Earn the Elements

“I want you to write down the initials of the person who was your first kiss.”

I’ve been seeing this a lot in mentalism routines lately (or some variation: first crush, first boyfriend). It makes sense because it’s a subject that has strong ties to the “emotional elements” as I’ve been talking about this week. So you would think I’d be all for this sort of thing. And I am. But the problem is, it’s almost always used devoid of any other context.

Imagine this… You operate a train yard. You’ve been having a problem with some assholes coming in and tagging some vile shit on the outside of the train cars.

I sell a product that easily removes the paint and protects the surface so that it can’t be painted on again. I come to visit you to demonstrate my product. We walk out to one of the train cars and I hand you a can of spray paint. “I’ll show you how it works. Here… I want you to spray paint the initials of your first kiss on the side of this car.” Why would I do that? If I’m demonstrating my paint cleaning product, why does it matter what you paint on the car?

Ok, we get that. Now, following that logic, if I’m demonstrating my mind reading abilities, why does it matter what you’re thinking of?

Well… because… you know, a first kiss is an important moment… so that’s ingrained in someone’s memory… so that would make it easier to read that information from their mind.

Ok., great… just fucking say that then!

But it’s implied.

Maybe. But why leave it that way? If you fully explore why you’re asking for a specific piece of information, that can turn out to be the most interesting part of the presentation. In fact, that can be the presentation.

For example…

“Think of a random four digit number and I’ll read your mind.”

That would be impressive, but because it’s kind of generic, it’s likely not going to stick with an audience in the long term.

“Think of the passcode to your phone and I’ll read your mind.”

Better. This has some stakes to it. But why the passcode to their phone as opposed to just a four digit number? Is it just because it has some stakes to it? If that’s really the only reason it may seem unearned. But if we further explore why the passcode as opposed to a random set of four digits, we might steer ourselves into something more interesting.

“Think of the passcode to your phone and I’ll read your mind.

“You’d think a phone passcode or an ATM pin number or something like that would be the hardest thing to guess because it’s something we put effort in to keeping secret. But actually the act of trying to keep things secret is what creates physical, emotional and psychic clues to information.

“Think of if this way… If you’re cheating on your wife, she may find out about it because of the actions you take to keep it a secret. Maybe your behavior or your attitude changes; you become overly complimentary and generous towards her. Maybe she finds one of those secret text apps on your phone. Maybe you’ve been showering at the hotel after your mid-day encounters and you smell different when you come home. Or whatever. It could be any number of things. But it’s evidence that exists because you were trying to keep something secret.

“On the other hand, think about something you weren’t trying to keep secret. Say… what you had for lunch on the fifth of February. This is something you haven’t been trying to hide, so there are no residual clues from your deception. And therefore it would likely be very difficult for someone to learn that information.

“This happens on the level of the mind as well. The information we’ve spent much of our life guarding becomes some of the easiest information for others to discern because we leave clues .”

That’s written as a soliloquy, but you can imagine how it could easily be a conversation. And not only is it more interesting, conceptually, for someone to think about than a similar trick with no rationale, but it also naturally leads to some other demonstrations if you follow the logic presented in it. (A three-part routine based on this idea will be included in the next book.)

Now, if you’re performing trade show magic, then maybe you don’t have time for a multi-paragraph explanation for why you’re asking for the information you’re asking for. but you can certainly come up with a couple of lines to give things more context. (And if you’re a social magician, then there are a lot of benefits to not interacting with your friends/family the same way a magician would interact with a stranger at a trade-show. )

So we’ve gone from reading their mind of a random four digit number to reading their mind of their phone passcode to providing a much richer explanation of the how and why behind that effect. Each step taken expands the trick

Don’t want to stop there? Okay, here’s a final “emotional element” you can add to a phone passcode reveal. You have to know the person you’re performing for pretty well, and you have to not be considered a creep, generally. Before you start the trick you tell the person to go to the bathroom and take a picture of their dick or tits. That’s it. No, you don’t do this for grandma’s pastor. You do it for people you know who aren’t going to get all shocked and appalled with magic that deals with some mild sexiness. Don’t force someone to do this, of course. With the type of people I hang out with I have multiple options if I ask someone in a social situation to go do this.

It’s not 100% gratuitous (only, like, 85%). I tell them that I’ll read their mind and figure out their passcode. The recent nude in their camera roll is an extra pressure point for them to not want me to gain that access. And—as I explain in the presentation above—that increased pressure to keep the information a secret is what I’ll use to discover their “psychic weakspots” or whatever.

With the right person, or the right crowd, this is wonderfully entertaining. Certainly more so than an identical trick where you discern a random four digit number.

