Rough Draft Week: Precocious Precogs

If you’ve read my books, you know I like to incorporate children into effects for their parents.

I will often do this with some kind of video prediction, because it’s something the parents will keep forever.

If the kid is pre-verbal, you can have them grab at a card from a deck which will turn out to be the card one of the parents selects later. A 50/50 force deck is good for this sort of thing because you can show the camera a big mix of cards, but the kid only actually has to grab any one from one half of the deck.

But if the kid is at the point where they are speaking, especially if they’re in that mimicking stage where you can be like, “Say blueberry,” and they reply with, “Boobebby,” or something like that, then you can use them for a revelation in an effect.

You need a trick where you can force a particular word on people. Let’s say you’re using the Hoy book test and the word is, “Yesterday.”

Maybe you’re watching the kid while the parents are out or you just have a few minutes alone with him/her (because you’re not a creep and people don’t flip out when you’re alone with a child).

Record a video of the child and walk up to him and say, “Okay, Billy, say ‘yesterday.’”

Billy says, “Esterday.”

Now, in the same room, at the same time, record a video saying , “Okay, Billy, what word is Mommy thinking of?”

The room tone of these two recordings should be essentially identical. So it’s a simple matter of using any video editing software and removing the audio from the first question and replacing it with the audio of the second question.”

So now you have a video of you walking up to the kid. “Okay, Billy, what word is Mommy thinking of?” And Billy replies with, “Esterday.”

I’ve done variations on this dozens of times. Parents love this junk.

But in the last 18 months or so, I’ve started doing something new as well. I’ve started recording a third clip where I say, “Billy, what word will you think of?”

Now, 8-10 years later, when Billy is 12 or 13, I can send him a video as a prediction and have him think of a “random” word from a book. Then when he watches the video prediction, he’ll see himself as a toddler somehow knowing the word he would think of years later. I feel like that’s going to be a real Mind-F.

“You used to do this sort of thing all the time,” I’ll tell him. “You’d say ‘boom-boom’ 15 seconds before a lightning strike. Or we’d have you point to the team that you thought was going to win when we would watch sports on TV. And you were always right. Then your mom dropped you on your head one day and you became stupid like you are now.”

I know the idea of setting up a trick for a decade later is not something a lot of you will consider, but look, the time is going to pass either way. You know how quickly the last decade of your life went. The next will go even faster. It’s not like it’s a lot of work. It will just take 2 minutes of your time to set up something that will really astonish someone years from now.

Rough Draft Week: The Lady In The Water

Here is the concept as it stands in my head right now. I have a feeling this is not really possible, but something close to it might be possible.

The idea is you would have a seance type atmosphere established in a dark room. A subject for the seance to contact would be chosen by the spectator (forced). It might be a dead celebrity or a distant family member or something like that.

At some point in the seance you introduce a square-ish bowl of water.

Perhaps you have some secret way to cause the water to ripple, to indicate the spirit is present or something like that.

Then, at a later point in the ceremony, you pour some of your tea into into the bowl and then, after a little bit, you look in the bowl and amidst the swirling tea, you can see the distorted face of the person you’re trying to contact.

Freaked out, you dump the water into a potted plant nearby.

The next day the plant is dead.

Okay, so that’s the idea. The way I think you could maybe do something like that is if—adhered to the bottom of the bowl—there was actually undeveloped photographic paper with the ghostly image on it. And the “tea” you dump into the water actually contains photo developer. So, what looks like a strange image appearing in the water, is actually the photo being developed. But with the addition of some other type of element coloring and clouding the water, maybe it won’t seem like a photo? That’s my thought at least. Like if your spectator is in a darkened room, and they think they’re just looking into a white porcelain bowl, and you’re swirling the bowl and the cloudy water inside, and as they’re looking into the water a face begins to emerge, that would be scary as shit, right? It is in my imagination, at least. I don’t know if it would work in reality.

Then as you dump the solution out you could secretly remove and ditch the paper so print so the bowl is clean.

Oh, and you’d replace the plant overnight with a duplicate dead plant.

This idea came out of an email correspondence with supporter Sam W.

Here was Sam’s initial idea:

[Here’s a] photography based idea I've been working on [that would work as] more of a seance. 

