Q&A Week: Bonus Coronavirus Post

This came in over email, not the Q&A form, but it seemed like a good time to address the situation.

Subject: Social Magic in the Time of COVID-19.

Just wondering if you’ve considered tackling the topic of social magic given the current reality that social distancing needs to be a thing. Any general or specific recommendations?

Well, the fact of the matter is, it’s the professional magicians who will be hardest hit by this. Vegas performers, table-hoppers, trade-show magicians… they may be the ones sitting at home with a lot of time on their hands for the first time in a while. Since I’ve started this site, I’ve heard from a number of professional magicians who say they like the site, but that they never perform socially. Perhaps after some downtime, they’ll get the itch to perform and decide to do something special for their friends and family.

For me, personally, the virus has upended some travel plans and consulting work I had coming up. It has also made me cancel an upcoming focus group testing session we had scheduled for the end of the month. But other than that, it hasn’t changed my performing too much. If anything, I find the people who are out in the real world are interacting more with each other than they were before. So while I wouldn’t do any tricks that involve touching or handing items back and forth for the time being, I have no problem doing other more “hands off” type effects for people.

The beauty of social magic is that it’s immune to the conditions of the outside world because it’s designed to work within those conditions in the first place. If you’re a professional magician and no one comes to your theater, you’re fucked. If you perform in a more traditional style and you have a gambling demonstration that requires a table and a close-up mat and five spectators, then you need to find a way to maneuver the outside conditions so you can get to that situation. But social magic is about conforming your magic to the situation, not the other way around, so it’s sort of indestructible. Social magic is great at a party with friends, but it also works in a Walking Dead scenario where we’re running from zombies and living in the forest. Humans are very adaptable but they will always need someone to entertain them or occupy their mind.

On Tuesday thru Thursday of this week, I’ll give three examples of ways I’ve used the current situation as a jumping off point for a performance of social magic in a way that I think feels natural and not like I was taking advantage of the situation or making light of it just to perform magic.

The goal of social magic is not to turn every interaction into a goddamn magic trick. But, when the moment is right, to be able to infuse magic into our lives in a way that is more seamless and ideally more affecting. This is a weird time, and there are certainly some people who find themselves or their loved ones dealing with something significant. But not you. You’re here reading a magic blog. So things are still going pretty well for you. Which will hopefully continue to be the case for all of us.

The Juxe: Backstory — Mirage People by The Capitol Years

I love a song with a good backstory.

I listened to this song for years before hearing where it originated. I wish you could do the same, because it probably makes the the whole thing more satisfying. But since that’s impractical, I’ll just go ahead and tell you the story.

The Capitol Years were one of my favorite indie-rock bands from Philadelphia in the early 2000s. In 2003 or so a Philly-centric blog called Philebrity named The Capitol Years the best band in the city. Then, a couple years later, some guy left a comment on the blog saying:

The Capitol Years are not a good band. Unchain yourselves, gang. I mean, I know the rock scene in Philly has reached a particularly low valley over the past few years, but that’s no reason to go slummin’ with these frauds. I assume they won by default. That’s the only way I can reckon them being named “Best of Philly” a few years back. Yes, It’s a shame The Burning Brides skipped town, but let’s hold ourselves to a higher standard than this. It’s a mirage, people. I’d love to know one substantial accolade these cats have on their resume (Disclaimer: Carson Daly does not count, now or ever).

(“Unchain yourselves, gang,” is a favorite saying of mine when I want to sound like a condescending douchebag. “Oh, you guys like The Mandalorian? Unchain yourselves, gang. It’s pandering tripe.”)

Anyway, by the next day The Capitol Years had recorded the following song whose lyrics consisted of lines from the guy’s message.

I was a fan of this song for a long time before hearing this story. Once I did, it made me like it even more. It reminded me of one of my life philosophies, (sort of) lifted from Oscar Wilde: Take everything that happens to you and make it good for you. Someone trashes your band on a popular local website? Turn that shit into a catchy, ethereal, banger.

The Capitol Years are in fact, a good band. Here are a few other favorites from their catalog.

