Enhancing the Spectator as Magician Plot

The Spectator as Magician (or Mentalist or Mind Reader) plot is one that has always had its share of detractors. Critics will say that it makes your "powers" seem less special and that it turns magic/mentalism into something the just anyone can do. Usually this criticism is made by people in the mentalism community who want their audiences to believe they genuinely have some supernatural abilities. Giving someone else that ability would—in their mind—undermine the fake powers they don't really have that they're desperately trying to convince people they possess. Don't listen to these people. They are deranged and overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy in their personal life. They don't make good role models.

And their logic is moronic too. Imagine you went to an orchestra concert and at one point the conductor plucked you out of the audience and said, "You're going to play harp on this next number." And you said, "Well, I don't play harp." And he said, "We have the power to allow you to play harp for this one song." The song starts and miraculously your fingers are dancing along the strings and playing in perfect time with the rest of the orchestra. Now the song ends and the audience bursts into applause. What are you thinking at that point? Are you thinking, "What?! How...? What was that?" Or, as those mentalists would suggest, are you thinking, "Huh. Well, I guess playing the harp is easy. Thanx byeeee!"

I don't believe for a second that the Spectator as Magician/Mind Reader plot takes away from the performer in any way. When done correctly, especially in a social setting, it can be a truly unreal and profoundly memorable experience for people. 

The problem is this: you hardly ever see anyone perform this plot correctly. 

Let me explain...

Let's say you're good with a nail-writer. So you've been doing a trick where you have someone think of any two-digit number and it matches what you wrote down before the start of the trick.

Then you decide that instead of you being the mentalist, you will do this as a Spectator as Mind Reader plot. So instead of saying, "I've predicted the number you're going to think of," you say, "I'm thinking of a number. I wrote it down so I can't change my mind. I want you to try and see if you can read my mind and tell me what number I'm thinking of."

Generally you will find that this gets a stronger reaction. But I think the increase in reaction is due to you shifting the focus off yourself and presenting the trick in a way that is different than what they've seen before.

In reality, I think the trick is only somewhat stronger. You may go from a 5 on the reaction scale, to a 6. But if you want to go to a 9 or 10 you need to give them an experience that feels different in some way. 

What I mean is this, if you perform Out of This World for someone, it feels to them like they're dealing out cards randomly, because they are. If you ask them to name what number you're thinking of, it feels like they're guessing, because they are. So you're presenting them with experiences where the only difference is the outcome. So for them, reading your mind or predicting the future feels identical to guessing. They never get the sensation of doing anything unusual because the "mind reading" is only verified in retrospect. You're not really giving them much to believe in here. "When I walked in I wasn't psychic. When I leave I won't be psychic. And when I guessed what number he was thinking of, everything felt normal." You can't really expect the trick to be that much more affecting just because you switched from "I'm reading your mind" to "You're reading mine," if everything else is the same.

Enhancing the Spectator as Magician Plot

Here is how you take Spectator as Magician/Mind Reader to the next level. 

For the spectator to feel like maybe they've done something they've never done before, they need to be subjected to a new, or at least uncommon, experience or sensation. They need to do, see, taste, hear, feel or smell something that puts them in a slightly different state of mind. Then their experience of "reading someone's mind" will be associated with a state that is different than the norm. And then, when the outcome is different from the norm, there is a cohesiveness to the experience.

Here's an extreme example, just to make the point: Take someone who has never used drugs before and give them a dose of LSD. Then, right when they're really feeling it, perform Out of This World for them. I promise you, they will truly believe that in their altered state of mind they were granted some power/insight to differentiate between red and black cards. They won't doubt this at all. 

Again, that's just a theoretical point. Don't dose people with LSD. But you should do something to put someone in a slightly different state before they take on the role of mind reader or magician. It can be anything: holding their breath, an unusual physical exertion, listening to a particular frequency of tuning fork, tantric breathing, ingesting something unusual, gazing into rippling water, inhaling some mysterious scent, getting a mild static shock. Or put them in a state of low-level fear, or arousal, or bliss. Or go visit them when they're sick and bring some soup and a get-well gift and say, "You know, there's something strange you might be able to do when you're in this condition. Are you up for trying it?" There are countless directions you can take this.

For long-time readers, you'll recognize this is an extension of the ideas of Imps. Imps are particularly useful in Spectator as Magician effects because they justify why now this person is able to do this thing.

Done in this way, you can really capture someone's imagination with the Spectator as Magician/Mind Reader plot. In my experience, if you don't provide an impetus to help explain why they suddenly have this ability, then the experience can ring a little hollow. It may still be a good effect, but the audience won't really entertain the notion that they played a big role in what happened. Instead they will see themselves in the same way they see the magic wand you hold; not as a true source of power, but as a prop you used in the process of the effect.

