is good advice for a professional magic show—or even an amateur presentation where you want to mimic the esthetic of a professional magic show—it's almost unusable advice in a casual, amateur performance. What people expect or accept in a theatrical setting they don't expect or want in a casual one. This is why we must have different techniques for the two.

The moment you sit down with someone and start directing their attention from moment to moment, you've lost the feeling of a real interaction. This is not how normal humans relate to each other. This is why magicians in casual situations often come off as robots or aliens not quite familiar with human interaction when they slip into "performance mode."

You can test this idea by imagining yourself showing someone something non-magical, but using the precepts in Tommy Wonder's essay. If you were showing someone your baseball card collection and every beat was planned and every moment outlined in advance, you understand how that could seem awkward, yes? 

In a more formal style you would want to come off as a "tour guide" showing people things of interest. But that's not my style. I don't want to come off as a tour guide, because I want it to feel like the destination is some place neither of us have been before. A tour guide has an intimate familiarity with the location. But I want the limit of my influence to feel like, "Hey, I've heard about this interesting place. Do you want to check it out?" And then we discover it together. 

Instead of being taken on a guided tour through a place, I want the person to feel like they were free to follow their whims and explore as they pleased. Obviously there are some constrictions, but I don't want it to feel that way.

In my experience, this leads to more powerful magic (and if it didn't, I wouldn't do it this way). When things are too "directed," it's less surprising when something happens to work out in a particular way. The whole point of being "directed" is to reach a particular destination. So when things feel "undirected" and yet we still end up at some incredible conclusion, that's almost the definition of a "magical" experience.

So while I agree that Tommy's ideas make sense for a formal show where the audience expects to be led (and for amateurs who want to perform in a formal manner). In casual situations I think we need a different tactic. 

Eyes vs Minds

Here is the approach that I've found most useful in dealing with misdirection in casual performances. 

It comes down to breaking misdirection down into two categories: misdirection of the eyes (misdirection of attention) and misdirection of the mind (misdirection of suspicion).

To know when to use which type of misdirection, we need to know if the audience has established a locus of suspicion. That is, have they identified an area or object where they suspect something is going to occur. While this can sometimes be a grey area, usually it's pretty clear. 

Here are the two main precepts:

1. If no locus of suspicion has been established, then misdirect their eyes (misdirect their attention).

For example, let's say you bring out a deck of cards and you have the aces on the top. You want to palm them off in order to have the deck shuffled. At this stage in the performance, your spectator isn't focused on any one thing, so they shouldn't be burning the top of the deck. So we just need to misdirect their eyes. It doesn't even need to be a matter of misdirection, you just have to wait until they're not looking at the deck. 

2. If a locus of suspicion has been established, you need to misdirect their mind (misdirect that suspicion).

The heart of what I'm saying is this: Suspicion always trumps attention. You can't misdirect people from something they're suspicious of with some object of interest without them feeling it. Let's say two coins have disappeared and you have a final coin in your fist that you want to make vanish. That coin, due to the nature of the trick, is now the locus of suspicion. If you try to misdirect people's eyes and attention away from the coin in order to ditch it in your pocket, you're not going to fool people. People know when their attention is being pulled away. They can feel it. Some people won't give in and will just stare at that hand regardless of what technique you attempt to employ to distract them. Others will look away when you, for example, ask them a question, because they don't want to be dicks about it. But if you then make the coin vanish, there is no doubt in their mind about what happened: you did something with it when they weren't looking. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption.

And for most audience members that is enough of an explanation. They don't need to know more than that. "Something happened when I looked away." Case closed.

In this situation, rather than using misdirection that gets them to look another way, we want to get them thinking another way. And that's misdirecting their suspicion. So, for example, instead of distracting you with something else while I peek the billet, I get you to believe your billet is somewhere it isn't. That gives me the opportunity to peek your billet outside the locus of your suspicion. 

Or, instead of asking you a question to bring your eyes off my hand holding the coin, I sleeve the coin or false transfer it so it is no longer where you think it is. Then I can vanish it without you apparently ever having turned your attention away from it.