If you don’t know if you’re with the right person or the right crowd, or you don’t know if you’re the sort of person to pull off this kind of interaction, then you’re not. Don’t try it.

Magical Transformations

Here is the endsheet Stasia Burrington did for the most recent book, Magic For Young Lovers.

Here is her preliminary sketch for the art.

Which in turn was based on my sketch… this piece of shit!

Emotional Elements

[Excerpted from Magic For Young Lovers]

What do I mean by emotional elements?

It may be easier to understand by considering the lack of such things in most magic.

Imagine the hobby/art of magic didn’t exist. Then one day I come up to you and say, “Hey, I’ve invented this new thing. It’s called magic. It’s a new artform where you demonstrate the impossible to people. Sounds great, right? Here’s the problem. I think it might be too powerful actually. Can you think of the blandest type of things you could do with my newly invented artform so that it won’t rile up the common people too much?”

The next day you return. “Your highness,” you say. (I didn’t mention but I guess I’m the king or the ruler in this situation.) “I’ve come up with the dullest possible demonstrations of this thing you call ‘magic.’ First, how about this, you take some balls and cover them with cups and the balls move around. Second, you take three rings, unlike any you’ve ever seen, and you make them link and unlink. Finally you take a bag and an egg. You put the egg in the bag, and then the egg is no longer in the bag. But then it is again. Huzzah!”

I would applaud you for doing such a great job at coming up with magic that is so utterly pointless. Magic that has nothing going for it other than just impossibility.

Isn’t that enough though? Isn’t that what magic is: doing the impossible?

For a long time I believed that what set magic apart from all the other arts was its ability to surprise with the impossible. Therefore, what we should put our emphasis on is the nature of that surprise.

But what I’m finding is that the feelings of being surprised or fooled aren’t really lasting emotions. They’re not sticky emotions. They’re fleeting.

So, yes, there should be a surprise, but there should also be an emotional element to the presentation so that it sticks with people as time passes.

So what are emotional elements?

An emotional element is an emotion or an object, location, or concept that is likely to affect someone emotionally.

In this book I highlight five emotional elements: relatability, novelty, time, nature, and humor. These are just a few examples among hundreds of concepts that could be considered “emotional elements.” Other broad concepts like this would be nostalgia, fear, music, family, and romance; each of which are demonstrated in effects in this book.

A presentation that incorporates one of these subjects is going to offer opportunities for the spectator to connect to the effect emotionally.

But there are millions of smaller types of emotional elements as well that can be found in the items we use, the places we perform, and the processes we create through which the magic happens.

A torn and restored card is all impossibility with no other outside emotion. A torn and restored picture of your ex-girlfriend may be an almost identical trick, but it resonates on more frequencies.

And you don’t have to point this out to people. This isn’t a lecture about some emotional concept as demonstrated through a trick.

As I said, this is about seeding a trick with emotional elements and letting the audience determine which ones are going to take root.

Thinking back to the Time Capsule trick, what are the emotional elements? What made that more than just a torn and restored card? Our reunion after many years apart, our walk on the cold winter night, visiting our old sledding hill, the lunchbox and all the items inside, even her childish scrawl on the playing card. All of these elements played into the presentation and gave her a chance to connect to the effect in a different way than she would have without them. Because of that, the trick may come to her mind whenever she finds herself back in our hometown in winter, or when she sees her kids sledding, or if anyone ever mentions a time capsule, or even just because she sees an old lunchbox. She’ll be reminded of that experience via whatever ways she related emotionally to the trick.

This is what emotional elements do. They give your audience other access points to the memory of the effect. Emotional elements don’t take away from the impossibility of an effect, they just give the audience more opportunities to consider that impossibility.

If you were a pie baker and you made really good tasting pies that you just set on the table for someone to eat, they might remember that pie in the future when they were hungry and in the mood for pie. But, if you feed a person that pie at the end of a romantic dinner, or at a picnic, or late on a summer’s night under the stars, or as a precursor to a pie fight, then you’ve added some emotional elements to the eating of the pie. And you’ve added more mental triggers for them to think about the pie and then think, “Damn, that was a good pie.”

“Damn, that was a good pie,” is to pie bakers what, “Damn, that was amazing,” is to magicians. It’s the feeling we want to leave them with and emotional elements give them more reasons to relive the experience and that feeling.