Gardyloo #61

Building on Wednesday's post, I have another post on transitions coming up in the next few weeks. But before that comes I want to give you one piece of advice that has been very helpful to me that was given to me by a friend of mine. And it's this: A good transition does not have to be smooth, a good transition only has to feel natural. With this in mind there are many available opportunities to shift into a magic performance other than the "steer the subject X" approach that has traditionally been the only advice offered.

The next post on transitions will dissect that idea.

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Do you mail things internationally often? If so, maybe you have some input here.

Let's say I want to mail a book from New York state to some other country overseas. It weighs 2 pounds. It seems my options are:

1. Use USPS and spend about $30.

2. Use FedEx or UPS and spend about $160

That's not an exaggeration. Here are my options via UPS from New York to Oslo, Norway.

(I particularly like the "saver" option which saves me a whole $1.22.) 

Is there some secret to international shipping that I don't know about? Are these really my only options? If you have some experience with this and know another option I might not have considered, let me know.

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Dear Penguin,

Here are my Top 5 Penguin Live Lectures I'd like to see:

• David Acer
• Richard Sanders
• Bro Gilbert
• Michael Weber
• David Stone

Please get to work on that.

Speaking of Penguin Live, I don't know this week's lecturer, but she looks really hot.

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In this post on using the Google Home in concert with magic effects I wrote:

[Y]ou could theoretically create an "if this" statement for every card in the deck. Then you could have a card freely chosen (say from a stacked and/or marked deck), cue it to Google Home in your question and have it name the correct card in a very fair way. 

Reader, Brian Villa Connor offered this cueing system. 

It will take a moment for you to wrap your head around it. Ultimately it's fairly simple, but it's not really intuitive (it's not one of those things that you learn once and remember forever, you'd have to practice it in your head from time to time).

Here's how it works. Someone chooses a card, you secretly know what it is. In the course of asking your Google Home to help you out, you'll code the card to it and it will give the proper response. (See the previous linked post for more info on how that part works.)

So your sentence will be, "Hey Google, [suit code phrase] ["help me" if 8-K]  [the combination of phrases that delineates the value]."

Some examples: 

"Hey Google, can you pick a card?"
Google replies: "Okay, I pick the Ace of Clubs."

"Hey Google, I'd like you to name a playing card."
Google replies: "Okay, how about the four of hearts.

"Hey Google, please think of a playing card." 
Google replies: "Okay, I'm thinking of the six of spades."

"Hey Google, I want you to help me and name any card."
Google replies: "Okay, the nine of diamonds."

"Hey Google, can you help me and think of a card?"
Google replies: "Okay, I'm thinking of the Jack of Clubs."

You can play around a little with the wording on both the input and the output to make it more to your liking, but I think this is a pretty good start. 

The mnemonic for remembering the suit input is:

"Can you" = Clubs > Both start with C

"Please" = Spades > Both have the P and S sound

"I'd like you to" = Hearts> When you "like" something online, you often click a heart.

"I want you to" = Diamonds > You want money (you greedy bitch).

Thanks to Brian for letting me describe this here. 

And I'll put the challenge out to anyone else if you can come up with (or know of) an easier two person code we could program into a Google Home (or similar device) for playing cards, pass it along. What I like about this one is that the phrasing never gets too weird, and all 52 cards can be expressed with the manipulation of 11 total variables. Which seems pretty good, but I'm interested in hearing other ideas. 

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Slight (Of Hand)

First there was that dress that people saw as different colors. Then there was the Yanny/Laurel audio clip. Now we have the following video clip that can be interpreted one of two ways.

Either it's Josh Jay directing traffic and this woman misreads that gesture and goes to shake his hand and gets dissed.

Or—as I choose to view it—Josh is going in for the handshake and this woman punks his ass with the old "too slow" move.

The All-Purpose Transition

This is going to be very useful to any amateur/social magicians who have some level of concern about their performances. I know it will be, because that describes me, and this is one of my most used "discoveries" in the last couple of years. 

It deals with the subject of transitioning into effects. I think for some amateurs this can be almost paralyzing. They don't want to be the guy who is awkwardly bringing up tricks out of nowhere. So they look for some natural conversational openings to transition into effects. Then they spend the next 60 years watching the calendar pages turn and waiting for one of their friends to mention ESP so they can casually get into this goddamn effect they've had in their pocket all this time. 

At this point, transitions aren't a huge issue for me with most of the people I know. I don't have to bring up magic or tricks. They do. And that's because of the precepts I wrote about in the "Social Magic Basics" posts earlier this year.

