The Anonymizer - Exposure and Online Magic

Are you an employee at Ellusionist who has something to say about their culture of work-place sexual misconduct, and a permanent red palm-print on your buttocks from Brad Christian spanking your bottom every time he walks by? Were you a Grammar Host at the Magic Cafe who can give us a behind the scenes perspective on the great “Oxford Comma Debacle” of 2004? Are you a former assistant to David Copperfield whose job it was to capture a child and sacrifice it to Moloch every evening so David could maintain the powers he needed to fly around the theater and bang supermodels?

If you have a story you want to divulge, or a perspective to share, or some dirt to dish—without attaching your name to it—you have an open invitation to send it to me and I’ll be happy to post it, keeping you anonymous. And you can do so with complete assurance that I will never tell a soul who you are. Your secret is 100% safe with me. Blabbing about shit that someone has asked me to keep private is against my brand.

Today I’m going to share with you an email I received from a well known “social media magician” regarding his thoughts on exposure and why he is not against it. I think it’s an interesting perspective. Not one that I completely agree with (I’ll share my thoughts afterwards) but I don’t perform magic on the internet, so it’s not really something I’ve given much thought to. (But that won’t prevent me from having a lot of rambling thoughts to say afterwards.)

In the next section you will read his thoughts…

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The Anonymizer: The Social Media Magician

One way of removing ego from a trick is to expose the secret. When a viewer doesn’t know the method, they are kinda forced to give the credit to a smug magician. “Well, I guess he did something to make that happen.” Even when they are acutely aware that the magician is playing pretend. So when talking exposure, we have to remove Jerx-style magic from consideration. This is about the traditional ego-driven performance of magic tricks. Magicians are selfish narcissists who have fooled themselves into thinking their tricks instill wonder but they’ve kept the coolest parts of the art a secret.

Reasons not to expose:

-Ruins the audience’s wonder
-The secret was invented by and belongs to someone else
-It prevents other magicians from using that secret to fool future audiences
-Exposure disrespects the “art”

I’m certainly open to the possibility that magic exposure is immoral and bad for the art. However, the arguments above start with some major presumptions about wonder and how the audience experiences magic.

To start, we cannot assume all magic gives wonder. Sometimes magic is a visual gag or fun piece of eye candy and that’s okay. The audience probably knows that the bird came from somewhere inside the magician’s coat but it was a visually satisfying performance even though the viewer arrives at 90% of the method. And I do believe the audience often has (what they believe to be) 90% of the method. And that’s enough to steal their own wonder.

But maybe the secrets belong to the inventor. That would make for a fragile career because just one guy could take you down by exposing the secrets. I don’t think that’s how it works. Also should be noted that I’ve never bought a magic prop with an agreement to keep the secret; the one exception being Michael Weber who has LOTS of fine print with his tricks. I’m not even sure one is allowed to perform tricks bought from Weber.

I guess it’s an unspoken agreement but it’s rarely taken seriously as magicians constantly reveal “acceptable” tricks. Is there some rule book I missed with the exceptions to the rules? I’m asking because it seems okay for Penn and Teller, Mac King, Amazing Jonathan, Justin Willman, Criss Angel, and even Blackstone Jr. to expose some methods used by other magicians.

Another question is, “Does one guy exposing a secret prevent the rest of the community from ever using that secret again?” That’s silly. Of course not. Masked Magician is still being watched and getting decent numbers online yet no one in the magic community is complaining. Why? Because time has shown that nobody sees or remembers anything. Same goes for classic methods exposed in Now You See Me movies or TV Shows like The Mentalist or Arrested Development. Methods like mirrors, trap doors, pulls, and flash paper have been seen by millions yet we can still safely entertain with them. This seems to be the most difficult mental hurdle for magicians to get over.

Lastly, does exposure disrespect the “art”? No. I think knowledge only increases respect. If I wanted to disrespect the art I could point to an LA Times article to show how racist, sexist and abusive the magic community is. It would also be bad for the public to learn that mentalists sincerely want the public to believe they have special body-language reading abilities. As you’ve written many times, if you want the audience to think you can really read minds you’re mentally-ill and sad.

