Mailbag #4

I loved your experiment on the classic force [See the posts The Force Awakens and The Force Unleashed], and found the results fascinating, however I think you may be slightly off with your conclusions.

 Your participants were rating the various forces not in the context of a routine, but in a vacuum. It's true that the classic force doesn't cope too well with too much heat or scrutiny put on it, mostly as you mention in the article because it's over quickly, they can't change their minds, and also because it doesn't really stick in the memory. 

But to me these are also its greatest strengths. Let me explain:

There are lots of very different contexts where we might need to force a card. For some, the selection procedure is pivotal to the overall strength of the effect. […]

But let's say you're forcing an odd-backed card which will be signed by the spectator. When their signed card changes colour, the question of "how the fuck did my card turn red" doesn't lead them directly to the real secret. In this instance the more forgettable the selection process the better. Imagine that same trick with an elaborate, 5-minute selection procedure involving card eliminations, dice rolling etc. It would only help point the spectator in the direction of a force.

The classic force is also brilliant for not getting in the way of the story of the trick. As you're talking, casually telling someone "grab one of these cards" allows you to keep the spectator in the fiction of the effect, since it requires the absolute minimum of effort and concentration from the spectator. A cross-cut force, on the other hand, forces you to pause the action while the spectator is sent crashing back to reality for a moment before you can pick up where you left off.

I still think it's a brilliant piece of research, and am looking forward to seeing more of these experiments in the future, but I just wanted to say that the results don't tell the whole story, and that the classic force has more going for it than the naked numbers suggest. —BD

First, just to be clear, I’m not trying to talk anyone out of the classic force.

That being said, I’m not sure I agree with your logic. Your email presupposes that there are a good number of tricks in magic that involve a selection, where the selection itself isn’t that important. I don’t think there are many tricks that fall into that category. The example you used, forcing an odd-backed playing card, doesn’t really track in that context. It’s one of the few things you definitely can’t do with a classic force. Unless you do it face-up, in which case it becomes an even more rushed procedure and feels even less like a choice because you’re showing them the faces of the cards but not enough to let them pick a particular one they like.

One other thing to think of is that even if a selection isn’t pivotal to the strength of a trick, the spectator probably doesn’t know that. To them it’s almost always important in that moment.

I agree there are some tricks where the selection isn’t important, in which case, maybe it’s best to just drop the selection altogether and just pluck a card off the top of the deck and say, “Here, sign this.” That seems perfectly reasonable for a torn and restored card, for example. David Copperfield didn’t have to a say, “Here, Gretzky, choose any one of these 52 Honus Wagner cards for me to tear and restore.”

Another thing about the classic force is—even with perfect execution—it can fail, or at least become obvious, if the spectator has an agenda. If they’re thinking, “I think I’ll pick a card near the top,” or, “I’m going to make him wait until he’s almost out of cards,” or, “I’m going to pick a card I’m really drawn to,” then the classic force feels exactly like what it is. (Yes, I know there are techniques to deal with those situations. But I wouldn’t say they’re great.)

To your point, BD, I’m sure there are some circumstances where the classic force is best. For example, when you want to keep your table-hopping set moving, or when you want to demonstrate how good you are at forcing a card. I’ve seen people delighted to have the same card classic forced on them over and over again. It’s impressive.

But generally I think it’s less useful than I had always assumed for the first three decades in my magic life. The impression I always had from the magic literature was, “If you can do a classic force, do that, of course. If not, use some other, lesser, force.” It wasn’t until testing the forces that I really understood some of the inherent flaws of the technique from the spectator’s perspective.

We’ve done some further testing on forces since those original posts were written. In this round of testing we did use them in the context of a trick. We also included, what I consider to be, a genuinely awful force for comparison, which was interesting. More details on that in the Testing Results Annual (or something more cleverly named) that will go out to supporters later this season.

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At the beginning of this year you mentioned having shorter posts. I’m not complaining, but I don’t think they’ve gotten any shorter. —AL

Yeah, I know. I need to figure that out, because ultimately it’s probably not sustainable. Between the site, the newsletter and the next book (which looks like it will be 80%+ brand new material), that’s like 1200 pages of magic content this year. And I’m not someone who can sit with a deck of cards and come up with ideas. I really only get ideas in the process of coming up with something to actually show someone. Most of the content for this site and the books and newsletter come directly from performing for people and getting their feedback. So it’s not only the hours involved in the writing, but even more hours involved in trying out different tricks or ideas.

