Contest Updates and a NEW Contest

The submissions for the Better with Weber contest are now over. A winner will be selected randomly and announced on Friday.

If you missed out on the contest but would like to get a copy of the ebook with everyone’s trick recommendations in it, you can still do so. Just submit your own recommendation and get a copy of the book as well. Here’s how you do it:

Send me an email at thejerx@gmail.com with a subject of: Ebook

The body of the email should contain these two items:

1. Tell me about one of your favorite magic tricks that you perform regularly. Give me a basic description of the trick, where it can be learned, and then tell my why you like it. Be detailed, but don’t talk my ear off. And try to give me something I might not be familiar with. I want to learn about some stuff that might have slipped under my radar. Maybe it’s buried in a book/magazine/dvd. Or maybe it’s something that never got a wide release. Or maybe it’s your own unreleased trick. (If so you’ll have to give the method Hey, I’m looking to maybe learn some new stuff here. Not just hear some fan-fiction about a trick you can’t really do.) Don’t say ambitious card, or sponge balls, or something like that. I’ll just toss your entry. In fact I’ll physically print it out just so I can crumple it up and put it in the trashcan.

2. Tell me how you want to be referred to. This could be your full name, first name, initials, a secret code-name. I don’t give a shit. Just let me know.

If you already submitted this information for the contest, don’t do it again. You’re already receiving the ebook. I will stop taking submissions Friday at 11:59 PM ET. Then I’ll put together the ebook over the following couple days.

I probably should have given you better instructions than to “be detailed but don’t talk my ear off.” Some of you guys are quite chatty. It doesn’t matter. Everyone’s getting a single page in the ebook, whether you wrote three sentences or three pages. I’ll cram it on a page.

New Contest: Better With the Jerx

There is another contest coming in early May. The prize for that is a free 2020 supporter package. So you’ll get the next book, deck, and a subscription to the newsletter. At the moment, these supporter packages are already sold out, so this is the only way to get one. In addition, I will be sending along a couple other special bonus items. If you are already a supporter of the site, you will get the bonus items and I will refund your payment for this year’s support package or give the package to someone of your choosing.

How to enter…

First, you can only enter the Better With the Jerx Contest if you entered the Better With Weber Contest.

In the announcement for the previous contest I said:

It looks like for the next month, at least, we’re going to be on a partial lockdown in the US with similar situations happening in most other countries as well. The overwhelming majority of us are going to be fine, so our focus should be on how we come out on the other end better than we went in. The purpose of this contest is to get everyone thinking about that and to create a little gift for everyone who enters.

In your entry to the BWW Contest, you told me what your goal was for the month of April.

And the way you get entered into the BWTJ Contest is to prove to me that you accomplished that goal.

How will that work? Well, I’ll get into the specifics in early May. But essentially you’re going to send me some sort of proof that you achieved your goal. I will rate that proof on a scale of 0-10. Zero means I’m not convinced by your proof and 10 means I’m fully convinced. Whatever number I rate your proof as, that’s how many entries you’ll get in the drawing for the next prize package.

Hey wait, that Weber contest wasn’t some fun giveaway. You were setting us up.

Yeah, I was. But look, I’m just trying to give you an extra incentive to accomplish something you told me you wanted to accomplish. I’m not the bad guy. I’m trying to help you out. So get your shit together, do what you said you were going to do, and then be ready to prove it once May rolls around.

The Jerx Presents: Tempestarii by Leigh Herbert

People send me tricks all the time but I rarely post them here. Even if they’re good tricks, I often don’t post them. And that’s because this site isn’t meant to be a repository of good tricks. There are other places to go for that. I want this site to be a place where you go to look for a certain style of magic (the social/casual/amateur style). So when I post other people’s stuff, it really has to feel like it’s on that wavelength.

Leigh is an amateur performer out of New York City. A couple weeks ago he sent me two great ideas. The one you’re about to read, which came pretty much fully formed, and then another idea that I’m going to be working on with him once everyone is off house arrest.