"But, Andy, shouldn't we misdirect their eyes away from the sleeving or the false transfer? Wouldn't that make it doubly deceptive?

Not in my opinion. I think that's an abuse of misdirection. If your false transfer can't withstand the heat of their attention, then you need to work on your technique. If you have a move that absolutely can't be done with people watching you or your hands then, in general, it's probably not a move that should be done once people have established a locus of suspicion. If you do the move in such a circumstance, it will just fall under the umbrella of, "He did something when I looked away." And they'd be right about that.

The Misdirection Flowchart

Here is my thought process when working on an effect.

I consider each move or deception separately.

The first thing I'll think is, "Is this move something that needs misdirection" The move itself may be so subtle or invisible that it doesn't need misdirection. And if it doesn't, I don't add it unnecessarily.

But if I think, yes, the move needs some misdirection, then I'll ask, "Has a locus of suspicion been established at this point in the trick?" If the answer is No, then I'll use traditional misdirection techniques (asking questions, drawing their attention to something) or just wait for them to look away naturally.

If the answer is yes, there is something they're suspicious of, and that object is what needs to be manipulated in some way, then I'll ask, "Can I misdirect their suspicion? Is there a way to get them to focus that suspicion on the wrong object or in the wrong area?" 

If the answer to that is yes, then I'll use that tactic to misdirect their suspicion.

But if the answer to that is "no," then I just won't do the trick. If the only way to pull off the trick is to get them to divert their attention from the thing they're naturally suspicious of, then it's not a good trick for my style of performance. 

Ambitious

Here's an example of the terminology and ideas as they would apply to an ambitious card routine.

Phase 1: The spectator selects a card and signs it and it's placed in the middle of the deck. I do a pass and it's now on top. Type of misdirection: Misdirection of eyes/attention. At this point, there is not overt suspicion on the card. They have no idea what's about to happen. They don't realize it's physical location in the deck is that important until I say, "I'm going to make your card rise to the top." And, of course, I don't say that until after the move is done.

After phase 1, the Locus of Suspicion has been firmly established. It's the signed card. 

Phase 2: Most of us couldn't get away with another pass for a second phase of the ambitious card with a spectator watching closely. And if we draw their attention away from the deck at this point, they'll just think something happened when their attention was diverted. So instead we focus their suspicion in the wrong place. So maybe I secretly turn the top card over against my leg. The selection is then placed face-up on top and switched for the indifferent card when I turn the double face-down. "Watch carefully," I say. They can burn my hands as their selection goes into the middle. I tell them to take the top card but not to look at it yet. "If this worked, that should be your card." They say, "No way." They turn it over and it is. (Type of misdirection: Misdirection of suspicion - get them to believe the locus of their suspicion is somewhere it isn't.) In this phase they think they're watching exactly what they want to watch (their card), but in reality their focus is on an indifferent card. 

Phase 3: The selection is placed in the middle of the deck, but again rises to the top. (Type of misdirection: None.) Tilt and a double lift can withstand the spectator's gaze without significant misdirection.

Phase 4: I tell them to cut the deck so I can bury their card in the middle. They try and find that the deck is one solid block (Paul Harris' Solid Deception). (Type of Misdirection: Misdirection of suspicion - get them to place their suspicion on the wrong object.) In this case the deck is switched at the climax of phase two, when their attention/suspicion is on the card in their hand. This is kind of a hybrid between misdirection of the eye and misdirection of the mind. Because the final effect happens somewhere outside of where they've focused their attention, a spectator could conclude, "He must have done something to the deck when I was looking somewhere else. I didn't know to focus on the deck." They could think that (although it's unlikely in this particular trick due to the fact the deck is seemingly normal after it's been switched).

But, you see, it's okay if they come to that conclusion. I'm not operating under the delusion that I can get them to never think they were looking in the wrong place while something happened somewhere else. That's not my goal. My goal is that they'll never feel like their attention was pulled away from where they wanted it to be. If your audience has established a locus of suspicion and you just try and misdirect their attention away from it, they will always feel that. However, in something like the example above, their attention is never pulled away from anything. They're free to follow their impulses every step of the way.