Mixed Emotions

I’m a big believer that magic needs to touch on emotions other than “surprise” in order to be memorable and to stay with people. This was the through-line of Magic for Young Lovers. But I also know that the hobby of magic often appeals to people who aren’t great in regards to their emotional intelligence, so suggesting they try and connect with people via their tricks is antithetical to why they got into magic in the first place. “You think I’m practicing card sleights for four hours a night because I’m good at relating to people on an emotional level?”

I’m going to empower you. I’m going to help you move from socially awkward to socially adroit (at least when it comes to magic). I have some posts coming up about the emotional aspect of magic tricks, but first I need to lay some groundwork so we’re on the same page.

Here is the evolution I often see with people who try and endow their magic with some emotional relevance.

Hey… this is cool. I’ll make the card come to the top a bunch of times for no real reason.

I know. I’ll arbitrarily change all these coins from silver to copper then to Chinese coins. Sweet.

Maybe I’ll cut this rope in a bunch of pieces and the restore it and change their lengths. Heh-heh… now that’s some impossible stuff.

Hmmmm…. you know what? All of this seems sort of frivolous. I think I need to perform some effects that touch people emotionally.

I wonder what I can do to make people cry?

Like, what the fuck? That’s the leap you make? From just performing a series of meaningless impossibilities to wanting to make people cry? There’s a whole emotional spectrum that you kind of jumped over there. You don’t need to go to that extreme. That would be like if people were taking advantage of you at work and I said, “Hey, don’t let them bully you. Stand up for yourself.” And you said, “I know. The next time they tell me I have to work on the weekend I’ll murder them.” Like whoa, pump the brakes a little.

Yes, I’ve made people tear up through magic, but usually because they’re connecting to something on a level I couldn’t have anticipated, not because that was my goal. If you go into it with that intention, it’s going to come across as awkward at best and manipulative at worst.

The key to an “emotion-based” presentation is simply this: put the trick in a context people can identify with. By its nature, the surprise or the impossibility of an effect is the part to which they can’t really feel a connection. But the framework you put the trick in is something to which they can relate. And that’s going to be how you engage their emotions in a subtle way (not like, “Ok, I want you to think of the initials of the man who sexually assaulted you.”)

Tomorrow I’m going to delve into this subject a little deeper and post an excerpt from the opening essay of MFYL.

On Friday we’ll look at the half-hearted way a lot of professional mentalists try and inject emotion into their presentations, and why it comes across so poorly. Then I’ll describe a way to adapt that weak technique for social situations to make it much stronger.

Dustings of Woofle #3

There are some questions in my email box about some logistical things regarding supporting this site. So just to be clear…

1. Magic For Young Lovers is completely sold out. There is no reprint coming and no ebook version coming.

2. The next book that will come in January 2020 is also sold out. Some slots may open up if people drop out, and I’ll create a waiting list for any that do, but otherwise, that’s it.

3. Some people seemed to think there might be a separate blog for supporters. God no. I’ve mentioned I’ll be reserving the most valuable tips, tricks, theory, and testing results for supporters, but that will come out in the publications supporters receive (digital and physical), not on a separate site.

4. The first quarterly newsletter for supporters will be out next month.

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A lot of magic is fooling but not particularly magical. It’s rare that we see something that is the opposite: magical but not fooling.

These appearing business cards look great, but no one will have any question about how the ink appears.

One thing I’ve learned via testing magic is that one of the first “explanations” an audience will have for something appearing/disappearing/changing color is that it happened via a change in temperature. Even when we did a color changing deck, this was one of the most common explanations given.

In this case, where it looks exactly like what laypeople have seen of things changing via heat, there’s probably no way around the fact that they’re going to jump to that conclusion. I’m not trashing the idea. Often I’d rather do something magical looking that doesn’t fool people than something that fools people but is just a puzzle to them. (Obviously the ideal is both… something that doesn’t fool them and isn’t magical looking. Wait. No… the other way around.)

I’m thinking of having some business cards produced that identify me as a the chief product designer for Freezy Freakies. I think that would be a fun lie to tell people who I meet briefly.

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Is anyone available to do a wellness check on Max Maven?

I was perusing Penguin’s live lectures the other day and saw that David McCreary’s lecture had almost 700% more five star reviews than Max’s lecture the following week.

Max presented a three-phase 20 minute mentalism act based on his 50 years of being a pioneer in the field of mentalism.

The highlight of David’s lecture was his suggestion that you put marshmallow fluff in an Elmer’s Glue bottle and squeeze it in your mouth during the show so it looks like you’re eating glue.

This just feels to me like the type of thing Max would see and say, “Ah, okay. Well… the public has spoken,” and the next thing you know he’s napping on the railroad tracks.

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From the Bitches Be Crazy Dept.