As it turns out, the tactic that I think does hold up in the long-term, is presenting yourself as someone with an interest in magic and then giving people a semi-fictionalized glimpse into what the world of magic entails. You're not pretending to be a magician, or mindreader. You're not putting on a show. And you're not giving them random tricks devoid of context. 

Instead you're giving them a true "behind the scenes" look at how magic is learned, practiced, and passed along, mixed with a more fantastical take on that subject as well.

Once you've established yourself as someone with an interest in magic (and by that I mean showing them interesting glimpses into that world, NOT just forcing them to watch your tricks all the time) then you don't need to worry about transitioning into effects because they will get you into tricks by asking you what you're working on or what interesting things you've come across recently. 

But still, there are times where you want to choose when, where, and for whom to perform and having a good way to transition into the effect is incredibly valuable. I'm not only going to give you a good way, I'm going to give you what I think may be the best way.

First, I want to briefly mention the traditional advice you would hear in regards to transitioning into an effect. You often hear it suggested that you should casually bring the subject of conversation around to the theme of your trick and then, from there, you can transition into the trick itself. This is a terrible tactic. More and more, I'm convinced that most standard magic advice was written by anti-social mutants who never performed in the real world for normal people. 

Let's say you're at dinner with a group of people. You "casually" turn the subject to ghosts. Then 5 minutes later a "ghost" is making your napkin float. How do you think this comes across to people? Here's how it comes across, "Oh, I see. He didn't really care if I had ever seen a ghost, he just steered the conversation to that subject so he could do his little floating napkin trick. Now I feel kind of dumb for telling him that thing about my grandma when he was just waiting to that bit with the napkin the whole time." That's not a good look. You've probably experienced conversations where people do something similar. They'll bring up a subject and ask you a question, halfway pay attention to your response, and quickly shift the focus to themselves to say what they wanted to say in the first place. It's pretty transparent.

Them: How does it work at your job? Do you get regularly scheduled raises? 

You: Actually, we used to, but not anymore. I don't mind it though, because when it was automatic, the raises were pretty much the same across the board. Now I feel like I can negotiate something higher. I actually have a meeting with my boss about this next Wednesday.

Them: Oh cool. I just got a $5000 raise! And it's just three months since my last raise!

All you're doing with this type of transition is making people feel set up. (On rare occasions, when an effect is truly personal and spectacular, then feeling "set up" can be a good thing. "You spent all that time planning this for me?" But most tricks you'll do regularly don't qualify as "truly personal and spectacular.") 

So let's talk about the All-Purpose Transition to get from a conversation into a trick. 

The first thing I've found is that a really slick transition is only good if you didn't bring up the subject of conversation you're transitioning from. This is what I was just saying above. If someone talks about coincidence and you transition into some impromptu coincidence effect, that's fine. But if you have to bring it up yourself and then try and transition, that's bad. One of the reasons I argue for a large sub-set of impromptu tricks in your 100-Trick Repertoire, is that it allows you to naturally transition out of many more subjects than just having a 6-trick repertoire would. 

But you don't have to wait for that "perfect" opportunity to transition into an effect. You can create it pretty much at will with the All-Purpose Transition. This is not a 1:1 transition. By that I mean, it's not a situation where you're talking about fate and then you transition into a trick about fate. There is a disconnect in this transition, but that's okay. I actually prefer this transition to any other in social situations. The disconnect is what allows it to be so broadly useful. This is a transition to get from any subject into almost any trick. 

Here's how it works...

Step 1: You have a conversation with someone about anything.

Step 2: At some point in the conversation they will say something funny, or thought-provoking, or wise, or bizarre, or profound, or vulnerable, or something that shows they're a caring person. If they don't say something like this over the course of a conversation, why are you talking to them?

Step 3: You pause and let what they said affect you in some way. You laugh. You smile. You sit back in your chair and think. You find yourself at a loss for words. Whatever the appropriate response might be. 

Step 4: You make a complimentary comment. "That's so funny." "That's brilliant." "You're amazing." "Where do you get these ideas?" "That's really smart. I never thought of it that way." "Damn. You're a good person."

Step 5: Let this moment seem to inspire you or remind you to try a trick with them. "Oh, that reminds me, I wanted to try something with you." "Oh... you know what... you'd be perfect for this thing I've been wanting to try."

Step 6: Go into your trick.

Now, to be clear, I'm not suggesting you transition into a trick when you're in a deep conversation with someone about their impending divorce or their mom's struggle with Alzheimers. This is just a way to get into a trick from a casual conversation, not a deep conversation. 

