If you search for “best opening lines in songs” online, you’ll get things like, Across the Universe, by The Beatles. “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup.” Uhm, okay. That’s fine and all. But if you like that, then the opening lyrics to these songs are really going to knock you on your fat ass.
Here are three songs where I heard the opening line and thought, “Okay… let’s see where this goes.”
Last Friday I wrote about Squared Anagrams and how you can build your anagrams in such a way that you get more information with seemingly less guesses.
In that post I used a Ouija board as the divining instrument, but that’s not the only way to use it (it was just the easiest to illustrate).
Before I get to some alternative ideas, I want to emphasize why this works so well.
Let’s say you have a 16-item traditional anagram.
That means you need to have four letter guesses to sort out which one they picked (either four guesses on average, or four guesses exactly depending on how you build the anagram).
So you might have
Yes, No, Yes, No
Yes, No, No, No
No, Yes, Yes, No
And 13 other potential
With the squared anagram, and just two “volleys” you only have four potential outcomes:
Yes, Yes
Yes, No
No, Yes
No, No
Each of these outcomes has a simple “story” that goes along with it:
Yes, Yes = “This is working!”
No, No = “Ok, this isn’t working. Let’s try something else.”
Yes, No = “I thought it was working, but that must have been luck. Let’s try something else.”
No, Yes = “Something wasn’t right the first time. But now it’s working!”
Coming up with a “story” for four guesses can be a little wonky, depending on how they fall out.
Yes, No, Yes, No = “It’s working! No, it’s not. It’s working! Nope, it’s not”
No, No, No, Yes = “It’s not working. It’s not working. Seriously, this isn’t working at all but I’m still going to ask one more letter. As if getting a Yes on this last letter could possibly be meaningful in any way at all that would be discernible from dumb luck.”
It’s because of the potential for these up and down types of responses that I always felt it was better to use some kind of oracle or process (other than straight mind reading) to “receive” the letters. This way, if a letter is wrong, it can be the oracle/process that is wrong. Or the oracle/process that you misinterpreted. That makes a little more sense than, “I can read your mind, but for some reason I thought there was a B and an M in the word ‘little.’”
With “Squared Anagrams,” the idea is just to use an oracle/process that is fuzzy in some way in order to cut down your guesses dramatically. (A six-guess standard anagram would cover 64 outcomes. A six-guess squared anagram would cover 4096 outcomes.)
The Ouija board is a fuzzy oracle because you can’t always be certain which letter is being indicated.
Here is a more useful “fuzzy” process.
This is the method my friend uses for his Squared Anagram routine and it goes over very well. The spectator is thinking of a word. My friend takes his right hand so it’s across his body, palm out, at his left shoulder. “I’m going to go through the alphabet, from A-Z. When I say a letter that’s in your word, I want you to think ‘Yes.’ Just think it. Try not to move your mouth or anything else.” He now starts reciting the alphabet and sweeping his arm from left to right as if he’s spreading out the alphabet in the air in front of him.
“A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M- ooh… something around here,” he says, stopping his sweeping motion and going back just a bit, moving his hand in a circular motion in the air around where he stopped.
“An L?” he asks.
If he gets a Yes: “And an M?”
If he gets a No: “It must be an M then.”
Now he knows if it’s an L, M, Both, or Neither. Four options with just one “impulse” from the spectator. And it makes complete sense that this “impulse” might not be exact. The person isn’t mentally sending him a letter. She’s sending him the thought, “Yes.” But she’s sending out that thought as the alphabet is passing by. It would be like throwing a tennis ball at cars in a line of moving traffic. Did you intend to hit the one that just passed or the one that was coming?
If he gets a “Neither,” then he pauses here, and he repeats the process with a known word. The spectator’s name. “Okay, something’s not right here. I’m not picking up on the right thing. Let’s try this. I’m going to go through the alphabet again—forget the word you’re thinking, for now—instead, when I get to the letters in your name, Dana, I want you to think Yes. That should help calibrate things, if this is going to work at all.”
So he goes through the alphabet again, with them thinking Yes on the letters of their name.
Now that they’re properly “calibrated” he resets and goes through the process again. This time getting a hit somewhere between R and S.