This trick, Tempestarii, is pretty much a perfect little moment of strangeness, as far as I’m concerned. Thanks to Leigh for sharing it with us.

Imagine

I’m going to start you off with the most basic presentation for use in impromptu-ish situations. You’ll see as we go along that you could create a very specific routine for different scenarios.

Here’s how I imagine presenting this (I haven’t had the chance to do so yet because we’re on lockdown).

It will be somewhere where I’m out with my laptop. For me that’s usually going to be a coffee shop or the library. But you could also do this trick at school, or on your home or work computer or whatever.

Let’s say I’m at a coffee shop, sitting at the counter, chatting up the barista when things are slow.

I grab a napkin, write down some numbers on it and some arcs along a simple x/y access. I step outside and look in the sky. I don’t draw attention to this. It doesn’t matter if the other person notices.

I come back in and ask the barista, “Can I get your help with something? Actually, I don’t even really need your help per se. I just want you to tell me I’m not crazy.”

I’ll open my computer and go to Google. “Let’s see… let’s do Los Angeles,” I’ll say, and go to type something. “Actually no. You pick. Uhm… do you have a friend who lives in a different city from here? Someone you like? We’re going to do a nice gesture for them” Let’s say she says she has a friend in Omaha, Nebraska.

I turn my computer to her and ask her to google: Omaha latitude longitude and read out the numbers to me.

As she does I write them on the napkin.

I’ll then draw another x/y axis and some strange curves. “I think that’s right,” I’ll say.

“Google Omaha weather,” I’ll say.

She searches it and the forecast for the next week shows at the top of the results.

I’ll turn the computer so we can both see the screen. “What day has the worst weather? Monday looks pretty bad. Oh wait, Tuesday is the worst.”

The Tuesday weather is stormy and chilly.

“This is going to be weird, okay?”

I don’t touch the computer at all. I center myself, focus, rub my hands together, or something. Then I sort of push some energy into the screen. And then it happens… the weather for that day starts changing. The clouds clear and the temperature rises. It becomes the nicest day of the week.

“That just happened, right?” I’ll ask.

It’s really google, not some weird google83935.fun/magic page. It’s the real forecast for the city they freely name. She can refresh the page or check on her phone. The weather has really changed.

“Do me a favor, don’t tell anyone about this,” I’ll say.

There it is. It’s an impromptu trick, assuming you have your computer with you.

And that’s just one way of doing it. If someone is traveling you could change the weather so they have a nicer day when they arrive. Or if they have an outdoor event coming up you could change the weather for that day. Or change the weather for someone’s upcoming birthday. “Consider that my gift,” you say, and save yourself $40.

I think the way I will be most likely to get into it is—when anybody mentions that it’s a nice day—I’ll say. “It is, isn’t it.” With a weird smile on my face. “It wasn’t supposed to be. A couple of days ago they were calling for rain.” Then I’ll just let that sit there. And later I’ll be like, “Okay, I can’t keep this a secret. I have to show you this thing I learned.”

The ritual to change the weather could also be more elaborate. You could slit a rabbit’s throat and bathe in its blood or something like that. Or have some weird weather iconography carved into rocks that you manipulate and pray to or whatever. I just gave a simple impromptu ritual that you could let the spectator read into, or you could define it in some way.

Do this trick one day and Aelous from TOY another day and then add your name to the Weather God wikipedia page.

Zeus, Greek - Thunder/lightning and sky god and king of the gods
Tamar (Goddess) - Georgian virgin goddess who controlled the weather.
Indra, Hindu - Thunder/lightning god.
Chip Dupree - Weather God, cashier at Foot Locker (and, like Tamar, also a virgin)

Method

I will let Leigh take it from here. He’s written a really clear document describing the effect and method. It’s super simple. Even if you’ve never done something like it before, don’t worry. He’ll walk you through it and make the process very easy.

Here are the instructions.

