HIT Thoughts

If you’re familiar with it, what are your thoughts on Hit by Luke Jermay? I’ve been playing with it since he taught it on his Vanishing Inc. Masterclass, but the reactions have been only so-so. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a multi-phase blackjack effect (sort of) where the spectator has a free choice between two blackjack hands and you always influence them to pick the losing hand.

Here’s the demo (it’s long).

I really like the trick, but the people I’ve shown it to have been sort of lukewarm on it. —FP

Oooohhh… luke warm. Luke Jermay. I get it. Good stuff, FP.

While I like the construction of this routine, the presentation used in the demo is not one that I would recommend to anyone performing for friends and family.

Imagine yourself as the recipient of this presentation.

First, imagine yourself in a hotel bar. You strike up a conversation with a stranger. He mentions that he studies “influence.” After some conversation about this, he offers to show you a demonstration. And somehow he causes you to pick the losing blackjack hand every time.

You might think, “That was crazy. Was he really influencing me? Could it have been just a card trick. I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to do much.” It would be the sort of encounter that would leave you wondering.

Now, imagine it’s your brother performing this. “I’m going to use subtle psychological influence to cause you to pick the losing hand each time.”

“Uhm… no you’re not, Todd. What are these… trick cards or something?”

It’s a completely different situation when you know the person.

“Influence” is the least attractive type of presentation to use with friends and family. There are a few reasons for this.

First, you’re claiming to have special powers. This, by itself, can rub some people the wrong way. (Although there are plenty of ways to present it in a palatable manner.)

Second, you are claiming to have special powers that actually exist. It’s one thing to say you can float a dollar bill with your mind. Everyone realizes that’s a fantastical premise and no one is supposed to take it seriously. On the other hand, there actually are influential people and influential techniques. So claiming you’re one of these people or you have mastery of those techniques (when they know you and know it’s not true) could be off-putting.

Third, you’re claiming to have a special power, that actually exists, that allows you to exert your will over them. You’re not just pretending to have a skill you really don’t possess, like a super-memory or the ability to do rapid math. You’re demonstrating your ability to control other people. This is the sort of thing that might be compelling from a mysterious stranger. But it’s much less attractive when it’s coming from your co-worker, Melvin. Out of all the impossible, magical “stories” you could tell… you chose the one that makes it seem like you have an incredible skill that makes you more powerful than them. You’re almost begging people to push back against this. In fact, if they’re really supportive of this presentation, it suggests they think you’re a little pathetic. “Wow! You really influenced me to lose each time. Good job, Peter! Good for you! What a clever young man you are!”

But the good thing about this trick is that you’re not locked into this presentation of influence. My understanding is that Luke goes over some other options in the download. (I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say for sure.)

I would probably do some sort of “lucky charm” type of presentation.

I’d bring out a small box, open it up, and reveal a lucky rabbit’s foot.

I’d tell my friend I know they have some big opportunities and challenges coming up and they need all the help they can get. “If you’d like, I’ll sell you this rabbit’s foot for $800.” When they look at me like I’m crazy, I’d say, “Okay, $750.”

Of course they wouldn’t take me up on the offer, and would be wondering where this joke/trick was going.

“Okay, your loss,” I’d say. “This thing is the real deal. I’ll show you.” And I’d go grab a deck of cards and use Luke’s routine as a demonstration of the power of the rabbit’s foot.

This allows an additional decision during the process of the trick. Not only does the spectator get to decide who gets which cards, they also get to decide which of us get’s the rabbit foot.

This nicely shifts the trick away from a result of: “You lose. You lose. You lose.” Now it’s a matter of the luck following the rabbits foot. So the result might be: “I win. You win. You win.” But the “you or me” aspect doesn’t matter that much. I’m not causing you to lose. This is just a fair and powerful demonstration of the luck of this rabbit’s foot. But they won’t get the sense you’re really trying to convince them of that. So they can play along and just enjoy the effect without indulging a presentation that’s about me being some psychological, machiavellian genius.

If they’re someone who’d want to keep the rabbit’s foot, I’d let them. “Why don’t you hold onto this. No payment needed… right now. We’ll see what luck comes your way. And anything you may luck into financially, I’ll take… say…10%.”

Monday Mailbag #36

What’s the latests we can send Christmas cards to you for the purposes of the trick you’re working on? —WP

Well, I’ll take Christmas cards at any time. But it’s probably best if I have them by the 20th or so. My plan at this point is to try out the trick with a few different people, and I may do so throughout the holidays, so I’ll likely be able to use cards I get after that time as well, but that would be best for my purposes. Thanks for asking!

