Wingmen

When people talk of the most valuable tools for a magician to have, they usually talk about a thumbtip or a marked deck or something. But in my experience, when it comes to creating small miracles, the most useful weapon in a magician's arsenal is a magic wingman.

"Wingman" singular, is a bit of a misnomer. Ideally you want a small group of people you can call on to help out with your effects and for whom you make yourself available to help with theirs. Similar to your 100 trick repertoire, crafting your little syndicate of deception should be an ongoing project of growing and refining your crew. 

To be clear, I'm not talking about creating a group of magicians who go around performing tricks together like the it's the goddamn reboot of Totally Hidden Extreme Magic. I'm talking about creating a resource of like-minded individuals who are willing to help each other out with the execution of tricks and experiences.

I first learned the value of a wingman by being one, not by having one. I remember reading a trick in a beginners book as a kid. It's a trick where a coin disappears from under a handkerchief. The magician places the coin on his hand, then covers it with a handkerchief. The spectators can feel the coin underneath the handkerchief to confirm it's still there. And then—with a snap of his fingers or an entreaty to Christ himself (whatever type of Imp the magician prefers)—the handkerchief is whipped away and the coin is gone. And it's truly gone. It's nowhere on the magician. 

The method, as most of you know, is that the last spectator to confirm the coin is under the handkerchief actually steals the coin away. When I read this trick as a kid I desperately wanted to perform it. But not as the magician. I wanted to be the guy who steals the coin and then acts dumbfounded with everyone else. That, to me, seemed much more fun.

Ever since that time, I've always been willing to be the wingman and I've seen how strong effects can be when the deceptive duties are shared with someone the audience doesn't know is even in on it.

Not everyone who is into magic will be a good wingman. That guy you know from the local magic club who is super ego-driven and believes people really think he has powers, he's not good. You just want to find chill, normal people who are in this for fun, not validation. 

The one rule we have amongst my group is that as long as you're available and the request isn't onerous in some way, then we just automatically agree to help each other out. And we'll pretty much do whatever is asked. That way it doesn't have to be an issue where we're like, "Hey, do you think maybe if you're free on Sunday you could possibly help me out with this idea I have? If not, no big deal. But if it's feasible could you mull it over and maybe consider it? If it's the sort of thing you'd be okay with?" We're already committed to help each other, so we don't have to renegotiate everything each time we want to try something. It's just like, "Are you free Sunday? Okay, here's what I need." No one ever feels taken advantage of because everyone is available for everyone else. You're not constantly being asked to give up your night for someone else, but maybe a dozen times a year or so you're asked to help out with some ambitious effect.

Wingman Roles

Secret Assistant - Having someone who's willing to be at a bar or cafe you're at, or wait outside your house while you toss something out the window, or sit nearby while you're hanging out with someone at the park, or anything along those lines, that's the ultimate weapon. Your spectator views the interaction as being just between you and her, but there is at least one other party helping out who she never factors into the experience.

I've done things like The Look of Love, and Faith from The JAMM #6 with the help of secret assistants. Those tricks are already amongst the strongest tricks you can do in magic, but with the help of a secret assistant they're stronger than at least half of the miracles Jesus accomplished (some of which I'm sure he had help with too).

Less-Secret Assistant - The previous category is about having people help you who aren't noticed by your target audience. The "less-secret" assistant, is similar to the person stealing out the coin from under the handkerchief. Your target audience knows they're there, they just don't realize they're in on it. Ideally, your target audience won't know that the LSA is someone with an interest in magic, but it's not necessary to keep that totally secret.

I have a whole post coming up on uses for a Less-Secret Assistant. It's one of my favorite ways to utilize a wingman (and be utilized as one).

Partner - Sometimes you and your wingman will be performing as equals, like in a two-person code act, or something along those lines. I don't use this wingman relationship that often, but my absolute favorite version of it will appear in Magic for Young Lovers. 

Pimp - In improv comedy there is the concept of "pimping" people (yes, I know pimping isn't exclusive to improv comedy, but that's the most direct correlation to what I'm talking about here, not, like, sexual slavery). An example of pimping in improv would be someone walking on stage and someone else saying, "Oh, hey, Bill Cosby, how's it going?" Now the person who walked on stage is forced (pimped) into being Bill Cosby in that scene.