Stones (Watch It Not End)

That song is for when your old lady dumps you for some other guy. You play it to remind her she’ll be back. “Watch it not end. You’re looking my way again.”

And just for the sake of completeness, here’s my favorite Burning Brides song (hard rock/garage rock). It’s a shame these guys skipped town.

Q&A Week: Day 4

What is your opinion where to draw a line to define mental magic and mentalism? Is such line base on premise / props / plot?

I don’t draw a line because I don’t really care. When I do mentalism I’m not trying to get anyone to walk away believing it’s a true skill I possess. So I can read someone’s mind and then do Color Monte. It’s all the same. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be a concern for you or for anyone else, just that it’s not a concern for me.

Why do you always pick on Joshua Jay?

Because I like talking shit about people but I don’t like dealing with people crying about me talking shit about them. I’ve been friendly with Josh for 15 years online and I know he’s not going to get worked up about anything I say about him. Josh knows well enough that I’m a big fan of his and therefore I can say that he sucks or that he’s corny or that he’s secretly gay, and all he’ll think is, “Secretly?”

Who is the guy holding the cards in the 2019 sponsor mailer box?

Seriously? Michael Ammar! The idea that someone might know about this site, but not know about Michael Ammar is unsettling to me.

Dont you think that Derren Brown does pass as real to his audience?

Yeah, probably, for much of his audience at least. His old disclaimer would say he uses: “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection, and showmanship.” That true, but it’s also true for Silly Billy. It’s true for every magician. That’s the beauty of the disclaimer. People can kind of read into it however much they want. I don’t really know what his audience believes, but I’m sure they probably think there’s more “psychology and suggestion” in use than there actually is.

I like magic with cards Why are card magicians so boring in their shows? damn card magicians ruined the magic with cards!

This seems more like a rant than a question. And I don’t really buy the premise. Are card magicians more boring than coin magicians? Not that I’ve seen. What about guys who do cups and balls? I figure I’ve seen 200+ versions of the cups and balls in my life. I remember two. Penn and Teller’s version with the clear cups, and David Regal’s version that ends with the production of the red, yellow and blue plastic cups you’d find in a kid’s magic set. And mentalists? A lot of the most revered names in mentalism are dull as shit.

I think if you take a look at any branch of magic the majority of the performers you see will be boring and uninspiring. So I wouldn’t take a shit on just card magicians.

I use Spanish cards in my social magic. There are magicians who believe that these are not magic. Do you usually use cards other than poker?

I don’t know what Spanish cards are.

But you are doing magic for other normal people, not magicians. So it doesn’t matter what magicians think.

Did you grow up watching 80’s and early 90’s magic specials? Hate them? Love them? Understand them as a product of their time?

I grew up watching Copperfield’s specials and I looked forward to them for weeks. It was a similar thing with Penn and Teller’s appearances on David Letterman. It was such an exciting time to be a fan of magic.

I know everyone thinks the time in which they grew up was somehow superior to other eras, but you’re going to have a difficult time convincing me that the 80s and early 90s weren’t the perfect time to be a kid. First, you had all the freedom our parents had in the 50s and 60s—as a 7-year-old I was out of the house all day, only returning for meals and a quick drink from the garden hose. This was true of every kid in my neighborhood. All our parents would be reported to Child Protective Services if they were subjected to modern standards.

But in addition to that freedom we had something our parents didn’t have, we had access to the early days of video games, computers, and camcorders. So there was an influx of new technology to be excited about but it didn’t have a stranglehold on our lives. It really feels like it was the best of both worlds.

Why did I get off on this nostalgia kick? Right… 80s and 90s magic specials. They were great.

Have you tried the new Voodoo Needle Trick?

Yes. I have some thoughts on this. They will appear In the March edition of the newsletter coming in a couple weeks.

If you could have a superpower what would it be?

From my last book: “You know what ability I would like? I’ve thought about this for a long time. A lot of people will say ‘flight’ or ‘invisibility,’ or that kind of superhero stuff. But what I would want is the ability to transport myself to any moment in history. And not because I want to see Genghis Khan or whatever. I want to see, like, who killed Jon Benet Ramsay. What happened to Maura Murray. Mainly I just want to be able to figure out true crime mysteries.”

