Club Sandwich Varietals

Here’s an email I received recently…

I am a big fan of Club Sandwich by Andrew Normansell. Mark Mason markets the trick so it is often thought of as a Mark Mason trick.

[If you’re unfamiliar with the trick, it’s a repeat sandwich effect. The jokers find one selection, that selection is lost in the deck. You claim you’re going to find the second selection, but the first selection reappears. Then when you go to look for the second selection in the deck, it’s now switched with the first selection between the jokers.]

I wanted to share [the presentation I came up with] with you since the presentation can be used as a Universal Presentation (that has a Jerx style theme) for other tricks as well. So, you may find it useful as well.

Below is a "cut and paste" from my notes (my notes are often in block capitals since they are just rough drafts):

1. DO YOU THINK WE ARE LIVING IN A SIMULATION? I THINK WE MIGHT BE AND I THINK THE COMPUTER GENIUS WHO IS RUNNING IT IS ALSO A MAGICIAN.

LET ME EXPLAIN.

ONE OF THE OLDEST RULES IN MAGIC IS THAT YOU NEVER PERFORM THE SAME TRICK TWICE.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHY THIS WAS A RULE OF MAGIC. BUT I THINK I DO NOW. THE GUY WHO IS RUNNING THE COMPUTER SIMULATION THAT WE CALL REALITY IS ALSO A MAGICIAN. AND HE HATES TO SEE THE SAME TRICK TWICE.

LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I TRY AND DO THE SAME TRICK TWICE.

[PERFORM CLUB SANDWICH]

YOU FIND THE FIRST CARD.

AND WHEN YOU TRY AND FIND THE SECOND CARD - YOU FAIL.

YOU SAY THAT THIS IS THE PART I NEVER UNDERSTAND. WHENEVER I TRY AND PERFORM THIS TRICK AGAIN - THE FIRST SELECTION CHANGES TO THE SECOND CARD.

[POINT TO THE SKY]

SOME GUY UP THERE KEEPS SCREWING WITH ME.

—JM

I see where you’re going. But I think the “magician running the simulation” thing might be a bit too cute for me (and I like cute). It sort of violates my “is this a thing” rule. Is the idea of the simulation a thing? Yes. But the idea of a magician running it sort of pulls it back into the “patter” dimension.

It’s a fine line. And I’m not sure I can completely justify my reasoning here. But, “I’m going to show you we’re in the simulation,” is a good premise in my opinion. “I’m going to show we’re in a simulation and a magician runs it,” feels more like a jokey type of presentation/patter.

Here is how I would present Club Sandwich. I haven’t done this yet (I will), but I think it’s a pretty decent premise that people can relate to. And it accounts for one of the weird things in the handling—the fact that one card is signed and the other is not.

I’d perform it for a single individual.

“Can I get your help with something? I have a trick I’m practicing but there’s some sort of… problem with the method. There’s a glitch of some sort and I’m trying to figure it out.”

I’d have the person select a card (the force card).

“It tends to get glitchy when I repeat it, so I’m going to have you play the part of two spectators. This card will be yours. Pick out another… Okay, that one will be the other person’s. To keep them separate, write down the name of someone else on that card.”

They’re high as fuck, so they write down Dooble Gibbs.

“Perfect. So the 7 is your card and the 4 is Dooble Gibbs’ card.”

The cards are lost in the deck. I’d take the jokers from my pocket, drop them face up on the deck and the first card, the 7, would appear between them.

“Okay, perfect, that’s how it’s supposed to happen. Now, put the 7 back in the middle of the deck. Now we’ll go for Dooble’s card.”

The jokers would be placed on top again and again a card would be found between them. I’d set the deck down before revealing the card.

“Okay, let’s see. Damn… it’s the 7 again. See? This is what keeps on happening. It’s some weird glitch.”

Then I’d reorient the cards (as necessitated by the method) and toss the sandwich down away from me, and towards the spectator (if I know they’re not the grabby type).

I’d pick up the deck, spread it with the faces towards me. “Yeah, Dooble’s card is still stuck here. What is going on here?” I’d ask myself.