In my write-up above, I ask for them to google the lat/longitude just to lay the foundation that this is a real google search. At that point they’re not questioning anything anyways, but I like the idea of having them do a real search or two before getting to the weather page.

And, in my description, I would do the necessary dirty work on the keyboard as I turn the laptop so we can both see it.

At the end of that document, Leigh also provides a way for you to contact him if you have questions, suggestions, or just to thank him. If you think this is anywhere near as cool as I do, you should definitely go thank him.

Alternate Presentational Idea

For whatever reason you find yourself looking at the weather results for your city or another city with a friend of yours. The day you two are particularly interested in looks like it’s going to be shitty weather. “Damn,” you say.

You look around a little, cautiously. “Hmmm… I kind of hate to do this, but I don’t want bad weather for the party. Here, come on.”

As you walk outside you talk about the Butterfly Effect, how a butterfly flapping its wings in one location can eventually lead to a hurricane on the other side of the globe. “This is going to sound unbelievable, I know. But the weird thing is… I can do something similar. Not cause a hurricane. Not yet, at least. But shift around some weather patterns a little to help us out. Where’s north?” You figure out where north is and walk a few steps in that direction then turn to the right just a few degrees. Then you start huffing and puffing like a maniac, or flapping your arms as if they’re wings (depending on how big a jackass you want to look like). After a few moments you stop and compose yourself. “Let’s see if that worked, you say.”

You walk back inside and check the weather forecast. It’s still the same. “Well,” you say, ‘it’s not immediate. The domino effect of conditions has to go up into the troposphere and re-jigger everything. Not to get lost in the science of it all. But it usually takes a minute or so. Oh look, there it goes.”

You draw their attention to the computer and you see in real time how your actions have affected the future as the clouds fade into bright sunshine.

Alchemical Reactions

I’m going to open up a whole new world for some of my readers in this post. Not my younger readers, probably. But if you’re 40 or above, there’s a chance you haven’t yet indulged in one of the pure joys of youtube: the reaction video.

People will say to me, “Why do I want to watch someone watch something?” I understand. That was my feeling as well for a long time.

Think about it like this… Have you ever made a new friend, or started a new relationship. And you’re like, “Oh my god… you’ve never seen The Usual Suspects? Oh, man, you have to. It’s so good.” And then you make plans to watch it together and you sit down with your bowl of popcorn and you fire up the movie and five minutes in the other person is texting on their phone or they’re falling asleep. And you get irrationally angry about it. You’re thinking, “I’m going to punch this piece of shit in the throat.” That’s because we like watching people experience the stuff we like.

With reaction videos you get to watch people who are engaged with the content experiencing things you enjoy, often for the first time.

My reaction video awakening happened maybe 18 months ago when I was searching for a comedy clip on youtube. The first one I hit on was a couple of guys watching that specific clip. And I laughed so much more watching it than I would have if I was just watching the clip itself. I enjoy stand-up, but if I watch it by myself I don’t do much out-loud laughing, even if I think it’s funny. But watching other people watching it gets those mirror neurons firing and makes it so much more enjoyable. It’s probably especially valuable during this time of social distancing.

Here are some of my favorite reactors on youtube.

For stand-up comedy, I like the guys at Frankenstein’s Lab. There’s the guy on the right in the hat who leans back, and the guy on the left who leans forward. That’s all I really know about them. But I love watching them have their shit cracked up. Here’s their latest.

For older music I like the channel India Reacts. She’s a sweet soul who gets very moved by the music she listens to. Here’s her reacting to “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers. For some reason this has become a very popular song for people to react to on youtube. Most of the music I see people react to online are songs that have been so played out for me that it’s hard to appreciate them anymore. Hearing them through the perspective of someone who is less familiar with the song gives me a renewed appreciation for them.