My dream is that the general public have as much magic knowledge as an average-60-something-magic-convention-attendee. What I mean is I want the public to know about mirror tables and deceptive bases (because it makes illusion shows more fun to watch), but David Williamson will still fuck ’em up. Who loves magic more than magicians? No one. Magicians fly to Vegas and watch every magic show. We might consider giving the public a taste of why we love magic so much. Think of a dealer room where dopamine is released in one's brain every few minutes! See something impossible, then immediately learn its clever method. It's a constant reveal of a “mystery box” every few minutes to steal a JJ Abrams analogy.

Guys like Greg Rostami have a great 10 minute act based around exposure. Of course he sticks to the dealer’s room but Greg shows you a cool trick with your phone in which he reads your mind and knows what celebrity you’re thinking of. Neat-o. Then he reveals the secret for sale and shows you you how he hacked your phone! Naturally magicians say “take my money that’s the coolest thing ever!”. I believe the public would enjoy Greg’s presentation with the secret revealed at the end MORE than they would enjoy Oz Pearlman pretending like he’s a wizard who influenced your thoughts.

I’m having a blast and am excited to take magic tricks to weird new places with this freedom. With only one major requirement: audience first. Not all magic secrets should be revealed. If a secret is revealed, it’s because my data shows that the audience wanted to know the secret and wouldn’t care to watch the trick otherwise. The material must be in service to the audience.

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I don't really have a strong opinion on any of this, but I will play devil's advocate here, just for the sake of providing a counterpoint to this email.

1. While I agree with his thoughts as they apply to performing on tik tok, facebook, etc. I'm not sure they hold true for in-person performing.

2. It’s probably true to say that most laymen want to know the secret, but I don't know that necessarily means they receive any joy from knowing it. I think it’s more a matter of them just being uncomfortable not knowing how something is done. The people who get true joy from learning secrets are the people who pursue learning magic. Greg Rostami is performing for that self-selected group of people. But there's nothing to necessarily suggest people generally get the same thrill from learning the secret. If they got the same thrill we got, then they would probably already be in the magic community. Do lay people want to know secrets. On some level, yes. But I also think it’s not completely clear-cut. Would Copperfield or Derek Delgaudio or anyone have sold-out shows if they were revealing the tricks at the end? I don't think so, but I don't really know. You could easily argue that a random tik tok magician is more "popular" than Copperfield or Delgaudio. And that's true in a lot of ways. But I do wonder if a live show could exist that exposed the tricks. You could say P&T did this, but their artistry was the exposure. They didn't put their art into the effect and then explain the effect at the end too.

3. I bet there are some who would say that exposing the methods is just as much an ego driven pursuit as not doing so. In the old days you could build your ego by creating a sense of mystery and power about yourself with magic. That's not an option anymore. Not online at least. There will always be someone in the comments describing how you did it (or giving a description that satisfies enough people). So now, maybe, the way to use magic to boost your ego is to be the first one to expose a method online—or the first one to do it in a way that gains traction. That way you get to glom onto the cleverness of the method and get your ego boost there. (I have no idea, because I watch almost zero magic online so I don't know what anybody is doing anywhere.)

Again, I’m not disagreeing with our guest here in general. I’m just making the case that exposure might be as ego-motivated as anything else in magic, and not wholly an altruistic gesture.

Now, let’s jump in the way-back machine and look at something I wrote a few years ago…

If things just progress as they're going, I think in a matter of years, the "mystery" element (the "magical" element) of magic will be almost gone. This isn't a bold prediction, this is just the way magic has evolved over the past couple hundred years. In 10 years, when finding out anything will be almost instantaneous, I can see the mystery being entirely eliminated. Or at the very most it will be this very brief moment that happens before the secret is immediately revealed. Magic tricks will be almost like the set-ups to jokes. And learning the secret will be the punchline. That will be the nature of performing tricks. I don't think this is a pessimistic point of view. I think it's not only realistic, but pretty much obvious. People will still like magic, but if will be a different sort of experience.

