Dustings of Woofle #25

People are still sending me emails with questions about zoom magic shows. I really don’t have more to say about this. Zoom magic is/was a temporary evil. Not the new normal. At this point, it’s not forward thinking to be concentrating on that.

If you’re a professional magician and you’re putting your eggs in the zoom basket, you’re probably wasting your time (in the long run). The primary appeal of magic is seeing the impossible live and in person. If your zoom magic shows are as powerful as your in-person shows, then your in-person shows weren’t very good. This is not exclusive to magic. If you’re a prostitute and watching you stroke a banana over skype is as satisfying as getting off with you in real life, you’re a terrible prostitute.

I have a friend of a friend who started working on his zoom show when this all started. A couple months later I spoke with our mutual friend to ask how this guy’s zoom shows were going and I found out he abandoned the idea completely. The price-per-show had plummeted because now instead of competing against other magicians in the area, he was competing against everyone with a webcam all over the world.

Instead he focused on two new types of shows. The first was a magic show that he would perform outside, to people indoors, through the window—while still taking steps to make it feel very interactive. The second was a drive-up magic show where families could drive to his house, pull part-way into his garage and experience a magic show from their car. With people desperate for something to do—and him not working his normal day-job at the time—he was booked solid with multiple shows a day, and ended up making more money in six weeks than he had from performing the previous year.

I’m not saying you should adopt those ideas. I’m saying if I were a pro, I would be focused on how to bring live, in-person magic to people in the current environment rather than focused on ways of doing my act over zoom.

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This chick is amazing. When she lets go of the end and it comes back to her without missing a beat? Whoa. Real magic, no tricks.

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So, Hanson Chien put out an update to Tenyo’s Flash Dice. It’s called Sonic Dice. It’s essentially Flash Dice but done with a clear container with a removable opaque sleeve.

Some may say this is just a minor change, and not worth the $50 price tag. I disagree. I think it’s a significant improvement and really builds the effect from phase to phase.

I was all ready to put my order in, and then I saw this.

That’s right. This clear plastic box, which should be the most innocent, nondescript piece of magic apparatus you can think of is emblazoned with his fucking name!

It’s such a profoundly dopey decision.

Maybe there’s some rationale behind it. Maybe you need to have some sort of company information on the actual product to help protect against knockoffs or something. I have no clue. But I know it could have been done in a smarter way than this. If it said “HC Gaming Supplies,” then that would probably be ignored by a spectator.

There had to be some other option besides putting the actual goddamn magician’s name on a box that was specifically created to seem innocent and free of guile. It’s not just that the creator’s name is on the box, but because it’s a clear box, that’s the only thing there is to see on it. And don’t say, “If you’re a good enough magician, they won’t want to look at the box.” That’s what sad magicians tell themselves when their spectators are totally disinterested in what they’ve just seen. “They didn’t want to look at the deck, because they really believe I’m a magician!” The truth is, when you perform this, you’ve made the dice and the box the focus of their attention. They need to be certain those things are normal before they can get to the feeling that you did something truly impossible. You might think because it’s clear they don’t need to handle it to know there’s nothing suspicious about it, but that’s not necessarily the case. If you don’t let them handle it they might assume there’s some clever magician thing going on that they just can’t quite fathom, but if they could get a look at the box, then they’d understand.

Even if you just assume spectators will have no interest in the box and assume you are a wizard, there’s still no justification for putting the name on the box.

Perhaps there was some kind of mix-up. Maybe they were making a list of shit they absolutely shouldn’t do with their new product. And at the top of the list was, “By no means should we put the name of the magician releasing the trick on the box.” And somehow the wires got crossed and accidentally it got put on there. That must be what happened.

I’d literally rather it said, “Trick Magic Dice Box” on it. That would seem so blatantly silly that people would disregard it. But no, instead they decided to give them the best search term to use in order to find the product online.

I like Hanson’s work as a creator, but the choice to put his name on the box (and to a lesser extent, the choice to put his logo on the case the box goes in) is the choice of someone who markets magic to magicians but doesn’t perform much for real people. If he puts out version 2 without that shit, I’ll be first in line.

Audience-centric Revisited

Do you have tips on turning magician-centric presentations into audience-centric ones? I feel stuck in that regard. —SC

Magician-centric presentations can cause the audience not to fully engage because it’s very easy to come off needy or ego driven. When an audience goes to see David Copperfield, they’re asking for a magician-centric experience. But when you offer to show someone something they didn’t ask for, it can be off-putting if that thing you’re showing them feels like it’s meant to shine the spotlight on you. You may say that that’s not your goal. Your goal is just to entertain them. But you’re doing so in a way that puts the focus on you. So even if this is truly an altruistic gift of entertainment, it’s easy for the audience to construe it as needy or self-serving.