I’d close up the deck and pound the edge of the deck against the wall or the side of the table, as if I’m trying to jostle something loose to make it work. I’d spread the cards again and look through them. “Nope. What the hell…,” I’d close the deck and hit it harder this time. Spread through a final time. “Ah, okay. Now it’s worked. The 7 is back here which means now Dooble’s card should be….” I’d have them slide out the card between the jokers to now find the second selection.

I just like the idea of a trick being “glitchy” (which I’m sure has been used before) and that the only way you know to fix it is to rap the deck hard against something and just hope that knocks it into working order. I think that’s something people can relate to. So it’s an action that will feel very “human“ but the result of it should feel pretty magical. Which is a nice juxtaposition.

Weekly Carry Challenge To Build Your Repertoire

Do you have any thoughts on how to build up a 100 trick repertoire? This has been a goal of mine since you mentioned it years ago but I’m having difficulty with it. I’ll identify tricks I like but never really master them well enough to perform. I’m wondering if you have any advice other than “keep better track of what you want to perform.” —GO

If I was building up a 100 trick repertoire from scratch—and I wasn’t in the situation like I am now where I’m performing for people regularly—this is what I’d do…

First, I’d start keeping a list of potential tricks to add to my permanent repertoire. I would put a star next to the tricks that I knew I currently had the technical skill to perform (that is, the ones that don’t include a sleight I haven’t mastered or some gimmick or other item that I don’t own).

On Sundays I would scan the list and see what trick jumped out at me as something I’d like to work on next. And throughout the week I would carry with me whatever is necessary for the trick and find some way to perform it that week. So maybe I’d have a particular gimmicked coin in my pocket each day and I’d be looking for an opportunity to (hopefully seamlessly) work my way into that effect with someone. Ideally not the same person each week.

If the end of the week was coming along and I still hadn’t had the chance to perform it, then I’d just grab someone and say, “Hey, I need to show this to someone before the end of the week for a project I’m working on. Do you have two minutes?” It’s not as nice as working it smoothly into an interaction, but it will do.

The thing is, it’s hard to consider a trick part of your “repertoire” until you’ve actually performed it for someone. Until you do, it’s just this loose butterfly floating around your garden. It’s kind of in your possession, but you need to catch that shit and pin it down. So the goal is to get one performance of it out of the way. Once you do, you can now consider it in your repertoire.

At one trick a week, you’ll have your 100 trick repertoire in a matter of a couple of years. Maybe a little longer, since you will end up trying some tricks and deciding you don’t want to add them to your repertoire. That’s a perfectly fine pace.

You should then practice your repertoire once a month to keep things fresh in your mind. That may sound like it would take a lot of time, but most tricks you can speed through in a minute at most if performing it for yourself. Some only need to be run through in your head because they don’t really require any moves.

Once you have your 100 trick repertoire then you just need to maintain it, continue practicing it, and swapping tricks in and out when you find things you like better.

Building your repertoire takes time, but in my opinion, it’s one of the more fun parts about magic as a hobby. It keeps you from just mindlessly reading magic books and watching video lectures. Now you’re taking in this content with an eye towards what may be good for your repertoire. And the process of building it gets you out and performing. And then once you have your repertoire established, you will find more opportunities to perform than ever before, because you have this wide range of options to choose from.

While We Were Out

While we were away, David Blaine’s Ascension stunt, with Youtube, got delayed due to weather. I have no idea if this will end up being cool or lame, but I’ll definitely be watching. I love David’s ability to create such compelling visual imagery in his work. No one else really comes close.

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Gee, imagine the depravity Sydney’s bottom paranormalist is capable of.

This is Terrence Brabazon. Our latest GLOMM evictee. A true piece of shit. Go rot.

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So Blaine moved his stunt from New York City to Arizona. He’s not the only one ditching NYC these days. Due to high rents, coronavirus, increasing crime-rate, and other factors, there has been a fairly significant exodus of people out of the city. No one really knows the extent to which it’s an issue at this time, since we’re still in the middle of it all.

James Altucher wrote an essay called New York Is Dead Forever and Jerry Seinfeld responded.