Now, if we call a “hit” getting one or the other letter correct (or both), that means:
After two guesses, you’ll know the word and…
9/16ths of the time you’ll get two hits- “This is working!”
3/16ths of the time you’ll get a hit followed by a miss - “I thought it was working, but that must have been luck. Let’s try something else.”
3/16ths of the time you’ll get a miss followed by a hit - “Something wasn’t right at first. But now it’s working!”
1/16th of the time you’ll get two misses - “Ok, this isn’t working. Let’s try something else.”
To build this anagram, you just need two sets of adjacent letters anywhere in the alphabet, and then fill it out with words (or names) using that criteria.
What other types of fuzzy guesses could work?
Fuzzy Alphabet
Lowercase letters offer a number of 2-for-1 guesses like m and w.
Do these letters says buph? Or something much, much more wonderful?
If you had some homemade alphabet flash-cards—maybe something your kid drew, or you drew as a kid—you could have two “randomly” selected letters and from them you could unpack 16 potential possibilities.
Fuzzy Sounds
“Sound the letters out for me in your head, one-by-one. Let’s see… I’m getting a…hmm a muh or a nuh, I think. Are you thinking of an M or a N? Both?”
You can also use B and P, S and Z, and C and K.
Fuzzy Visuals
“Picture the letters in your head for me. Cycle through them for me one-by-one. Hmmm. Okay, I’m going to really need you to concentrate for me, if you can. I think I’m getting something but it’s out of focus. I think I’m getting a C or maybe an O? I can’t tell if it’s a closed circle or not. Were you thinking of one of those? Both?”
And, of course, you could (perhaps should) combine these ideas. Maybe at first you have them think of the way the letters look. But since that wasn’t very clear, you then go on to how the letters sound.
If you think guessing letters is boring, you’re right. But I still think this is a tool that can be used for some non-boring effects. I’ve watched my friend really fry people with his own routine (which he tells me he’ll let me share here next year at some point). And I’ve recently come up with my own routine that I’ve only performed a couple of times, but if the reactions continue to hold up, it’s going to be a “book worthy” effect, so supporters of the site will see it some day in the future.
Did you guys see this unsettling image put out by the World Health Organization to demonstrate the horrifying effects of disuse-induced muscular atrophy over time?
To see the sad progression—from a robust healthy specimen; to someone who has lost so much muscle mass in his chest that he can no longer fill out the shirt collar that droops flaccidly around his neck; to, finally, a hunched crone whose limbs you could crack like kindling—is devastating.
Drink your milk, folks. And hit the gym.
Here’s some more bad equivoque for you. This is what happens when you get caught up in the idea that equivoque is inherently fooling. It’s not. And when you take 90 seconds to force one side of an invisible die in a meandering nonsensical way, you’re not going to be able to convince anyone it’s anything other than verbal ambiguity.
No one would experience that and say, “You’ll never believe what happened! I freely chose which two sides of an invisible die to cover up. Then I freely chose which two of the remaining numbers to give to the magician. Then we hung the remaining numbers invisibly in the air, and again I freely chose which one to hand to the magician. And he knew I’d keep the three!”
To be fair, any type of equivoque used to force a number on a die is probably not going to go over well. Any manner of choosing the number on a die (visible or invisible) that doesn’t involve simply rolling it is going to feel needlessly complicated.
This video also reminds me of a conclusion I came to a little while ago that equivoque doesn’t work well with 3-6 items. It works well with a lot of items. And it works well with 2 (and it’s really effective with 1). But with just a handful of options, it makes less sense to break up the selection process into steps (which is usually what equivoque requires).
If you have a little time to burn, check out this video that Calen Morelli put out late last year. I found it to be a really worthwhile watch and it hasn’t gotten nearly enough views.
I mentioned in this post an idea I had to float someone’s hair with a loop, and how I gave up on the idea. But Calen actually does it in this video and gets a good reaction, so maybe I was too quick to abandon the idea. [Update: Calen tells me he published the idea in 2014, which makes sense. Looking back now, I think I got the idea to float someone’s hair with loops after doing Calen’s floating hoodie string from his Penguin lecture. So I was circling the same thought process he was playing around with a few years earlier.]