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If you’re like any other magician I know, I’m sure you have a large quantity of tricks and magic supplies you don’t use. Being in quarantine has had me thinking about offloading a vast majority of my surplus. If I were to individually sell playing cards on eBay, I’d probably still be selling them in several years from now. Any ideas on how to offload in mass quantities? And also maybe a good charity to offload some of the lower cost magic items? —JT

I assume you mean individual decks of playing cards. At least, I hope you do, or you will be selling those for probably centuries, not years.

I don’t have an answer to your question, but I’m putting it up here in case someone else does. I’ll let you (and everyone else) know if I get any good responses.

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Will you be releasing any stand-alone effects in the future? Either to your supporters or just to the general magic community? —RS

Yes, most likely. I’ve had some stuff on the back-burner for years now that I’ve been wanting to put out and I intend to do so starting next year. It’s always been a scheduling issue. With three different writing outlets (the site, the newsletter, and the books) there just was never a point of downtime to make other projects a priority. Next year, I’m planning on implementing a new schedule with blocks of time set aside to work on some stand-alone effects.

If you’d like to go on scavenger… At some point in the last three years I did release an effect. It was a normal magic release that you can find available through pretty much any magic site online.

The idea to do this came from one of the friends and supporters of this site who is a magician/mentalist who regularly releases tricks to the magic community. He wrote me an email about one of my posts and said that I should have released it as a separate item.

This got us talking about different effects we had worked on and the response they received from other magicians.

This was an email exchange that went on for weeks and went all over the place. But the upshot of the emails was that we decided he would release a trick of mine commercially as if it was his.

We worked out the financials of how this would all go down, and a few months later I sent him three tricks to consider. I asked him what he felt was the strongest trick and the weakest. Then we agreed that he would release the weakest trick as if it was his, right around the time I released the strongest trick here on the site. (When I say “strongest and weakest,” we’re not talking about the difference between “good and bad”—it was more the difference of “great vs pretty good.”)

There wasn’t really any big purpose to this experiment. And I don’t know what, if anything, we proved. My “pretty good” trick (which he released under his name) sold very well, got a lot of praise, and generated an extended thread on the Magic Cafe that went on for months.

The better trick, which I posted here for free, created a small buzz in my email box for a couple days and then I was on to something else.

You might think that would make me want to release stuff commercially so that it “gets it due” or whatever. But for better or worse, I don’t have that inclination. A lot of the stuff I put up on the site is silly or limited in value, and there is a lot of stuff that is also very powerful. I sort of like just throwing it all out there and letting people come to their own conclusions. I know there are some people who overlook stuff here, because they assume it wouldn’t be up for free on a blog if it was any good. But I also know there is a group of readers who weigh the value of everything, and that’s really my target audience. I just want to have fun writing the site, not hold people’s hands through the whole thing.

In a future post someday (or maybe in a book that details the behind the scenes goings on of this site), I’ll tell you who the other magician was and what the trick we released was. But for now we have some other secret collaborations planned that I don’t want to tip you off to.

Going back to the topic of releasing individual effects, yes, that is something that is likely to happen. They probably won’t be released broadly. Just here on the site and in limited quantities.

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Don’t forget my favorite use of the faro shuffle, which I realize doesn’t fit your performing style, but I love throwing it in unnecessarily when a trick doesn’t require it. Really throws off knowledgable onlookers. —CW

That’s a great idea. I’m fortunate enough not to spend too much time with people “in the know” (i.e. magicians). But if I find myself in their company, I’ll use that.

“Okay, so we just give the cards a random mix….” Hold the deck three inches from my face, weave and unweave a couple of times like I didn’t hit it exactly. That sort of thing.

I’d probably use it with a one-way force deck with one random card on the bottom. Have them cut to a card and look at. Hold an obvious break when the packets are put back together and get an obvious peek when I turn the deck over for no reason. Ask for any number between 1 and 52. Act like I’m calculating the in and out faros I need to do to get their card at that number. Do a few faros. Then deal down to the card at their number.

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And yes, I did see the article about potential sexual impropriety and racism at The Magic Castle. (I have a google alert set up for news stories with the worlds magician and abuse in the same article. For the most part, all the articles that have come up this year have been about some British show called Coronation Street which apparently had an abusive magician on it or something?)

I have no real thoughts about it as I’ve never been to the Castle, much less been a member. And most of the allegations weren’t really magician-specific. (Except the ones that were like, “Magicians are creeps to women on stage.” Yeah, no shit.) So I don’t have much to say.

However, I always love juicy gossip so if anyone has any inside dirt I’d love to hear it. It could be for my eyes only. Or if you want others to read it, I’d be happy to post it anonymously.