You'd need to completely black out a room. Then light it with red lights, which would be quite an eerie environment for a seance, especially if you can use candles with a red glass around them (no idea if that works). 

Then in the middle of the table is a tray of water (actually just water), at some point in the seance (maybe the start) you place a piece of photo paper into it. Nothing will happen because it is just water. 
However at an appropriate point in the evening you sneak in a small amount of developer (which you normally mix with water anyway) and after a short period of time an image (which you preexposed onto the paper earlier) will begin to fade into view. 

I've no idea what the image would be, perhaps a photo of the ceiling above the table with something creepy coming out of it? 

The best part is that to develop a photo you also have to use a second chemical to "fix" it into place. 
But that won't happen here, so when they turn the light on at the end, the image will slowly fade away to black, and different shapes/patterns etc will appear along the way. 

I like the idea of leaving behind evidence, but then it fading away over time to create this weird object. 

I like that idea too, but thought it might be cool if we could disguise the fact that it was a photo at all by having the photo paper flush to the bottom of the bowl. And water that is so murky and cloudy with other shit in it that you can’t see exactly where the image is.

Again, I don’t have the technical knowledge to know if anything like this is really possible. But I get the sense that something similar would work, if not exactly how I wrote it up. And it would it be cool and creepy if we could get somewhere near that goal.

Rough Draft Week: Kettlecorn

If I was writing an advertisement for this it would say:

While at a restaurant you take the cap off the salt shaker and pour some of the salt into your closed fist. The audience can see the salt flowing into your hand. Instantly all the salt vanishes and your hand is seen to be completely empty.

You repeat the effect with sugar. Again, all the sugar crystals completely vanish. No thumbtip used.

It would be one of those ads that is sort of technically true, but would still annoy you.

In the first phase they do see the salt go into your hand, and in the second phase you don’t use a thumbtip.

So the idea is simply to do a traditional salt vanish (with a thumbtip) and then follow it up with Vanish 5000 by Gregory Wilson from the Art of Astonishment books.

I believe people will remember the image of the salt going into the hand in the first phase, and will remember the fairness of the slow, clean vanish with empty (no thumbtip) hands from the second phase, creating a sort of “best-of-both-worlds” illusion for the vanishing salt/sugar effect.

Now, why not just use sugar both times? You could, but switching from salt to sugar is part of the presentation that I’m going to go with.

It would go like this. I’d offer to show them something and then do the traditional salt vanish with a thumbtip.

“You wanna know how it’s done?” I’d ask.

“It’s simple science. Have you ever been so dehydrated that when you finally get to drink some water you’re able to down half a gallon in just a few seconds? Your body just immediately absorbs it. And then there’s other times, when you’re not dehydrated, that you can barely choke down 8 ounces of water

“This is based on a similar idea.

“About 6 days ago, when I knew we were meeting for lunch, I started starving my body of sodium/salt. I’ve just been consuming iceberg lettuce for the past week to put my body in a state of hyponatremia, which is severe sodium depletion. It’s not very safe, to be honest. I’ve been having intense headaches the past three days. But the cool thing is, when you put salt in contact with the body when it’s in that state, it just immediately gets absorbed into the skin, so it looks like it vanishes.”

They will probably be incredulous at this explanation. A faux-scientific explanation like this will often get a response like, “Okay, if that’s true, let’s see it again.” Ideally I’d get a response like that, but either way I’d continue on…

“I’d show you again but it won’t work now that I’ve upped my sodium levels.

“Oh, actually though, I could do it with sugar. With nothing but iceberg lettuce in my system, I’m running dangerously low on carbs as well.”

Then I’d do Vanish 5000 and lean in close so the other person can clearly see nothing suspicious happens, yet the sugar somehow vanishes too.

Reading this back now, I realize it’s a fairly well fleshed out routine. Not so much a “rough draft.” It’s just that I’ve never actually performed it, so it still feels “rough” to me, although I think it’s structurally sound.

The idea was spurred from an email conversation with supporter Irenee M, who wrote in an email to me:

"Right now, my preferred way to do vanish 5000 is to absorb the sugar through the flesh of my hand after a long day spent walking with a friend, as “I can only d this when I’m really tired.” It’s a, “quicker way to get the sugar directly into my veins.”

So thank to Irenee for the main presentational concept.