My only mistake here was thinking that it would take 10 years. This is, essentially, where online magic is now. Here’s a video of Eric Leclerc where he shows his Fool Us performance and then explains it. This would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Thankfully, the trick he’s exposing is hot dogshit, so it doesn’t really matter either way. And, in fact, the exposure here is definitely more interesting than the trick is otherwise. So it’s hard to take issue with it.

Getting worked up about the exposure of magic online is kind of a lost cause. Exposure is baked into online magic performances. There’s really no way around it. Either the performer has to address it in some way, or the people in the comments will.

Thus, the performance of “magic” online becomes a separate thing from the performance of “magic” in-person.

Online Magic - Uses the elements of deception to entertain.

In-Person Magic (at the highest levels) - Uses the elements of deception to create mystery, awe, and wonder.

So you’re saying magic when performed on facebook or tik tok can’t create “mystery, awe, and wonder”?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. This should be obvious. Consider watching someone vanish an apple on Instagram. It might seem very cool and visually amazing. Now imagine sitting across from someone in real life as they make an apple in the middle of the table slowly fade away to nothing. That could be a life-altering moment. It’s just not possible to elevate the experience of a trick online to that of one that happens in person. The medium is limited that way.

Imagine the internet didn’t exist. I come up to you one day and say, “Hey, I have this new way for you to beam your magic into people’s homes.”

Sounds great!

“It’s somewhat impersonal, however, because you’re doing it for an audience of, potentially, millions of people.”

Oh, that’s alright. I don’t change my delivery and patter regardless of who I’m performing for.

“Also, they can watch the trick over and over.”

Oh, that’s not good. Doesn’t that go against a fundamental rule of magic?

“They can even pause it, rewind, and play it in slow-motion.”

Uh-oh.

“And there’s a place they can go to discuss how the trick is done with every other person in the world.”

Are you kidding me? Where is this place they can go? I pray that it requires at least some effort on their part to get to it.

“Oh, no, no. It’s about an inch away from where they’re watching you perform.”

What!? That sounds like a terrible medium for performing magic!

EXACTLY.

The traditional style of performance and presentation doesn’t work on the internet. And the people who have big followings performing magic online understand this. That’s why they’re not presenting magic in the contexts we normally would and with the same reverence for secrets that was ingrained in most of us who perform in the real world.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love it if there was no exposure of magic online. I wish secrets couldn’t be found with a simple google search. I wish the experience of seeing a magic trick was something that was rare and not something that everyone could call up at any time they want with a device that’s in their pocket. But that’s not how it is. And the secret to happiness in life is to focus your efforts on how to best navigate the terrain in front of you, not spending your time wishing the terrain was different.

That’s why my magic has followed the trajectory it has these past years. As I’ve written about on this site and even more-so in the books. Slowing tricks down, burying effects in layers of presentation, putting some burden on the spectator, creating something more immersive and personal makes the tricks unlike anything the person can see online. Most of the techniques I use wouldn’t even work online. That’s part of the reason why I use them. I want people to have a different experience than they would sitting at their computer. And the beauty of social magic is that you can slowly cultivate an audience who wants that too—an audience who is interested in more than secrets.

The Impression That I Get

When you use an impression pad in a routine. How do you make it seem like an everyday notepad?

Im guessing its something you already use to make notes in your day to day life. Maybe the pad is on one side and notes on the other. Is it something you carry with you in general? Or more specifically for a certain planned routine?

Also if you are planning on using it for a future something, do you consciously use it as a notepad beforehand and let people see you use it? —JC

Here is what it would look like if I used an impression pad with you in a social situation.

We’d be having a conversation. I’d suggest we try something out. You’d think of a word or whatever. I’d ask you if you have anything to write on. You’d likely say no. I’d dig in my bag a bit and pull out regular small spiral notebook.

I’d open it up to the first blank page and have you write down what you’re thinking, tear out the sheet, close the notebook and set it aside. That’s it.

