These Are A Few of My Favorite Books

For this non-magic Sunday, I thought I’d mention some of my favorite non-magic books.

I wouldn’t necessarily call these “recommendations” because I don’t really trust my judgment in books. I know that I liked these books a lot. But I don’t know if that means anything. When I read books that are supposed to be good—like the classics, I mean—I’m often like, “Huh? This blows.” But who am I to question the wisdom of the ages? I’m probably just too dumb to appreciate them. So I’m not sure what that says about the books I love.

I will give as little plot info as possible because I pretty much hate knowing anything about a book going into it. Hopefully just enough to see if it’s a book that might appeal to you.

A Simple Plan by Scott Smith - Three men find a small crashed plane and a bag full of money inside of it. This is one of my favorite suspense novels of all time. There is just an overwhelming sense of dread throughout the book. There’s something about the straightforward tone of the narration and the way the story unfolds that is particularly unsettling.

His only other book is a horror novel called The Ruins which is also really good.

Blood Crazy by Simon Clark - An apocalyptic horror thriller where everyone in the world over the age of 19 is filled with a murderous desire to kill children. Did Charles Dickens do this already? Maybe. Anyway I found it to be a really enjoyable read.

Candyfreak by Steve Almond - I have an 8-year-old’s appreciation for candy. I never grew out of it. This book is written by a self-proclaimed candyfreak who travels the United States visiting a bunch of regional candy makers. So it’s a few of my favorite things wrapped into one book: candy, road trips, small businesses, Americana.

“Every now and then, I'll run into someone who claims not to like chocolate, and while we live in a country where everyone has the right to eat what they want, I want to say for the record that I don't trust these people, that I think something is wrong with them, and that they're probably - and this must be said - total duds in bed.”

Harpo Speaks by Harpo Marx - I don’t even have any particular affection for the Marx Brothers, but this is probably my favorite autobiography/memoir. I feel his lifestyle is one worthy of emulation. It’s a feel good book.

Replay by Ken Grimwood - One of my favorite sub-genres in movies and novels is stories that take place in time loops—where a character returns to and relives a certain period of time over and over. And this is probably my favorite example of that type of story.

The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce - A dark-fantasy coming-of-age story. I once read a description that said it was part Brothers Grimm and part Stephen King’s, The Body (which became the movie Stand By Me). That sort of gets the tone right. I tend to value story over the quality of the writing, but with this book, both are really wonderful.

The Unskippables

A new series for Song Saturdays featuring songs that—according to Apple Music—I’ve never skipped when they’ve come up on shuffle.

The Start of Something by Voxtrot (Austin, Texas - 2004)

Imagine a sort of peppy sounding version of The Smiths. Such a great song.

Down the Train Line by Stranger and Patsy (Jamaica - 1967)

If you asked me if I like reggae, I would so, “No mon. It is not irie.” But what do I know, because I love this song. I’m a big fan of boy/girl vocals and really like this combination of Stranger Cole and Patsy Todd. Came out on everyone’s favorite Jamaican record label, and Pornhub search term: Gay Feet records.

Bedroom Eyes by Dum Dum Girls (Los Angeles, California - 2011)

60s-inspired, hazy surf-pop-rock. I’m so bummed this group broke up back in 2016. No one is doing this sound quite a good as they did. And on top of being super talented, they’re just about the most beautiful group of musicians you’ve ever seen. I fall in love every time I watch them perform.

Are You Gonna Waste My Time by Zeus (Toronto, Canada - 2012)

"Classic rock” is still being made. This holds up with the best of anything that came out of the 70s.

Ah shit, I was in a Zeus rabbit-hole on youtube after writing this post and I came across this kind of backyard concert sort of thing from 2012 that was just uploaded a week ago. I love the band and the sound quality is great, so I really enjoyed watching it. But more than anything, the video made me excited to go out and be around people again. I won’t take that for granted again anytime soon.

A Post for Troubled Times

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.
Also, I’m Michael Ammar."

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.