There is a lovely coins through sheet of glass effect around 6:40 into the video. I was really blown away by it when I saw it initially. When I showed it to some non-magician friends, they liked it, but not nearly as much as I did. That experience was the impetus for me writing The Bubble series of posts from back in February. Magicians will have the understanding to appreciate how pretty this version is, even more so than laypeople. That’s not to say it’s a trick “for” magicians, just that there are elements of it that magicians might be more amazed at than non-magicians.
The whole thing is a good watch, with a bunch of nice magic moments throughout. And it’s really well shot and produced. (Although the audio drops out at one point (due to a copyright claim) so be prepared to do some a cappella singing on your own at that point to keep the groove going. Might I recommend this hot beat? skee-dop-doo doo doo doo skee-dop-doo dee!)
I watch most of the online magic lectures that are released. I buy a number of magic books every year. I read a few different magic publications. And in the last week I’ve received 60 emails from magic companies informing me about their new releases.
When there is so much magic material released all the time, it can be overwhelming to try and mentally process it all. I find it helpful to come up with a set of “dealbreakers” so that you can more quickly move through tricks without worrying if you’ve given them the proper consideration or not. If the trick includes a dealbreaker in its premise or methodology, then I can just reject it automatically without having to give it much thought. Just automate it. Make it like one of those machines that uses cameras and little battering arms to sort out the unripe tomatoes.
With so many tricks available, it makes sense to have the highest standards for the material to which you’ll devote your time. I don’t mean every trick needs to be a 100% unfathomable miracle. I just mean why not pick tricks that are built on premises and methods you like?
Today I thought I’d start a series where I share some of my dealbreakers. Not because I think you should have the same ones, but just as examples and inspiration for others out there who might want to generate their own list.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting any of these dealbreakers are things that make the trick inherently flawed. They are just things that I, personally, don’t use. But there are plenty of other magicians who have plenty of success with them.
1. Book tests where the magician is holding the book while the spectator looks at the page.
If I wanted you to look at a word in the book, I’d give you the book and have you look at a word. The thing where the magician holds the book open and the spectator looks at a word is not a normal way to do such a thing. And it’s impossible for the spectator to find the word and read it and be certain that you weren’t looking at something or tilting the book a certain way to get a peek at the same time.
The best book test reactions I’ve received are one the person is across the room looking up the word.
2. Peeks using a stack of business cards.
All those peeks where a business card gets buried in a stack of business cards are a no-go for me.
Some of these peeks are very nicely constructed, but in a social situation, people don’t carry a stack of 40 business cards with them.
3. Tricks using a faro shuffle
The faro shuffle is somewhat abnormal looking and requires a level of concentration that is not compatible with the concept of “mixing” (an action that is meant to be unstudied and random).
I’m not suggesting that you’re making a mistake if you use the faro shuffle in your tricks, or that regular people even see it as weird. I’m just saying for my personal preference—where I’m placing a very high value on card handling that looks as normal and unstudied as possible—it doesn’t really fit.
It’s a bummer because I miss out on a lot of great tricks that use the faro shuffle.
4. Tricks that rely on very narrow timing forces
It’s one thing if the person has to stop somewhere within a packet of 13 cards. That’s fine. But the common timing force you see where you get them to stop on the 6th or 7th card (or something similar)—that’s something I tend to avoid. Not because I think it doesn’t work, but because I feel it requires an amount of intensity or focus that I try to avoid in the moment. You need to get them to deal at a certain pace and time your phrasing just right. It tends to stick out when compared to the rest of my delivery.
5. Tricks with more than three moments of magic
I’m a little looser with this rule than with others, but generally, if the routine has a bunch of phases, I skip it. Magic is odd that way. You would think the more magical moments, the more magical the routine would feel. But usually it’s the exact opposite, in my experience.
Sure, the trick might be dumb, but that name is…
This is an astrology sign reveal using Scrabble tiles. It’s more of a proof-of-concept idea than anything else. You could likely come up with something similar for another group of words, I just chose astrological signs because I was inspired by a reader who was doing something similar.
I don’t really do astrology sign reveals much. It wouldn’t make too much sense with the people I perform for.