“Oh, poor Andy, he has to find time to perform magic for people and write about it for money. Boo hoo. So sad. Well, I’m off to my job: tarring a roof in 95 degree heat for $12 an hour. Take care, Andy. You’ll be in my thoughts. Try not to get injured at work. Like, maybe you’re having too much fun with your friends while showing them a trick and you laugh too hard and throw your back out. That would be terrible.”

Okay, I get it. I know I’m lucky. I’m just saying it’s more time consuming than you’d imagine, and I need to get better at managing that time. Shorter posts are still coming. I think.

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Sometimes people write with non-magic issues. I’m including this one here because it’s pretty much the standard advice I give everyone dealing with any issue: Get on with it, and find a way to turn it into a positive.

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. My girlfriend that I’d email you about broke up with me. Turns out she didn’t want to talk to me about anything after 5 years and then told me she had already been seeing another guy. So I’m fucking destroyed. -GC

Give yourself five more minutes to be sad about it then move on. 

Then, going forward, every time you think of it and it's affecting you negatively, you take that as a cue to do something positive to make yourself a better person (whatever that may be--take a walk, read a chapter of a self-help book, go to the gym, do some work on a business you want to start or whatever). Now you're using the thing that "destroyed" your life as the stimulus to build a better version of yourself.

Use this same technique anytime anything "bad" happens to you and you will soon realize that nothing bad can happen to you. The more difficult the situation, the more it inspires you to work on yourself, the more profound your positive growth, and the better off you'll be. Problem solved. 

An Exposure Koan

Imagine I give you a deck of cards, you shuffle it, select a card, return it to the deck, shuffle it, then you hand me the deck and I find the card. Assume I achieved this by the use of a marked deck.

You might say that’s not that interesting a trick. You’re probably right. In its most basic form, it’s not very interesting.

Okay, now let’s say I give you a deck of cards, you shuffle it, then I spread it on the table face-up and take a picture. Then you select a card, replace it, shuffle the deck and hand it to me. I spread it again on the table and take a picture of it.

“It’s a pretty complicated algorithm,” I say. “The program compares the order of the deck in the first picture to the order of the deck in the second picture, calculates in the shuffles, looks for the card that is out of sequence, and voila, it identifies the card you chose. How else?”

It’s a goof, of course. The truth is I just used a marked deck and all the picture taking and talk of algorithms was just presentation. A presentation that many would think is more interesting than just saying “pick a card and shuffle and I’ll find it.”

But, here’s where it gets complicated.

The fact is, there is an app—well, a combination of apps—that can do exactly what the “goof” presentation suggests. That is, you can have a deck shuffled, take a picture of it, have a card selected, returned to the deck, and have the deck shuffled again (multiple times), then you can take a picture and the app compares the first picture to the second and identifies which card was selected.

You need Vision: The Card Spread Analyzer by Martin Eisele

And CardTrack by Marc Kerstein

What is the point I’m making? I’m not sure, really. That’s why I called this a “koan” not “a well considered point on exposure.”

I guess what I find odd is this: if you do this trick with a marked deck, you’re a thoughtful magician putting some effort into presentation. If you do it with the app, you’re exposing the trick and breaking a cardinal rule of magic. But the experience for the spectator would be (essentially) identical regardless of which version you performed. In fact, even a knowledgable magician might have no idea which version you did if they were just watching. The president of the IBM might say, “If that trick doesn’t use an app, I’d like to write up your presentation in the Linking Ring. If that does use an app, then you’re kicked out of the IBM for exposure.”

I just find that interesting.

We’re probably due for a complete overhaul of what exposure means in an era where laymen can discover the secret to nearly any trick with a couple minutes of searching online. We can’t think of it the way we did in the 1950’s. “Call the ethics committee! Blackstone revealed the rubber pencil illusion on the back of a Sugar Rice Krinkles box!”

I don’t know what the answers are, but I have done pretty much the best writing on the subject. Specifically about how we can utilize exposure for stronger magic. See this post, Four Uses of Exposure, and the beginning of this post. That’s a starting point.

Dustings of Woofle #4

Congrats to finalist #9, MT, who god (or fate in the form of the New York Lottery) chose as the winner of the Exaltation of Joshua Jay contest. He donned a red jacket, put together a globe puzzle and smashed his hair down on his forehead and now he has the prize package coming his way. Of course, he happens to be in Greece so it’s going to cost me $60 to ship him this stuff. Damn me and my incredible cross-cultural appeal!

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Here’s Eva Anderson (Harry Anderson’s daughter) on the Doughboys podcast with a couple quick anecdotes about David Copperfield and Criss Angel. They’re amusing, but not particularly surprising. After each story I thought, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

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If you like dumb jokes in your patter, here’s a mildly funny one I heard on an old Cheers episode (there are no new Cheers episodes, in case you were waiting for them). It’s similar in structure to some other jokes I’ve heard magicians tell, but I think it’s a little funnier.