I’ve got good news for you, your copy of Magic For Young Lovers has become just a touch more valuable as it has become even more exclusive.

The bad news, for one Jerx supporter, is that this is what his ex-girlfriend did to his copy. Yikes!

The Jerx Trick Music Playlist

Some of the trick titles I’ve used in my work were inspired or just blatantly stolen from some songs I like. Here’s the breakdown..

From The Jerx, Volume 1

Narrow Your Eyes

Originally a They Might Be Giants song off of Apollo 13, but my preferred version is by David Miller. It’s a less quirky, more rocking version of the original and amps up the harmonies in the chorus.

Will You Let Me Into Your Dream?

An almost sickly sweet love song by Of Montreal, sung to a sleeping person. It features one of my favorite things in music when they bring back the verse or chorus and drop the lyrics for some “bah-bah-bahs” or “la-la-las.” In fact they do it twice. If you don’t like the love song aspect, the same band has an Identical song with different lyrics called Art Snob Solutions.

From The Jerx Amateur Magic Monthly

Caster of Worthless Spells

From the song of the same name by Parquet Courts. This was the perfect name for a trick that involved both spelling and getting every prediction you make wrong.

A Firm Background in Remembering

A lyric from the song Bad Light by Built to Spill off of the album Keep It Like A Secret, one of the best rock albums ever. I also stole that album name for an unpublished routine of mine that may see the light of day in the future.

Cold Hands Warm Heart

A song by Brendan Benson, a brilliantly catchy singer song-writer.

I’m Going to Haunt This Place When I’m Gone

From the song I’m Gonna Haunt This Place by Look Park which is the new band of Chris Collingwood from Fountains of Wayne.

Memphis (Long Distance Information)

From the song Memphis Tennessee by Chuck Berry. Below is Johnny Rivers doing his version. I like this version primarily because of the way Dick Clark pronounces Whiskey-A-Go-Go in the interview afterwards, which he seems to believe may be of hispanic or asian origin.

From Magic For Young Lovers

Send Me a Pillow, The One That You Dream On

This is a lyric from a song called Elevator Action by Masters of the Hemisphere, a song so obscure that I can’t find a recording of it online anywhere.

That lyric was likely inspired by a similar line in the Smiths song “Some Girls are Bigger Than Others,” which in turn was inspired by this old country tune, “Send me the Pillow You Dream On.”

The Only Ghost Here is Me

A slight variation on the title of the song The Only Ghost There Is Me by the Bellfuries. The song has, to me, an early 60s feel to it. The backing track is mostly strings, which you rarely ever hear in a pop song. I also like this non-string version quite a bit.

I’ll Be My Mirror

A variation on the classic Velvet Underground song, I’ll Be Your Mirror. That song has just about the loveliest lyrics you’ll find in a song…

I find it hard to believe you don't know
The beauty you are
But if you don't let me be your eyes
A hand to your darkness, so you won't be afraid

The version song by Nico is very well known, so I’ll link the Clem Snide version which is also pretty great.

The Sweetness In Water

I originally heard the song Fresher Than the Sweetness in Water done by Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, and it wasn’t until, oh about 45 seconds ago, that I learned that it was a cover. Here’s the original version as done in the late 60s by the British group, Honeybus. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of this band, but they seem right up my alley.

Two Dying Worlds In Orbit

This comes from a lyric in the song, Some Jungle by the group Umm. Usually I like music that has a ton of energy and fire behind it, but in this song, the singing and even the guitar part sound lethargic and I still love it. The boy-girl vocal harmonies have a really interesting quality to them.

Thursday Thailbag

The alliteration in the title of this post made much more sense when I intended to post this on Monday.

Let’s dip into the mailbag and (attempt to) give some quick answers to some questions that have come in recently.

Did you read The Magic Rainbow? [Juan Tamariz’s book, recently released in an English translation.] If so, any thoughts on it? — JA

I haven’t! And I probably won’t. Not because I don’t think it’s valuable. I’ve only heard good things about it, including from many people I really respect. But because, since starting this site, I’ve made an effort to avoid magic theory. I just don’t know how interesting it would be to read someone’s theory based on other people’s theories. This site is an experiment. I want to develop my own magic theory based solely on my own experience and testing. I have the time to do so.

So, yeah, I’m probably hobbling myself in a way by not absorbing the thinking of the magic establishment, but I don’t think people come to this site to hear, “Well, Darwin Ortiz says…,” or “Well, according to Tamariz….”

And I’m still not even sure if Tamariz is really that great when it comes to magic or if people are just entranced by his keen fashion sense and potent sexuality.