I’m as concerned about overly justifying something as I am about not justifying it. I think both are equally suspicious. I think having a small notepad in my computer bag is not something that needs justification. That doesn’t seem unusual to me. So no, I don’t really go out of my way to make the notepad seem “normal.”

Now, if I was just carrying it around in my pocket, then I might feel like I needed some more justification as to why I had it on me. Not that carrying around a notebook is completely unheard of. But in an era of cellphones that you can use to make notes and record voice memos, it’s a little odd that you would give up your limited pocket space for a notebook and pen.

So, for me, it makes more sense to keep an impression pad in my bag, in a drawer in my house, or maybe in the glove compartment of my car. When it’s in one of those places I can choose to use it spontaneously. If I have a specific trick I want to use with an impression pad, then I will plan it so that my target audience is in the location that is near the pad. I won’t bring the pad to them if they’re somewhere where it doesn’t make sense.

This is a general concept in amateur magic. When you’re a professional, you bring your props to the show. When you’re an amateur, you bring your show to the props. Where does a notepad feel not out of place? That’s where you should arrange for your performance to occur.

The next question I’ll get is, “What impression pad do you use.”

Believe it or not, I make my own with a charcoal stick. It takes ten seconds.

I played around a lot with many of the commercially released impression pads. They’re all more or less fine, and they’re good if you need to read the impression immediately. But that’s less of a concern for the amateur performer. In fact, I generally don’t want to take the pad back right after they write something.

The limitations of this version of an impression pad have pushed me to use it in more “long form” performances. And because of that, I think my usage of the pad has become much more deceptive.

Consider the two major issues performers have with impression pads:

1. Justifying why the person has to write down what they’re thinking of

2. Getting the peek in an invisible manner

It can be difficult to justify why they’re writing something down if the trick is completed in a couple minutes. But if you’re doing a long-form trick—in the style I enjoy performing—then maybe they write it down to later burn the paper with the word on it, or rip it up and flush it, or feed it to a goat, or mail it to someone, or sleep with it under their pillow.

And since you’re not immediately finishing the trick, you may have minutes, hours, or even days to get a proper peek from the notebook. The longer performance allows for more rationales you can use for writing something down and more opportunity to get the impression from the pad. So it fixes both issues one might have with the impression pad.

My most used trick with an impression pad is to have someone write something down and then I figure out what they wrote. Ok, I know that doesn’t sound that interesting. But consider the difference between the trick as short-form vs. long-form trick.

Short-form - The person writes something down on the pad. I take the pad back. Then I tell them what they wrote down.

In a short-form performance, the pad is in play for a significant part of the interaction, so it’s not a surprise that it could draw some scrutiny. Especially with me taking it directly after they wrote something on it.

Long-form - The person writes something down on the pad while I’m on the other side of the room. They rip out the page and toss the pad aside. I tell them to fold up the page and put it in their pocket. “By the end of the night, I will figure out what that word is. Don’t fight me on it, but also don’t let the word slip. Actually, the first thing I want you to do is recite the alphabet for me.” Blah, blah, blah. You see, I’m already moving on to something not “pad related.” The pad is outside of the purview of the experience almost immediately.

As the night goes on and I engage the person with a few more processes or questions designed to tease out the word they’re thinking, the memory of the pad will fade even further into the background.

Yes, at some point in the evening, I will need to be alone with that pad for a couple seconds, but it shouldn’t be that hard to find an opportunity for that. And when I do eventually reveal the word, the pad will have been in play for less than 1% of the time since the effect started. In all likelihood it will be mostly forgotten. And that’s the ultimate goal for any impression pad based effect.

2021 Supporter Slots are Now CLOSED

The available supporter slots for 2021 have been filled. Thanks to everyone who signed up to support another year.

If you would like to be on the waiting list for any potential slots that become open in the future, just email me and let me know.

Dustings #29

2020 Supporters should have received an email yesterday to see if they want to sign up for 2021. If you’re a supporter and didn’t get the email, check your spam, and if it’s not there, let me know.