This goes for the Magic Castle situation or anything else magic related. Is Brad Christian constantly making comments about his staff’s “taut buttocks?” Did a certain former precocious child magician and now current co-owner of an online magic shop, watch this kid on the Ellen Degeneres show and say, “You dumb mick. You think you’re going to pull off the cute child magician act? I invented that act, motherfucker. I will always be that cute child. You come at the king, you best not miss, bitch.”

If so, you can spill the dirt to me. I’ll keep your secret or broadcast it. Whatever you want.

Beginner Ukulele Thoughts

I got a few ukulele-related questions after my posts on how I made $1000/week working 5 minutes a day (here and here). So I thought I’d give some quick advice on getting into the ukulele.

The audience for this post is non-musicians who like the idea of having something they could play and sing along to. The easiest instrument to do that with is probably the ukulele. You can get proficient enough to play 100s of songs in about an hour. It won’t be every song you want to play, but with just a few chords you’ll have options for a bunch of different songs to play.

Which Uke to Buy

I’m not going to direct you to the nicest ukulele with the richest sound, I’m going to direct you to the ones that I find easiest to play and keep in tune.

If money isn’t an issue, I’d go with The Flea Ukulele by the Magic Fluke Company

One of these will be up around $300. It’s got a wood and plastic body. It’s sturdy and does not go out of tune easily.

If you want something cheaper, I also like the Enya Concert Ukulele

This is under $100 box and has a carbon fiber body.

If you want a cheaper or more traditional looking ukulele, just search on Amazon and check the reviews. Anything with good reviews will be decent enough for people like you and I who don’t really care too much about having the “perfect” sound.

Learning

If you want to invest money in the learning process, then I find Yousician to be a worthwhile app. It’s a video-game-ified way to learn an instrument. It’s probably not the best way to learn, but it might be the most fun, especially if you’re a non-musician..

If you don’t want to spend money there are beginner ukulele lessons all over youtube.

I, personally, don’t find easier to learn this sort of thing from a video than just reading about it. I would recommend searching for “basic ukulele chords” and then just learning the first few they give you.

Here’s a page with four simple chords and a bunch of songs you can play with just those chords.

More Songs

To find more songs to play, I recommend this site, Betty Lou’s Guitar Tab.

The good: There are 1000s of songs on there with easy arrangements.

The bad: To make the music easy to play, she only uses a handful of chords. So she’s simplified the song and in many cases it won’t end up sounding exactly like the original (unless the original was simple to begin with).

But it’s good to have the option to play songs you know, even if they don’t sound 100% perfect.

So the way I would learn, if I were you, is to learn some basic chords (as linked to in the last section). Then use this Betty Lou site to search out songs you want to play and when you find a chord you don’t know, look up how to play it, and add it to your repertoire of chords.

You can do it the other way too, you can tell this site what chords you know, and it will tell you what songs you can play with those chords.

Once you have a couple dozen chords down, you can use a site like Ultimate-Guitar to get versions of the songs that are closer to the original.

And you can search around youtube and see if there’s a teacher on there you connect with. As I said, I find it a bit of a pain to learn from youtube because they’re usually going slower (or sometimes faster) than I want to go. But it might work well for you.

That’s about all the advice I can give. It should be enough to get you started out and after that you’ll find your own path.

The Juxe: Sad Christmas Songs

I’m a huge Christmas fan. I love the movies and the music. I’m not really into the “Santa” aspect (although that’s fine). And I’m not really religious so I don’t connect too much to the Jesus part either (although I do go to church on Christmas eve and I appreciate the ceremony and ritual of it all). I’m more into the the Christmas season and “good will towards men” and the customs and the gifts and singing and baking and all that good stuff.

When I was ten years old, I wrote this Christmas parody song, to be sung to the tune of White Christmas:

I’m dreaming of a tan titty
Just like the ones I used to suck
With a big red nipple
That shakes and ripples
When all the milk comes pouring through

(A later version changed it to: “With a big red nipple, right in the middle, where all the milk comes pouring through.”)

Now, that just might be the happiest Christmas song ever written, but I’ve also always enjoyed a good sad Christmas song throughout my life.

Today I’ll post three of my favorites.

Sister Winter by Sufjan Stevens

When he introduced this song on stage with Rufus and Martha Wainwright in 2008, he said it was about seasonal affective disorder and it got a laugh from the crowd, but I think that is what it’s about. (Although it’s not so specific that you have to interpret it that way. )

Oh my friends I've
Begun to worry right
Where I should be grateful
I should be satisfied

[…]

But my heart is
Returned to sister winter
But my heart is
As cold as ice

So he starts off talking about the good things he has. But despite those things, his heart has “returned to sister winter.”

