Blowing the Dust Off the Ol' Blog

I’m back, bitches!

Yes, much to the chagrin of my critics who said, “He’ll never blog again.” I’m back, and better than ever, baby. In fact, I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but you might recognize a familiar name at the top of People Magazine’s, 50 Hottest Magic-Bloggers Under 50 list which comes out next week. (Eat shit, Amazing Carl of Amazing Carl’s AbracadaBlog. After nearly 6 years, you’re in my rearview mirror. Get used to it)

Today I need to get some housekeeping out of the way before we pick back up with regular posting.

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First, thanks to everyone who has written in with their feedback on the newest book. The response has been really amazing, which is especially gratifying considering this is likely the most “out there” book I’ll ever write, and I really had no clue how it would be received. So thanks for all the positive feedback.

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Just to reiterate from a previous check-in post, the schedule going forward will be the old schedule of new posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays throughout the month. Non-magic posts will no longer be on this site. So you can easily avoid the music posts or other recommendations that you might not be into. The site for those posts will launch on Friday.

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Important dates coming up for supporters and potential supporters.

Feb 25th: Current supporters will receive an email with details to see if they want to sign-up to support for another year. If at least 90% say yes, then the site keeps going. (This keeps me from overstaying my welcome with this site.)

March 1st: If the consensus is to keep the site going, then any unclaimed supporter slots will be made available at noon, New York time, March 1st on a first come, first serve basis. See this site at that time to sign up if you’re interested.

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If you do any type of large mailings, I want to recommend pirateship.com to you. It’s shipping software, like stamps.com. But it has a couple distinct advantages. First, it’s completely free, unlike stamps.com, which cost me $250 a year or so. Also, it’s not complete garbage, unlike stamps.com.

Stamps.com would do things in the past like just swap names and addresses on orders randomly. Or they’d tell me an address didn’t exist. We’d double-check the address with the person who placed the order. They’d say, “Yup, that’s my address.” And there was no way to over-ride stamps.com’s objection to the address.

And stamps.com would constantly crash on us. That’s doesn’t feel like something you hear too much about anymore: websites “crashing.” But stamps.com managed to do it about a dozen times when we tried to get it up and running for this year’s mailing.

Pirate Ship has had none of these problems for us. It’s a little more of a pain to get the orders into the system. (It takes a couple minutes as opposed to being automatic like stamps.com.) But once the orders are in, it’s easily 20 times faster to do what you need to do to print out the postage. The customer service is super easy to deal with as well. (Although, be warned, they chat in “pirate speak,” which seems like one of those business decisions that is not long for this world.)

I haven’t noticed the postage from Pirate Ship being any cheaper than the alternatives, but as a service it definitely seems to work better.

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For the first time since this site became reader supported five years ago, no supporter died over the course of the year. All my supporters made it through 2020. Interesting. Especially when it was supposedly such a “deadly” year with the “virus” and all of that. Hmmm…

Are you saying you don’t believe in the coronavirus?

No, dummy. I’m saying that—from all the available evidence—it looks like supporting this site keeps you safe from the coronavirus. In fact, I think it’s probably fair to say this site is a cloak that protects you from all the horrors of the world.

That’s why it’s so good to be back.

Final Check-In

That day is a week from today.

Monday, February 15th. The Jerx Returns.

Monday Check-In #5: Hic Sunt Lepores

Book #4 is here and will ship to supporters over the next couple of weeks. (There was an email sent on Saturday to collect your shipping fee/info. If you didn’t get it, make sure you’re checking the right email account (the one the newsletters have been sent to) and check your spam folder as well.)

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In the book you will find:

• No tricks.

• No sleights.

• No illustrations.

• Nothing that is immediately usable in a professional setting.

• Nothing to fool magicians

• Nothing that is good for social media.

What you will find are dozens of techniques that I use to add depth and interest to any given effect. And an exploration of using those techniques in concert over time to create a different approach to the presentation of amateur magic which I call the “world-building” approach.

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The inspiration for the book’s theme…

From Wikipedia:

“Here be dragons" (hic sunt dracones in Latin) means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of a medieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps where potential dangers were thought to exist.”

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The final product…

Monday Check-In #4

Here’s the final Monday check-in for January.