“Do you believe in intuition?” you ask. They respond with whatever.

“Interesting. I don’t believe in intuition. But I have this strange feeling that someday I will.”

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View this post on Instagram

It's not often you can say you know someone changing the world. My friend @itsjasonflom is a legendary record exec., and he's also a founding board member of the Innocence Project. This organization has freed hundreds of people wrongfully convicted of serious crimes using DNA evidence. Through Jason I've met some of these people, including the woman pictured here, who spent a decade in prison for a murder she didn't commit. Thank you both for coming to our show! #joshuajay #siximpossiblethingsshow

A post shared by Joshua Jay (@joshuajaymagician) on Apr 29, 2019 at 9:28am PDT

Oh my god… this poor woman. Can you imagine being locked in prison 10 years for a murder you didn’t commit, only to finally be set free. And then, just when you think your nightmare is over, you have to sit through a Joshua Jay show?

Whose demented idea was this? After all she’s been through.

“Andy, you’re looking at it the wrong way. She lost 10 years of freedom, and this 90 minute show feels like it takes about a decade to finish. So perhaps seeing this show helped balance the scales in some way—gave her a greater sense of time on the outside.”

No, that’s not how it works. All they did was steal an hour and a half more of her precious freedom. Those monsters. My heart goes out to her.

The Self-Working Hook

An email I received recently:

Here's a quick testimonial,

Monday night, I met with a friend to catch up and talk a little about magic. He's been learning a few things so I brought both of us a deck and "Self Working Card Tricks by Karl Fulves" just so he'd have some easy tricks while he learned to handle the cards.

We were at a bar and as the night went on our waitress saw the cards and book each time she came to check on us. They weren't terribly busy, so when she brought the checks, I used Peek Backstage but using the book as icing. "Hey, we're trying to learn magic, can we try a trick if you have like a minute and a half?" 

I kinda expected her to half-heartedly sit through one but she seemed genuinely interested in seeing a trick. So I performed a short magician-in-peril type plot where the card in her hand becomes hers, all the while consulting my "Self Working" book. I ended it with "It says: 'If the card she stops on isn't her card, then have her turn over the card in her hand'"

Great reaction, only did the one so we didn't hold her hostage, and all the credit went to the book. 2 minutes later another waiter came over and said "I gotta see this trick". 

10/10, would recommend presenting yourself as amateur at the bar table.

—TW

Yes! I use magic books all the time as a Hook. There is really no more natural segue from someone saying, “What is that?” To you saying, “Oh, it’s something I’m working on for my nephew’s birthday [or whatever reason]. Can I try something out on you?”

Hooks make the transition into an effect feel essentially seamless. The reason they’re not a more popular concept in magic is because the best ones take the “power” from the magician. Obviously, sitting around with a self-working card magic book is not a power move. In fact, it probably undermines your actual level of skill. And that’s not a look most people who perform magic tricks want to portray. But for me, a magic book makes an ideal segue into performing

I’m not suggesting you go around with The Art of Astonishment stacked up on your table at Starbucks, but there are a few benefits to carrying something like the Karl Fulves book mentioned above.

1. It’s small and slim. It may even fit in your back pocket. When people see it, it draws attention, but it doesn’t obviously demand it.

2. It’s a perfect gift to give someone on the fly if they show an interest in magic. I’ll buy a few copies at a time to have some to give away.

3. If someone picks it up and flips through it, they’re unlikely to stumble on any important secret of magic.

4. It misdirects their suspicion. When I use a self-working book as a hook, I don’t actually perform a self-working card trick (at least, not generally). And I’ll take advantage of the implication that they don’t need to be on guard against sleight-of-hand.

5. Here’s something I would never have realized until talking about it with laymen: The phrase “self-working” magic can be very intriguing to people who aren’t familiar with the vernacular of learning magic. Erase what you know about magic. You see a book entitled, “Self-Working Card Tricks.” What would that even mean? And then someone says, “Yeah, let me show you something unbelievable. I have no idea how it works.” That can seem almost believable. If it’s something that works, “by itself,” the implication is that it doesn’t need the performer to direct it.

Okay, but what if I show them something and then they say, “Let me see where that’s written up in the book. I want to try it.”

That’s a possibility. For that reason, I generally don’t present it as TW does in his email to me, where I’m constantly referencing the book. I just use it as a hook. They see the book and ask something about why I have it or whatever, and that propels us into the conversation. I only imply that what they’re seeing is straight from the book, but I don’t reference it. If, at the end, they say, “Okay, show me where that is in the book,” I’ll spend a minute or so looking for it and then say, “Hmmm… that must be in Volume 2.” The book has already served its purpose of naturally guiding us into the trick.

