Muddy the Waters

Just wanted to share with you that I loved your coronavirus-inspired presentation for invisible deck. I’ve been performing tricks every day with my coworkers via WebEx to break up the day, and yours was the perfect presentation. Minds were blown. I think the reaction was better than when I do the classic ID presentation or a mentalism-based presentation. —DM

Yup. This has been my experience as well. It’s a real good thing.

And there is a more universally useful concept in there than just a presentation for the Invisible Deck. It’s something I want to experiment with more when I have the opportunity.

Basically the idea is to give people a method that you won’t actually be using to sort of distract their mind. In the case of the “Inverted Card” presentation, I talk about sleights and feeling the heat coming from the card a spectator handled. So when you do the trick and it clearly doesn’t use those techniques, I think they’re more fooled than they might be otherwise. Certainly anyone who has done the ID regularly has had someone suggest that you just turned the card over without them seeing it. If they don’t know what’s going to happen, they don’t know to make note of how cleanly you’re handling the deck. By bringing up the idea of sleight-of-hand and telling them where the trick is going from the start, you eliminate that Easy Answer.

I’m not suggesting all tricks should be framed this way, but I think it’s something that could be useful for certain effects.

Here’s a related idea. If I have someone write down a word on a business card and I put it in my wallet and then guess the word, a certain percentage of people will think I somehow saw the word, they may even suspect the wallet. But, what if I did this… what if I had someone write down a two digit number, under 50, with both digits being odd, and different from each other. And I put that card in my wallet and then I guess correctly that they thought of the number 37. After this I explain the general idea behind how it works. How there are much fewer options than there first appears, and how some numbers are more psychologically appealing, or whatever. Now I say, “I’m trying something similar with words. Write down any word on this card.” I put it away in my wallet and then guess what they’re thinking. I would bet, in that situation, less people would guess that I had somehow peeked the word.

I can’t say for certain that’s true. I’ve never tested it. Maybe I will someday. But I feel like people have a limited amount of processing power to consider how tricks are done. And if you offer up another method (whether you suggest it’s something you’re using or something you’re not using) a part of their mind becomes occupied considering that method and they will have a harder time deducing what’s actually being done.

I’ll let you know if I pursue this idea any further.

We Still Got It!

Over 15 years ago, in November of 2004, I put this post on my old magic blog…

Once Again, We're The Tops! 

We blew the competition away on this one!

Search Terms (#of Hits on Google)

1. “magician” "child molester" (836)
2. “mailman” "child molester" (469)
3. "Sunday school teacher" "child molester"(237)
4. "gym teacher" "child molester" (186)
5. “juggler” "child molester" (156)
6. "piano teacher" "child molester" (110)
7. “ventriloquist” "child molester" (108)
8. "gymnastics coach" "child molester" (33)
9. "karate instructor" "child molester" (25)
10. "origami master" "child molester" (0)

✿✿✿

Here now is the updated list for 2020. And while there’s been some shifts in the list, it hasn’t affected our #1 ranking. We’re still crushing it, baby!

1. “magician” "child molester" (131,000)
2. “mailman” "child molester" (71,500)
3. ”juggler” "child molester" (31,000)
4.. "Sunday school teacher" "child molester" (18,200)
5.. "gym teacher" "child molester" (12,400)
6. ”ventriloquist” “child molester” (11,300)
7. "piano teacher" "child molester" (10,700)
8. "gymnastics coach" "child molester" (4510)
9. "karate instructor" "child molester" (2840)
10. "origami master" "child molester" (43)

Of course, this isn’t very scientific, but it does give you a sense of how frequently these things are associated.

You might say I’m cooking the numbers a little because I didn’t include a search for “clown” + “child molester.” That gets over three times the results that magician does. But before you start crowing too much about that, realize that most of those clowns also do some magic. So it probably only adds to our numbers.

The Winnowing

Your idea of combining a gimmicked prediction prop with a secret helper with a webcam is fantastic.