I will be reaching out to the book printer today to make sure everything is still on schedule. [UPDATE: So I’ve been in touch. They are hoping to ship the books to me later this week, which should mean I’ll get them early next week. Once I have them in hand and can weigh the rewards package to get the shipping weight/fee calculated, then supporters will receive an email from me to get their shipping info. And I’ll also know if there are any extra rewards packages available for those of you on the waiting list.]

In mid-February the new season of this site will begin and we’ll be back on a regular schedule.

I know you’re all sitting there wondering, “Oh, I hope Andy has been productive with his time while away and working on interesting and exciting content for the site.”

Yes. I have. Don’t worry.

For example, there’s this version of the 21 Card Trick that you can find on Penguin called, 21 Card Fooler. It’s purportedly a “magician fooler” version of the 21 Card Trick. That may be true, but I’m an idiot and even I can tell what must be going on. (In the traditional 21 Card Trick, they can think of any of the cards. In this version the selection isn’t that free, which sort of clues you into the method.)

But, whatever. If you want to do the 21 Card Trick for magicians, this might be a good option for you. I can’t imagine why you’d ever want to do such a thing, but hey, it’s your life. To me it sounds like a Twilight Zone ironic twist you’d get from an evil genie. “Your wish is to perform magic for people? Your wish is my command. You may now perform magic! … The 21 Card Trick… for magicians! Ah-ha-ha-ha”

But as I said, I haven’t just been sitting here idly doing nothing these past weeks. I’ve been doing really important work.

For example, I took the demo video for 21 Card Fooler and edited the video so it’s just the parts of the demo where someone is saying, “OK.”

How long could that possibly be?

Amazingly, over 45 seconds.

OK. See you soon.

Monday Check-In #3

Hey, hey! How are you doing, Jerx-keteers!

That’s right…Jerx-keteers. I’m going with some new branding for the readers of this site. You see, I think it’s important that we stop seeing ourselves as just disparate magicians across the globe, but what I really want to do is foster a sense of community.

I’m just busting your balls. I don’t want a community with you goons. I’ve just noticed a lot of magic enterprises popping up talking about “developing a community.” A community? Of magicians? That you talk to online? Is that really what’s missing from anyone’s life? Isn’t there a soup kitchen you could be volunteering at? Is all the litter picked up in your town?

I get it. There’s the coronavirus and people are more isolated than ever before and these online communities are helping to keep you sane. That’s fine. But it seems like we may be dealing with more than just a temporary coping mechanism. It sometimes feels like the hobby of magic will more and more become magicians performing for other magicians from the safety of their homes. It’s kind of the most cowardly way to perform and engage with magic, which is why I’m guessing it appeals to so many magicians (who are notorious cowards).

I’m not trashing online lectures or groups or things like that. I think they can be a great resource if you’re taking that information and synthesizing it in a way you can use in your own performances. But it seems pointless to me if they just become another way to accumulate more information and more tricks without getting you out performing.

Also, “let’s create a community” is like sitting next to a stranger at the bus stop and saying, “let’s be best friends.” Friendship and community are things that are built out of a special connection between people or a group. Trying to create a sense of community from just anyone who has an interest in magic and $25 a month, or whatever, is a doomed enterprise.

All that being said, I’m really exited to introduce…

For just $85 a month, you can be a member of this exclusive Jerx Community.

Benefits include:

• Nightly Dinners: Fuck your family, come eat dinner at your laptop with the Jerx Platinum Community. We’ll share recipes and discuss variations on classic tricks which no normal spectator would be able to differentiate from one another.

• Jerx Sleepovers: Once a week, we’ll get together for a late-night virtual slumber party. We’ll braid each other’s hair, tell ghost stories, talk about what boys we think are cute, and read a chapter from Erdnase.

• Texting: You will get my personal cell phone number, from which I will sext you pictures of my penis once a day. [Jerx Platinum Plus (an additional $10/month) will also include my balls)]

• Custom Windbreaker

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A lot of the emails I’m getting recently are about schedule stuff. So just to clarify, here is the upcoming schedule (to the extent I know it at this point).

End of January - The books for the 2020 Rewards package will come in. At that time I’ll know if there are any extras and, if so, those will be offered to people on the waiting list for the 2020 package.

Beginning of February - 2020 Rewards packages ship.

Mid-ish February - The site starts back up again.

Late February - 2020 Supporters will get an email to see if they want to sign up for 2021. If we reach the sign-up threshold, then I’ll do another year.

End of February - Any open supporter slots will be made available on a first-come, first-serve basis (that will be announced on this site at that time.)