I'm going to tell you why this is so good in a second, but first let's consider an example. Let's imagine the most difficult situation to transition into a trick: with someone you just met who doesn't know you do magic.

So let's say you're on a 12 hour bus ride and you're sitting next to someone you haven't met before. You strike up a conversation and you two are hitting it off.

Them: So I said to him, "You know what sexual position makes the dumbest babies?" And he's like, "No." And then I said, "Well, guess we better ask your mother."

You: [Laugh] Oh my god. That's amazing. You've got a twisted mind.

[Pause]

You: Actually... can I try something with you? You'd be perfect for this. I have an interest in psychology and magic, and there's something I've been wanting to try but I haven't found the right person.

And then you're off.

If it's not obvious, let me explain why this is so good... 

Usually, when it comes to transitions, we're transitioning from talking about a subject to doing a trick related to that subject. ("We were talking about intuition and then he showed me a trick about intuition.") Or we transition based on the props involved. ("We were playing cards and then he showed me a card trick.") So there is some sort of constant before and after the transition. 

In this transition, the constant is them. The unspoken implication is, "You're so clever. I want to try this trick with you because of your clever mind." "You're so perceptive. I want to try this trick you because you're so perceptive." "You're so funny, I've been looking for someone with a mind like yours to try something with."

This makes the transition into the trick wildly personal. 

And you're launching into a trick only after they've impressed you in some way—with their wit, intelligence, or humanity—so the feeling here is that they've somehow earned the right to see this trick. It makes the trick feel like a reward they're getting based on something they did, not like you're forcing a trick on them to make yourself look good. 

You might think there needs to be a more direct correlation in regards to what happens at Step 5 and the trick itself. You might think you have to say something like, "You seem really empathetic. Let me show you something about empathy." And then you need to do a trick with a strong theme of empathy. You don't need to that. In fact it's probably worse. Let them draw the connections. They just need to feel this: "He wants to show me something because I impressed him with the [funny, intelligent, creative] thing I said." That "because" is all the justification you need. 

Everyone wants to be recognized for their positive or unique qualities. No one is going to challenge the idea that they earned this moment because of something special about them.

Of course, for this transition to make sense, the trick you show them will have to involve them in some way. But that's fine for me because 90%+ of the tricks I do require some level of genuine interaction. Don't follow up this transition with some show-off type of effect. If you have that sort of effect, don't worry about a transition. Just use the "Peek Backstage" style and you're all set.

But isn't this manipulative? 

No. I do only want to perform for people I find interesting or funny or good people. So I'm not lying about that. I don't pretend to find people interesting just so I can transition into a trick. I'm always honest about what I say about them. Perhaps it's slightly manipulative to say, "You're special, so I think we can do something interesting together," when I could pretty much do the same trick for a deflated basketball.  So if I am manipulating them, then I'm manipulating them into feeling unique and special for a moment. I don't have an issue with that. The truth is, while I can do most of these tricks for myself in the mirror, there is no spark of magic to a performance until I'm with a real person with whom I have some level of a connection. So, suggesting they have some affect on what's going to happen is, for me, not manipulative or dishonest. It's the truth.

Gardyloo #60

(No, this picture wasn't hidden away on Josh's hard-drive. And I didn't steal it so you could make perverted photoshops or tribute pictures with it. He put this picture out himself. No, I don't know why. I can only assume the pressure of the new show is getting to him.)

Best of luck to my pal Joshua Jay whose new show, Six Impossible Things, opens tonight. (There are 11 tricks in the show, apparently, but only 6 are any good.) 

What can we expect from this show? It's hard to say. But, as reader D.C. noted in an email to me. If you search magic set josh jay on amazon, it recommends you watch Transparent.

So I'm guessing his new stage show might be the one that finally addresses his struggle with his sexual identity? I'm not sure.

On a similar note, does anyone know how Amazon does their algorithms? What I mean is, how many of us would have to buy Magic: The Complete Course by Joshua Jay and a big black dildo, before we could make this a reality on the Amazon page for that book?

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Is there video anywhere of Juan Tamariz doing the Crossing the Gaze switch? [Update: I've been sent the video by a few people. Thanks.] It's something I've done in the past myself, and it seems like it should be a psychologically fooling switch.

However, when I watch anyone else do it, it seems to just draw attention to itself. Their actions don't seem natural in the least. It either happens way too quick or there's a lot silent over-acting, like they're in a 1920s movie. "Oh, is the object OVER HERE in this pocket? No. Then it must be OVER HERE in this one." With lots of broad gestures and looking from pocket to pocket. (I've never needed to look at my pocket before putting my hand in it. Yes, I know, I must be some kind of genius.)