“I’ve consulted my psychic powers, and I believe your astrological sign is… Virgo”
“No shit. We celebrated my birthday together just the other month.”
The way it would work is you would have a bunch of scrabble tiles in a bag and have the spectator shake the bag to mix them up. You’d dump some in their hand and tell them to keep any letters in their zodiac sign and put them in their pocket and to set the other letters aside face-down. You don’t see the letters they keep or discard at any point.
Then you do another round of this. After which you know their sign.
You need to deliver them a certain group of letters each round. You could do that with a force bag or change bag. It wouldn’t even need to have multiple chambers for each round. You could just have the second round’s letters in your pocket and set them up in the bag while the person is looking through the first round’s letters.
Or you could have the necessary letters finger-palmed and reach in and pretend to just grab a small handful of letters from the mixed bag.
Or you could do something like this, where the force letters are in your right fingers holding the top edge of the bag and you’re shaking the bag mixing the loose letters at the bottom of the bag. Then you grab the bag in a way that isolates the loose letters and drop the tiles from your right hand into the bag. They wouldn’t intermingle with the other letters due to the way your left hand would lock off that part of the bag. Then you apparently dump out a few random letters out of the bag. (Here my friend is demonstrating with coins, because he doesn’t have Scrabble.)
Either way, in the first round they get these letters: B, C, P, S, T, U
You don’t have to know what letters they keep, just how many letters they keep. You do this just by looking at how many they discard.
In round 2 they get these letters: B, I, M, O, P, V
In each round you can also include letters that don’t appear in any signs, like D,K,W,X,Y,Z.
By consulting this chart and seeing how many letters they kept each round, you’d know their sign
Now, does it make a lot of sense to do this with astrological signs? No, not really. Not if you don’t have a larger-scale premise for the whole interaction. But, as I said, I’m just using this as an example.
You could perhaps come up with a similar system to determine what word they’re thinking of from the top of this Scrabble box (you’d probably have to eliminate the 2-letter words).
I have to say that it was much more difficult coming up with the groupings of letters than I had anticipated. Every time you change one letter around, it potentially changes everything else as well.
If I was going to use this technique, what I would probably do is first come up with my two groupings of letters, then create my list of words (if they keep 0, 1, 2, or 3 letters in each round, that would give you 16 possible words total). And then I’d put those words onto a Scrabble board and take a picture of some friends around the board like they just finished a game. Then I’d have that picture in my house and I’d be able to use that as a Hook to go into the trick. “Hey, think of any word you see on that Scrabble board.” This way there would be some correlation between what they’re thinking of and the “tool” being used to divine their word.
If you end up doing anything interesting with this idea, let me know.
I really enjoyed your Associative Memory Imp post, and I had an idea for a minor tweak I thought you might like.
It could be pleasantly weird to pair the ‘mistaken’ final card with a mistake in reciting the poem. That way, you could confound correcting the recitation with ‘correcting’ the trick, e.g. for that last stanza/ace:
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll I am the master of my fate:
I am the general of my soul
[I cut to and turn over random card. Seemingly a mistake. I turn it over]
[Pause a beat] No. That’s not right... It goes: I am the captain of my soul.
[I give the “random” card a little one-handed spin on my middle finger, then turn over the card to reveal the last Ace.]
—MT
Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. The only thing to be concerned about is that you don’t want to break the person’s focus between revealing the incorrect card and revealing the correct card. So you don’t want to pull back and have them look up and take their attention off the card. I’ve seen that happen with similar “faux mistake” situations. The mistake breaks the rhythm so they lean back or shift their gaze in some way, and the correction ends up not hitting as hard as it could.
So I would recommend keeping your focus burned on the card in your hand to suggest that they shouldn’t take their eyes of it either.
But other than that one potential issue, I think it’s a great addition to that Imp and I’ll be giving it a shot.
I’m going to be moving to New York City next year. I know you lived there for at least a few years so I wanted to know if you had any NYC -specific tricks that are particularly impressive to people. —TY
New York City specific tricks? Hmmm… no. Not really. I mean, I do try to take advantage of the environment as much as possible wherever I’m living, but I’m not sure I did much that could only be done in NYC.