Monday Check-In #1

Whatup, brohams? How’s 2021 treating you so far? Mine has been pretty dope. I started my new year’s resolution to walk two miles a day on the 1st, and so far I’ve lost 40 pounds and got totally shredded. Here’s a picture of me. I hope your 2021 diet allows for a heaping helping of beefcake.

So yeah, you could say things are looking good.

New (Old) Schedule

When this site returns to regular posting at some point in February, I am going back to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. This was the schedule I used to use in previous years and I think it’s a better fit than what I was doing last year.

There will be some breaks as well, but otherwise it’s going to be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, every week of the month.

Also, this presumes that the supporters are interested in funding another year. If that’s not the case you won’t need to worry about the schedule either way.

New Blog

I’m likely going to be starting another blog for non-magic posts like the Saturday and Sunday posts that appeared on this site the past year.

I don’t really care about keeping the magic posts separate from the non-magic posts for the sake of magicians. The reason I’m doing it is to keep the magic posts out of view from people who stumble across this site by searching for something non-magic related that I talk about, like some obscure band, or how not to shit your pants.

This other blog will be completely separate from this one, with no magic content at all, so you don’t have to bother with it, unless you like to read a guy talking about the stuff that he enjoys.

That blog will be launched later this month. I’ll let you know when that happens.

Updates

For supporters: You should be getting an email from me late January collecting your shipping fee for the 2020 support package (and, in turn, getting your most recent address).

If you are outside of the U.S., it is very helpful if you add a telephone number to your paypal account profile. That number needs to be on international packages, and with the total shit-show that shipping has been in recent months, you’re going to want to have a way for them to contact you if need be.

For wannabe-supporters: If you wrote me at some point this year and asked to be on the waiting list for any extra “overage” copies of the book that the printer might deliver, you will hear from me if/when I know that any such copies exist (which won’t be until I have the delivery in hand). I assume there will be some, because in previous years there has been. But I only ordered the amount I needed, so I can’t guarantee there will be any. If you do end up snagging one of these potential extra copies, you will have a supporter slot going forward (if you want it).

For wannabe-wannabe-supporters: If you want to support the site in 2021, any unclaimed supporter slots will be made available in late February. Keep an eye on this site for details.

Thank You

To everyone who sent along a Christmas card last month. I really appreciate you helping me out. I ended up doing a couple different tricks that utilized them and they both went over very well and created some memorable moments this holiday season. I will share the details later this year with those of you who sent a card along.

Check-Ins

I’ll be back here on Mondays throughout January to say hey.

Hope your 2021 is off to a good start.

Until 2021...

Well, here we are again, my dears. It’s that time of year. The time of year when many of us will be visited by that man in the red suit who loves to have children on his lap.

It’s also the time of year when The Jerx winds down for a little while. That’s right, the 2020 Season of the Jerx has come to close. I’d like to think that this year we all learned a little about magic… and a lot about love.

I will be back with the occasional post in January, and then we’ll pick things up again for real at some point in February. Next year there will be a new schedule for everything. A new posting schedule, a new newsletter schedule, and a new supporter reward schedule (assuming the supporters decide to keep the site going for another year). I’ll get to those details sometime next month.

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So, we’ve got 10 days until the new year. Are you making some resolutions? Do you have some plans and goals for next year?

As someone who is naturally a happy person and generally pretty excited by life, I’m always looking for the ways in which my mindset differs from those I see around me who don’t feel this way. And hopefully, if I can find those differences, I can maybe elucidate them in a way that might be helpful to others who don’t naturally have my same predisposition.

Today I want to share something I’ve been thinking about in regards to some of the people I know who seem a little dissatisfied with their life.

So maybe you find yourself in a decent relationship, you have a good job, and a couple of sweet kids. And even though that is all you ever wanted, you still feel like something is lacking. And it doesn’t really make sense to you because you feel something is lacking, even though you’re not sure what it could be. Well… how important could it possibly be if you’re not sure what it is you’re lacking? How could something you can’t even put your finger on be the thing that’s standing between you and greater happiness?

Well, I think it might be because the thing you’re missing is a little abstract. It’s not something obvious like family, a house, financial security, etc. It’s not something you can immediately recognize in other people, so it’s not something you necessarily notice about yourself either.

So what is this missing ingredient for a happy, exciting life?

A scheme.