It allows you to perform TV Magic Special style magic for your friends. It would be good to see more thinking using this approach since it opens the door to a new type of magic. Also - it is weirdly more practical than most types of magic since you can perform for anybody in the world without having to leave your house. And it is easy to do. I just wonder if there is some kind of ultimate Jerx style approach to this sort of concept?

One idea would be to dress up the webcam trick as a Spectator As Mindreader type effect.

Imagine this.

You email about a hundred people and ask them to make a 50/50 prediction. You then keep winnowing them down until you have somebody who has correctly predicted a 50/50 outcome 6 or 7 times in a row. This is an old stock-market scam that UF Grant has written about and that Derren Brown once built a TV special around.

Or you could email a hundred people - and ask them to make a 1 in a 100 prediction. You would get them to carry out some kind of meaningless process to provide the "imp".

One of those people emails you back all excited that they were correct. And then you use that person to go into your webcam effect. With them using the same "imp" again to correctly read your mind. —JM

Yeah, I’ve done something similar to this before, but not quite the way you’re suggesting. That’s way too much trouble to me—getting 100 people involved and then perhaps ending up wasting a good trick on someone who is like my 84th favorite person in the world.

Instead, what I did—and what I suggest—is to come at the same idea but from the other direction, and just fake it all.

Here’s what I mean…

Decide who you want to show the trick to. Then, in the morning, send them an email but put their address in the bcc field, and write as if you’re writing to a bunch of people.

“Hey everyone, I have an experiment in thought projection [or whatever you want to say] that I’m working on and I’m trying to find a compatible subject. I’m going to start simple and go on from there. I just flipped a coin. It has landed either heads or tails. I want you to imagine me flipping that coin and imagine what side it came up and reply to this email with your guess by noon today.”

A couple hours later you write back as if the person got it right and is part of a now smaller group. Your next experiment is to randomly pick a card and ask them to see if they can pick up on the suit of your card.

They write back and guess the suit. Of course you will say they got this right too.

You text them that afternoon and ask if they can hop on Skype real quick.

“Okay,” you say, “so I started this morning with 100 people. 48 got the coin toss right. And of those 48, 14 got the suit of the card right. So well done. Now I’m going to ramp up the difficulty a little. On the other side of this post-it pad, I have a number between 1 and 10.”

And you do some sort of simple nail-writing thing and they will once again be “correct.” This time they actually see they’re correct in real time. And since this is a more unlikely thing to get right (compared to the coin or the suit of the card), it kind of validates those “experiments” even though they didn’t actually witness their guesses being accurate.

Now you sign off. Tell them you have a few more people to test, but you’ll get back to them later that night.

A few hours later you hook back up with them via video chat. Tell them they were one of two people to get everything right so far, but the other guy fizzled out on the final test. And then you hit them with the truly impossible routine where they accurately intuit a drawing that’s on a folded paper in a clear box or whatever.

So you get the strength of that impossible effect, but that gets amplified by the fact that it was the culmination of this event that unfolded throughout the day.

It’s essentially the opposite of the Derren Brown/UF Grant thing mentioned in JM’s email. There you have a large group of people who each assume they’re the only person involved. Here you have one person who thinks they’re part of a larger group.

By letting it ramp up during the day, you raise the stakes for everything. And it’s a way to make your spectator feel extra special as being the “one person out of 100” that this all worked out for.

Coming in the March Newsletter

Here is some of the stuff that will appear in the upcoming newsletter which will be in supporter’s email boxes at the end of the month:

1. Recently a trick was released that magicians were raving about. At the end of February I road-tested the trick with a friend for 20 different groups in Toronto. I’ll break down the results of those performances and give you the audience’s specific feedback which I found pretty insightful.

2. A review for another new trick that arrived with a lot of buzz and quickly fizzled out. I’ll give you the routine I’ve been using for this trick that has generated a very strong response for me and turned a quick visual trick into a much weirder experience.