Just for fun, how would you present the linking rings in a social setting? (I'm thinking something like your Tenyo presentations)

I wouldn’t, for two reasons.

First, the linking ring effect suffers (in my opinion) from the fact that a ring routine is more or less the same sort of thing happening over and over again. In the effects I’ve published, you’ll see that almost none of them follow that structure. I just don’t think it makes for strong magic. Vanish a single coin and you can have a highly concentrated moment of magic. Do a one coin routine where the coin vanishes and reappears multiple times and it comes off as fancy coin juggling.

The other issue is—unlike the Tenyo stuff—the linking rings is a trick that people are already familiar with, so my presentation is boxed in by their knowledge that this is a trick that has existed for a long time—likely one that they have seen before. Therefore it would be quite difficult to create a new backstory for the trick.

If I HAD to, then I’d come up with some sort of routine that didn’t use a key ring. Then I could say, “If you look up this trick anywhere online, they’ll tell you it uses a ring with a slit in it. It doesn’t. There’s a magic organization that has been around for almost 100 years and their mission is to preserve magic secrets. And they found the best way to do that is to put fake secrets out into the world. So, obviously, a slit is the most basic idea, but people actually buy it. In fact I’ve never seen a site offering the real method. Here, check these rings out. No slit, right? Watch.”

That would be a pretty fucking fascinating premise. The idea that yes, you can look up this trick online and it will tell you that it uses a ring with a slit in it… but that’s just part of a massive disinformation campaign. Of course, that presentation would only work if you could follow it up with a version that somehow didn’t use a key ring, or completely disguised the use of a key ring in some way. I’ve heard some such routines exist, but I have a feeling they’re probably not any good.

[I’ve heard from a couple people that Penn and Teller expose the slit ring in their version. That makes sense. In fact, I can’t imagine a version designed to fool people that didn’t address this.]

Is The GOOD GLOMMKEEPING Seal of Approval still a thing? Had anyone used it?

It’s still a thing. But no one has ever taken me up on it. Maybe they thought it was a joke.

Do you still take "ads" (samples of the best stuff in a new product) for the newsletters?

Yes. More info on this next week.

What do you think of "Stargate" by Roddy McGee?

I think it looks cool. But it’s one of those tricks that I wouldn’t know how well it plays without trying it out. And I don’t own it, and probably won’t own it. So I don’t have much more to say on it than that.

Hi! Any advice for Mentalists to make our performance more audience-centric? Alot of what we do seems to emphasise "our" abilities . Thanks!

That was the subject of my last book. I can’t say too much here, but I will quote from the digital appendix to that book and that will hint at some paths you might want to take…

This book contains my approach to mentalism performed in casual situations, often one-on-one, and with the idea of shifting the focus off of the perfomer’s “powers.” This is difficult in mentalism because it’s a genre of magic which is solely about the performer’s powers. It would be like being a circus strongman and trying to make the act not about you. It’s kind of impossible.

So what you’ll find in this book is sometimes me putting the effects in different contexts (outside of mentalism), or me reducing the certainty of traditional mentalism and trying to cloud what I (as the performer) am saying is happening, or saying I’m capable of.

If the strongman comes out and bends a steel bar, then you think, “Yeah, I guess he’s strong.” But if a normal non-strongman (a Joshua Jay type) bends a steel bar and isn’t sure how he did it, or if you two bend a steel bar together, or if he gets you to bend the steel bar somehow and neither of you are completely sure how it happened; then that’s a more interesting story—in my opinion—than simply, “I worked out a lot and now I can bend steel bars.”

This book is my attempt at coming up with other ways to bend the steel bar.

Speaking of which, I have a couple copies of that book that were set aside in case supporter copies got lost in the mail. It seems like all supporters have received their copies so these will be made available on the site in Monday’s post which will go up at noon, New York City time. If you are interested in obtaining one of these copies, set an alarm or something and be here right around noon. They will be gone quickly.

Q&A Week: Day 3

How is Magic bettering the world? How can I as an artist use Magic to better the world? Does it matter?