The Next Evolution

Those are my thoughts on misdirection. Just to be clear, there are some effects that are about misdirection, e.g. "I'm going to get your card under the card box and you're not going to see it." Those effects are outside the scope of this essay. Once you start invoking misdirection in your presentation, that's something else altogether.

Now, some people will claim they're so good with misdirection that the audience will actually forget they looked away. No, they won't. I promise you. Not if they've established a locus of suspicion. 

The truth is usually just the opposite. Your spectator really will have their focus on everything that is happening, but when the climax occurs they'll think, "Ah, you must have done something when I looked away."

I remember performing Out of this World for the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen one night on the floor at the foot of her bed. When the cards were turned over she screamed and then, after a moment, she said, "You must have switched them. I must have looked away at some point and you switched them." It's a ridiculous idea. But I guess it seemed less ridiculous than that she was able to shuffle a deck of cards and then separate them into red and black by instinct.

If you're performing in a conversation/casual style, you're more susceptible to this type of thing. The magician on stage or at your restaurant table can implore you to "look, watch... make sure my hand never goes near my pocket," etc., etc. But if your goal is to not come off as a "performer" and you want to make things seem less prepared and more organic, then it can be weird to beg them to focus on something. That doesn't feel like the laid-back style some of us are going for.

That's why I think the next evolution in thought in regards to this type of thing will be at the opposite end of the misdirection spectrum. It will be about focus. How do we get people to feel like they've taken in all the information they should during the course of the effect without explicitly telling them what to take note of? How do we get them to, for example, make sure a coin never leaves their site, without saying, "Make sure this coin never leaves your site"? Because telling them explicitly can kind of tip your hand in regards to where this thing is going. And often, in certain types of performances, I don't even want them to know at that point there's a "this" they're involved in that is going anywhere.

Anyway, that's something I've been thinking about for a while now. I'm not sure if it's something others have written about. If you know of anyone who has, or if you have any insight into it, let me know.

Remaining Year Two Schedule

There will be posts Wednesday (The final day of Hanukkah) and Friday (Christmas Eve Eve Eve), then I'm off next week for the holidays.

I will return on the 1st (New Year's Day) with a few final posts for Jerx Year 2(.5). The final post of for Year 2 will be on the 9th (National Apricot Day). 

After that? We'll see. An email will go out to Year 2 supporters with the details of potential Year 3 rewards. If there is interest in doing another year, then we'll start up again a few weeks after that. 

A Reminder in Three Well-Worn Analogies

I tend to assume that what I'm about to say is so ingrained in the fabric of this site that it doesn't bear repeating, but maybe that's not the case. Some people have only recently come to this site, some have never read the old posts, and some have merely forgotten. So as we come to the end of this second season, with a potential third season on the horizon, maybe it's a good time to reiterate my perspective on things (with some analogies I've made before) for those who are new or confused.

This site is written from the perspective of someone who only performs amateur magic. That is, casual, conversational, interactive magic for a handful of people, at most. My preferred performing situation is one-on-one because that allows you to create the most personalized experience for the people you perform for.

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Analogy #1: If you cook for one person, you can really create a meal that will appeal to their tastes. If you cook for a bigger group you need to take into account a number of other factors in regards to preferences and dietary restrictions, and you'll end up with something a little less personalized for any one particular individual. And if you have to cook for a few hundred people, then you operate a Denny's, and your menu is designed for broad appeal. The food is going to be relatively bland and inexpensive. It's not awful food, but it's not, generally, great food either. 

To continue the analogy, I find that a lot of people are interested in how to go about creating a warm, intimate dinner for two, and they're seeking out advice on how to do this in books written by people who own and operate a Denny's. 