I think this combination of methods—when done in this order—is particularly strong. Most people, when seeing a salt(or sugar) vanish, will assume they weren’t paying close enough attention because they didn’t know what was about to happen and that you somehow ditched the salt at some point (you’ll often catch people looking on the ground as if you just tossed the salt away when they were distracted). You must have done something with the salt after it was in your hand because they clearly remember the slow trickle of salt going into your fist. So, when you repeat the effect, where is their suspicion? It’s on what happens after the salt(sugar) is put in your hand. The beauty of Vanish 5000 is that the dirty work happens long before that point. So using it as a follow-up to a traditional salt vanish allows them to burn you as much as they want and they’ll be putting their focus exactly where you want it to be for them to be fooled as much as possible.

Coming This Week

On the site this week it’s going to be Rough Draft Week. I’ll be sharing some ideas that I think might have some promise, but I only have a very basic idea of how you might use them.

To call these ideas “half-baked” is an insult to chocolate lava cake. They’re just ideas that I think could have potential, but for whatever reason I haven’t pursued them past the idea stage. So I figured I’d post some in case anyone wants to take one of the ideas and run with it.

The Juxe: Discography - Sloan

Sloan is one of my all-time favorite bands. I think they’re exactly what a rock band should be. They’ve been around for almost 30 years with the same line-up. They all write songs. They all sing lead at times. They all play multiple instruments.

They’re from Canada, and I always assumed they were like Canada’s Rolling Stones or something. Like a band that everyone in Canada knew. But then I looked at their youtube page and they have only 5000 followers. So I have no clue how big they really are in Canada. In the US, they’re not very well known at all. They’ve never had a big US hit, so anyone who knows them is someone who actively seeks out music.

In this post I’m going to give a favorite song from each of their releases to date. I’m not going to go into any deep cuts, I’m going to stick mostly with the hits, since a lot of you are probably new to them.

Underwhelmed from Smeared (1992)

This was probably their biggest “hit” in the US, reaching the #25 spot on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart. This album has a bit of a grunge/shoegaze sound that they wouldn’t really return to again. But this is a favorite song of many.

She said, "You is funny"
I said, "You ARE funny"
She said, "Thank you"
and I said, "Never mind"
She rolled her eyes
Her beautiful eyes

People Of the Sky from Twice Removed (1994)

Okay, according to some research I’ve done, Twice Removed was named one of the best Canadian albums of all time. So perhaps they are as big in Canada as I imagined, and I can’t really make a judgment based on how many people subscribe to their youtube channel.

I chose this song because I like almost any song with bah-bah-bahs in the lyrics. (And it’s probably the only one I’ll list that features the primary drummer, Andrew Scott, singing lead.)

The Lines You Amend from One Chord To Another (1996)

When I had my old blog, The Magic Circle Jerk, back in the mid-2000s (it doesn’t exist anymore), I had a sister site called The Lines You Amend, where I would dump some stuff that might be interesting, but I didn’t want to clutter up the main site with it. The name of that site was taken from this song.

It’s a little time-warpy to watch this video in 2020, of a song from the mid-90s, with a video that’s sort of mimicking a style from the mid-60s.

Money City Maniacs from Navy Blues (1998)

Navy Blues is where I first heard of the band, and it’s one of my favorite albums of all time. I have 1000s of albums in my collection, but this is one of only a handful where every song has been added to my “permanent rotation” playlist.

The first time I ever heard of Sloan was when a girl I knew put “Keep on Thinkin’” on a mix-CD for me. Out of context I thought that song sounded kind of southern-rock-ish, and I figured that’s what the band was. I ended up buying the album and realizing how wrong I was.

Below is the arena rock song Money City Maniacs which features the line, “And the joke is, when he awoke his, body was covered in Coke fizz.” Which has been apparently misheard frequently as, “And the joke is, when he awoke his, body was covered in goat piss.”

Losing California from Between the Bridges (1999)

If It Feels Good, Do It from Pretty Together (2001)

Rest of My Life from Action Pact (2003)

HFXNSHC from Never Hear The End Of It (2006)

A short punk number from their longest album (30 songs and 78 minutes). The title stands for Halifax, Nova Scotia Hardcore.