Part of Jerry’s response resonated with me in regards to the virtual shows a lot of performers are stuck doing:

There’s some other stupid thing in the article about “bandwidth” and how New York is over because everybody will “remote everything.” Guess what: Everyone hates to do this. Everyone. Hates.

You know why? There’s no energy.

Energy, attitude and personality cannot be “remoted” through even the best fiber optic lines.

That’s sort of my feeling with virtual shows. They seem to cap out at about 60% of the impact of showing people magic in person.

And, from what I’m hearing from magicians over email, they seem to have given rise to a new Easy Answer. It’s the, “I don’t know what you did, but I bet if I was there in person, I could figure it out.”

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This trick, Pluck by Christian Grace, came out through Vanishing Inc.

It’s a trick where a selected card is lost in the deck and you suggest you’re going to “pluck” it from a dribble of falling cards. But you actually find two different cards. A 2 and a 6. You decide that means you’re supposed to count to the 26th card, which you do, and find the spectator’s card.

I don’t really have a fully formed opinion about this trick. It’s the sort of thing I’d have to try out to see the type of reaction it gets. My initial instinct is that I don’t really like the change in direction from, “I’m going to pluck out your card,” to, “These two cards I plucked out are cards I’m going to use to count to your card.”

It doesn’t quite violate the notion of The Trajectory of Expectations, because pulling out two cards that count to your card is, technically more difficult than just pulling out your card.

But it does replace a very simple, straightforward trick with something slightly more convoluted, and that doesn’t seem like the ideal progression.

But, as I said, I can’t really be sure how it plays without trying it out.

The main reason I bring it up is to spotlight this post from the Cafe thread discussing the trick.

Say what? I have absolutely no idea what the Tiny Plunger effect has to do with anything, but it’s random inclusion in that thread made me laugh.

I encourage you all to use this statement anytime you want to get your “two cents” in, but really don’t have much to contribute to the conversation.

I feel better just knowing I have it in my back pocket in those times when I don’t know what to say.

Them: “I find it fascinating the way Leni Reifenstahl distorted the diegetic sound in Triumph of the Will in a manner that was seemingly inspired by German art cinema.”

Me: “Hmm… yes… yes… indeed. Of course, I’ll stick with my Tiny Plunger. More entertainment value.”

Until September...

“It’s a great way to pass the time between acts of non-consensual sodomy.” —Joshua Jay on magic in prison.

What a fucking weird thing to say. But whatever. That’s the New York Times article I mentioned I was approached about a few weeks ago.

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Pete McCabe wrote in to tell me about this mini hand-held printer that allows you to print on “anything,” even skin. It definitely looks like it could have some magic applications. Especially if it’s quiet enough to use in real time. It can also print with UV ink on skin.

I’d probably use it to have someone intuit the hand-stamp I got at the club I went to the previous night.

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Hey, so maybe we’ve run out of magicians who can fool Penn and Teller.

I mean, look, it’s a perfectly serviceable presentation of a standard effect, but there’s nothing he does here which was even intended to fool Penn and Teller, correct? Or am I missing something?

What do you think Penn whispered to him at the end?

“Psst. This is on sale for $25 off at Vanishing Inc.”

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Okay, see you in September (or lose you, to a summer love, of course).

Top 10 Jerx Videos

Today I thought I’d go through 10 of my favorite videos from the first five years of this site. I know sometimes people are watching at work and they have to skip the videos. So I figured I’d make this post so you can bookmark it and check out my favorites when it’s convenient to you.

One thing that’s been a bit of a bummer in regards to operating this site in the past couple years is that I no longer live near my friend Andrew whose hands and voice you would see and hear in most anything audio/visual on this site. We still see each other a few times a year (including an extended visit when we do the book mailing in January), and he still does most of the A/V stuff, but churning out any video that requires us to shoot some footage (rather than just edit other existing footage) is not as simple, since we’re not in a room together all that often.

But we have plans to remedy that situation post-covid, so you may see more videos coming in the future.

