My Simple Note-Taking Set-Up

You’ve talked about your organizational system, which I’ve modified for my own use, but I don’t know if you’ve mentioned how you keep notes (if you do keep notes) when going through a new magic book. Any tips on this? —ES

Sure. This is what I use for note-taking with a magic book or any other non-fiction book that might be of some functional use to me. It’s pretty straightforward, but I know a couple of other people who have adopted it and found it useful too.

The heart of the idea is this: You need to have two places where you’re keeping your notes. So two notebooks, or two different documents on your computer. Or, if you’re the sort of person who marks up the physical book you’re reading, you just need one notebook in addition to the physical book.

Here’s what I do…

When I read a book I keep note of anything that’s of interest to me. It might be a trick I want to try or a quote I like or an interesting concept or a joke or a clever bit of writing. Whatever it is, I capture it in my first notebook. This is my “Comprehensive” notebook.

When I’m done with the book, I read through the notes I’ve taken in my Comprehensive notebook and I take notes on those notes in my second notebook.

Here I just pluck out anything I noticed the first time around that requires action on my part.

In the Comprehensive notebook I’m going to be broadly noting anything of interest that I may want to consider again at a future point. Anything that piques my interest in any respect.

In the Action notebook, I’m going to be plucking the things from the Comprehensive notebook that I need to do something about. It’s part “notes,” part “to do list.”

If I’m reading a book about starting a doughnut making business, I may note some different recipes and some fun doughnut trivia and some inspirational doughnut quotes in the Comprehensive notebook.

Then, from that notebook, I will pull the things that I want to be proactive about. 1. This is a doughnut recipe I want to try soon. 2. This is the paperwork I need to file. 3. This a book recommendation I want to follow up on. That sort of thing.)

I came up with this system after vacillating between the two for a while. Either I’d keep notes that were so all-encompassing that the important action-oriented things got lost. Or I’d just take notes on the things I wanted to take action soon and I’d fail to note all the things I might want to revisit at a later date. So I’d have no way to recapture the nuance and flavor of the book I read without going back and rereading the whole thing.

Breaking it up like this gives me the best of both worlds.

The Juxe: How to Introduce New Music to People featuring A Giant Dog

I’ve really been enjoying your Saturday music posts and I’ve found half a dozen or so bands and artists I really like through them. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on ways to introduce people to new music. My wife is open to discovering new music but I find it hard to get her hooked on any. —SR

Well, I never push music—or anything for that matter—on anybody. So let me put that out there first. I treat everyone like cats. I don’t pursue cats hoping they’ll let me pet them. I sit back and get on with my life and if a cat jumps in my lap, well then buddy, you’re going to get your little face scratched so good.

I try to be that way with music, magic, conversation, etc. I never push any of that on people. But I try to make it clear there’s an open invitation and then make it worth their while if they decide to join me.

So all that is just to say that I don’t try to introduce people to music unless they’ve expressed an interest.

Once they do, then I have a little plan I follow.

Here’s the mistake people make. They’ll say, “Oh, I know this great band, you have to hear them,” and then they’ll play them a song or an album. That doesn’t work too often. A song is too little. An album is too much.

I have a playlist on my phone that is made up of a bunch of different three-song introductions to some of my favorite bands. Three songs is good to give people a flavor for the band without wasting their time if they’re not into the music. The three songs might be all from my favorite album from the band. Or they might be songs from across their oeuvre.

So, let’s say you had never heard of the Beatles. I might play you something from their earlier records, then something from a more experimental phase, and then something from their final record. So you’d get a general sense of how the band evolved over time. Or maybe I’d pick a John song, a George song, and a Paul song (fuck Ringo) so you get a sense of their various personalities through their music.

I’d play you that three song introductory mix sometime, usually when we’re driving somewhere. A long road-trip is a good time to focus in on music. If you were into the band I might play you more at that time or get together sometime later to listen to my favorite Beatles album. I’m a big fan of the “let’s hang out and listen to an album” meetup. I know that seems like something out of the 1960s, 70s, or 80s. But it’s still my scene, and I’ve really connected with a number of people in my life that way through music.

Of course, for some people, that’s just not something they’re into. So, as I said, I don’t force it. I’ll connect with them in some other way.

---

Here’s a little three-song mix from the band A Giant Dog out of Austin, TX. They’re a rock/punk outfit featuring an incredible front-woman, Sabrina Ellis. She kinds of reminds of Janis Joplin but with a ramped up sexual energy.

She’s joined frequently on lead vocals by guitarist Andrew Cashen. They have a great chemistry together and also front the less-punkish, but equally awesome band, Sweet Spirit.

Here are three A Giant Dog songs:

First is “Sleep When Dead.” one of my favorite songs from their first album on Merge records, Pile, which came out in 2016.

This toned-down acoustic rendition of their song, “Jizzney,” showcases how nicely their voices mesh.

This video for the song, “Lucky Ponderosa,” does a great job of capturing the infectious high-energy of their live shows, which are so damn good.

Rough Draft Week: Starcle Curve

In the last issue of the newsletter I wrote about The Learning Curve Universal Presentation.

This is an idea I had for using it with Dan Harlan’s Starcle trick. It gives the presentation a little more of a build and an arc, as opposed to the original. Not that there’s anything wrong with the original. This is just more my style.