And finally we have No Life Shaq. He reacts to comedy, rap, and hard rock, among other things. He’s ridiculous and charismatic and fun to watch. Usually at least once every video he’ll toss off his headphones and walk around because he’s so excited about what he’s watching. He continuously says, “That’s tough!” about everything. From what I can gather, tough = awesome, excellent, inspiring, amazing, thought-provoking, terrible, crazy, upsetting.

Below is him reacting to Chop Suey by System of A Down and a George Carlin routine.

In general, it’s a pretty joyful genre of youtube videos. I can easily lose hours to it if I’m not careful.

The Juxe: Honk Beep Beep Honk Toot Beep

There are very few funny songs that I can stand to listen to more than a couple of times. Once the joke has worn off, I’m usually kind of done with it.

However, I’ve easily watched this video 50 times. It features two of my favorite comedic performers, Carl Tart and Drew Tarver, as their singing duo, Memphis Kansas Breeze, tackling their three favorite subjects: beer, women, and big shiny trucks.

Five For the Weekend

The entries for the contest mentioned yesterday have started coming in. It’s been cool to see what you’re going to be working on this month and getting your trick recommendations has been great. I’ve already identified a few tricks that I was unfamiliar with that I will definitely be tracking down, and I’ve also been reminded me of some stuff I already own that I need to take for a spin.

Some of you who already have a lot of Weber’s material have entered because you’re interested in the ebook, but you’ve also said you don’t want to be in the drawing for the prize package because you don’t want to take that away from someone else who doesn’t have much or any of Weber’s work. I appreciate that gesture. And if anyone else is in that position, just let me know in the email with your entry and I’ll put you down for the ebook, but not in the drawing for the giveaway.

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The Jerx Did It First

From my post on 3/17/2020

I mentioned on Sunday that I would use a few posts this week to tell you ways I’ve built off the virus situation to get into a trick.

Before I give my first example, let me suggest a bad way to do this sort of thing: Patter.

“These [sponge balls] are actually coronavirus microbes. Watch as they go from my hand… to yours.”

Well…

I’ll cut him some slack because it’s for kids and kids are dumb so maybe they’ll enjoy this sort of thing.

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My favorite feedback from the April Fools Day redesign was this from reader, JS.

I got the sensation of whiplash this morning. My mind was anticipating the small moment of joy that I feel when visiting your site. And instead when the magic cafe colors came up I got an overwhelming sense of depression. It really drove home my feelings about the two sites. The Cafe is a real bummer. There’s something depressing about a site that has eight ads for a “comedy bell” on its front page.

Ahahahahaha. Thanks, JS, that’s sweet. And accurate.

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If you’re not on their mailing list, Vanishing Inc is having an online magic convention this Sunday. I’ll definitely be checking it out. I’m a big Danny Garcia fan, for one. And the lecture promises: “chat and fun competitions along the way.” Chat and fun competitions?! I love chat and fun competitions (I record every episode of Ellen). And who are better arbiters of fun than Josh and Andi?

In their announcement for this “convention” they say: “You'll be able to interact and chat with the performers while they are live.” Okay, but please don’t, alright? No one cares about your dumb questions that grind everything to a halt. In the history of the Penguin and At the Table live lectures, not a single good question was asked by the audience. And those performers were lecturing for hours at a time. These people are doing 20-30 minute spots. They don’t have time for your horseshit.

Oh…whatever. Do what you want. In fact, take over the chat feature with dumb questions on my behalf. “Is roughing stick non-toxic?” “Do you think roughing-stick tastes good?” “Hypothetically, if you ate a roughing stick, would you call the doctor or just wait it out?”

Check out the details and sign up for access here.

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On Monday I have something special for you. It’s the world-premiere of a new trick from friend-of-the-site, Leigh Herbert. It is unlike anything you’re doing. No cards. No coins. It’s not mentalism. It’s something very different. I can’t say for certain how strong it plays because I’m currently spending 23 hours a day boiling myself in Purell and I haven’t tried it out in the real world yet. My best guess is that it’s the sort of thing that will hit really hard for some people, but even for people who don’t bite on the premise 100%, I think they’ll still find it a fun moment of magic. I have a feeling it will really capture people’s attention, as what you are doing is a very primal sort of effect, but in a modern way.