So I'd like to see the move in action by the originator, because I think there's something I'm missing. 

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Here's a little trivia/anecdote/exposure that Joe Mckay mentioned using in relation to the trick I wrote up on Wednesday. I think it's a good bit of knowledge to have rolling around in your head to engage people with and perhaps transition into an effect. Yes, it technically exposes a "secret" (maybe, it might not even be true) but it's not something that's really going to affect your audience's enjoyment of what you do, or likely what any other magician might do in the future. 

Here it is, in Joe's words...

I spent some time studying the work of Harry Houdini. Along the way - I found a cool Houdini idea buried away in an old U.F. Grant book.

It was a method that Harry used to use to escape from any pair of handcuffs. 

Houdini used to have specially prepared handcuffs made available when he performed. Along with handcuffs that he had keys for as well as handcuffs that he figured out how to escape from (eg by giving them a hard bang on the floor). Along with other methods.

Anyway - sometimes he would come across handcuffs that he would have no way of escaping from. So this is what he used to do. He would make the trick harder and in doing so, create a way to escape from the handcuffs. It was very ingenious.

He would place multiple sets of handcuffs on his wrists. And the ones that he could not escape from would be placed higher up the arms. So that when the lower ones were removed - the uppermost ones could simply be slipped straight off the wrists. 

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My friend and the primary illustrator that I work with, Stasia Burrington, is working on a new deck of playing cards/oracle cards with a cat theme. I'm looking forward to it, because I love her work and I know it's the type of thing that will charm laypeople (in a way the Bicycle Titanium Elite Masters Vortex Knights: Stardust Edition Version 3 sorts of decks never will). I'll mention it here when it's released, or keep an eye on her etsy store.  

Book Update

For those of you who have chosen to support Season 3 at the Gotta Have It level, I wanted to give you an update on the book. Yesterday I put a first hyper-rough-draft together of the ideas and effects that will make up Magic for Young Lovers to get a sense of how much material I had... and it was almost 200 pages longer than I intend the final project to be. So now it's just a matter of deciding what stuff I think works best for this book and what I'm going to cut.

If you're waiting for a detailed description of what's going to be in the book before you order, no such list is forthcoming. I don't want to have to talk someone into buying a $260 book. It is what it's meant to be: a reward for the people who like this site enough to support it. If a year of this site, four issues of the X-Comm magazine, a limited edition deck of cards and a limited edition book isn't worth that cost to you, then me describing some of the tricks isn't going to push you over the edge, I'm sure. 

The big focus in this book is magic that creates more enduring amazement by utilizing strong emotional hooks. Presentations that would be interesting even without a trick accompanying them, and props that the average human can connect to with greater ease than they can just a deck of cards or some Chinese coins. (In Magic For Young Lovers you will find tricks with pictures of your ex-girlfriend, licorice, a re-cut version of Star Wars, buried treasure, dreams, incense, a prototype version of a new word game your friend created, origami, pictures of your genitals, sign language, and an infant child.) 

There's no big hurry to purchase the book now, I will give a "final call" later in the year before it's sent off to the printers. I should say though, unlike JV1 where there were some extras printed for my retirement plan, with this book there won't be any extras printed (other than any overage created by the printer). So to guarantee a copy you'll have to get in an order before I place my order with the publisher. But, as I said, there's no rush. I'll keep you updated.

On the agenda for the coming months, in addition to writing and editing the book, I'll be working with the photographer and choosing the models for the cover shoot, taking the reference photos for the illustrations (once again to be done by the brilliant Stasia Burrington), designing and finding a printer for a couple small props that will come with the book, putting the Jerx Deck #2 together, and writing this site and the magazine and testing out a couple of dozen ideas every month or so. If you're ever like, "Why doesn't he write me back long emails?" This is why.

I'm not complaining though. This is all crazy time-consuming, but it's also intellectually and creatively stimulating stuff. So it's generally pretty enjoyable. Definitely better than the alternative.

Presentation Exploder

Let's take a look at the evolution of a trick/presentation as it applies to a commercial effect.

Why not just go with the presentation that was provided with the trick itself? Well, there are probably a number of reasons why you wouldn't want to, but two key ones are:

1. A personal, non-generic presentation is likely to be stronger and more interesting.

2. An original presentation is much less susceptible to having the mystery eliminated with a quick google search.

The basic idea we're building towards with this example comes from Joe Mckay. I've just embellished his presentation a little so it suits my style.

So we start with the commercially released effect, Cesaral's Melting Point. This was a trick that was released over a decade ago and was, primarily, marketed as a coin through glass table effect. You can see the effect below (and listen to some funky bass grooves).