Similarly, you can have your wingman "pimp" you into performing, but it's all a con, because he's setting you up for something you're already prepared for.

This can be as simple as your wingman saying to you and your target audience, "Oh, you have to show them that trick you showed me the other day." This type of thing can create an anticipation for an effect that might not be there if it seems like you are pushing the effect on them (as opposed to having it pulled from you). It would be similar to being out with a couple people and one of them says to you, "Oh my god, you have to see this video Corinne took. It's so funny." That's going to hype up Corinne's video more than if she pitched the video to you herself. And that's even more true with something like magic, because a third party can say, "You have to see this trick Andy performed for me the other day. It's fucking amazing." And that will be intriguing and get people excited. But if I myself say, "You have to watch this trick I'm going to show you. It's fucking amazing." That may come off as egotistical and even turn people off.

Your wingman can also pimp you in a way that sounds more like a challenge. "Okay, but what if she didn't have to take the card out of the deck? What if she just thought of a card." And, of course, you're set up to do the trick with a thought of card.

Cast - One of the more satisfying ways I've found to use a wingman is to have them play a part in some sort of long-running fiction that you've established. For example, in this post I wrote about a presentational tool called The Cast, where you create some characters to help you get into different effects. And these people can recur in your presentations over months or years. 

Now, the first time you bring up someone in your "Cast" it can be somewhat believable. Maybe you do have an aunt who used to be a professional psychic, or an old mentor who you visit once a year, or a guy in your office who used to be a male witch. But as time goes on, people may start to think that it's just part of the story you're weaving. This all depends on how outlandish the character you've created is, and the tone you take when talking about the person. 

So maybe, over the course of a few months, I've shown someone a few things that "Glenn the male witch," an old co-worker of mine taught me. At this point they're probably pretty sure this is all part of the fantasy. 

Then, one day we're at the farmer's market and I whisper to my friend, "Oh, look over there. That's Glenn, that male witch I used to work with. Oh, hey Glenn! Good to see you. You got a lot of herbs there. I'm guessing those aren't for cooking with. Haha. Great seeing you."

And my friend is dumbfounded. Fucking Glenn, the male witch is real!? That sort of thing can be as mindblowing and "magical" as any trick.

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So where do you find these people? Look, man, I don't know. I'm not here to tell you how to make friends. Keep an eye out for people with an interest in magic who don't seem like total drips. You don't want to add someone into your little circle of wingmen if they're not the sort of person you'd want to be around in real life anyway. Attend some local magic club meetings or lectures and poach some people from there. Or send some of the people you already know with an interest in magic a link to this article and ask if they'd be interested in establishing this type of arrangement. 

The one key thing to keep in mind is that to find willing wingmen you have to be one.

Too often magicians only get together to perform for each other. It's a very safe thing to do because no one is expecting much insofar as presentation goes and if you screw up a trick it doesn't matter because the other person probably already knew how it was done. While it can be fun to dick around for the sake of other magicians, joining forces with them to truly mystify the uninitiated is (in my experience) a significantly more fulfilling way to use these skills.  

Heads Up

If you were interested in obtaining the upcoming book, and you wanted to do so via the monthly payment option, you have a few weeks to sign up for it before that option isn't available anymore. So, there's no huge rush, but it is something that will be going away next month. 

I've got a couple emails from newer readers asking what X-Communication is. X-Comm is, at this point, a quarterly newsletter that goes to supporters of the site. It originally started out as primarily reviews back in the first season of the site. But now I think of it as the outlet I use when I want to talk about other people's work. So that includes reviews, but also looks at different plots in magic, my personal routines for marketed items, and spotlighting effects from older books/DVDs.

For example, in the Summer issue of X-Comm there will be articles about:

• Some of my favorite effects with a "coincidence" premise
• What tricks I carry in my wallet as of Summer 2018
• A two-phase coin routine that uses a time-gap (as talked about last week) to turn a fairly standard coin effect into a real mind-fuck

The way things have kind of shaken out—and I think this is a pretty good system—is that the best routines and ideas I come up with are saved for the book; my thoughts on other people's commercially available effects are in the newsletter; and this site is for everything else (ideas in development, commentary, testing results, random thoughts, and gifs... mostly gifs).