I know I have a number of readers who don’t speak English as a first language, so I’ll explain what I mean by a “scheme” if the word doesn’t translate exactly.

A scheme is like a plan to achieve a goal, but it’s a particular type of plan. It’s a plan to achieve a goal that is somewhat romantic or reckless in some manner. And a scheme should have some element to it that is a secret. Something known only by you.

• I’m going to lose 20 pounds.

• I’m going to learn how to crochet.

• I’m going to set aside $500/month for my child’s college fund.

Those are all fine goals or resolutions to make for New Years. But they’re not schemes.

• I’m going to wake up an hour early every day without telling anyone and work on my first novel.

• I’m going to win that woman’s heart.

• I’m going to rob a bank.

Those are schemes.

A scheme really has to have some sort of aspect of sneakiness to it. “I’m going to lose weight and get healthy,” wouldn’t qualify as a scheme. But, “I’m going to lose 80 pounds. Buy the tightest yoga pants I can find. Then ‘accidentally’ bump into my boyfriend at the grocery store,” is a scheme. Even though the outcome may be no different than “I’m going to lose weight and get healthy.”

Here’s why I think a scheme is valuable. A lot of adult life is just about treading water. You’re just doing what you’ve been doing for some time in order to keep yourself in the same position. Even if you’re successful at this, it can be unsatisfying. Being an adult is about making smart decisions and sensibly pursuing the goals that will set you up to meet your future needs.

A scheme, however, is geared towards adding something to your life. Something you don’t necessarily need, but something you’re passionate about that will bring you pleasure. That might be: money, sex, revenge, fun, or some sort of new achievement/experience. No, you don’t necessarily want to devote your life to any of these things. But you should have some part of your life that is spent in their pursuit.

I’m not saying it’s just about doing things you enjoy. It’s about having some sort of plan in place to get you something you desire. “I’m going to pay that prostitute for sex,” is not a scheme. “Over the next six months, I’m going to seduce that prostitute to the point where she pays me for sex,” is a scheme.

A lot of people romanticize their young adulthood. It’s often a time they look back on fondly even if things weren’t going great for them at that point in time. I think that is, in part, because young adulthood is a time for scheming. “I’m going to start a band.” “I’m going to find a way to get some money to buy that motorcycle.” “I’m going to practice every night this week and get the lead part in the school play.” “I’m going to get out of this dead-end town.”

When you’re sixteen you might think, “I’m going to ask that girl to prom.” You might think that months in advance, even if you never spoke to her before.

When you’re young you spend a lot of time thinking of ways to capture new objectives. New skills, new friends, new loves, new jobs, new interests, new experiences. As you get older, it becomes more about maintaining what you have, or—if you have kids—putting your time and effort into helping them achieve their goals. If that’s where you are, and you’re perfectly happy, then you don’t need to change anything. But if you feel like you’re missing out on something, you may be missing the act of pursuing some private goal. Not a goal of lowering your cholesterol or getting a promotion. Being healthy and making more money are pretty much universal goals that are just a normal part of being an adult for everyone. What I’m talking about is something personal.

This is not a selfish act. It’s a way to keep yourself engaged in the world and growing.

You can be the most devoted husband/wife, and your family can be your number one priority, and you can still have your own little scheme going on in the background.

And I think it’s important that it’s something you keep secret. Or, at least, that you don’t divulge what you’re doing entirely to anyone else. Your scheme is your own little project or objective. The only one who has a complete understanding of it is you. Once your scheme concludes, then you can share it with anyone you want (as you will be on to the next scheme). But while it’s still active, I think it’s best if it’s something you keep to yourself.

Again, if you’re very happy and feel excited with what’s happening in your life, this advice isn’t for you. This for anyone who feels unfulfilled.

Will working on a scheme make you happy and fulfilled? I don’t know. I just know that part of what keeps me fully engaged and loving life is that I always have something up my sleeve that I’m working on. Something I can focus on, daydream on, and act on. Some schemes last weeks, others years. But I like to always have something in the works.

(In addition to your little schemes, I also recommend having one big unachievable goal as well, as I wrote about here. In fact, often my schemes are a part of my unachievable goal. They can work together.)

So there’s your 2021 mission. Get yourself a scheme and start implementing it.

That’s all for this year. Supporters have one more newsletter coming their way. You should have it by New Year’s Day.

Hope your holidays are a delight. I’ll see you in 2021.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!