When people say, “What would you do if you really had magic powers?” This is one of the things you would do.

I’m psyched he’s letting me share it with you here.

Better with Weber Contest

It was sixteen years ago this month, back when i was writing my old blog, that Michael Weber wrote me an email that said:

“I enjoy your blog, despite my better judgement and sense of taste.”

This was back when people still needed to qualify their appreciation for my work. Hey, that’s fine. That’s still the attitude a lot of people have. “Oh…, well I guess I occasionally visit that and put up with his foolish for that once-in-a-blue-moon good idea he has. But as a serious student of magic, my favorite writer is definitely Henning Nelms.” Sure, okay. Meanwhile, your copy of Magic and Showmanship is under a mantle of dust; the cover practically snaps shut when you open it because it’s so tight from disuse. And if I look at your laptop there’s a ghostly image of the Jerx logo burned into the screen because of how much time you spend here. It’s okay, I won’t tell your secret. You’re a dummy just like me.

Anyway, I mention Weber because he, along with Tim Trono, have been supporters of my work and this site for as long as it has been around. And they’re both generous, good guys. (To me, at least. They may be absolute monsters in person.) With pretty much everything they release, they send me a copy to play around with, even though I’ve told them I’m happy to pay my own money for it.

Sometimes I end up with more than one copy of their effects. Either because they’ve sent me more than one or because of the convoluted way I procure magic. I have a couple friends who buy all my magic for me (with my own money) and then send it along to me wherever I might be staying. They handle the finances for The Jerx, so it’s just easier that way. I have a standing order with them to just buy anything Weber and Trono put out unless they hear otherwise from me. So sometimes I’ll buy something through one of my proxies, and then receive a copy from Weber/Trono as well. Sheesh! First-world anonymous magic blogger problems!

At any rate, I decided to take some of these brand new duplicate items and create a dope-ass giveaway for one lucky reader.

For the most part, Weber and Trono release their stuff on the down-low. That, obviously, appeals to my way of doing business too. So I won’t be giving away too many details on these products as they’re generally not things that are broadly advertised or sold in most online magic stores. You can search for more info and find some more details. Also if you’re not already on their mailing list, I would recommend getting on it. Email psience.mail@gmail.com and ask to be put on it. They didn’t ask me to say this. In fact, I’m not even sure they’ll be happy I did. But if that email address is still there, then they haven’t reprimanded me for putting it out there.

Here’s what the winner will receive…

Here is the brief description of what you see there:

Knowing: A mentalism demonstration where you know which of a number of objects your spectator is thinking of without asking any questions.

Lucky Day: Know someone’s lucky number without them ever saying it or writing it down. Keep it in your wallet, next to that aspirational condom you’ve had in there since 2011. (These are my descriptions. Not theirs.)

Crazy (and New Tops): Updated handling and gimmicks for the classic Crazy Cube effect. This includes the “New Tops” upgrade which makes the prop look almost identical to an old film canister. So now it appears more like a normal object.

The Truth: Michael’s take on the liar/truth teller and which hand plot.

The Seer: Michael’s peek business card case.

The Weber Wallet: Not a peek wallet. A shogun-style wallet with routines.

So there’s $600+ of magic and mentalism on the line here. And at least a couple of these items are not available any more.

“How do I win?” Hush a moment. I’ll tell you, but first let me tell you my rationale for why I’m conducting this contest the way I am. Everyone is bugging out these days with everything going on. It looks like for the next month, at least, we’re going to be on a partial lockdown in the US with similar situations happening in most other countries as well. The overwhelming majority of us are going to be fine, so our focus should be on how we come out on the other end better than we went in. The purpose of this contest is to get everyone thinking about that and to create a little gift for everyone who enters.