Witch’s Wand from Parallel Play (2008)

I think I’ve told this story here before. I was tangentially involved with the production for this video which lead to me meeting and dating one of the actresses in it for a couple years. So along with the fact that I think it’s a great song and video, my personal connection to the song will make this always a favorite of mine.

Midnight Mass from the Hit & Run EP (2009)

This song, and the previous one, are Jay Ferguson numbers. Band member Chris Murphy describes this one:

Midnight Mass” from the Hit & Run EP is quintessentially Jay: slap back everywhere, clicky bass sound, doubled acoustics, quirky (musical) piano figure, elaborate backing vocals (that get mid song applause when we play it live, Grand Ole Opry style) and the whole thing barely cracks 2 minutes.

Shadow of Love from XX (aka The Double Cross) (2011)

This is right up there with my favorite Sloan albums. This song gets a cool reprise six songs later on the album in the song Beverly Terrace.

Cleopatra from Commonwealth (2014)

Commonwealth was a double album with each band member taking one of the sides of an album. I didn’t love the conceit because I sort of like the way the previous albums wove together the material of the different members. But with that said, there were still a bunch of songs off the album that I dug.

Spin Our Wheels from 12 (2018)

A great power-pop gem from their most recent album.

Revisiting: The Look of Love

The Look of Love was a trick I published on the site back in 2016. Familiarize yourself with it if you want this post to make sense.

I wanted to mention how I do this effect these days, one-on-one, with no wingman helping me out.

The trick looks the same. I ask the person to name an object of a particular color and then I remove a photo of that object in that color from my wallet. While the effect is pretty much the same, there are some slight tweaks to how I approach it.

So let’s say I’m seated with someone out at a cafe or restaurant.

Imagine

“Let’s try something,” I say. “I’ve got an object in mind. First, think of any color. Not like a super-specific, 64-count Crayola box color, but just any regular standard color.”

“Pink,” she says.

I become slightly excited. “Ah! This just got more interesting. Okay, now think of any sort of object in the world A tangible thing you can touch.”

“Anything?” she asks. “Uhm… a palm tree.”

My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? Did you see something? Did someone tell you? Someone told you.”

She’s on the defensive now. “What? What do you mean?”

“Don’t play with me. Someone told you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.

“Are you serious? You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

I let my attitude change from skeptical to, “Did this really just happen?”

“Okay… so… uhm… there was this old game show… Hold on, check this out,” I say as I pick up my phone and search for something online. “If I can find it… wait… here it is.”

I then show her a blog post called, “The most fruitful game show in TV history.” It’s about an old game show called At First Sight which paired up random men and women and the most compatible ones—as determined by a series of challenges—would be matched up on a date and win a cash prize. I don’t read the post word-for-word, but I just sort of summarize it. I mention how they only shot three test-episodes of the show but four couples that met on the show ended up married.

Then I get to this part which I do read word-for-word:

“Okay, check this out, it says, ‘The show was made up of different games, challenges, and “tests.” Of these, the one that seemed to be most predictive of a compatible match was a segment called “At Second Sight,” where the man would have an image of an object of a certain color on him and the women would have to guess what it was, based solely on intuition. Of the four couples produced by the show, all had at least a partial match of color and/or object during this segment.’

“Apparently that was based on a game people played at the time called, The Soulmate Test. Where guys would carry a picture or drawing with them and if a woman named a similar object they were compatible or something.

“I’ve been trying it with people, just because I thought it was interesting to hear what people would guess. Not because I really thought much about it.

“But check this out.”

I pull out my wallet, remove an envelope and give it to the person I’m with. She opens it and finds a picture of a pink palm tree.

Method

I think you can put the pieces together. You send the image to the printer while you’re supposedly trying to find the article. There is more than enough time to do this. If I said, “Find a picture of a yellow can opener,” you would just google yellow can opener and hit images. If I said, “Find this article on a blog you once read,” that would be a more time-consuming thing. So don’t worry about rushing to find the right picture. You, of course, just have the article bookmarked so you can bring it up immediately after you send the picture.

I now ask for the color first as opposed to the object. This makes a little more sense, because if they get the object right first, then the color would almost be an afterthought. But if they get the color right it’s more like, “Huh, okay, this is interesting. But now for the real test.”