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Joshua Jay has an online show on March 3rd. You can buy tickets for it here if that’s where your life is at.

I’m not bringing this up to plug the show, but rather to make a promise to Josh. You see, whenever Josh does anything, I get a bunch of emails sent to me with people poking fun at him with jokes and bad photoshops. I want Josh to know that what you see below is the type of low-energy ball-busting that I won’t permit on my site.

Show some respect to Josh, you jerks.

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In Eric Jones’ Masterclass on Vanishing Inc, he continually referred to playing cards as “pasteboards.” I’m not a fan of this terminology. I think it’s supposed to sound fancier and shame dummies like me who just call them “cards.” But when you break it down, it’s really the most artless way to describe playing cards. If you asked the biggest moron at the playing card factory what they were doing, he’d be like:

“Well… we’re using a bunch of paste here… and we’re gluing paper together to make little—you know—little boards.”

And what do you call them?

“Uhm… hmmm… Paper-Pastey-Things? No…that’s not good… how about, Pasteboards?”

So pasteboards is actually the dumb way to refer to them. If Eric is going to use the term “pasteboards,” then I insist he keep up this overly-literal object terminology and—instead of saying he does “coin magic”—he should say, “I do magic with Metal Roundies.”

(If anyone wants some free advertising for their online lecture, just sincerely refer to coins at some point as “metal roundies” and I will happily plug your product on this site for free.)

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I have zero business sense. I’ve lucked into a successful formula for keeping this site going, but that was through a unique set of circumstances that happened to fall into place. Not due to any savvy business acumen on my part.

So this probably isn’t good business advice, but tell me why this wouldn’t work. Penguin has their live lectures and Vanishing Inc has their Masterclasses. Imagine one of them decided to call their service Penguin Prime or Vanishing Prime and you got the monthly videos and free priority shipping on orders. Doesn’t it seem like if one of those companies did that:

1. A bunch more people would sign up for the monthly subscription.

2. People like me, who split their magic purchase around somewhat randomly between Penguin, Vanishing Inc., would now channel the majority of their purchases through the one shop that was offering the free priority shipping.

3. People would end up purchasing more frequently to take advantage of the added service they’re getting with their monthly subscription.

And I says specifically “priority” shipping because, while both companies do have a free shipping option now, it’s this weird janky-ass shipping which sometimes take just a few days and other times you get the sense they put your package on a retarded donkey and just pointed him in your general direction.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bad idea. I’m sure they’ve probably run the numbers on this sort of thing. It just seems like a win-win situation. I’m sort of surprised none of the big online shops (that I know of) have incentives in place to get you to buy the magic you can get from anywhere, from them. You know? Perhaps there’s some détente in place to not try and mess around too much with prices and/or perks so they don’t have to get into some sort battle where they’re undercutting and outdoing each other. As I said, I know nothing about business.

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Magical Transformations #2

My favorite part of working on the books is seeing my bad, clunky visual ideas executed beautifully.

Here is my first sketch for the most recent book cover and the preliminary sketch and final version created by Stasia Burrington.

Zoom Magic for the Amateur Magician

It’s been interesting to see the way magic has changed since the start of the pandemic. In the days after the lockdowns started, I was doing a series of posts on this site about “Magic in the Time of Coronavirus.” Not long after that, professional magicians all over the world were reconfiguring their shows and thinking of ways they could not only continue to work in this new paradigm, but even take advantage of the opportunities presented from performing virtually rather than in person. A whole new crop of tricks popped up that would only work virtually. That’s pretty industrious of us as a community. I mean, I don’t really keep up with other performance arts in the same way, but were jugglers so quick to adapt? Did mimes take advantage of the limitations of the Zoom medium in order to be more convincing? Were they like, “Shit… I just had a great idea. I think I could actually put myself in a real glass box and no one would be able to tell. They’d just think I was really good at miming."

A lot of the advice that has come out for virtual performances over the past year has been aimed at the professional; things like how to light yourself and mic yourself and structure your show. But that sort of advice is counterproductive for the amateur who (generally) would want an online performance to feel unique and spontaneous, not planned and scripted.