I don’t really have answers to this sort of question. I only perform for friends and family. If your friends and family are always interested in seeing you perform and psyched to sit through what you’re showing them, then you’re making their life better. The rest of the world can fend for itself.

What is the key difference performing social magic for strangers versus people you know?

With people you know, you can be more comfortable asking for more time from them. Just like you probably wouldn’t tell a five minute joke to a stranger, you wouldn’t do a 20 minute trick for a stranger.

Also, if it’s someone you know, they’ve probably seen you perform before. With every performance you can push the boundaries a little and do weirder stuff, without making people feel uncomfortable. After a while you can let go of the reins completely and do whatever you want because they’ll know to trust you that it will be worth their while. But the first time you perform for someone you want to be a little gentler with them. If it’s a genuine stranger then they don’t know anything about you or your motivations, so you don’t want to get too weird with them. You want them to be able to engage comfortably.

When I perform for people who have seen me perform, I don’t need to say, “This is a trick.” They already know that. But with a stranger you want to ease them into the weirder stuff.

Why is my weenie so small and stinky?

Someone beat you to this.

You mention in The Bubble making props in the spectator's view, kinda like White Monte. Do you plant ordinary objects "laying around" to use?

Sometimes. I don’t really plant stuff around my house. But I will plant stuff at some of the coffee shops I visit regularly. One has a book and game shelf that i will leave stuff on. Obviously, there’s a chance someone could make off with what I leave there, but it hasn’t happened yet (that I’ve noticed).

More often, rather than having something planted, I’ll have something prepped ahead of time and then switch those items in before anyone is really paying attention. For example, I may have some business cards from the cafe I’m at that I’ve secretly prepped in some way—maybe it’s just marking them in some manner. And then I’ll ask someone to grab me five business cards from he counter and when they come back with them I’ll just switch them very simply in the process of getting a pen out of my bag. No one is looking for a switch at that point.

Harrison Greenbaum says "Magicians are a Beatles cover band but think they're John Lennon". Thoughts?

I’m not sure I buy that. I don’t think most hack magicians who are performing ancient tricks with unoriginal patter think that they’re doing something original. Instead they say things like, “The classics are classics for a reason.” Magic doesn’t really have a history of encouraging originality.

The issue, as I see it, isn’t that magicians think they’re creative when they’re not, it’s that so many magicians don’t even approach it as a creative enterprise in the first place.

Do you think the six card repeat fools anybody?

It’s a difficult trick to make fooling because the method that is used is often very close to what any normal human would suspect. That being said, I think it can fool people, but not when performed like this. That just looks like someone passing half a deck back and forth between his hands. (Especially given the fact that he breaks the rhythm of his count every time he passes the block.)

Do you have/use a script?

I have a premise in my head and then I may have a line or two I want to hit perfectly. But no scripting beyond that. It’s hard to have a script and not feel scripted.

One of the issues with writing my material out is that it may seem like I’m telling you my “script.” I’m not. I’m just writing something similar to what I said in the performance I’m thinking about when I write the post.

Do you have any magic guilty pleasures? As in, bad tricks that you like? Or maybe something you tried to improve but couldn't?

Hmm. I don’t think so. Not in the way you mean, at least. The closest thing I can think of is that I like buying cheap magic sets and playing around with them. So that’s a guilty pleasure in the sense that I’m only doing it for the sake of my inner 8-year old.

As far as tricks I couldn’t improve. Yeah. That’s most tricks.

There’s a whole genre that I’ve had a hard time improving: rubber band tricks. One of my first books in magic was Scarne On Card Tricks. That’s a 70 year old book of card tricks that a beginner can do. And yet, I feel I can take any trick from that book—perform it in some sort of context—and get someone thinking about it at least all night, and potentially for months or years to come.