#10 - Bad Equivoque and Shitty Fishing

This is actually three videos that were posted at different times. Now, I genuinely don’t really like making fun of other magicians. And that’s not really what I’m doing here. These magicians are all using the technique in the way that many magicians are. The issue is that most magicians have become blind to the fact that this shit doesn’t fool people like they imagine it does.

Apologies to Chris Ramsay who does a lot of things well, but this technique isn't one of them. Think of it this way: If at the end of the selection procedure the spectator is holding one card, there is another "floating in the air," and then it turns out the "selection" is the one the magician is left with... that ain't good equivoque, baby-boo

Because nothing says "choosing" one of two objects quite like touching the other object.

[Here is Devin Knight trying to use the, “You’re not thinking of a ____, are you?” fishing technique] in his recent Penguin Live lecture. You'll notice the spectator doesn't react as if he has provided information, she reacts as if she's giving him information, because she is. And what does the audience do? They laugh, because it such a shitty, obvious gambit that they assume he must have meant it as a joke.

#9 L&L Music

This video was based on my hypothesis that the reason we used to think those old L&L videos were so good was because of the jazzy soundtrack. To prove that, I put the same music under video clips that weren’t so great to see if we still had a generally positive feeling about the video.

#8 - Better With The Jerx

Some of these videos I probably appreciate more than the average reader. Seeing this compilation of things people accomplished during the Better With The Jerx contest is one such video.

#7 - The Magician’s Response to Tragedy Library

After watching magicians come out with corny, tone-deaf videos after natural disasters and acts of terrorism, I proposed the idea of a subscription service that would create videos in response to terrible situations which had yet to occur. Then, when something terrible did happen, you could just add your own branding to the video and post it up on your social media. That way you’d be prepared for any situation that arose and you could be the first one to capitalize on the tragedy.

Original Post

#6 Double Date

In order to see how a layperson turns over and replaces the top card in a deck, I spent a couple of years recording people doing just that. This, again, is probably a video I would appreciate more than anyone else, because it gives me a chance to see friends and acquaintances from that time period. Many that I don’t get to see too often these days.

Original Post

#5 Yeah Alright Woo

The pre-lecture ejaculations of Dan Harlan. This video is a bit repetitive, but that’s kind of the point. And the punchline in the last two seconds still makes me laugh.

#4 - How to Do an Elmsley Count

To this day, about every couple of weeks, I’ll get an email from someone thanking me for this video. And occasionally someone cursing me for it. Because once you see the issue with the way a lot of people do their Elmsley Counts (including people famous for their card handling ability) it will start to annoy you. The Elmsley Count should look like you counted the cards from one hand into the other. It shouldn’t look like you removed all the cards under the top card as a perfectly squared block, and then counted those cards back onto the top card. But that’s how a lot (maybe most) magicians do it.

#3 - My Reveal

Derren Brown and Mac King coming out as the people behind this site are, of course, modern classics in the magic blog video genre.

#2 - Boss Ass Bish

To really appreciate this one, you probably have to go back to the mid-2000s and my old blog and a magician named Glenn Bishop who hated my guts. Here’s my recutting of Glenn Bishop’s promo video to make it appeal to a younger demographic.

Original Post

#1 - mysextutor.com

And a sentimental favorite as it was the first real post on this site.

There’s a lot of stupidity in these videos that I really appreciate. As well as a card reveal and reveals for the 37 force, the 1089 force, the circle/triangle force, and the grey elephant in Denmark force.

You’ll have to go this site to watch them.

(Sometimes that site gets jacked up if you’re viewing it in Chrome. I don’t really know why. If it’s messed up, you can watch the individual videos here and here. Maybe I should upload them to Pornhub.)

A GLOMM Non-Booting

I received an email from a source in Japan that made a serious allegation:

I unfortunately have another addition to the GLOMM ineligibility list. This time it's the former head of the JCMA (Japan Close-up Magic Association) who was arrested for touching up a guy who was sleeping, and recently paid off two other children in settlements after being accused of the same. 

It's been an open secret in Japan that he likes housing young boys for sleepovers, and amazingly he'd been doing it for years before anyone thought to step in. Even more amazingly, he has set up a new magic group for children after getting booted out of the JCMA.