I think this trick looks great, but the problem with a trick like this is that it's just about the moment of impossibility. When a trick is just about that moment, that become the sole focus for the spectator. And when all they're given is a moment of impossibility—for a lot of people—it just becomes an exercise in attacking that moment. By adding some other elements to the presentation we can create something that is bigger than just the one moment.

For decades, if not centuries, magicians have done a terrible job of adding elements to the presentation in an attempt to flesh out their presentation. Usually their big idea is to add symbolism. "This coin represents your goals and dream, and this glass table represents the obstacles you'll face." Or, "This coin is like an atom and...," blah, blah, blah. Symbolism is terrible in magic presentations. It trivializes both the magic and the thing being symbolized. 

An equally dumb presentational choice magicians make is to add a layer of distance between this moment and the effect the audience is seeing. Instead of a presentation that suggests, "I'm going to push this coin through the table and this is why it's important/interesting," they go with a presentation that's like, "One time I was at a bar and I saw a magician push a coin through a glass table." This type of thing is terrible. All it does is shift the focus off the current moment, when magic's greatest strength is its ability to pull focus to the present.

So the question becomes, what could we add to this effect to make it not just a moment of impossibility, but one that has some potentially broader implications? Cesaral's Melting Point does not need to be done with a coin or a table. Can we change either of those elements to make the penetration more meaningful? What else might go through glass? How about that Danny Thomas story where he would have prostitutes shit on a glass coffee table while he laid underneath it? Hmm... no... I think we're getting colder.

When else might there be a pane of glass that you'd like to get an object to the other side of?

How about...

No, I'm not suggesting you perform the effect in a prison visiting room (although that would be pretty cool). 

But look at what Melting Point looks like when done through a window rather than on a table. (The person on the other side of the glass is a stooge. And in this case, a not particularly good one. (Why does he only react to the coin going through the window after he looks at it?))

You can see how that visual could easily be transposed in a spectator's mind to something that was happening on opposite sides of prison glass. 

Joe's idea was to do the trick through a window with a stooge and to use a key instead of a coin. I really like the use of a key because I think it's easier to come up with reasons why you need to pass a key from one side of something to the other than it is to come up with reasons you need to pass a coin. In Joe's version, the trick was a demonstration of an old Houdini technique to sneak a key into a prison he was going to be escaping from. 

If I was going to do this trick (and I likely will) I would probably modify that presentation slightly in two ways. First, I wouldn't use a stooge. I'd use a second person who is a partner with me in the presentation. (A stooge whose primary job is to act amazed never goes over well in my opinion.) And rather than making it a demonstration of an old technique, I'd make it a rehearsal of something new we're working on now. 

Here's what I mean:

Presentation 1 - For use when the audience knows me well, and understands that I'm prone to spinning a web of bullshit for the sake of entertainment and they're not too likely to get hung up on the reality of what I'm saying.

In this case I'd be out for a coffee with my partner, and our target audience (of one or more people) would be joining us. When they get there, my partner and I are looking at some sketches on a napkin. "Oh hey, guys. You know Steve, right? Let me get these out of your way.... We have this thing we're working on. Steve's uncle is in jail on some totally bullshit charges. What is he supposed to do? Check the I.D. of everyone who gives him a blowjob? Anyway... we have this plan to help him out. We just need to get him this key. But everything you send in through the prison mail system gets searched and visitations are done through a pane of glass. But I think I have an idea. It's based on an old technique Houdini used to do. We were just about to try it."

This is the type of presentation I think of as "immersive fiction." I'm not trying to present something to people that they'll believe is true. I'm trying to present something to them that they'll find intriguing. And sneaking something to someone in prison is an inherently interesting subject even if there is no magic involved.

Presentation 2 - For when I want to present the effect in a way that is more nuanced in regards to what is real and what isn't. 

It starts off the same way. Some friends meet up with me and my partner for this effect as we're apparently working on something. [It would not come off as a monologue like this, but this is just the general idea.] "You guys know Steve, right? We're working on something pretty interesting. Steve has been studying Houdini for years and he's trying to do some similar types of performances and is working on a prison escape publicity stunt. They won't let you do anything like that in the U.S., but he has family in Colombia and he's got permission from a prison there because... what do they care."

"The thing is, the way you break out of prison as an escape artist is by sneaking in keys or lock picks. And the way Houdini would do that is he'd hide them in his hair or up his asshole or he'd swallow them to regurgitate them later. Or he'd have his wife, Bess, hide them in her mouth and when she'd give him a farewell kiss—after he'd been searched—she'd slip them from her mouth into his. But all those techniques are public knowledge now, so they're not going to let Steve get away with that. They're going to shave his head and use some temporary glue to seal his mouth shut and something to plug his butthole, I guess. It's pretty intense. And he only gets to see his girlfriend through a window in the visiting area before he's locked in for the night. So we're trying to come up with a way for her to still sneak him a key. We think we have an idea and we were just about to test it..."