I realize the analogy has an implied value judgment. Like, "intimate dinners are good" and "Denny's is shit." But that's not the point I'm making. I'm not shitting on professional shows. I'm saying the two things are not designed to provide the same benefits/experience. A professional show can offer a communal experience with a large group of people you may or may not know. It can shine a spotlight on the performer and her skills. And it can be a strength of the formal magic show that it is totally removed from your day to day life, and allows you to put everything on pause for a moment.

I think those can be great things in that context, but I also think they're the opposite of what amateur magic can provide at its best.

In my opinion, most of the issues with amateur magic can be traced back to people using advice and techniques designed for professionals in non-professional circumstances. If you think these two activities (professional and amateur magic) operate under the same rules, well, I'm not surprised, because that's how it's sort of been written about for 100+ years.

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Analogy #2: Imagine if you wanted to add some levity to your conversations and brighten the day of your friends, family, and co-workers. You look up some books on "how to be funny." And instead of teaching you how to add humor to your day-to-day life, they instead told you how to perform stand-up comedy. They have you doing the rule of three and "act outs" and crowd work. If you actually try and incorporate that into your regular life you'll come off as a grade-A weirdo, because professional comedy is a different thing than being funny in social, amateur situations.

Similarly, professional and amateur magic are two different things. One is a "show" and the other is an interactive experience (or, at least, it probably should be). A professional might say, "my show is an interactive experience too." Maybe so, but it's an interactive experience of a show. That's what the experience is for people. Whereas, for the amateur, the experience doesn't have to feel like show or a presentationIt can feel like a game or an experiment or a moment of synchronicity or a strange happening or a field trip or a bit of interactive fiction or a conversation or a weird coincidence or some supernatural phenomenon or 100s of other things. 

You might say, "Oh, don't be so naive, Andy. People see amateur magic performances as 'shows' too." But that's really only true if your amateur performances are caught up in the trappings of a show (heavily scripted patter, obviously planned out 'routines,' etc.) 

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Analogy #3: If you sit someone down and make them listen to you play the french horn and you properly introduce each song and take a bow afterwards, that will feel like a "show." But if you're whistling while you clean the house, or if you ask someone their opinion on a song you made in GarageBand, or if there are wind-chimes tinkling melodically on the porch, none of those things are going to feel like a "concert" to the person who experiences them.

What this site has largely been about is finding alternate contexts for magic tricks so that they don't feel like a presentation that's delivered for a particular response. Can we take this moment that might come off as a "show" if presented in a traditional manner and make it come off more like the tinkling of a wind-chime? Or can it be the mix-tape we're making-out to on the couch? Or can it be the music that is the result of a jam session we're both having? 

These may sound like chimerical notions. But, you know, that is kind of the business in which we're involved. And, ultimately, I think this is the power of a magic performance that's not done on a stage in a spotlight. It can be done in such a way that it feels like it's woven into other people's lives.

But I've found that to do so will generally take different tactics. And what we've grown to think of as "good technique" might not be great in this context. For example, on Wednesday I'll have some more thoughts on misdirection for the amateur magician. Some of these thoughts may seem to contradict some conventional wisdom, but I'm just talking about what I've found to work from an amateur perspective. Don't get your dick in a twist about it.

Gardyloo #44

In a previous post I mentioned my friend Andrew's “Board Room.” That is, the Wonder Room concept but built into a display of cards and board games. 

He recently added a new game to the mix that I thought was worthy of note.

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What Shall I Be - The Exciting Game of Career Girls

The game is a little over 50 years old and comes from a time when girls had, essentially, one of six options for a career.

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Model, Actress, Ballet Dancer, Nurse, Airline Hostess, and Teacher.

That seems about right. I mean, what else would a female be capable of being? I mean, I suppose prostitute goes without saying, but that might be weird in a game like this. I guess they could work in a science lab or something… you know, holding the beakers for the men, maybe? 

At any rate, Andrew is trying to figure out some ways to utilize this game in a magic context. There are a few different options. The nice thing is, since it’s a game no one knows how to play, you can make up any sort of rules you like. Rules that just happen to fall in line with the process for some trick. Or you can play the game for real and then screw around with the pieces in an “unplanned” way after the game.