The Exaltation of Joshua Jay Finalists

Below are the 10 Finalists in the Exaltation of Joshua Jay contest as chosen by members of the Jerx Advisory Board.

The ultimate winner will be picked by the New York Lottery Commission. Next to each finalist is a three digit number range. The winner of the Exaltation of Joshua Jay Contest is the person whose range contains the selected number in the midday three-digit Numbers drawing on 4/30/2019.

Below the finalists are a number of Honorable Mentions.

Thanks to everyone who entered. It’s a very special situation when the public can recognize a genius/messiah in his or her own time. In this respect, Joshua Jay is way ahead of Christ, who had essentially no photo contests done in his honor when he was still alive.

For those who entered and don’t end up with the prize package, keep this in mind… Your life situation is such that you have internet access, a camera, and enough free time that you’re able to read this site regularly. Your mindset is such that you were willing to engage in some mindless stupid fun for a chance at a prize. And your picture is bringing some small level of joy to people you don’t know. You’re all winners in the big scheme of things.

Finalist #1 - CL - 000-099

Finalist #2 - DM - 100-199

Finalist #3 - KG - 200-299

Finalist #14- SW - 300-399

Finalist #5 - CG - 400-499

Finalist #6 - AI - 500-599

Finalist #7 - MH - 600-699

Finalist #8- SC - 700-799

Finalist #9 - MT - 800-899

Finalist #10- LH - 900-999

Honorable Mentions

Being Neighborly

The Exaltation of Joshua Jay Contest ends today at noon, New York time.

The entries will be voted on by the Jerx Advisory Board (i.e., some friends of mine). The top vote getters will be announced on Monday with the winner chosen in some random manner on Tuesday.

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Just a quick anecdote today…

The apartment across the hall from where I’m staying had been vacant for a few weeks. The door was unlocked during that time and I would go in and walk around the empty apartment wondering if there was some things I might be able to set up and utilize in a trick at a later point in time. Maybe months from now. This may seem psychopathic, but it was kind of just a mental exercise.

So I set up for the Time Traveler’s Toilet (they certainly may lift the toilet lid in the ensuing months, in which case they might be a little confused, but I don’t think they’d find it that weird). And I carved a little something on the underside of a drawer to be used as part of a revelation in a routine. And a couple other little things.

I figured I may never even end up speaking to these people, and even if I did, we may never have the sort of relationship where I’m showing them magic. But that’s okay. I don’t mind planting a seed that might never grow.

The other night I got home around 9:30, grabbed some items from my place and went across the hall and opened the door to the other apartment.

And there are three people sitting on cardboard boxes eating pizza.

And there’s me with a bottle of anti-fog spray in one hand and a q-tip in the other. (Long story. Part of a trick idea I had with their bathroom mirror.)

“Oh…hey,” I said, cleverly, as they all stared at me.

“Sorry, I didn’t know anyone had moved in and I heard noises and I came to check it out.” So I just barged right in instead of knocking in this scenario? I guess. And what was my plan? Was I going to blind the intruders with anti-fog spray and bludgeon them with a Q-tip? I tried to play it off like I just happened to have those objects in my hands from something I was doing back in my place. I’m not sure how convincing I was at changing their perception of me from “home invader” to “good samaritan,” but I did my best.

I sort of salvaged the interaction by being warm and welcoming and normal for the next 15 minutes or so. But sadly I lost that element I had hoped to take advantage of in a future interaction: the notion that I had never been in their apartment and obviously couldn’t have arranged anything there. Now if I ever do something I’m sure they’ll think, “Oh, he probably set that up when he was creeping around our house like a maniac before we moved in.”

I’ll update you if I ever take advantage of anything I set up over there. Don’t hold your breath.

EoJJ Contest Update

One day left to get in your entries for the Exaltation of Joshua Jay contest. See the April 11th and April 23rd posts for details.

The prizes are a box full of Tenyo effects and a $100 gift certificate to Vanishing Inc.

Two quick updates:

Vanishing Inc is now officially sponsoring the contest and providing the gift certificate. Thanks to Josh and Andi.

Also—and this is for real—here is part of Josh’s recent email to me on the subject.

“So we'll sponsor the $100 gift card, and I'll include a high rez photo of any pose requested by the winner with their order.”

I’ve given him veto power on the “any pose” requested, although you can certainly take a shot with requesting one of these 33 Impossibly Sexy Boudoir Photo Poses.

Actually, I think the best idea would be to have him mimic a photo of you. So then you’ll have a photo of you posing as him and him posing as you.