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[…] I encountered your "Bazillion Dollar Bill Switch", and it's one of my favorites so far. I look forward to trying it. One thing is bugging me.

Slight detour […] I keep a few cards in my wallet and I'm ready to do Card Warp at the drop of a hat. […] A problem with the trick is that, at the end, it's not uncommon for someone to recover from their less-than-paralyzed astonishment and say, "now put the card back together". {…]

Anyway, I'm wondering if "put it back together" is a comment you've had to navigate after "Bazilion".  — CC

No, I don’t get that sort of challenge with that trick, or any other trick for that matter. And here’s why…None of the presentation styles I employ (Romantic Adventure, Engagement Ceremony, Distracted Artist, Peek Backstage, Wonder Room, among others) suggest, “I am a person with general magic abilities. Feel free to challenge me.” If your presentation is—even nominally—that you’re not taking credit for whatever happens, then it completely blunts the spectator’s inclination to say, “Okay… well… now do this..” That doesn’t make sense if I’m not taking credit for the magic (even if they know I’m responsible for it in reality).

Now, with Bazillion, I am taking credit. I’m saying, “I’m going to transport this half of the bill somewhere else.” But still, my attitude isn’t, “I can do anything!” My attitude is, “I’ve been working on this one specific thing. Let’s see what happens….” So even then it’s not super logical to follow that up with a challenge to do something more.

That’s not to say it will never happen. But I don’t ever need to feel “exposed” if it does, because my style is not the all-powerful magician. My style is someone whose relationship to magic is that he’s learning, and trying, and sharing. If someone said, “Can you put my bill back together?” I’d say, “Hmmm… no. I don’t think so. Is there a way to do that? I’ll do some reading and see if I can figure out how.” Then three weeks later I’d come back and say that I think I had it figured out, and I’d do a torn and restored bill where something goes wrong. The bill is mis-made or something like that. Two more weeks later I’d come back and say, “I think I’ve got it now.” And either do a good torn and restored bill or add some other chapter to the story.

In that way, rather than simply doing a bill switch for a restored bill, I’ve extended the story for weeks and pulled them into an ongoing narrative. That’s a much better outcome for what I want to do than just immediately meeting some challenge.

On a side note I don’t recommend carrying playing cards in your wallet to do a trick. I realize real estate in your wallet is available because you’ll never need that space for a condom, but it’s still not a good look. Do it with business cards.

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Do you have tips for writing a book? […]

I've been working on a book for a few years now and I really want to get to the end of it this year. How do you do it? I assume the fact that you have a lot of people giving you good money to have it done by the end of the year is good motivation […] but I think it's obvious that besides this motivation, you have good work ethic.  — YR

The deadline and obligation I feel to the people who’ve chosen to support the site is obviously a huge factor. You might say, “Well, I don’t have a deadline or obligations tied to this project.” Okay. But you can create your own deadline and then just choose, going forward, to be someone who sticks to the deadlines you set for yourself.

As far as the logistics of scheduling your writing, your plan needs to be malleable enough that it works with your life, but not so malleable that you can weasel your way out of writing all the time. If you just say, “I’ll write when I fee like it,” then you’re at the mercy of your inspiration. If you say, “I’ll write every day, no question,” then a situation will come up where you’re on vacation, or there’s some kind of emergency, or a holiday, or whatever where you don’t want to write and you’ll find yourself in the position of having broken your word to yourself. Even if you say, “I’ll write a little bit every day when I don’t have something important going on,” that’s still a little nebulous because then you have to debate with yourself if what you’re dealing with is “important” enough to keep you from doing your work.

So, if I you want to write a book, here is the deal I would suggest you make with yourself. First, think of the things you do regularly that are your biggest time-wasters: watching tv, playing video games, perusing online porn, etc. Now, the simple rule you make is that before you allow yourself to do any of those things on a given day, you’ll write at least one page of your book. So you don’t have to write every day if other important things are going on. You only have to write one page a day on those days you want to “unlock” the time-waster activities. When a year passes you’ll probably have 300 pages written.

“But I don’t have any time waster activities!” Well, if all your time is occupied with something productive, then you don’t have time to write a book. Sorry.

“But that’s just a trick. I can still just choose to watch tv instead of writing if I want.” Yeah, no shit. Outside of a person holding a gun to your head and making you write, everything is a mental trick. You just need to find the tricks that work for you. The ones that work for me are all about leveraging. Here, you’re leveraging your desire to do pleasurable activities to get you to do a little writing each day.

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Mailbag Questions

If you have a burning question you’d like to receive a likely unsatisfying answer to, you can email me here and it may appear in a future mailbag.