It would be like if I showed you a documentary about what an awesome guy I am. Even if it’s a truly interesting documentary, it seems kind of desperate.

Which is why I’ve pushed the idea of audience-centric presentations.

But some people got hung up on that term. They figured if “magician-centric” magic was a demonstration of the magician’s power, then audience-centric magic was a demonstration of the audience’s power. So they assumed I was promoting spectator as magician/mentalist effects, or something like that. But that’s not what I was getting at.

Instead, think of it like this: Magician-centric = Ego-centric. Audience-centric = Story-centric.

And I don’t mean “story” like it’s often used in bizarre magic, where there is a story that is illustrated with a magic trick.

I mean what is the story of this interaction

If the story is, “Here is a demonstration of my power,” then you have a magician-centric presentation that may come off as a need for attention and validation.

If the story is pretty much anything else, then it’s much more likely to be seen as something you’re showing them to entertain them. And therefore it will feel like something you’re doing for them, rather than for yourself.

For example, if you do a five-phase 10 Card Poker Deal routine and your presentation is simply, “I can make you lose despite you making all the choices,” that’s a straightforward magician-centric presentation.

However, if you show people the same trick, but explain that you have this lucky rabbit’s foot that allows whoever holds it to win the game, the presentation becomes audience-centric. Not because it’s about the audience, but because you’re not making it about you. By not making the presentation about your skill, it’s more likely to feel like it’s something you’re doing for their benefit, not yours. Magician-centric and audience-centric, aren’t terms I use to describe who the trick is about. They’re terms I use to describe for whose benefit it seems the trick is being performed.

Even though the audience knows—at least in their rational minds—that there is no such thing as a lucky rabbit’s foot and this is just a framework for your trick, the fact that you’re not seeking credit with your presentation will make it feel that wasn’t your intention in performing for them. This will allow them to see it more as a piece of entertainment to be enjoyed than some sad show-off thing. This is the magician stereotype that you should try to avoid.

Magician-centric material isn’t inherently bad. But if you’re an amateur, and you’re performing for the same group of people more or less, then over time a bunch of performances that amount to, “Look what I can do,” “Look what I can do,” “Look what I can do,” are likely to wear thin.

But if you mix up your presentations, including some that shift the focus off yourself, then your magic is less likely to be seen as a celebration of yourself, which makes it much more sustainable in the long term.

Mind Unmapping

Last month I posted an idea from Colin Robinson in regards to a way to justify the placement of a word for the Acidus Novus peek.

In the same email he gave me an idea for a justification for the placement of a word in a center tear. Now, this placement doesn’t really need much justification. In a center tear, the word is, after all, in the center of the paper. You can just put a line on the paper and that’s usually more than enough of a cue for the spectator in regards to where to write and how big to write. What I appreciated about Colin’s idea was not so much how it justified the placement, but how it justified the tearing for a center tear.

First I’ll give you his basic idea and the modifications I’ve used when I perform it.

Colin’s email:

Mind Mapping

I talk to the spectator about the weird places conversations can go and the moments when you think "How did we get here?" and try to trace your thought process back to the origin point. On the back of a business card, I create a web diagram, and then have the spectator think of a word in the center and then let their mind wander to fill in all the attached bubbles in relation to that word. They fold up the card, and then I rip it up into pieces and put it in their hand. They pick out a piece and see a word from one of the outer bubbles on it, trace the thought back in their mind, then I reveal the word that was at the center of their mind map. 

Okay, so first, I don’t use business cards. I just use a piece of paper. Who am I, Magnús Ver Magnússon? I’m not full of steroids. I can’t be ripping through multiple layers of business card like it’s nothing. I’m only half kidding here. While it doesn’t take great strength to rip through a business card that’s folded in quarters and then doubled over on itself, it does take a bit more concentrated energy than I want to exhibit at that point in the trick.

I use a standard center tear. I don’t use one of those center tears where you get the peek as you rip up the paper. That’s precisely the wrong moment to get the peek (when you clearly have the word in your hand). I’ve written about this before. I won’t relitigate that here.

So I give the person a piece of paper with something like this drawn on it.

It doesn’t have to be that exact layout, that’s just what I use.

Then I ask them to think of anything at all. It works best if they think of a noun.