The narrative elements here are the sort of thing that will make the passing of the key much more interesting than just a standard penetration. "But doesn't the impossibility make it interesting enough on its own?" Sometimes yes, but the novelty of impossibility does wear off for people who have seen a lot of magic. On the other hand, a truly captivating concept with a magical element to it is the type of thing that people will never tire of seeing.

Six Uses of a Less-Secret Assistant

In this post on Wingmen, I introduced the concept of a Less-Secret Assistant. Unlike a Secret Assistant, whose presence is not noticed, the Less-Secret Assistant is someone who is clearly a part of the interaction, but the other people there don't realize this person is working with you. 

But Andy, why are you using the words "wingman" and "less-secret assistant" and this sort of thing? Why not use the terms that are already part of the magic vernacular like "stooge" and "confederate"?

Here's why. I want to veer off in a slightly different direction with these topics. And if I say, "Here are some uses for a stooge or confederate," you may have some predetermined feelings on those topics that aren't beneficial to the direction I want to go with these ideas. 

You see, a wingman is a reciprocal relationship, between two or more magicians to be exploited in social situations. This isn't about putting a plant in the audience to make you look good. The idea of having and being a wingman is about the relationship you two create, and using it to really mess with people. 

Now, as I said in my original post, you don't have to hide the fact that your Less-Secret Assistant is also interested in magic. Perhaps if you overuse this technique on the same group of people, they might suspect you're working together, but you'd really have to be pretty obvious about it. In a way we're going to take advantage of the stereotype of a magician being somewhat egocentric or narcissistic. Magic is considered something of a "show-off" hobby. So the idea that someone who is in your social circle and an equal to you might be secretly helping you just for the sake of making you look better or making an interesting experience for the others without getting any of the acclaim for him or herself, that's not a concept that is immediately going to spring to mind for your target audience. Audiences tend to look at the smaller picture; the thing that just happened in this moment. The notion that you might have a long-term relationship with one or more of the people there, built on helping each other out, that's not an obvious solution many spectators will leap to.

Six Uses for a Less-Secret Assistant

You're out with a group of people. One or more of them is in your crew of wingmen. Here are some examples of ways you might used them as a Less-Secret Assistant. (Or vice-versa.)

Examine the Unexaminable

Many tricks start unexaminable, but end in an examinable state. A great use for an LSA is to hand the gimmicked deck or the gimmicked coins or whatever to them at the start and ask them to give them a look. They give a fake look over the objects and hand them back. This is a subtle, but valuable, use of an LSA. And it's especially convincing when you can hand the objects back out for general examination to everyone at the end.

If the trick doesn't end examinable you could still use this ruse by handing the objects to be examined at the end just to your LSA to give a fake once-over. But you run the risk of the other people there wanting to take a look too. 

One thing I've considered, but never actually done, is to take a highly gimmicked deck, like a Mental Photography Deck, do a trick with it and then put it in my messenger bag or coat pocket at the end and then have my LSA be like, "What the fuck... there's no way. That's a trick deck or something." And they reach in and grab the deck to take a look at it. Of course, they're removing an ungimmicked deck in the process. So it's like a pocket switch but done by two people. 

Foot Tapping

All sorts of information can be transmitted by tapping each other's feet under a table. You can do very simple stuff like you leave the room and an object is hidden under one of four bowls, you come back and wave your hand over each bowl and you know which one has the hidden object. 

Or you can do a card divination where a card you never see is selected from wan ordinary deck of cards. You then learn what the card is either by breaking it down into its attributes.  "Okay, think... was it a red card... or a black card [foot tap]." And so on.

But the real value of having wingmen is to work on things you couldn't just do with any ordinary stooge. You can teach your ditzy boyfriend or girlfriend to tap on your foot when you point at the bowl with the object under it. But with wingmen you can get together some night and just order a couple of pizzas and put your heads down and commit to learning morse code. It can be done in a night. And with other people, it's fun to practice. 

Now you can secretly transmit actual words to each other at a table. So, perhaps, one spectator brings any book, a second flips to any page, and a third points to any word on the page and you're able to name what it is with your eyes tightly closed and facing away from everyone. Or, what I like, is to do the sort of thing where your eyes are clearly covered, but you can continually name objects that are held up by someone else at the table. Most often you can figure out the object with just the first three or four letters tapped on your foot.