One time I was in Grand Central Station with a couple friends and I sent one of them to stand off in the corner somewhere while another person drew a picture with me about 30 feet away in an opposite corner. That spectator then walked over to the guy in the other corner who was able to tell him what he drew.
I was able to cue him from across the room due to this.
I will tell you the absolutely most impressive thing you can do in NYC. It’s not a trick, but it’s something I would do all the time and receive tremendous accolades from strangers. When you’re on the subway, someone’s going to light up a cigarette or be playing their music really loud without headphones. It’s usually some sort of sketchy/scary looking character. It’s clearly someone who doesn’t give a shit about social norms or offending other people. So most of the train will just sit there and deal with the smoke or music filled car.
A few years into my time in NYC, I just made a rule with myself that whenever that happened I would go up and tell the person to knock it the fuck off. Regardless of how scary the person was, or what my instincts told me to do.
Most often the person would put out the cigarette or shut off the music. They might give me a look, but not much more than that.
Sometimes they’d play dumb like they forgot they weren’t listening through their headphones or that you can’t smoke on the subway.
And maybe 10% of the time it would escalate a little. But the secret here is, while everyone on the subway is acting like a big pussy initially, once you make the move to confront the person, you’ll immediately have back up if it escalates. Even if a person won’t confront someone doing something wrong, they’ll usually be quick to support someone who does confront them. So you’re never really alone.
And you’ll become the hero of the subway.
(There’s also a small percentage chance you’ll get shot. So maybe don’t do it.)
I was eating out with a friend and some new acquaintances the other night and the conversation turned to tv magic. My friend decided to mention that I did magic and so of course everyone rounded on me and started asking me about magic etc.
At one point one of the guys asked me if I knew how Dynamo walked on water. I answered honestly that I did. This of course led to the inevitable ‘so how did he do it then?’ When I politely declined from divulging I didn’t need to be a magician to predict the next question; ‘But why can’t you tell me? It’s not like you’re going to do it anyway...?’ Of course I started to explain that it wasn’t mine to give away, hey maybe I will do it one day, and anyway it would ruin the trick if you knew how it was done.
Well it got them off my back, but later that night I was thinking about it and I realised I don’t think any of that adequately answers the question. I mean, why not? Why can’t I tell them how it’s done? I’m not convinced that them knowing the effort and thought that goes into these kind of tricks would decrease their appreciation of magic; au contraire! I think they would walk away with a newfound appreciation of (what can be the art of) magic. Also I’m not really clear on the ethics of revealing secrets in this context. Is it even wrong at all? Perhaps so, but if so I’m not clear as to why. When all is said and done, possibly the best answer really is that from a business standpoint if I may do it in the future I should hold back, but come on, let’s face it. Even if I do get my own tv show I almost certainly shan’t be doing the tricks they were asking me to reveal.
All in all I suppose my query is this: what - if anything - would you recommend answering, and in general what are your thoughts on the matter? Perhaps the best answer would simply be to lie and say, ‘hm, wow, I have no idea!’?
Anyway, I’d be interested in anything you have to say on the matter. —YG
I don’t think there’s much to be gained by telling them. But it’s a matter of personal conscience.
Here in the U.S. we haven’t really had a standout performer like that in some time, so you don’t get those questions much. (Or maybe I just don’t hang out with people who watch magic on tv.)
Here are the sort of things you could say/do in a similar circumstance.
“I have no clue. The rumor in the magic circles are that there are only 2 people in the word who really know. So anyone who says they do is probably full of shit.”
“I used to think I knew how he did it. I thought what he did was [here you’d accurately describe what he did]. But then one time I was at a magic convention and he was there, and we were both in a group of people who went out walking later at night once things had shut down for the day. And as we were walking he genuinely just skipped over the top of a fountain that was 25 feet across. And it was a completely normal fountain and he was completely unprepared. So I guess my theory was wrong.”
“Yeah, I know how he did it. But I did some freelance work on that special and I signed a non-disclosure agreement so I can’t tell you exactly. However, if you stop by my place next week I can show you something similar and I’m sure you’ll figure out how I do that and you’ll be able to extrapolate the method for what he did.” If they do show up the following week, show them something similar, but make sure there’s no chance it’s something they could figure out.