3. In last Thursday’s post I mentioned how I like to use those clear prediction boxes for performances over video chat. With that in mind I will give you what is probably my favorite thing to predict in that manner.

Announcement

Friday’s post was supposed to be the final post for this month, with the new schedule being daily posts from the 1st-20th of each month.

But with all that’s going on I figured I’d continue to stop in daily through the end of this month. Just to say hello. Hello!

It’s a weird time to be alive. And I know a lot of you look to me as a friend. Your best friend. Your only friend. A leader. A guru. A god. These are the labels you give me… and yes, I suppose I’ve earned them. It wasn’t my intention to be the sole shining beacon of joy in your life, but these things happen.

If you want my honest opinion on this, I think the coronavirus will be devastating to the individuals who are directly affected (obviously). But societally, I just don’t buy the most dire predictions. In fact, I never buy the most dire predictions about anything. They’re never right.

That’s about the extent of my analysis on the situation.

I’ll continue to pop in daily for the rest of the month to share a quick note or some sexy selfies with you.

Sweet Dreams

I had a dream last night about a coronovirus inspired trick. It’s a stupid one. And therefore I’ll be shocked if this idea isn’t already out there somewhere.

The trick is this… you do a Hundy 500 style bill change where you’re changing money to toilet paper.

“Hey, these days… it’s worth much more! Am I right?!!!” You say, and laugh heartily.

Please let me know if someone has already done this.

Please let me know if someone ends up doing this.

I’m trying to see what performers my subconscious mind has the most in common with.

And actually, now that I’ve dreamt of it, I’d really sort of like to see it. Especially if you could make it so the bills are somehow changing to full size TP. Could you fold the toilet paper so it unfurls or something? And should you draw George Washington’s face on the toilet paper? Why am I bothering thinking so much about this?

Free Advertising at The Jerx

A couple years ago I wrote:

“I get a lot of people offering to send me stuff in exchange for me writing about it here. I understand the inclination. There is probably no more captive audience in magic than the people who read this site. But if I just started doing posts on the stuff that was sent to me, then that's all this site would become. And as nice as it is to receive a free ebook or get something in the mail, that would ultimately devalue this site to the readership if that's what I focused on.”

This paragraph was buried in a post so a lot of people who are new to the site missed it. So I still frequently get people offering to send me stuff. And when I say, “Sure, that would be great. But just know that I’m probably not going to end up writing about it,” they’re usually like…

Well, I now have a couple of ways you can advertise your product/service to my readers for free.

Advertising for Supporters

If you are a paid supporter of this site, you can advertise for free in the monthly newsletters. That’s not as big an audience as the audience that reads this site. But these people are pre-selected as people who are willing to spend money on magic, and many would be curious to see what other people who like this site are creating. And hey, it’s free. Even if you just sell a few copies of whatever you have to offer, that could conceivably get you back your whole support payment so you would essentially be getting the 2020 rewards package for free.

Here’s how it works. You just email me the ad you want to put in the newsletter and I’ll add it onto the end of the issue. It doesn’t have to be anything that looks that great. We’re all friends here. Think of the ads in the back of Genii in the 80s (which looked like the ads in the back of a normal magazine from the 30s). But you do have to make it yourself, I’m not writing your goddamn ad. And I would suggest doing something original for it. You could just copy and paste an ad you’re using elsewhere. But you’ll probably have better luck if you write something up from yourself as a person rather than just an advertising entity.

And the free ad is once per year. If you have more to sell we can work something out. But I’m not going to put the same thing in month after month. If you want to do something like have a special discount code for readers or provide an excerpt (if you’re offering a book) we can do that too. Or, hell, if you want to write a vicious anti-Irish screed about how they’re infesting our country and taking all our trench-digging, rail-line-laying, and textile-mill-operating jobs… that’s fine too. Your support payment entitles you to some real estate in one of the monthly newsletters. You can do with it whatever you want.