Real Magic?

I talk a big game on this site about magic and the power of a really well executed effect, and how giving people a magic experience is just about one of the most unique gifts you can give someone. In my writings, I suggest that there's some value to witnessing something extraordinary, and that it's worth it to put in the effort to give people that experience. But what about me? How do I react to being really fooled? Well, it's time to come clean. This is all an act on my part. Magic is just something I use to get some pussy. And on the rare occasions I'm fooled by something, I'm not like, "Oh, thank you for this grand example of amazement." I'm just like, "Oooh, daddy, tell me how it's done. Secret secret. Gimme gimme!"

I mention this because I'm in a bind. I've watched the video of this bottle production 100 times and I can't figure out where the damn bottle comes from.

048 Video pic.twitter.com/JoehTh12Et

— Magic Transcribed (@TranscribeMagic) April 17, 2018

Seriously, how is he doing this?

One second, the bottle isn't there. And then the next second... well, not the exact next second... but a few seconds later the bottle is there.

I'm just like...

Can someone please tell me where that bottle came from? Please. Please!

I've slowed the video down, taken it frame by frame, but I have no clue. 

I think it may be tied to his deft use of misdirection. The way he mimes the scissors and looks out into the audience to suggest, "Hey, I need some scissors. Do any of you have scissors? No. Probably not. That's okay. I brought my own." Then he looks off-stage right like, "Hey, maybe someone over there has my scissors." Then he pats his right jacket pocket as if to say, "Maybe my scissors are there." Then he pats his right pants pocket and left pants pockets as if to say, "No. My scissors weren't in the my right jacket pocket. Maybe they're in my pants pocket." Mind you, none of this is spoken, it's just brilliant subtext skillfully delivered by a genius performer. Picking up where we left off, he now reaches into his inside jacket pocket, like maybe the scissors are in there. "No," his face suggests, "the scissors aren't there. But fuck it, how many more pockets can I possibly have?" With that, he checks the breast pocket of his jacket. The look on his face says, "Maybe my first instinct was right. Maybe they're offstage somewhere. That seemed like a dumb assumption at the time, but certainly I wouldn't be patting all these pockets and not finding shit if I had those scissors on me, right?" Then he smoothly shifts the balloon into his right hand, reaches into his left jacket pocket, fiddles around for a moment and... I guess removes a pair of scissors? That part I didn't quite get, honestly. But he must have because something popped the balloon and, miraculously, without too much of a gap after the balloon burst, a bottle has appeared FROM FUCKING NOWHERE!!!!!!!

Now, that sequence above, which only takes a scant uncomfortable 10 seconds to perform, is related to Juan Tamariz's "Crossing the Gaze" technique. It's called Clusterfucking the Gaze, and it's quite effective, and psychologically invisible. If you asked that audience if there was any awkward moment before the bottle appeared, I'm sure they'd say, "No. Well... there was a moment where I dozed off, so something could have happened then. But nothing I specifically remember before I was awoken by the sound of that balloon popping."

I'm beginning to suspect it was a camera trick. It had to be, right? There's no other way. If this isn't a camera trick I will give $1800 for the secret (and exclusive performance rights).

Thanks to Magic Transcribed, a twitter account that transcribes only the best magic, for the video.

Gardyloo #56

"You're not thinking of a red card, are you?... I knew it."

If you use this type of sentence structure in the course of some sort of fishing in a mentalism routine, there's a decent chance you're not very good at what you do. I can make that statement because being a good mentalist (or magician) means being able to listen to your audience and give an honest assessment of what works and what doesn't work.

This weaselly sentence structure (that some mentalists suggest will be seen as a "hit" either way) has never—in the history of mentalism—come across as anything other than the mentalist flailing to get a piece of information that he has no clue about.

I've made this point before (in more detail) in an earlier post on this site.

This ploy has never caused a single spectator to think, "Wow, how did you know that?" And the reason it doesn't is because it's a question. It's said as a question. And your spectator realizes it's a question. 