While I’m turned away completely I ask them to write that word in the center circle.

I then have them fill in the other bubbles with the most unrelated words they can think of.

The first couple of times I had them do it with related words, as in a traditional mind-map. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, this was a bit too believable. If you’re given a related word, then it’s perfectly conceivable you might be able to make the jump from one word to the other. Instead of mind mapping, this is mind unmapping. And I ask them to put down six random words that are as unrelated as possible to the target word.

When they’re done I ask them to fold the paper in quarters, set it on the table, and cup their hands.

I briefly turn back, just long enough to pick up the piece of paper, then turn my head away again and tear it up over their hands, stealing away the center piece in the process.

“I want you to shake up the pieces and remove just one piece at random. The piece should have some writing on it, but it shouldn’t have any of the original word you were thinking of on it. If you pick one of those pieces, put it back and choose another one. When you’ve got a piece that works, set it on the table and put the other pieces out of sight. If the piece you choose has more than one word on it, just tear it some more so only part of one word is showing.”

During this process I am turned around and opening the stolen piece to see what their word is.

By telling them what they should do if they pull out a piece of their original word, I’m reinforcing the idea that those pieces are still in their hands.

The piece of paper they give me may only have a portion of a word on it. If I can’t make out what the full word was, then I just ask them. Then it’s just a matter of working backwards from that word (apparently) to find out their original word. This is the fun part. It’s actually pretty easy. Just look for differences between the two objects and then suggest that those are the differences you would expect to find.

It will be clearer with an example.

The last time I did this, their original word was “mouse.” And the word they pulled from their hand was “bathtub.”

So I just did some improv based on the differences between those things. Differences they don’t know I know at this point.

It sounded something like this…

“Okay… bathtub. Well, a bathtub is big and heavy so the thing you’re thinking of is probably light. A bathtub is also an inorganic object, so you’re probably thinking of something alive. Maybe… a small houseplant or something? Hmmm… what else. Well, you associate a bathtub with a bath. Which is something many people find enjoyable and relaxing. So you must be thinking of something that isn’t calming. Something maybe anxiety inducing. So something small, alive, and anxiety inducing. Maybe… like… a rat or a mouse?”

In actuality, it wasn’t that straightforward, but that’s the general gist of how it went.

It doesn’t really matter if you stumble at this point in the presentation. Ultimately you’ll be able to name the word they were thinking of, so you have a way to end it even if you sounded like a babbling idiot leading up to that point.

The purpose I give for this exercise is that often people try and prevent mind reading (or psychological thought discernment—if that’s your style) by intentionally focusing on unrelated information. So, instead of fighting that, this is an exercise to practice working backwards from the unrelated information to the original thought.

Thanks again to Colin Robinson for sharing his ideas and allowing me to pass them along.

Sunday Flashback

While reorganizing and moving some stuff out of storage recently, I came across a bunch of old school work. Not, like, math homework—but stories, poems, and movies that I had made for school. I figured it might be mildly amusing to see some of the earlier exhibitions of the stupidity that would one day blossom on this site.

I found a couple dozen of these poems that I had written for an English class when I was 12 or 13. The style of poetry I was drawn to I would describe as “Shel Silverstein dealing with the late stage repercussions of a brain eating parasite.” As with all the finest poetry, it will really pull on your heartstrings and make you think.

It’s called…

A Woeful Ditty of Love and Sadness

There once was a boy named Jim Paladin
And everyone made fun of him
Not because he was short or fat or dim
But because he had no nose

He couldn’t smell the exhaust from passing cars
Or get a whiff of liquor when walking near bars
Or enjoy the aroma of fine cuban cigars
Because Jim had no nose

And everyone would stop and stare
And laugh and point and scream and glare
And say to themselves, “My, isn’t that rare.”
All because Jim had no nose

One day Jim had an evil feeling in his heart
And he bent over (ripping his pants apart)
And then he let out the most enormous fart
Which people smelled with their noses

And the fart-laden air filled the lungs of his foes
And they collapsed dead to the ground, so the story goes
And then their bodies began to decompose
Which didn’t bother Jim because he had no nose

The Juxe: Unhidden Meanings

I have a habit of listening to songs and getting lost in the music and the vibe to the point where I may listen to a song 10 times, even be singing along to it, and yet not realize what it’s about. Even when it’s obvious.

Here are three examples of songs that I enjoyed for a long time before the song’s meaning became apparent. I’ll start with the least obvious snd progress to the most.