So you tell people you’ve been learning the ancient Japanese art of paper tearing and offer to show them some examples.

You take a napkin and unfold it. Have a spectator write a 1 in the middle and a 1 in one of the corners. Fold the napkin back into its normal square configuration and tear out a 90 degree arc from the corner of the folded napkin that contains the center of the napkin. Unfold the frame and unfold the center to show you’ve torn out a circle of a napkin. Big fuckin’ whoop.

“That’s considered Level One Japanese paper tearing.”

Ball everything up and toss it aside.

You take a second napkin, and have the person write a 7 in the center and a 7 in one of the corners. Fold it up, as per Starcle, except for the last fold. Then with one straight tear you will tear out a star shape. Unfold the frame and center piece to show the two stars.

“That’s considered Level Seven Japanese paper tearing.”

Ball it all up and toss it aside.

“Would you like to see level 816 Japanese Paper Tearing?”

This is intriguing. They will want to see it.

Unfold a final napkin and have them write 816 in the middle and in a corner.

Fold up the napkin as per Starcle. Tear out the middle, allowing the spectator to hold onto and keep the middle piece.

You then unfold the frame, again showing a circle.

“I know, I know,” you say. “It looks like we’re back at Level One, but this is what makes it Level 816.” And you then unfold the torn out portion to show it’s a star.

I think this is pretty close to how I’ll do it going forward. But I’ve only had a chance to try it out twice, that’s why it’s in Rough Draft Week.

The first time I did it, it went quite well, but I wanted to prevent the idea that I had maybe switched in some pieces from the previous examples. That’s when I added the balling up of the old pieces, as well as the spectator writing the numbers on the napkin.

With that change, I think it’s..

Thanks to supporter PS for sending me on this path of a presentation for Starcle. He had written an email and mentioned the idea of doing Starcle twice. First just demonstrating your ability to tear out the star by itself, and then doing it again with the actual Starcle effect. That idea grew into the full presentation above.

Rough Draft Week: Under-Developed

On Tuesday I shared an idea based on an email conversation with supporter Sam W. This is another idea that came up in that conversation. It seems like it would be quite difficult to pull off, but if you could, I feel like it would be very powerful.

From Sam W:

One of the most magical experiences of my life, was the first time I went into a darkroom (at the age of 15), and I placed a blank piece of paper into a tray of liquid and watched as my image faded into view. It felt incredible. I get great enjoyment in teaching my friends how to develop photos and watching as they make their first print!

I was wondering if there was a way I could recreate that experience for the people I'm performing for.

From Me:

I don't really have any ideas off the top of my head for this. Although I did think how cool it would be if you had someone think of any object and write it down. Then you tell them that they've actually written on photographic paper (or whatever it's called) and you develop the paper and the photo that appears is of the object they wrote down. That may be impossible for a number of reasons, but it would be cool.

From Sam W:

Some form of what you described isn't necessarily impossible. I guess you'd need to have some kind of limited range of objects they can choose from and an index of preexposed but undeveloped photos. 
It would be a nightmare to setup, and I'm not sure if there is any time limit between exposing the paper and developing it. But what a great idea to explore.

---

I like this idea quite a bit. So, let’s say they write down “Apple” on the sheet. When it’s developed, they would see an image of an apple appear with their writing overlaid on top of the image. If they felt like the word was truly a free choice, that would be an awfully strong trick.

It might be a good revelation for one of those categories of objects where it seems like there are lots of options, but really there are only a half dozen or so that are regularly named. Then you would just need an index of those undeveloped photos.

The one thing I’m not sure about is if an undeveloped photo needs to be completely in the dark (or red light) until it’s developed. If that’s the case, that could make things a little awkward. But potentially interesting as well.

For example, you have someone join you in a completely dark closet or room. You ask her to name a European city, and you have her write it down. You then ask her if she has any idea why you’re in a darkened room. She says, “Because you’re a creep?” You say, “No, it’s because you didn’t just write the word you were thinking on a piece of paper. It’s actually an undeveloped photo.” You turn on a red light. “You could have named any city in Europe. I gave you the chance to change your mind a few times. You could have picked Venice, Rome, Barcelona, London, or 100 other options, but you settled on Paris.”

You then develop the image and of course the Eiffel Tower or whatever appears under the word they wrote.

The darkened room would likely make the swapping in of the correct image that much easier.

Another idea I had, which I have absolutely no method for, would be to give someone a sheet of photographic paper and tell them to draw a mustache on the paper. The mustache can be drawn anywhere, in any orientation, and of any size. Then when the photo is developed it’s a picture of a man and the mustache is drawn right below his nose.

The closest thing I came to a method is using a dry (non-working) Sharpie. So—in typical dry Sharpie fashion—you tell the spectator to make a “scribbled line” on other side of the page without looking. They would then see the pre-drawn line and assume it’s the line they made. The problem is, I think there’s likely to be too much variation between what they think they drew and what they end up seeing on the paper.

That method does have potential for a similar type of effect. Maybe you use the dry Sharpie to have them make an X in a “random” place on the paper and when it’s developed the photo is seen to be a picture of your high school marching band and the spectator has X’d out the face of that bitch flautist who broke your heart.

Okay, perhaps not that exact premise, but I do think there is something in the combination of a dry marker and an undeveloped photo that could lead to something interesting effect-wise.

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.