But Andy, I've heard many famous magicians and mentalists use this sort of sentence structure while fishing.

I've seen it used by dozens of mentalists and magicians too. And when the spectator knows the potential options are binary, this only ever comes across as a dodgy guess. (If the spectator doesn't know the options are binary—if, for example, you know they're thinking of one of two cards, but they think they could have been thinking of any card in the deck—then this ploy is a little less transparent.)

In the previously linked post I suggest the alternative I use (which is to make a definitive statement and be right 50% of the time and deal with being wrong the other 50% of the time). I find this much preferable than coming across like a goon 100% of the time.

Here is 5th Beatle, Devin Knight, trying to use this tactic in his recent Penguin Live lecture. You'll notice the spectator doesn't react as if he's provided information, she reacts as if she's giving him information, because she is. And what does the audience do? They laugh, because it such a shitty, obvious gambit that they assume he must have meant it as a joke.

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I had an email this week about the subject of hecklers and I was reminded of something that I want you to keep in mind if you're a non-professional. Especially if you're younger.

There is something that is true only for amateur magicians and for those who reach the status of, say, David Copperfield, and that is this:

You never have to perform for anyone who isn't 100% into engaging with your performance and enjoying the interaction.

Strolling performers, restaurant performers, guys who do corporate shows or school shows, kids performers—magicians at almost every other level— they have to work to win people over, at least some of the time. But you don't have to if you don't want to. 

As I said, this is primarily geared at younger performers who are concerned about dealing with antagonistic spectators, although it's true for all of us.

But understand what heckling is. Heckling is not someone saying, "You turned over two cards," or, "You still have the coin in that hand." That's not heckling, that's helping. Address the weakness in your technique or in the effect and you'll only get better. You don't need to fear this. If someone busts you, just say, "Damn. You got me." Don't let your ego get involved.

"Heckling" is when someone is unwilling to engage with the experience in a positive manner. You have the power in this situation because you can just choose not to perform for these people. It can be confusing because magic has the element of trickery going on so performers often confuse people not being fooled or noticing some element of the method as them being "hecklers," but don't get caught up in that trap. Remove the magic element altogether. Instead imagine yourself doing something respectable... like being a stripper. If you were an amateur stripper, stripping for someone who was being hostile, you'd just step off stage. You'd feel no inclination to perform for them, instead you'd go find the audience who is drooling, whooping, and creaming their jeans over your fat ta-tas and entertain them.

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Penguin magic has hosted about 280 different lecturers for their Penguin Live series. Of those, I believe seven have died:

• Tom Mullica
• Daryl
• Aldo Colombini
• Harry Anderson
• Bob Cassidy
• Eugene Burger 
• Don England

(When I say, "I believe," I don't mean that I'm not sure that those guys are all dead. I mean there might be more I'm not remembering.)

Now look, I'm not suggesting anything nefarious here. Just pointing out that if you lectured for Penguin there is a 1 in 40 chance you're dead. Test pilots and ice road truckers don't die that frequently.

Actually, what really made me think about this was the passing of Harry Anderson. His daughter and I run in the same circles and she's always been a delightful person to be around.

Local NPR station just referred to my dad as an "amateur magician" lol

— evafay (@evafay) April 20, 2018

Amazing how losing my father has connected me with hundreds of very kind strangers, dozens of really sweet thoughtful friends, and three insane jackasses.

— evafay (@evafay) May 1, 2018

I was thinking of her and her father recently and so I rewatched her father's Penguin live lecture and I was very happy to have this record of his teaching and talking about magic.

You may not remember, but when the Penguin lectures first started, they got a lot of flack. I can't remember the reason why. I have a feeling there wasn't a reason why beyond, "This is something new so I don't like it." But now, a few years later, isn't it fortunate that we have good quality video of these people not only performing, but teaching magic as well (in a relaxed, conversational way—as opposed to the way they might teach on a commercially released magic DVD)? 

The fact of the matter is, that list of dead magicians... that's just going to get longer. And these live lectures are just going to become more valuable as a record of those we've lost as both people and performers. This may sound like the world's most morbid sponsored post, but no one's paying me shit for this. It's just something that was on my mind.