Roy Sullivan by Upper Wilds (Brooklyn, NY)

I was really digging this guitar-heavy punk banger that came out a few years ago for quite a while before I knew what it was about. There’s a reason it took me a while to understand it. I thought the song was called Upper Wilds and it was a by a guy named Roy Sullivan. Then I realized it was the other way around. The song is called Roy Sullivan and the band is Upper Wilds.

Roy Sullivan is that guy you used to see in the Guinness Book of World Records.

He had the world record for being struck by lightning seven times. That’s what the song is referencing.

Count yourself lucky, one two three four five
Six seven times, the sky set my hair on fire
Made an enemy of Zeus long before your time
Standing in the open, far away from life

The Commander Thinks Aloud by The Long Winters (Seattle, Washington)

I think I knew it was a song about a space mission, but it took me way longer than necessary to realize that it’s told from the perspective of someone on board the Space Shuttle Columbia which broke up upon re-entry back in 2003. The refrain which is repeated over and over at the end, “The crew compartment’s breaking up,” probably should have been a clue.

This is a chill-inducing song. The optimism of the lyrics leading to that ending…it gets me every time. “Can you feel it we’re almost home…”

Song Exploder, a podcast that breaks down the makings of songs, had a good episode on this.

Ambivalence by Embellish (Denmark)

Embellish was a euro-pop band that released one really solid album 20 years ago. This song, Ambivalence, has a brilliant soaring chorus that demands to be sung along with. Which is exactly what I was doing one day while working with headphones on and my girlfriend at the time came up to me and said, “What the fuck are you listening to?” Somehow I managed to listen to this song for a long time and get wrapped up in the melodious pop enough to be singing along to it but never really realized what it was about. Even though it’s… not subtle.

I mean, the chorus is:

So get down on your knees
And let me penetrate you deep
From behind

Tuning Spectators

A question I addressed in yesterday’s mailbag asked…

I’d like to hear your thoughts on ditching objects after a vanish. A lot of times I see the advice to just hold it in classic palm or whatever until after the effect is complete or there is an off moment. But I feel like if you don’t clearly show that hand to be empty then that leaves an “easy answer” as to what happened. 

I think this may be another instance of spectators being too polite to actually say “uh, it’s in your other hand”. Kind of similar to the card to pocket problem. —JC

I want to look at another subject this question raises.

I think JC’s instincts are probably right (in fact, I know they’re right) about people often just being too polite to point out the coin is in the other hand. It might not even be politeness. Yes, some people feel like it’s their job to bust the magician. But more often it seems like people think their role is to be kind to the magician and not point out the obvious because this is all meant to be a bit of fun and of course the coin didn’t really vanish, etc. etc.

I feel like I sometimes have to train my audiences into an unnatural combination of feelings. I want them to know that the trick is all in fun, and that it’s not meant as a challenge. But at the same time, I want them to watch with a critical eye. I want them to “play along” with the premise. But I don’t want them to play along with being fooled. For some people, that’s a difficult mindset to get into.

To generalize, let’s say the two ends of the spectrum are “teenage boys” vs. “doting moms.”

“Moms” and “teenage boys”…. what is this… my Pornhub search history?

No, these are just examples of mindsets with which people might approach watching magic.

Often younger male spectators see magic as a challenge. And the goal is not to get fooled. “Let me see that. Wait… count those again. Can I hold the card? Can I shuffle the deck? That’s two cards, not one.”

On the other hand, a mom watching her kid perform magic is all-forgiving. She may see the cards separate or the unnatural way you’re holding your hand to hide the ball or that the coin is still in your left hand, but she’ll still say, ‘Wow, honey! You’re so magical!”

The 15 year old trying to bust you is not getting lost in the Magic (capital M). And the mom just cheering her son along is often not being attuned enough to take note of the impossibility of what is about to happen.

To be clear, the Mom and the Teenage Boy are just spectator archetypes. Your spectator may lean towards either end of the spectrum regardless of their age/gender/parental status.

Ideally, I want a spectator to be in-between these two modalities.

• I want them watching with a critical eye so that they’re genuinely fooled. I don’t want the spectator to ever feel like they’ve helped to fool themselves. That weakens the effect immensely.

  AND

• I want them to feel free to get lost in the presentation.

I think I’ve become pretty good at naturally guiding people to this mentality. If you find you have someone being too much of a “mom” or a “teenage boy,” then you’re going to want to tune your spectator. Nudge them a little bit one way or the other, like a radio dial or a shower valve.