How To Enter and Win

Just follow the rules as written below. This contest is also a test of your ability to follow rules. If you mess that up, I’m tossing your entry.

Here’s how you enter. Send me an email at thejerx@gmail.com with a subject of: Contest.

The body of the email should contain these three items:

1. In one sentence, tell me a goal you’re committed to working towards this month. Something you’re going to learn or teach yourself or something you hope to achieve. This goal must be specific and measurable. “I’m going to learn to play guitar” is too generic. “I’m going be a better dad,” is meaningless. “I’m going to learn to play House of the Rising Sun on guitar,” or, “I’m going to spend an hour every evening with my kids,” are measurable goals. Your goal can be magic related or non-magic related. Could you just make up a goal you have no intention of following through on? Sure. But that wouldn’t be in the spirit of things.

2. Tell me about one of your favorite magic tricks that you perform regularly. Give me a basic description of the trick, where it can be learned, and then tell my why you like it. Be detailed, but don’t talk my ear off. And try to give me something I might not be familiar with. I want to learn about some stuff that might have slipped under my radar. Maybe it’s buried in a book/magazine/dvd. Or maybe it’s something that never got a wide release. Or maybe it’s your own unreleased trick. (If so you’ll have to give the method Hey, I’m looking to maybe learn some new stuff here. Not just hear some fan-fiction about a trick you can’t really do.) Don’t say ambitious card, or sponge balls, or something like that. I’ll just toss your entry. In fact I’ll physically print it out just so I can crumple it up and put it in the trashcan.

3. Tell me how you want to be referred to. This could be your full name, first name, initials, a secret code-name. I don’t give a shit. Just let me know.

Try not to include anything else of importance in your email as I will likely be filtering these out and won’t get to them for a few days.

Here’s the reason I need #3. I’m going to take everyone’s response to #2 and put it in an ebook that I will then send out to everyone who enters the contest. So while there will only be one winner, everyone who enters will get something out of this.

Yes, I know it requires a bit of work to enter the contest. But that’s a good thing. That means only the people who really want to win will go to the effort. So if you are interested in the prize, then your odds just went up, because I’ve eliminated everyone who is too lazy to submit an entry. I’d rather have 20 thought out entries than 1000 where people just had to submit an email address.

I will be accepting entries until this Sunday, the 5th, 11:59 p.m. EST. A winner will be picked next week at random. But, if your entry exceeds my expectations in some manner, then I may give you an additional chance to win. Essentially giving you an extra “ticket” in the virtual raffle.

New Look

This post doesn’t quite make sense now, but it did on April Fools day of 2020 when the site was redesigned in the style of The Magic Cafe (if you can call that a style). There’s a screenshot below and the text of that day’s post beneath it.

Sadly, I have to postpone the contest I mentioned recently for one more day. My friend who has the prizes on hand was just able to get me the photos of what we’re going to be giving away a little while ago, so I will definitely have that post ready for you tomorrow. I’ve come up with a contest that will benefit everyone who enters. And yes, it’s really going to happen. This isn’t some dumb April Fools prank. I don’t even like April Fools Day. Especially not the way it’s practiced online. It’s always just a bunch of corny ass bullshit that no one would ever believe. It’s just a waste of time and energy.

On a completely different subject, I wanted to use this post to announce the new look of the site going forward. Last Summer I got together with a 14-person design team and we spent three weeks discussing ways to bring some new life to this tired, old website. For the past eight months they’ve been banging out those changes. We went through 116 designs until everything was perfect.

I gave the designers three criteria:

1. It has to be both beautiful and sophisticated and ooze class.

2. It has to feel like it’s on the cutting edge of design. Not something that looked like shit 20 years ago and then hasn’t been updated in the interim 20 years.

3. The color scheme should definitely not be gross and nausea-inducing.

I think it’s safe to say they hit it out of the park.

Do you like it? You don’t have to answer that. I already know you don’t. You love it. You’re welcome.