Then he goes on to lament about a lost love

Oh my thoughts I
Return to summer time
When I kissed your ankle
I kissed you through the night

All my gifts I gave everything to you
Your strange imagination
You threw it all away

The song build and builds before taking a turn towards Christmas at the end. I would let it take you along that journey and not skip ahead in the song, or you won’t get the experience of the building emotion.

Some comments from the youtube video:

• “this is one of the most beautiful things i've ever heard in my whole life”

• ”The best Christmas song? Maybe... just maybe.”

• ”’but my heart is returned to sister winter’ makes the hair on the back of my neck prick up... really beautiful song”

• ”How does he do it? Just so fucking beautiful. So poignant.”

• ”That falsetto makes me cry. Precious (in a good, great way)”

Okay, enough build-up, here’s the song…

And here’s a really excellent cover by Joseph, three sisters out of Portland…

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Christmas Tears by The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons Christmas Album was far and away the most played Christmas album in my house growing up. This was one of the originals from that album, written by Bob Crewe and Sid Bass. Bob Crewe wrote many of the Four Seasons big hits (“Walk Like A Man,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Rag Doll,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,”)

The song is a little hokey, but the vocal arrangement is really great. And when I was a lovesick middle-schooler, I would listen to it and think of whatever girl I was crushing on during that Christmas season.

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O Come, O Come, Emmanuel by Belle and Sebastian

I don’t know if this is technically a “sad” song, but it was written 1200 years ago before people knew that music should sound happy. It’s like when photography was first introduced and people didn’t think to smile in pictures—they just sat there looking dour. Well, this is an old Christian Hymn from before anyone learned that music didn’t have to be a solemn affair. So it feels like a sad song, even if it’s technically not.

This is my favorite version of the song. In fact it’s the only one I really like. It was recorded by Belle and Sebastian back in 2002, at the height of their powers and with their best line-up. Each verse is handled. by a different member of the band with the vocals and the instrumentation building until the final, beautiful verse.

[REDACTED]

Hey all,

I’ve temporarily removed this post because it involved an app idea, and someone might be doing something with the idea, and if so I don’t want people duplicating effort.

I will make an update at some point in the future with what/if anything is happening with the idea. And this post may return then.

But, Andy, I missed the post. I want to read what it said.

Sorry. It was up for over 24 hours. You know you’re supposed to be sitting at your computer, in your jammies, drinking cocoa and constantly refreshing the page, “Ooooh, I hope the next Jerx post is up! It’s the only thing I look forward to in life.”

Don’t fret. The post is just down temporarily as something may happen with the idea. So either you’ll hear about it again in the future, or it may be back up in a day or two if that thing doesn’t happen.

To make up for this missing post, I’ve pre-googled the phrase “funny picture” for you. Now you can click here and see the results for funny picture. Hope that helps.

Naming Your Virtual Magic Show

The other day I was watching an episode of Cheers. I’ve been rewatching the show on Hulu and I’m on season 9.

The episode I was watching featured Carla’s son, Gino.

And then I saw this credit at the end:

That name sounded so familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it.

But then I figured out what it was…

That’s right! He was a “grammar host” on the Magic Cafe back in the days of my old site.

At first I was pretty excited by this. I’m happy when magicians have real accomplishments outside of magic. And being on Cheers as one of Carla’s kids is a particularly cool accomplishment to have.

But then I got worried.

As a young man he guest-starred on the most popular show on television, and a decade later he was correcting grammar on a magic message board. That sounds like the first line of a biography about a guy who shot up a movie theater.

I was worried about the guy. But the good news is, I did some googling and found his site. And he seems to be doing well. He was on Fool Us and he’s doing a virtual show.

His show is called “Virtually Impossible.”

You might say, "Oh, I’ve heard of that show.” But no, you probably haven’t. You’ve probably just heard of someone else’s virtual show, because they’re all called “Virtually Impossible.”

As always, I like to be of service, so I’ve brainstormed some names for your virtual show, so as not to further crowd the marketplace with this one show name that everyone is using. Feel free to use one of these…

Top Virtual Magic Show Names That Aren’t “Virtually Impossible.”

Statistically Improbable

Essentially Unthinkable

Practically Inconceivable

For All Intents And Purposes Unimaginable

Impossibly Virtual!

Virtually Impossible 2: Money Never Sleeps

Abraca-mputer!

www.magic.fun

Hocus Skype-us

I Hope You Like Having Something Meaningless Predicted Because You’re About to See That A Half-Dozen Times

Are You Muted? Or Just Not Reacting?