I don’t bring up anything about the old show or the old “soulmate test” until they’ve got it right. Then at that point, when I’m excited about it, I begin to explain it, realize I’m not doing it clearly, then go to the phone to bring up the article to help explain. That, to me, feels very natural. I wouldn’t bring out the article initially because why go to all that trouble for this thing that probably isn’t going to work anyways? And pulling up the article before showing the picture also makes sense, because I want to put the picture in context and explain why I even have it.

So that’s how I do the trick with no secret partner. In an ideal world, I’d use the confederate method, but this is just so much easier to pull off, so it’s the version I use most often.

The blog the article appears on is a supplement to this site which features a few different articles I use to work my way into tricks, as well as a whole lot of articles that have nothing to do with any trick. So the blog really seems like it’s just someone’s collection of interesting stuff. It feels completely normal. And the fact that it hasn’t been updated in a couple years only makes it more normal.

You can read more about the idea behind that blog here.

I have the printer in a pocket in my computer bag which is at my side. The photo spits out pretty much right into my hand. I use my own card to sealed envelope set-up which isn’t written up anywhere because it’s not the sort of thing anyone else would like. Just search for “card to wallet” and “sealed envelope” and you’ll find a number of different options online.

Two potential changes I’m considering making.

1. I may start using this Instax printer rather than the Zip printer. I like that the photos look like those mini-polaroids. Potential issues might be the size of the printer and if they’re nosier than the Zip printer. The cool thing is, if they do work for my needs, I might be able to us some of my ideas for aging a Polaroid to create an older looking photo. (Thanks to ML for suggesting this.)

2. I may go with David Regal’s Cop Wallet for this. That wouldn’t allow me to use an envelope, but I could just throw the wallet on the table at the very start and say, “We’ll get back to that later,” which I think would feel very fair to the audience. I’m considering it.

And finally, while I refer to this game show and the “soulmate test” when I perform it the trick, I don’t then say, “Look, this must mean we’re soulmates and have a special connection.” The purpose of mentioning the show is to give some sort of historical context for why I might be carrying a “random” picture with me. That’s all.

Break Glass In Case Of Emergency

I have a bit of an emergency to deal with today. It’s nothing serious, but it’s going to keep me from having the time to work on a post today.

Fortunately, I have something saved for just this type of situation.

It’s a Penguin marketing email from 2009 where Alvo Stockman rhapsodizes about gum. (This is real, I didn’t make it up.) He speaks of gum with more reverence than people speak of the polio vaccine. I held onto this email for a decade plus because it always made me laugh. I’ve heard people talk about their newborns with less adoration and awe than he lavishes on gum.

But you also get the sense there are some gum regrets lingering under the surface as well. It ends on a bittersweet note that suggests his gum experiences—while having a profound effect on him and everyone else in his life—had the potential for so much more.

Here it is…

✿✿✿

Magic is all about giving.  Giving an experience of wonder, laughter and excitement.  But wouldn't it be great to give all that AND something that's slightly longer lasting?

In high-school, I was the gum guy. I always had a pack of gum in my pocket and I loved how easy (and cheap) it was to put a smile on someone's face with a fresh stick of juicy, flavorful gum.  They'd be chewing it for hours.

It AMAZED me how simple it was to start talking to anybody, even the prettiest girl (Kristen, 5th period) when I had such a casual, fun gift to offer.  Who doesn't want a piece of gum?

To this day, no matter who I'm talking to, or who I WANT to be talking to, it's ALWAYS a great time to ask, "Want a piece of gum?"

Enter Jeff Prace.  GUM by Jeff Prace takes this simple RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL.  Jeff is pretty much doing what I WISH I could have done growing up. Blowing people away with super cool closeup MAGIC with gum.  And people are eating - well, chewing it up! ;)
Check out the trailer here: http://bit.ly/7iifOG

And what are the two DREAM effects people want to see with gum?  1) Making MORE appear, and 2) turning OLD gum back to NEW gum - DONE and DONE.  This DVD knocks both out of the park! PERFECT for anyone looking to interact with humans in their natural habitat, Jeff goes through in detail how to perform AND get the most out of these EASY-TO-DO and KILLER effects plus two more!

Oh what I wouldn't give to go back knowing what I know now... enjoy GUM!