If they’re too much of a “mom”—if they’re too supportive—then hit them with straightforward tricks that are challenging. Strip away any presentation. If you have a strong trick that is “just a puzzle,” that will work in this situation because you’re not trying to charm them, you’re trying to get them to be more critical. You want no real presentation and little to no handling for them to be able to “forgive” in their mind. A “test conditions” sort of effect is what’s called for. Richard Osterlind’s Challenge Mind Reading effect would be a good option here.

If they’re too much of a “teenage boy,” then you want to nudge them the other way. Show them something that is very hands-off (ideally self-working) with a presentation that is clearly not about you and the more fantastical the better. You want the premise to be so ridiculous that they’d feel stupid if they were to challenge it. If you say, “I’m going to read your mind,” or, “I’m going to show you how I cheat at cards,” that’s going to put the “teenage boy” personality into challenge mode. What you want is a premise that says, “this is fiction, just chill the fuck out and enjoy it.”

I find that it doesn’t take much to “tune” a spectator towards the middle of the dial. Usually after seeing a trick or two that was designed to push them one way or the other, they will pick up on the idea that they can approach magic in a different manner. If not magic as a whole, then at least the magic they see from me.

Mailbag #24

This email was in regards to the post A Story With No End

It may be just semantics, but I think that a magic trick begins and ends, but experiences can feed on itself and keep on going.

It can be a magic trick, a movie, a meal, it all has an end, but sometimes the impact is big enough to create something that will last. And then things in our daily lives can trigger the memory to recall the experience.

A movie exists on film, but your Jurassic Park is not the same as mine, to me it is connected to a bunch of nerds pointing to the screen during the session and screaming "this is a Mac, why use one to run Unix?"

So maybe the end of mystery of the trick will not end the experience, it will just change it. —IK

The point you’re making here is a semantic one. But the point I was attempting to make wasn’t a semantic one, it was a practical one. So let me clarify it.

Let’s not complicate it by thinking of a professional magic show, which obviously has a start and an end. Let’s just think of a casual situation where you show someone a trick.

When does the trick end?

You could say the trick is over at the climax of the effect. That as soon as you turn over their card, the trick has ended. But that seems like a strange way to think of things: that the very start of the emotion we’re trying to elicit is the end of the thing we’re doing.

Or—as I choose to think of it—you could say that as long as the person is fooled by the trick, the trick is ongoing.

When viewed from that perspective, it makes sense to not just perfect the sleights and the method that leads up to the climax, but also to take practical steps to maintain the mystery after the climax of an effect.

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Do you have any focus-group testing results coming up? —DT

There are about a half-dozen different things that were in some stage of testing when the coronavirus came along and put off testing indefinitely. I’m not sure when that will pick up again, unfortunately.

One of the most interesting things to me that we were looking at was in regards to how people perceive “spectator as mind reader” types of effects. For example, let’s say you’re doing a trick with a thumb-writer and a two digit-number. Which of these is stronger:

“I’ve written down my prediction of what two-digit number you’ll think of.”

vs.

“I’ve written down a two digit number. I want you to read my mind and tell me what number it is.”

I found the feedback we got on that very interesting. We were about 2/3rds of the way through what we wanted to do with that testing, but I may call it off early and just publish what we have if it looks like we’re not going to be getting groups of strangers together anytime soon.

Any testing results will likely be in the supporter-only publications, since they’re the ones who fund the testing.

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I’m working on an idea to use a coin vanish in the middle of a “failed” effect as a tribute to [insert otherworldly entity] to bring to effect to conclusion or as the imp for another effect. 

 I’d like to hear your thoughts on ditching objects after a vanish. A lot of times I see the advice to just hold it in classic palm or whatever until after the effect is complete or there is an off moment. But I feel like if you don’t clearly show that hand to be empty then that leaves an “easy answer” as to what happened. 

I think this may be another instance of spectators being too polite to actually say “uh, it’s in your other hand”. Kind of similar to the card to pocket problem. —JC

The best advice I can give (and maybe this is too obvious to even be considered “advice”) is to try and structure the routine so that you ditch the object before it has been revealed to have vanished (or changed, or whatever the case may be).

So: false transfer, ditch, reveal the coin is gone—not—false transfer, reveal the coin is gone, ditch.

The particular trick you have in mind might not allow that to happen, but I feel like, more often than not, you can structure things to allow for this type of ditch.

Your question brought to mind something else I want to talk about, but that will be a longer discussion for tomorrow’s post: Tuning Spectators.