For the professional performer, an online show is meant to be thought of as an “online show.” But for the amateur performer, that’s not what an online performance should feel like. Ideally the “online” nature of what they’re seeing would feel like it wasn’t a choice, it just happened that’s where this is playing out. This is advice not necessarily for pandemic-era performing, but also for any time you want to do something over Zoom going forward.

To make a video chat (or phone, or text) performance feel more organic, it should be predicated on one of these factors.

Urgency: For some reason or other, you need to show someone this thing now. It can’t wait until the next time you see that person in the flesh. You’ve had some sort of sudden insight, or you’re up against a time constraint, and you need to show this to someone immediately.

Distance: You need to show something to this particular person, but they live so far away that it’s not practical to wait until the next time you see them in person.

Convenience: You’re already on a video chat with someone and the idea of showing them a trick comes up naturally in conversation. Ideally they bring up the idea (perhaps based on something that you’ve put in the frame to hook them into a performance)

Consider these three transitions into an online magic performance:

Urgency - “Hey, I know it’s late, but I just had this idea come to me and I need to try it out while it’s still fresh. Are you able to hop on Zoom for a minute?”

Distance - “Hey, I was wondering. Are you coming to New York anytime soon?... No? Damn. I had this super vivid dream about you last night. It felt almost… prophetic in some way. I wanted to try something. Hopefully next time we see each other I’ll remember the details. Actually… are you able to hop on Zoom for a minute?”

Convenience - “Okay, great meeting. I’ll get you those figures by Thursday… huh? What’s hanging on the wall behind me? Oh… that? Oh, it’s nothing. It’s part of this thing I’m working on, but I doubt it’s really going to work. Actually… do you have a minute to try something?”

Now compare those to sending someone this text message:

“Hey. Will you get on Zoom so I can show you a magic trick?”

Do you feel how limp that is? There is nothing propelling you into the performance. Not only is it a graceless way to get into a trick, but with no other rationale behind the performance, there’s a good chance they might feel like this is a trick that must be done over video chat. 

Whereas if you’re already on video chat and they bring up the idea of you showing them something, or if you imply you want to show it to them in person but your schedules just won’t allow it, or something like that, then it’s probably not going to have the feel of a webcam-only trick.

My final piece of advice for video chat magic is to not bother with a trick you can do in person. Save that and do it for that person in real life someday. You are given the gift of being able to frame the spectator’s field of vision, and the gift of static angles, and the gift of off-screen assistants, and the gift of a less clear visual image, and the gift of using unexaminable objects with impunity. Take advantage of those gifts. I feel a trick loses at least 50% of its power when performed over video chat compared to when it’s performed in person. So if you have a trick that’s really great in person, you’re sacrificing it for a reaction that will max out at “pretty good” over video chat. It’s a waste. Instead focus on tricks that would be impossible or very difficult to pull off in real life.

Monday Mailbag #37

Something I have been thinking a lot about is this. How can you perform comedy magic that is also strong magic? Usually - comedy magicians do stupid gag magic. But - doing strong magic contrasts with the traditional approach of being an incompetent goofball.

It seems to me the only way through this is to go down the route of what we see in modern comedy. Somebody who is delusional about what they think they are good at.

As such - my guess would be this. A magician who does strong magic - but the comedy angle is that he is delusional about the philosophical or conceptual art content of his magic - as such even though he performs strong magic - he is still a failure since he is aiming for something profound (on a conceptual art or philosophical level) when he performs - and missing the target each time.

You are funnier than me - so I thought I would run my thoughts past you. If you had to perform comedy magic (professionally and not for friends) - what approach would you take? —JM

I’m not great at answering questions like, “If you were to perform professionally how would you do _____.” Because I really spend no time thinking about it. And it seems like the sort of thing that would take months—at the very least—to sort out.

In general, though, I’ve spent more time trying to remove humor from my performances rather than add it.