On the other hand, I can perform the most modern, clever rubber band magic, get a really strong initial reaction, and then it’s almost immediately forgotten, or so it seems. I’m not sure why that is. I think it may be because rubber bands are inherently unromantic. Playing cards, money, pen and paper, cigarettes, hell maybe even thimbles are all props that potentially have some emotional weight to them. Rubber bands don’t. No one ever says, “Ah, I remember my grandmother used to get together with her friends and stretch rubber bands at the kitchen table.” Rubber bands are intrinsically worthless and disposable, and it feels like audiences treat the tricks to be done with them in a similar way. Even if they’re amazed by the trick in the moment, I never feel like it’s the sort of thing they think about for long after.

Did you ever have anxiety performing magic for people? If so, how did you resolve?

I’m fortunate enough not to have anxiety about anything. I might be missing part of my brain. I can’t even say I’m 100% certain what people mean when they say they’re anxious about something.

Anxiety seems to come from thinking too much about the “what ifs” of a given situation. What if the trick goes wrong, what if the person doesn’t like it, what if I screw up, etc. I think one of the cheat codes to life is just to ignore the “what ifs” in low-stakes situations. Introducing yourself to an attractive stranger at a coffee shop, getting a new hair style, or performing a magic trick for people—these are all objectively low-stakes situations. They don’t warrant you being concerned about the outcome.

If you were forced to do a formal show at gunpoint, what would you perform?

At gunpoint? Pull the trigger.

Q&A Week: Day 2

Do you have any clever uses for those gimmicked envelopes that allow you to make stuff appear in the spectator's hands?

I’m not 100% sure what you’re talking about. So I guess no.

What's the best magic wallet for the casual performer?

It depends what you want to do with it. The only thing I do regularly with a wallet is peek with it. I wouldn’t say I’m 100% happy with any peek wallet I’ve used. In general I find the ones with simpler peeks to be better than the ones with more clever methodologies. Any wallet that requires you to go back into it to get the peek is not good, in my opinion. When we tested peeks years ago, that action of going back into the wallet was the point where suspicion flew off the charts (this was back when we used an app that allowed people to gauge suspicion in real time—something I want to get back to at some point). It didn’t matter how quick you were or what your motivation was to go back in. I’m not saying those methods are total garbage. Obviously people use these types of wallets and have some measure of success with them. But I don’t like anything that piques suspicion at the moment you’re actually doing the dirty work.

The wallet I use most regularly is the Jaks Wallet from Secret Tannery. I’ve published a couple different peeks with it in various places. (the most recent book and in a newsletter last year). My only issue with it is that it doesn’t hold cash.

When a trick is over, do you let the spectator dwell on it and eventually change the subject, or do you change the subject yourself?

Hmm. I’m not sure. I’ll pay more attention and let you know if I find I have a particular technique. I have a feeling it depends on the people I’m performing for, the nature of the trick, how they react, etc. I don’t think there’s one satisfying pat answer. I certainly don’t immediately move on to something else. But I also don’t just sit there like a goon staring at them until they’re bored. I would say most often I let the moment resonate for a while, then we talk about it for a little bit, then we transition to some other activity, and ideally they’ll come back to the trick throughout our time together as they think more about it in the back of their mind.

Having a Rep (repercussion) to the effect, as I’ve written about on the site, is my favorite way to transition out of an effect because it reinforces the trick while also moving you past it.

How did you first get into magic? Whats your origin story?

Here.

You seem to present only one effect at a time. How would you best present multiple and not have them blur together into one memory?

It’s very simple, just use different objects. Not all card tricks. Not all coin tricks.

But, ideally (for social magic) don’t do multiple tricks. Make each trick its own unique interaction. That’s how you’ll make it memorable.

Any presentational ideas for SNAPS?

Not yet.

How can I find the right time to perform a longer trick?

Prep people for it ahead of time. “I’ve been working on something that I really want to try with you. Are you around this weekend?” Set it up like a date. Anticipation can add greatly to the experience.

We often talk about how powerful it is to be able to perform things seemingly impromptu. And that’s undoubtedly a good thing. But there is also a power in performing things that seem planned, if the spectator gets the feeling this is an experience you’ve crafted with them in mind.

What impromptu trick have you performed more than any other?

I don’t use it much now, but for a long time I did Mr. Clean's Coin Across by Jay Sankey pretty frequently.