Explain it to them under the condition that they can’t tell anyone that you told them. A couple weeks later, ask who they told that you explained the trick. They’ll probably say they didn’t tell anyone. Then you show them an official looking letter from the Global League of Magicians and Mentalists (or some other body) saying that your membership is being terminated for exposure. “One of you must have told. Unless they had someone at that restaurant who was paying attention. But that seems unlikely… although they have done weirder things in the past.” Now, in order to maintain your membership, you have to come up with two unique tricks to make up for the one you exposed. And now you’ve set yourself up for a storyline for some future performances.
Apparently there is a big cross-over in readers of this site and horror movie fans, as I got a good amount of feedback and recommendations after the first post on this subject.
There were fewer good movies in the second half of the run. This is due to the fact that I started with some of the better reviewed films and worked my way down. So most of my comments here amount to, “Eh, it was alright.” Next year I’ll do it the opposite way. I’ll pick my 31 movies and then organize them from worst reviewed to best reviewed and watch them in that order. That way the movies won’t be getting worse as I’m becoming a little burnt out on horror movies.
A couple people asked me to write a more about the plot of each movie, but:
a) That would require me doing more writing when you could just find that information with a google search.
and
b) I prefer to know as little as possible when going into a movie. I think that’s the best way to experience a film. So I end up telling you no more than I would want to know.
By the way, a good site for horror movie recommendations is thrillist.com. I got a lot of ideas for what to watch this October from their Best Horror Movies of 2019 list.
And if you’re a general horror fan, the-line-up.com is a great site for info on horror and true crime movies, books, podcasts, and tv.
Here we go…
Oct. 18 - Daniel Isn’t Real - This was pretty good but didn’t quite do it for me. It actually deals with a premise I like quite a lot for magic tricks: the return of your childhood imaginary friend. Stars Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son and Tim Robbins/Susan Sarandon’s son. If that matters to you. (Shudder)
Oct. 19 - Sweetheart - A girl is shipwrecked on an island and there’s something malevolent in the water. Again, another okay movie. The premise felt different, but it didn’t blow me away in its execution. (Netflix)
Oct. 20 - The Curse of La Llorona - A couple decent jump scares. Perfectly watchable, but also mostly forgettable. (HBO Max)
Oct. 21 - The Prodigy - Another creepy kid flick. Better than average, but not remarkable. (Amazon Prime)
⭐️ Oct. 22 - The Perfection - It almost felt like a 45 minute movie followed by its 45 minute sequel. I thought the first half was genius. The second half was pretty good as well, but didn’t live up to the first half. But still, I definitely enjoyed it. Another one you should go into without knowing anything about it. (Netflix)
Oct. 23 - Brightburn - This was pretty good. An interesting combination of two genres. (Starz)
Oct. 24 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - One of Renny Harlin’s first films and a highlight of the NIghtmare franchise, but not exactly a great movie by any other standard.
Oct. 25 - Child’s Play (2019) - Okay movie. Child’s Play is a movie that somewhat warranted a remake, given how much children’s toys have progressed in the past 20 years. So I don’t begrudge them making it. But it wasn’t anything special. (Amazon Prime)
Oct. 26 - Nightmare Cinema - An anthology movie consisting of five short films. None of the pieces were bad, a couple were pretty good. Overall fine.
Oct. 27 - Halloween (1978) - A classic. If you’re a younger person seeing it for the first time after seeing numerous other films that have been influenced by it, then maybe it’s not that impressive. But I’ll always enjoy rewatching it. (Shudder)
Oct. 28 - The Banana Splits Movie - Pretty much the only movie I watched all month that I actively disliked.
⭐️ 💀 Oct. 29 - Eli - A creepy setting and a bunch of jump scares made this good and then the movie going in a direction I didn’t anticipate pushed it into the top tier of movies I watched in October. Not a great movie, but one I found pretty entertaining. (Netflix)
Oct. 30 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child - A relatively low point for the franchise.
Oct. 31 - Kindred Spirits - I kept on expecting this to veer off into a more supernatural sort of story. But because it stayed in the “real world” I couldn’t quite make sense of the main antagonist’s motivations. A quick, easy watch. But not great.
There you have it. See you next October.
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