False Shuffling

"Give these cards a quick mix," you say, and hand the deck to your LSA.

You continue talking to your target audience and your LSA false shuffles and hands the deck back.

Here's the thing, it doesn't matter if they are the world's worst false shuffler. They just have to make some riffling noises while you are occupying people's attention and everyone will assume the deck has been shuffled.

Spoon Bending

I'm not much of a spoon bender myself, but I've watched friends do this routine. It works best if no one knows your LSA is into magic.

It's you, your LSA and your TA (Target Audience) at the table. 

You ask your LSA to grab three spoons. One spoon is examined and put into a little bag formed by holding a cloth napkin or bandana by the four corners. This is given to the TA to hold by the corners. The other two spoons are examined and one is given to the performer and one is kept by LSA. 

You concentrate and bend your spoon with your mind (apparently). The spoon is compared to the LSA's spoon to show how much it bent. 

"But maybe I just secretly bent it with my hands or something. Here, [LSA], you hold onto this spoon like this." They hold onto the spoon and it visually starts to melt in their hands at your command. 

"Okay, but still, he was touching the spoon. Maybe it's a fancy spoon that melts from human body heat. I don't know. But there's one spoon no one has touched, in the little bag you're holding." You make some gesture and the TA removes the spoon to find it bent. 

So, obviously, you and the LSA both need some spoon bending abilities. The LSA should probably be the better of the two at spoon bending because that's going to be the follow-up to the original bend, so there may be more heat on it. The spoon that's placed in the napkin can be placed in straight and just bent from the outside of the napkin as the corners are being gathered up. 

I don't think you can present spoon bending in a much stronger way than this.

One Ahead

You'll almost be embarrassed to do this because it's too good and too easy. Just use your LSA for the last choice in a one-ahead routine. Unlike many one-ahead routines that have a kind of wonky progression—"think of any place in the world, now any number, now pick a card"—this allows you to perform some very straight-forward and cohesive effects. "I want everyone here to think of an embarrassing childhood celebrity crush and I'm going to try and guess them." I think the consistency of the question and the process actually makes the method stronger than traditional uses of one-ahead where things change along the way, which perhaps points to the method.

Less-Secret APPsistant

A lot of the magic apps on the market can go from great to miracle with when you have an LSA on your side. I'm not going to go into all these because I don't want to get into methods too much. But often you need to do some secret inputting of information into your phone. If the inputting is done by one of the apparent spectators, then it seems all the more cleaner. 

Think about the use of an LSA with an app like Digital Force Bag. This makes that app even more valuable because you can perform tricks without you knowing the number selected by the audience. The group of spectators can secretly agree on a number. You say, "Someone grab my phone and go to my notes app." Your phone just happens to be closest to your LSA. Miracles ensue. 

Combine some of these ideas and things become even more astounding. Think of doing Wikitest with your eyes genuinely closed and covered. Your Target Audience thinks of any word and looks it up on Wikipedia on her own phone. She is to make sure no one else in the group sees the word. Your LSA gets the peek and then transmits the word to you with foot taps. 

Is this gilding the lily? Yes. I'm not sure it's significantly more impressive than Wikitest as it's performed normally. But part of this is about increasing the bond between your group of wingmen, and executing some more outlandish methodologies is going to build that connection. It's just fun to plan this stuff and take advantage of people's special skills and pull off a crazy trick. It's a little like what I imagine planning a bank heist feels like.

You see, the "wingman" concept is not just about creating experiences for your spectators, it's also about creating experiences for you as a small group of performers. This is really where the idea differs from the traditional notions of stooges, plants, and confederates. 

For the first 20 years that I practiced magic, it often felt very isolating as a hobby. Performing for others wasn't something I loved doing because I didn't like the magician-centric approach that was modeled for me in magic. And for every time I performed something and felt like it brought people closer to me, I felt just as often that it kept people at a distance. And the part of the hobby devoted to the inner-workings of the effects was also something that was designed to be kept to myself, except on rare occasions when I'd interact with other magicians. 

During the first three years of this site I've explored a lot of ideas about the presentation of magic which have helped get me out and performing more (as much as any non-professional in the world, I would imagine) by making it more communal and experiential and less about me.

The wingmen concept is about taking that same esthetic and applying it to the secret workings of effects. It's about making magic more of a collaborative and social experience, but not in just a "let's get together and talk secrets way," but in a way that's actually about creating magical experiences for others.

I'm often asked why there isn't a Jerx message board or facebook page. It's because you don't need another place online to talk magic. If anything, all these places online are likely keeping you from getting out there and performing. If you want another group to talk about magic and the concepts that I explore here, make that a group you create in the real world.