There is nothing I do that regularly these days because I’m usually trying out new stuff for the site.

Do you think your style and philosophies can apply to formal theater shows? Would you write articles about professional show in the future?

I think some of the specifics about what I write could be adopted, but not the general esthetic. To me, the key to social/amateur magic is getting away from the formality of a professional show and making the interaction feel more natural/genuine. But what feels natural/genuine in real life would feel awkward and disingenuous in a formal show.

At this point, I have no experience performing a professional magic show, so I wouldn’t have anything to write about it. I do have something I’m working on, but I don’t know if I’ll end up talking about it here.

Why is my weenie so small and stinky?

Jokes.

What would be your presentation for CineMental by Nikolas Mavresis?

I don’t know. I don’t own it and haven’t given it any thought.

What's your least favorite trend in modern magic?

The influx of charisma-less guys “reviewing” magic on Youtube while managing to offer essentially no insight into the product at all other than what could be gathered within approximately six minutes of opening the box the trick came in.

Q&A Week: Day 1

Here is the first set of questions.

Spelling and phrasing are the question-asker’s, not mine.

I’m answering them in the order they came in, with the exception of the second question. I’ve grouped together three questions there that were on the same subject.

What is the best effects/presentation for Mentalism that’s short form (like on instagram)?

I don’t think mentalism is well-suited for “short form” and I don’t even have an instagram account. I couldn’t be less suited to answer this question, I’m sorry to say.

— Any chance you have a presentation for Metal Phone in the works? The gimmick is impressive, but the responses are falling flat.

— What are your thoughts on Metal Phone by Joao Miranda? Especially as a piece for social/amateur magic.

— Ur Timeless routine [See here.] saved that trick. Have anything for metal phone? The block has been a letdown for my specs. They want to see a real phone.

I’ve heard similar concerns from a couple of people I know in real life who have used the effect. They’re both good performers so if they’re both having an issue I’m inclined to believe there might be a problem with the trick itself, not just their performances.

Watching the demo for this, I think I see what is likely causing the issue. Going from “This card penetrated my phone” to “Just kidding, it penetrated a strange metal block,” is not even a lateral move. It’s a step backwards. Spectators are familiar with phones. They’re not familiar with strange metal blocks. So the easy answer for them is just, “It must be something funny about this metal block.” Bingo.

Not that they know how it works, but you’ve given them some sort of answer (“there’s something funny about that block”). Whereas, if your working cellphone came out, then there would be no questioning the legitimacy of the object that was penetrated.

In earlier tricks of this type, you started by penetrating a box of matches with a needle (not impossible at all) or a cased deck of playing cards with a coin (more impossible, but a spectator could come up with some plausible solutions pretty easily). So when you go on to reveal the metal block, you’ve done something significantly more impossible than what they thought you did. That makes sense as a dramatic structure.

But that’s not what happens with this trick. The revelation of the metal block is a surprise, but not a magical one (relative to what they thought happened). It would be like if you sawed a box in half and said your wife was inside. Then you put the halves together and said, “Actually… it wasn’t my wife… it was… this black guy!” That would get a, “Wait… huh?” sort of response that I think some people are getting from this trick.

All that said, don’t sell yours yet. I think I have a couple ideas (one handling idea and one presentational idea) to make this stronger. One of my proxies has placed an order for one so I can try it out, but I won’t have it for a couple months, so I won’t be able to give my thoughts until then (unless I end up meeting up with one of my friends who owns this in the meantime.)

Do you play with Cardistry? And does cardistry dilute the magicalness of effects done in performer's hands?

No. And Yes.

Why do you perform magic? What is the goal?

That sweet poontang. The ill nana.

My goal is to craft memorable experiences for my friends, family and the people I meet as I go through life. And to do so in a manner that they can’t get from any other kind of interaction.

Just read about project slay them about adding a trick a week to my reportoire. Does that advice still hold and do you have any new ones?

Does that advice still hold in order to build up your repertoire? Yes. Do I have any new what? New tricks I’ve added? Yes. I add new tricks constantly.

I know it can be not that good question but how can I think creatively?

I don’t really have a good answer for this.