Because the game comes with dice and game pieces, I told him it would be perfect for Phill Smith’s Quinta.

Have the person roll two dice and combine them in any way to make a number, then count their way back and forth along the game cards. They don’t land on any of these.

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Instead, they land on this one. 

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Or, you know, the reverse of that sort of thing.


Reader, MK, emailed this picture he and his sister created as a a lo-fi finale for the Red Pinetree Gift Lottery from the JAMM #11, which he’ll be performing at a Hanukkah dinner soon.

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Love it. And RPGL is one of my new favorite things to perform. It doesn't feel like a trick until that very last moment (if even then).


I don’t perform for other magicians a ton. I used to. In fact I used to pretty much only perform for other people who had an interest in magic. It’s a safety net, because you don’t have to try that hard. 

On the rare occasions I do perform for other magicians, here’s something I like to do. I’ll do a trick with a gimmicked deck or some gaffed cards or whatever, and when I’m done I’ll push the cards towards them and, as a final exclamation point to the effect, I’ll say two words: “Completely examinable.” 

About 30% of the time they’ll pick up the deck and give it a thorough look and realize it’s totally gimmicked. Then they’ll be like, “What do you mean it’s examinable?” And I’ll just say something like, “Hmmm. Yeah... I guess you're right," like an idiot. 

Now, since I was probably going to discuss method with them anyways, I haven't really lost anything here.

But about 70% of the time they’ll either only give the deck a cursory look (and miss the secret) or they won’t look at it at all because they take me at my word. 

On some occasions I'll come clean and say, “No. I’m just messing with you,” and get into the method with them. But often I'll just box up the deck, put it in my pocket and say, "I think I'll keep that one to myself." This drives people crazy. Especially if they were playing it cool and the reason they didn't pounce on the deck is because they assumed you were going to explain it to them.

It's fun to screw with magicians.


The French Twins, have recently released a new effect called Cigarettes (real creative name, guys). 

I've always thought card in cigarette could be pretty powerful, but I'm too lazy to be rolling up cards and putting hem in cigarettes. So I'll probably pick up some of these to play around with.

You may remember the French Twins from a previous effect, Card to Condom (or Magix). Of that trick I said:

"If I had a son and I walked into his room one day to find him dead from auto-erotic asphyxiation, wearing his mother's panties on his face like a bandit's bandana, holding a picture of a bull terrier's butthole in his hand and he had one of these fake condom's in his pocket, the first bit of scene staging I would do would be to get rid of this fake condom magic trick. He just can't be remembered that way."

And after busting on that trick for a full blog entry, the twins wrote me to tell me how funny they thought the post was. And that they realized the demo video had a "nouvelle vague cheap softcore porno" feel to it (their words). So they seem like good guys.

Although I'm not quite sure what their brand is exactly. "We create tricks to be done immediately pre- and immediately post-coitus." That seems a little limited. But I look forward to seeing their forthcoming effect, "The Light and Heavy Jizz Towel."

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This isn't magic, but they're friends of mine and it was making me laugh a lot tonight, and this blog is nothing if not a moment by moment record of my whims, so here it is...

Ethan died, and his friends and family can't stop wondering what they could have done to stop it.

The Green Grass Test

This video was promoted everywhere today. It's for a trick called Offworld by JP Vallarino.

It's a variation on Out of this World where the spectator guesses the colors of the cards one by one as they're revealed by the performer. It looks very clean and I was really taken with it when I first saw it and I planned to pre-order it. But then I applied the Green Grass Test to it.

I think, as magicians, it's easy to get caught up in the new thing. At least it is for me. And when I see the "new" thing it's very easy to fall into the trap that this new thing is better than whatever dumb old thing it's replacing.

One day I realized that was a very magician-centric style of thought. I was purchasing variations on effects just because they tickled my fancy (as opposed to my spectator's collective fancies). 