One of the problems of trying to mix strong magic and strong comedy is that the most fooling magic requires a level of concentration and scrutiny on the audience’s part. But humor undermines those things. This is why there is the advice given in magic that if you want to get away with a move, you should do it on a laugh, because spectators can’t laugh and think critically at the same time. I think that’s true. And it’s fine advice if you’re trying to get away with your pass. But if your goal is to make the magic moment as strong as possible, then you usually don’t want the audience to feel their concentration was broken. You don’t want them thinking, “Oh god! That was funny! Oh wait… I forgot to watch his hands. Did he do something?”

Comedy is almost always a distraction. And for the same reason I wouldn’t want someone looking at their phone while I’m showing them a trick, I wouldn’t want them too swept up in the humor of the interaction. That’s why magic is not my vehicle for humor. I prefer to just be funny in real life. When I’m performing magic for someone, it’s usually some other experience I want to give them.

I do have some tricks where the climax is funny in some way. And what I’ve found is that there is not a simultaneous moment of laughter and astonishment. Instead, I’ll get a laugh at the “punchline” and it might take minutes for the impossibility of the effect itself to slowly build. I’m fine with this sort of reaction. The one thing the amateur magician has is time, so you don’t need to rush the reaction because you’re not going to move on to the next trick immediately.

If I had one piece of advice to give about humor and magic, it would probably be this:

The more interesting the effect is conceptually, the more humor will detract from it. If you’re making balls move from one cup to another, you are demonstrating a dull magical ability. So it makes sense to add a bunch of jokes to it. But if you’re doing something more conceptually interesting—even if it’s a silly concept—then jokes will take away from the impact of the trick, in my experience.

So, what works for me as far as the proper mix of humor and magic is to do something conceptually absurd, but to treat it seriously. Then the humor will arise from the situation, rather than being some “clever” jokes you add into the mix. For example, simply and soberly telling people I have an evil twin and pretending that is “reality” is much funnier to most people than if I treated it like a joke with a bunch of scripted lines.

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Your books and blog have made my life better. Not because of a trick or a presentational idea, undoubtedly wonderful that they all are; the biggest change has been our family adoption of [the technique described in this post on how to make a relationship last]; every day when I get back from work my kids (and my wife too if she is nearby) sing a song or do a dance to celebrate. It makes my day, everyday. I’ve attached a recent recording. —CW

That’s wonderful. Thank you for sharing. But you can’t let them stop now. Your daughter might not want to sing “Daddy’s Home” when she’s a moody teenager and a boy she likes is over studying, but you MAKE her.

The good news is, you probably won’t have any issue getting your son to do that dance any time in the future. That kid was born with a gift, he’s going to want to share it.

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Last year I bought a Fingerbot after you mentioned them on the blog. I was curious if you had any ideas for applications. —JB

Shit. I forgot all about that thing. I didn’t end up getting one. I thought I ordered one, but I can’t find any record of it, or any record of asking someone to get one on my behalf, so maybe I didn’t.

Here’s what I would do. When I’m outside with someone I would say, “Oh, I’m beta-testing a new magic app. Can I try something?”

I’d pick up a leaf off the ground and tear a piece off and hand it to my friend. I’d tell them to place the piece between two credit cards with RFID chips (“to protect it.”)

When they had done that I would take a picture of the rest of the leaf and have them destroy it by burning it or flushing it or whatever.

Then I’d open my phone and fiddle around with something, not showing them exactly what I was doing. “If this works, when we go back to the spot we found the leaf originally, we should find it again. The application is supposed to reset any organic matter you scan in. But apparently the app is pretty flakey. In theory it should look like the leaf traveled back in time. But that’s not what’s really happening. It’s just resetting the organic matter to a previous state.” This is a meaningless distinction, but it makes it sound like I’d given this some though.

When we go back outside and look under the tree for the leaf with the missing piece, it wouldn’t be there. “Hmm, maybe I sent it back too far. It might have just fallen from the tree before we found it originally.” Then I’d go back to my phone, make some adjustments and wait a moment. Then the leaf we destroyed—with the missing piece that matches the piece in my friend’s wallet—would fall from the tree.