No, I Swear, This Is What I Was Imagining When I Dreamed of Having My Own Magic Show

Ignore the Laundry on the Exercise Bike Behind Me: A Magical Journey

This Is What Jeffrey Toobin Was Watching: The Magic and Topical Comedy of [Your Name Here]

And You Thought A Normal Magic Show Was An Awkward, Stilted Event.

From the Device that Brought You Oregon Trail…an Evening With [Your Name Here]

Maybe I Should Pipe In Crowd Noise, Like They Do For Baseball

On the Plus Side, At Least You Can’t Smell Me: The Magic of [Your Name Here]

The Show That Someone With No Understanding Of What People Like About Magic Called, “The Future of Magic.”

What To Do With a Self-Lighting Candle

I picked up the Spark self-lighting candle last year on a whim and now I have no idea what to do with it. What would you do with one? —MM

Damn, man, that’s a pretty expensive whim.

This is probably not something you’re going to want to hear about your $175 self-lighting candle, but due to the fact that it’s not completely examinable, it can’t really be your primary effect. Yes, if you were performing a proper show with boundaries that are accepted and respected by the audience, then sure, you could present the trick as, “I’m going to light this candle with my mind.” And you’d get away with it, at least to the extent that they wouldn’t know there’s anything questionable about the candle (but they’d probably suspect there is).

In an amateur performing situation, if you say, “I’m going to light this candle with my mind?” They’re just going to say, “Cool… Can I see the candle?”

So, for that reason, I think the candle has to be used as atmosphere, not the main effect.

Here’s the sort of thing I would probably do with it…

Imagine you’re doing some sort of seance effect with a person or two at a table. The lights are dimmed. Off to the side of the table is this candle, but it’s not really part of the undertaking, it just happens to be on the table with some other stuff.

Attached to the planchette, you have a length of thread that is dangling off into your lap. It’s not “invisible thread,” it’s something a little stronger than that. But it’s something that is not noticeable in the dim light.

Everyone puts a hand on the planchette. You call out to a spirit to come join you at the table. Nothing happens.

You wait a good solid minute in silence, but still nothing.

“Spirit, if you’re with us, please make your presence known.”

Now, off to the side, without people focusing on it, the candle lights.

You pull back from the planchette and move your focus to the candle. “What the-? Oh, hell no. Fuck this.”

Now, as everyone is looking at the candle, you jerk the thread on the planchette, causing it to fly off the table (and breaking the thread in the process)..

So it’s two effects that are happening in the periphery, sending everyone’s attention ping-ponging back and forth. I find this sort of thing works especially well for spirit manifestation types of effects. If we’re all looking at the deck when it cuts itself, that may come off as creepy or it may come off as a magic trick. But if I turn away and start talking to you and the deck cuts itself over my shoulder, when I’m not paying attention, that’s going to have a different feel to it. It’s going to feel less like it was my doing, and possibly more like it was another entities.

Now, people still may want to look at the candle, yes. But because it wasn’t the focus of your attention initially, you may be be able to do something seemingly natural that would allow you to clean up. So, what might I do if a candle really lit itself unexpectedly? Apparently as the result of some spirit/demonic activity? Well, I’d blow it out. And if I was really freaked out, maybe I’d toss it in the trash. Of course, you don’t really want to toss a still smoldering candle directly in the trash, so maybe I’d go to the kitchen and run it under the faucet first. And it would be it the course of that reasonable action, when I’m out of sight from the others, that I would switch in an ungimmicked candle. Then I’d toss that ungimmicked one in the trash where people could see.

Of course, switching something while out of the room isn’t an effective clean-up if your premise is, “I’m going to light this candle with my mind.” You just can’t get away with being that bold. But if the candle lighting wasn’t your intention (apparently) then you have more leeway in how you deal with things.

You might say, “Okay, I can see it working in that situation. But that’s not the sort of thing you could just do casually or frequently.”

True. But I’m just trying to come up with a use for your $175 candle. I never recommended buying the thing in the first place.

Okay, here’s another way I’d use the candle…

If I just met a woman I was romantically interested in and we were back at my place hooking up, when things were still in the make-out and groping stage, I’d pause and grab her hand and have her rub her palm against mind, creating some friction. Then I’d take that '“energy” and gesture as if I was sending it out of my palm, where it would light a candle across the room. Then I’d turn off the lamp, so the room was lit only by that candle, and we’d get back into it.

It’s kind of a risky maneuver. Hopefully she’ll think it’s a slick maneuver. But there’s also the chance she thinks, “Am I hooking up with a guy who owns a remote-controlled candle?” That’s a thought that’s been known to dry up even the most turned-on females.