So then I came up with the Green Grass Test to prevent myself from falling into the "newness" trap. The test is simply this: When a new trick is released that is a variation on an older trick—or that creates a similar effect as an old trick—I imagine that the new trick is the old trick, and the old trick is the new trick. And then I determine which one I would be drawn to. Don't worry, I'll explain that. The purpose of this is to try and figure out if I'm drawn to this new version because it's new, or because it's genuinely better.

So, for example, let's pretend Offworld was the effect we had all been doing for the past 75 years. Then, one day, a young upstart named Paul Curry fired up his webcam and began to tell us about this variation on Offworld he'd created called Out of this World. 

"The effect is kind of like Offworld. But it doesn't use rough and smooth. In fact, it uses a normal deck of cards. The deck can actually be borrowed and shuffled by the spectator. And get this, they do all the dealing themselves. It's fully examinable."

Our minds would be blown and our jeans would be creamed and we would gladly be tossing away this gimmicked deck we had used for 75 years in favor of what would certainly be seen as a huge evolution in the trick. Wouldn't we?

Well, there is no "we" answer. I can only answer for myself. For myself and my performing considerations, the Green Grass Test helped me come to the conclusion that this is a significant step backwards from a traditional OOTW. 

With a traditional OOTW I can borrow a deck, have them shuffle it, spread through the cards rapidly to have them subliminally "absorb" the order (and for me to cull the cards), give them the deck to deal, and have them reveal (at least some) of the cards at the end. And I can do all of this at any time without having to run off to get my special deck.

Again, I'm not suggesting Offworld is a bad trick. I just realized that what attracted me to it was that it looked easy and new and not that it would ultimately be a better trick for my audience. Your performance considerations might be different. Maybe you only perform at restaurants and you'd never be in a position to do a full OOTW and you still want to do a trick where the audience guesses the colors. Well, then this would likely be a good option for you.

Here's one final thing to consider... I was out tonight with my friends Mark and Andrew working on the details for some upcoming focus-group testing we're doing in early 2018. 

The subject of this trick came up and Mark said that he got an early preview version of the effect and that it was pretty good. He went out to his car and came back with the deck a few minutes later. We waved the bartender over and Mark performed the trick for him. He asked him to guess what color the next card would be and he got it right like 10 times in a row. He did it face up like Greg does in the demo. It looked really good.

When he was done I took the deck to examine the construction and I was really impressed. It felt like it was legitimately just single cards and I couldn't tell where the rough/smooth element had been applied. 

As I was about to ask if it used thin cards or something like that, Mark called me a dipshit and said it was just a regular deck. He didn't get any "early preview" version of the effect. He was just messing around. When he went to his car he stacked the deck he already had in his pocket so it alternated Red-Black throughout. When he returned he held the deck face-up and asked the bartended to guess what color the next card was. If he guessed the opposite color of what was on the face, Mark would just push off the top card and put it to the rear of the deck. If the bartender guessed the same color as was on the face, Mark would do a double push off and put it to the rear of the pack. The R/B configuration never changes. He could have done it all night.

The little prick was screwing with me! And it worked. In fact, I remember thinking that it looked much better to just push off the top card normally rather than drag it off the back of the pack as Greg did in the demo. 

It's definitely more difficult to do it with normal cards, and you almost certainly can't do the full Offworld routine, but if a double push-off is in your arsenal, it might be worth considering. 

[The Green Grass Test can be used in other contexts. It originated when I was at a film festival for a week with a friend of mine and he was contemplating a dalliance with a woman there even though he was married. I wasn't really trying to talk him out of it, per se, just give him some perspective. I told him to imagine he had been married to this new woman for the past 5 years and not his actual wife. Would she still hold the same allure? If he imagined his wife as the new woman, wouldn't he probably be more drawn to her? Then I famously said, "When you think about it, this new woman is more of a dumpy broad than your wife!" I really have a way with words. Well, it worked out and he didn't cheat. I don't think I saved their marriage by making him fall back in love with his wife or anything like that. It was more a matter of me poisoning this picture he had in his mind of this new woman by recasting her as some old nag that he was sick of.]