Here's a thought for Penguin. The next time someone dies (the smart money is on Andi Gladwin) make their lecture half price for a few days and donate all the proceeds to a charity chosen by the deceased's family. It's a win-win for everyone. And no, this isn't just some clever ploy of mine to save $15 by suffocating Josh Janousky and then picking up his lecture at a discounted rate.

Antica...

Supporter of the site, Steve. F, writes:

The Spring issue of X-Communication was really great. I bought the app you mentioned and ordered a couple of the other items too. I wrote you last year to say you reignited my old interest in magic which had dissipated over the past 20 years and that's still true.[Ed. Note: I've redacted some stuff here that is uncomfortably flattering.] I'm looking forward to the next book in a way I haven't looked forward to a magic purchase since I was young. 

Hey, thanks, Steve.

I'm happy to hear that you're looking forward to the book. I'm pretty excited about it myself.

I have a theory that I want to touch on briefly here. (I'll expand on it one day when I write my Guide to Life.)

I believe that anticipation keeps you happy and your mind and heart young.

The happiest people I know have things on the horizon they're looking forward to. I don't mean big things like buying a house or starting a company. I mean they have a lot of little trivial things they're excited about.

Maybe it's easier to find little things to be excited about when you're happy, but I think it also works the other way. I think if you find things to look forward to, you'll be happier generally.

At all times you should have something in each one of the categories (and once it comes to pass, you replace it with something else):

Anticipation Checklist

• A movie you're looking forward to
• A book you're looking forward to
• An album you're looking forward to
• A tv show you're looking forward to
• A meal you're looking forward to
• An event or outing (concert, play, author reading, amusement park visit, comedy show, athletic event) you're looking forward to
• A party you're looking forward to (if no one invites you to parties then start throwing two every year: a summer gathering and a holiday party)
• A trip you're looking forward to
• Someone you're looking forward to seeing (or meeting for the first time)
• A sexual encounter you're looking forward to
• Something you're looking forward to in regards to a hobby (a magic book, a video game, a comic)
• A plan you're looking forward to executing

The Times They Are A-Changin'

One of the things I always thought would happen when I started writing about amateur/social magic is that people would come out and say, "Oh, yes, here are the other books on the subject that were written over the past 100 years that you don't know about because you're a magic ignoramus." But that never happened. There were a few things here and there directed towards amateurs, but very little that looked at it seriously. Since I've started this site there has been more talk about it (because I am, obviously, a world-class thought-leader) but still not that much. It makes sense though. because while there is a huge population of amateur magicians, most of them perform rather infrequently. And to get useful insights and ideas, you really need to be out performing regularly. But the people who are performing regularly tend to be professionals, so most of what you read is from that perspective. To perform a lot as an amateur, you have to be independently wealthy or have stumbled into a situation where you started a magic blog that eventually evolved into a situation where people financially support the site which allows you to spend a lot of time trying out new material and going to bars, restaurants, coffee-shops, libraries, etc. in order to generate more social interactions and try out different ideas.  As I've said before, I'm the world's first professional amateur magician.  

I bring this up because what I want to talk about today is something that is a fundamental tool for the social magician. And it's something we should obviously be taking advantage, but there is almost nothing written about it in the magic literature because it's not a tool that is available to the professional performer. So no one bothers writing about it. Even people who aren't professional performers will tend to create magic to be used in a professional situation, so they ignore this tool too.

The tool I'm talking about is Time.

As I was talking with a friend about some of the unpublished routines that will be in Magic For Young Lovers, I realized that a number of them followed a very non-traditional time-table for a magic trick. There's a trick that starts in the evening and ends the next morning, another that takes days (potentially weeks) to play out and concludes at a time you (the magician) don't choose, another where you "expose" a trick a couple hours after performing it and the exposure is actually more unbelievable than the effect.

The professional magician usually has to wrap up a trick in a few minutes. If he has a full-length show, he may be able to start a trick at the beginning of the show and wrap it up at the end, but he's still generally limited by the boundaries of the show itself.

As social magicians, we're often not constrained by the same time boundaries. And I've found that messing with the time element of a trick is a very good way to give people a richer experience than they may have with a more standard presentation. (I'm not suggesting that you need to turn every 2-minute trick into a 2-hour ordeal, but sometimes it's worth it.)