I read this book a long time ago and thought it had some very sound advice, although I doubt it will make you creative if you don’t aren’t already have some natural aptitude.

I’m not sure to what extent someone can develop creativity. I can’t say I’ve ever met someone who wasn’t creative—then they took a course or read a book—and all of the sudden they were super creative.

However, I do think there are some creative people who just haven’t found a way to leverage that power yet, and for those people, I think maybe you can find a way to harness that ability from a book like the one I linked to above.

Is the Connect 4 prediction trick available anywhere or will it ever be?

This is my friend’s trick. I don’t know all the details of how it’s done, but I know it requires custom made props for the game. He has made one copy in the past for a magic collector but I don’t know if he plans on making/selling more. I will let people know here if it ever becomes readily available. But if you’re expecting something you can do with a normal Connect 4 set, you’re dreaming.

I’ve been working on a simplified version of a Connect 4 prediction that I will likely put in some publication in the future.

Hi Andy, have you purchased any new books lately? If so which ones, I’m looking for some inspiration. Thanks

I haven’t read any new magic books in a while (I’m far behind even on books that were gifted to me). I’m trying to readjust my schedule so I have more time to work through magic books. If I manage that and I find something interesting, you’ll definitely hear about it in the review newsletter.

What (if any) are some ways you use loops?

I use them mostly in the usual ways: haunted deck, the one where you tip up a pair of eyeglasses, a moving fork trick I learned from a Geoff Williams DVD.

One trick I do with loops that I’ve never seen anyone else do is on Calen Morelli’s Penguin Live Lecture where he uses loops to float and manipulate his hoodie strings. I like that trick a lot.

I was asked to do a 20-minute set of mentalism as an opener for a long-form improv show in Chicago. How would you approach this?

I would decline the offer.

In an alternate reality where I did do the show, I’d probably do something like the stage version of the trick described in this post. That would make sense in an improv show context.

Q&A Week: Intro

In the Fall 2019 issue of the supporter newsletter, I mentioned that one of the best parts of doing the site was being able to run it with full autonomy. Even though the site is reader-supported, I have great freedom in how it operates due to the generosity of the supporters who don’t really make any demands on me in regards to what I write about.

And unlike working in a big corporation where everything needs to be tested and approved before implementation or cessation, I’m free to try something new and see how it goes and immediately stop it if it doesn’t turn out as I hoped. There’s tremendous freedom being in that situation. It’s like if you’re a guy who loves to have sex without condoms and you’re an abortion doctor. You don’t have to worry too much about consequences.

Last week I announced a Q&A feature. I am now suspending (aborting) that feature. The reason I’m suspending it is because I didn’t get the results I had hoped for. I’m not sure I knew 100% what I was hoping for, but whatever it was, I didn’t get it. I had thought that having the Q&A form might lessen the number of full emails I received. But that didn’t really happen. I get a lot of emails from operating this site. And while I think people understand that I can’t respond to every one with a long thought-out response, I still feel weird responding to an email of many paragraphs with just a couple sentences. So part of the idea behind the Q&A was to limit people to 150 characters. I said, “Give me a short question and I’ll give you a short answer.” But I got a lot of short questions which required long answers.

And because I made it easier to contact me, I think the quality of the questions, unsurprisingly, went down. People only go to the effort of putting their thoughts/questions into an email, if they have something they think might be worthwhile. Whereas with the short, Q&A format, there was a bit more chaff with the wheat. This makes sense. The easier you make communication, the less thought out it will be, on average. If construction workers could only say something to hot females via a written letter, women would probably have a much nicer time walking down the street, and the comments they did receive via mail would likely be of a higher discourse than, “Hey, nice pooper!”

So, I’m suspending the Q&A feature. It may be something I do from time to time, but I’m turning it off for now.

Now, just so it wasn’t a complete loss, I’m going to burn through the questions I received over the course of this week. I said I would give “short answers” to any questions for which I had a satisfying answer. Instead, I’m giving unsatisfying answers to all the questions that came in whether I have anything worth saying or not. A dozen or so questions per day, starting tomorrow. See you then.