Advertising for Everybody

Advertise a Product or Single Trick Download

And here is a free way for anybody to get the word out about their new product on the site itself. Not with some banner ad on the side, but in a way people will actually read about your product because I will be the one writing about it. This isn’t like the Magic Cafe where people are blindly scrolling past your ad or deleting it from their PM box without reading it. No… anyone who comes to this site is doing so because they want to read what I’m writing about. And what I’ll be writing about is your product. And yes, it’s 100% free other than the cost of sending me a copy of what you’re selling.

What’s the catch?

Why does there have to be a catch? Why can’t I just offer this kind service to people?

Okay, I guess there’s a catch. This new review feature will be one where I tell everyone the worst aspects of the thing you’re selling.

Here’s the deal. I’ve spent five years creating a relationship with the people who read this site where I try to be as open and honest about things as possible. While I have no problem badmouthing shitty products (and do so in the review newsletter from time to time), I would have that problem if someone had sent me something for free. If someone sent me something—especially if was a particularly expensive book or piece of magic— and I didn’t really care for it, that would be a big bummer for me. I’d take no joy in entertainingly trashing something that I was given for free, but I’d take less joy in trying to find something positive to say about something I wasn’t really into and lying to the people who read this site to spare the feelings of one person.

So this removes all of that from the equation. You would be sending me your product for the purpose of me finding its flaws and weaknesses.

Why would I send you my product just so you can trash it?

Well, there are a few reasons why.

• First, if your product is very good, then the worst thing I have to say about it may not be very consequential. I might say, “The worst thing about this levitation is that it can’t be performed outside under bright sunlight.” And people reading that will say, “Shit… is that all? I never perform outside. Maybe I should pick this up.”

• Second, my critique may bring up issues you hadn’t thought of. Perhaps something you can address and therefore improve the product.

• Third, you’ll get the word out about your product.

• Fourth, I may have plenty of good things to say about what you’re selling as well. I won’t hold those back when writing about your offering. So I may identify a couple flaws but also note a few things I like about it. And for some people the flaws may not be dealbreakers. So even a write-up designed to look at something with an incredibly critical eye could end up as a positive review for some people.

My goal is not to shit on what people are selling. I’m not going to make up flaws or find faults where they don’t exist. So if you have faith in your product, i don’t think you have much to lose. If you already know it’s kind of a turd, then it’s probably a bad idea.

Advertise a Book/E-book/Multi-trick DVD or Download

Updated from the September 6th, 2022 Post

Since I put out the offer for people to advertise their magic products for free on this site, I’ve received some interest from people who want to advertise their book or ebook. Unfortunately, to do that in the manner described in this post (where I tell everyone the worst thing about your product), I would have to read an entire book and carefully consider everything in it. That’s not a fun blog post. That’s homework. And I have no interest in that.

So here’s how the advertising will work for books and ebooks and multi-trick videos if you want to advertise them here.

You send me the chapter or trick that you consider to be the most average thing in your book. That will be posted here and any comments I have will be based on that excerpt.

This will give people an idea for what you have to offer with this release and it suggests that you think half the material is better than what you’re offering.

If you’re interested on taking me up on any of these advertising opportunities (or you just want to send me your product for the hell of it), send me an email at thejerx@gmail.com. Put “Ad” in the subject somewhere to help keep things organized in my email box.

Also, you can just tell me about something you have for sale and—if it’s something that interests me—I’m more than happy to pay for it (and while not likely, it’s possible I’ll write about it). While I certainly appreciate when people send me the things they’ve created, I don’t need free stuff and this is not a request for free stuff. The purpose of this post is solely to let people know how they can get their product in front of the readers/supporters of this site in a way that will hopefully be a win-win situation. A win for them because they get more eyes on what they’re offering and a win for the readers because it will hopefully lead to some interesting content. (I don’t need a win for myself. I’ve got enough wins.)