I would suggest if you have an idea for a trick that you feel is solid, but you're not getting the reactions you want from it, or it feels somewhat inconsequential, that you mess with the time-line in regards to how the trick plays out. I've found this to be a reliable way to generate a deeper experience from effects and it may be the key to amplifying the reactions you're getting from the trick.

Ideas and Examples

Let's say you meet someone at a party and they find out you do magic or mentalism. They write down a word (on an impression pad) tear off the page and you read their mind. This may or may not be a good trick depending on how you go about it. 

But consider this instead. They write down a word on a piece of paper, fold it up and put it in their pocket. "To be clear," you say, "I'm not really psychic. And I'm just learning how to pretend to be. So I'm not just going to be able to guess what you wrote. But I bet by the end of the night I'll figure it out." Maybe you actually wager some money on it.

Now, instead of a 1 minute trick, you're able to weave this effect all through the night. As the party goes on you check in with her from time to time, trying to get a feel for what she might have written down. Maybe you ask her some bizarre questions that you imply are designed to allow you a peek into her subconscious. Maybe you show her a funny video on youtube and while you're doing it she catches you trying to steal the slip of paper from her pocket ("What? I didn't say I'd read your mind, just that I'd somehow figure out what you wrote.")

And there can be different beats that play out throughout the night as you attempt different ways to figure out the word. In a professional show, a 10-minute presentation to guess a word is likely going to fall flat. But for the social magician, a presentation that is broken up into 10 one-minute moments throughout the night could be very fun. In this case because it's more than a trick, it's also a game (and if you're at all charming you could turn this into a playful flirtation (if you needed me to tell you this, you're not at all charming, don't try it)).

The night ends and you approach her with $20 in your hand. "You win. I have no idea." But as you give her the bill your hands touch and then you grasp her hand and twitch your eyes, Dead Zone style. "Wait... no... I got it... it's... doormouse." (Or however you choose to reveal you know the word.)

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I've mentioned before the Michael Weber idea of splitting up a multi-phase routine over the course of several interactions with a person.

This is a great way of extending the moment and using "time" to make a trick feel different. Look, a 10-phase ambitious card routine is—almost by definition—going to peter off after a couple phases. But if you just do three phases and then keep the person's signed card on your bookshelf and every time they visit you're like, "Remember this card you signed that kept rising to the top of the deck? Well I thought maybe if the deck was bound in rope then the positions of the cards couldn't change...but check this out." In other words, you could do a single phase each time you see them. Then, rather than having a jumble of moments in their head after one long multi-phase effect, they would have this one moment they could keep with them (at least until the next time you see each other).

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Other ways of using a time element to give people a different experience.

• Tell someone you're working on a new trick, fail at it a couple times, and then a week later perform it for them and nail it.
• Send someone a text in the afternoon asking them to stop by on their way home because you have something cool to show them.
• Teach them a trick and then months later say, "I've been working on that trick I taught you." And show them something similar but with a wildly different method they could never conceive of. 

I would also direct you to the Presenting Coincidences post from a couple weeks ago for an example of what I consider a very satisfying modification of the "time" element of a standard trick.

I have more thoughts on this that will come out in the future, but this isn't the type of thing you really need someone to guide you through. With a little thought you'll find ways to adjust the time it takes for an effect to play out so that the tenor of the overall experience changes.

Insta-Creep

Let's flash back to June 11th, 2015.

What was going on then?

Jurassic World opened in theaters. Live to Tell by Madonna topped the Billboard charts. The Bridges of Madison County was the #1 NY Times Bestseller. Joseph Stalin executed eight army leaders as part of The Great Purge. And I took that pill that made me unable to recognize the annual passing of time, causing all of recorded history to collapse into one busy calendar year in my mind. 

Those were some good times. 

I also put a post on this site called "Spectator Cuts the Aces Three Ways," an early and foundational post in regards to some presentational ideas I would expand upon over the next few years.

The Creepy Child version (as well as Spectator Cuts their Future, from JV1) are still my most used variations on the Spectator Cuts the Aces plot. If you're not familiar with that variation, check the linked post above, of this won't make any sense.