The name of this creep is Shigeru Tashiro.

For those who are new here, the GLOMM is the magic organization I started which everyone with an interest in magic is already a member of. But you get kicked out if you’re a convicted sex offender (or because I personally don’t like you.)

Now, I specifically chose to kick out “convicted” sex offenders because it gets messy if you have a less clear-cut standard. And I didn’t want to have to spend a minute of my life contemplating whether some specific accusation was serious enough to kick someone out of my made-up magic organization.

So, since Shigeru Tashiro apparently settled out of court, he will not be kicked out of The GLOMM.

In fact, if anyone actually bothers to do a little fucking research, they’d realize that Shigeru Tashiro actually has a really good excuse for molesting that guy while he was sleeping. According to this brief article from the Tokyo Reporter:

Tashiro, who has been accused of quasi-indecent assault, admits to the allegations. “I touched him out of curiosity,” the suspect was quoted by police.

See? Okay? Can we put the pitchforks away now? He wasn’t touching the sleeping man because he’s some weird creep. He did it out of curiosity. That’s all. Just an unrelenting inquisitiveness about the world around us that makes us ponder things like, “Why is the sky blue,” or, “I wonder what this guy’s beautiful cock feels like.”

The article goes on to say:

According to police, Tashiro got to know the victim through an unspecified hobby. At the time of the incident, the victim and another person were staying the night at the residence.

I applaud the Japanese police and media for not mentioning magic specifically—just leaving it as an “unspecified hobby.” Whether you’re the molestor or the molestee, you don’t need the additional shame that would be brought on to you and your family if it got out that you were into magic.

My Japan-insider also alleged in another email:

The really fucked up thing is that his organization was the main accredited FISM group in Japan, which meant that if young Japanese magicians wanted to compete they had to go through him (and I wish I just meant that figuratively).

He slowly removed people off the board who may create problems, so by the end was constantly organizing sleepovers for children with no oversight at all. Even worse, the sleepovers have apparently started up again.

I’ll admit this doesn’t sound great, but what he fails to mention is if Shigeru Tashiro still has unaddressed curiosities he’d like to explore, like, “Precisely how tight are that boy’s buttocks?” or, “How warm is a human rectum?”

Let me guess… you guys want me to kick out Stephen Hawking from the GLOMM too? That’s how ridiculous this anti-curiosity witch-hunt is getting.

If you want to take a deeper dive into this story, I recommend this article. It’s in Japanese, but from what I can tell, the Google translation of the page is 100% absolutely perfect.

The headline says:

“Shigeru Tashiro's face image and Facebook! Semi-forced obscene acts! Gay!?”

It’s just as you learn in journalism school: Who? What? Where? When? Why? Gay!?

Later in the article it said something that really got me thinking.

Shigeru Tashiro criminal action machine of the case caused by suspect

Did Shigeru Tashiro like men?

It's possible that gays are homosexuals.

I mean… I guess I always knew it was conceivable—in a theoretical sense, at least—that gays are homosexuals. But now I’m really considering it for the first time in my life and for some reason it truly does feel possible. In some cases, maybe even probable (as crazy as that is to say).

And finally, that page also compiles some Twitter and Facebook commentary on the case. Many interesting thoughts there. Although the comment below is probably my favorite. It’s a real fucking roller coaster ride. I had to send it through translate on its own to double-check what it said:

You can’t argue with that.

Rough Draft Week Follow-Up

RE: Kettlecorn

This in ingenious. I tried it tonight and it killed. It’s so much more than the sum of its parts.—PH

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That’s a great combination of two ideas that cancel each other perfectly.

The best thing about this routine is that it justifies you essentially imposing your performance on the spectator. “Hey, sorry to bother you, but can I show you this trick? I’ve been preparing for it for three days and I’m starting to get a headache. Okay? Thanks.” —PM

I like PM’s point. There are very few presentations in magic that justify why you have to do this particular effect right now.

And I also agree with PH that this is much stronger than you would imagine based on just the strength of the individual effects.