Last week, reader Ari Isenberg sent me this image from his Instagram.

A post shared by Ari Isenberg (@arimagician) on Apr 24, 2018 at 9:50pm PDT

This is a great idea (Thanks, Ari). As much as I love the "Creepy Child Version," it has one big downside to it in that it only makes sense when you're near your own refrigerator. (An inconvenient prop for the strolling performer.) Of course, the drawing doesn't have to be on you refrigerator, but it adds a lot to the performance when it's found in some sort of organic location.

You could, of course, just carry around the drawing with you, pull it out of your pocket and unfold it and be like, "Look what my niece did!" But then you're taking away the strength of this routine, which is the idea that this wasn't something you planned all along. You want it to feel like a card trick that goes to this weirder place. Not like something you planned on going to some weird place. That narrows the scope of the trick rather than broadening it. 

So, Ari's idea to have this on your instagram is really quite good. It allows you to do this trick anywhere at any time. You can even borrow a deck and (with a little set-up) get into it. You don't need your own phone or computer. It's one of those things that, as they say, you could do "naked on the beach." (Even if you had a raging hard-on. (They never mention that condition, which seems pretty important if I'm going to be naked on the beach.))

You'd take the deck and get into the trick, and you're building up to the idea that the spectator has cut to the four aces. When it becomes clear that hasn't happened, you're left scratching your head and looking over the cards and then it dawns on you, "Wait, wait, wait. This is... Do you have your phone? Can you go on my instagram? I have to check something." And then it spirals out from there.

As Ari wrote in his email to me about his performance, "It was a ton of fun and got amazing reactions." I have no doubt. I guess I need to start an instagram now. 

Here are some touches in regards to how I'll set this up when I do it to make it perfect for my tastes.

1. Rather than just a picture of the drawing, I will have a picture of a kid in my life actually making the drawing with a caption like. "Chelsea knows how much Uncle Andy likes cards, so she's drawing me a picture of some." Aww, how adorable. This will help disguise that I'm setting them up for a trick because it seems to be a picture of my niece (or whatever) rather than just the drawing.

2. Then I'll wait a couple weeks and have another 10-20 pictures added to my instagram. At that point I'll put another picture up. In this picture I'll have the front page of that day's paper along with another child's drawing that's very similar to the image on the front page. (Not too similar. Maybe 65% similar.) And the caption will say something like. "Chelsea drew this last weekend. And now this is the front page of the paper? #coincidence or #creepykid?" Then I'd go on with my instagram, letting some more pictures push that one down the page.

Now I'm set to go into this at any time I have a deck of cards. Go into the ace cutting sequence, turn over the cards, notice something odd, ask them to go to my instagram. Have them scroll down and stop them at the most recent drawing pic, the one with the drawing and the newspaper page. "Okay... see this? I thought there was something weird about this girl but I had written it off as just a coincidence. But now I'm not sure what to think. Scroll down more." They scroll down more to the picture of this little girl doing the drawing of cards. You zoom in and see that the cards are a perfect match.

3. My ideal spectator would be someone who had—weeks or months earlier—"liked" the photo of my niece drawing weeks or months earlier. That would be cool. Imagine you like a photo of your friend's kid drawing something. Time passes and you forget about it. Then weeks later it turns out that the picture you liked was actually of the girl somehow drawing this moment you're now in.

What I particularly like about this is that it's a "big" trick, but it's also one that is always ready to go. There is no burden to be set up for this trick. Borrow a deck, cull some cards while taking out the jokers or just playing around with the deck, and you're good to go. Usually the tricks that you can get into "anytime, anywhere" tend to be "smaller" tricks conceptually (a broken and restored rubber band, a coin vanishes, etc.). They are cool moments but not the sort of thing where the spectator is taken on a journey. I'm perfectly happy with a trick that is just a "cool moment" and I'm not against tricks with big set-ups that have to be performed at a particular place in time to produce profound effects. But I'm definitely always on the lookout to find or create immersive, expansive effects with no onerous set-up, and this is definitely one of them. (Check out There In Spirit in the Spring 2018 X-Comm for another example.)