We think of Vanish 5000 as being an alternative for the thumbtip version. But seeing how well they work together has me wondering if there are other combinations of effects where we see one as a replacement for the other, when in fact they may be stronger when performed in concert.

RE: Lady in the Water

You could remove the photo paper completely, and have the image appear right on the bowl itself by using a photo emulsion like "liquid light".  Make the bottom of the bowl photo sensitive itself:  https://alternativephoto2015.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/liquid-light/ —DL

That looks amazing. I don’t know how feasible it would be to pull off in the course of a trick, but if you could, that would be dope.

RE: Precocious Precogs

A significant reason I pushed pause on pursuing social magic for a while was having kids. Soon, we were surrounded by small catastrophe-generators, since you tend to hang out with other parents in the same boat. I quickly learned that all the adults' brains are about 40% occupied by their little kids at all times; any attempt at a magic trick runs a significant risk of a serious (and probably more important) distraction. I think the answer here is unfortunately to not try a trick at all unless you're confident some little simpleton won't try to eat a woodchip or something. Your post today seems to have a great approach, but I wonder if you have any more advice about trick management around teeny boppers. —CC

I’ve always had a pretty good natural radar for when it’s a good time to show people a trick and when they’re just not in the state of mind to really engage with it. But since I can sort of feel it out naturally, I’ve never really given it much thought to formulate it into “advice.”

I have definitely run into the situation where a parent is only half-there and can barely hold up their end of a conversation, much less be present for a magic trick. But that being said, I’ve also been in situations where parents crave nothing more than a distraction and are completely down to see a magic trick. So I think it cuts both ways.

If there’s any question, then I would lean towards a trick that incorporates the kid directly, so the parent doesn’t have to turn their attention away from the kid completely. See “Kids and Animals” from The JAMM #7 for more on this subject.

RE: Under-Developed

I liked that idea about using the Photographic paper and developing it to show the match for the mustache.  I thought of using the dry sharpie, as you had mentioned, and instantly nixed it for the exact reason you described.  Upon reading the next thought, about predicting a location, I thought of an idea combining the two thoughts mentioned.  What if you had a photographic paper that has many (even 50-100) location written on it, while on the other side is the location you will develop in your presentation.  You can then go and place a mark (circle or X) on the written location in the list you are forcing.  Then use the dry sharpie method to make it appear that they marked that location and then demonstrate that their intuition or whatever is spot on as you flip over the paper and develop it to show a picture of that exact location.  Would love to hear your thoughts! —MD

I think it's okay, but I don't generally like using the dry marker ploy to choose something from a list.

What I particularly like—as in the mustache trick—is the idea that they draw a mark on the page somewhere and when the photo develops, that mark makes sense as a part of the image.

A mustache might be too ambitious. But certainly we can use the dry marker principle to get them to think they drew a line or something else simple.

So, let’s say they blindly “draw” a line on the photo. Then when you develop the image we see it’s a photo of a bridge that is out and the line they “randomly” “drew” is a line that connects the two sides of the bridge. “Oh, thank god. The people in that car can now cross safely.”

Or maybe they “draw” an X randomly on the page, then when the photo is developed they’ve put the X right in the winning spot in a photograph of kids playing tic-tac-toe on the street with chalk.

Something like that is good because their mark would add to the image, rather than just marking something on top of an image.

RE: Starcle Curve

I received a lot of positive feedback on this one. People were very happy with it. And I’ve become even more happy with it after performing it again this past weekend. For some reason, over the years, Starcle has come up a bunch of times in emails to me from people wondering if I had a presentation for the effect. I think everyone admires the method, but it didn’t necessarily lend itself to the type of magic they wanted to do. Hopefully this presentation will work for those of you who weren’t into the traditional presentation people use with this trick.

Of course, if you don’t do the standard patter, you won’t be able to do the ever-hilarious joke where you hold it up to your face and say, “Do you see the man in the moon?” So that’s a trade-off you’re going to have to be willing to accept.

Another fun joke at this point in the routine would be to say, “Hey look, I made a toilet seat cover. Do you want to shit on my face?”