This is similar to a couple other tricks I’ve done with leaves and torn-corner principles taken from card magic. But the idea of a leaf falling from the tree “on command” would add a whole new element to it. It would be a matter of rigging the Fingerbot in the tree so that it would release the duplicate leaf with the missing piece. That would require the right set-up and the right tree and the right time of year (you wouldn’t want there to already be a lot of leaves falling/on the ground), but if you could pull it off it would be pretty dope.

With some forethought you could play around even more with the concept of time-travel and nature and make a dry, dead autumn leaf fall from a tree in the middle of summer.

That’s a more ambitious use for this thing. As a day to day thing, I’d probably just use it as a secondary effect—making something fall somewhere as a side-effect of some psychic power or spirit entity or something.

Or, if I’m staying with a new woman overnight for the first time, I’ll set it up in her kitchen to knock over a glass or something. Then, in the middle of the night, I’ll wake her up. Whispering, “I heard footsteps in the other room. Does anyone else live here?” When she’s a little freaked we hear a SMASH! I’ll jump out of bed, no fear in my eyes. “Stay here. I got this.” I’ll hop into action, leave the room, and have an argument with an imaginary intruder in the other room. “Get the fuck out of here! UGH! I don’t care how hard you punch me, I will defeat you! Go! And never return!”

After I’ve “saved” her, we’ll call the police and I’ll file a fake police report. (“What did he look like? 6’10”. Solid muscle.”)

After that we’d return to the bedroom to engage in sexual activities, high on adrenaline.

The next day she would be having lunch with one of her friends. “He’s so brave! He singlehandedly removed an intruder from my house. And what a lover he is! I mean—this is going to sound crazy—but it’s almost like he has… I don’t know how to say this… an eleventh finger with which to touch and tease my body.”

Dustings #28

As I mentioned previously, I won’t be using this site for non-magic posts anymore. There still may be some posts on productivity or mindset stuff that I’ve found works for me—as I don’t see that stuff as completely disconnected from what I write about here. But for music/tv/horror movie recommendations, and things like that, I will be using this new site. I’ll probably post at most a few times a month. There’s no need to follow it too closely unless you’re particularly inclined to. Once a month or so I’ll give a heads-up here about whatever new posts are there, so you can check it out if you’re interested.

The reason for separating out these posts is two-fold. First, to keep this site more focused, as I’m presuming most people are here just for the magic content. Second, to keep people without an interest in magic from stumbling on the site after they google some obscure band I’m into or something like that.

The blog is called Dispatches from Marmalade Falls, which is a reference to something I used to do in the old JAMM magazines.

It’s written from the perspective of an enthusiastic man who takes joy from a lot of things and who has just moved back to his hometown of Marmalade Falls to help take care of his recently widowed mother.

The “enthusiastic man who takes joy from a lot of things” is a pretty accurate self-assessment, but most of the other personal details on the site are made up.

You can find the site here.

The first three posts up now are:

A welcome post
Some favorite songs from 2020
How to enjoy TV watching more

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Congratulations to Joshua Jay on the release of his new book, Dream Machine, which is a book designed to be used with young children as part of their nighttime routine before they go to bed.

This is a great addition to the Joshua Jay series of books that put you to sleep.

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As that was my first shot at Joshua Jay in the new season, I want to make my annual point that I actually like Josh. I’m a fan of his. He’s a fan of mine. We get along perfectly fine. He’s just my go-to person to talk shit about because he can take it. (I think he can, at least. I mean, maybe he spends his nights crying into his Dream Machine book.)

My old blog, back in the mid-2000s was much more confrontational and shit-talky. Lots of people enjoyed it like that. I enjoyed it too. But now that I’m the voice of a generation of magicians, I have to be careful. They say: With great power comes… hmm… I don’t remember. Is it something about fudge? I forget what it is exactly. But I know they say something.

Anyway, with my old blog there were a bunch of fucking nerds who would want to start shit with me because I said something they didn’t like. And then I’d have to pretend like I gave a shit about them one way or the other and we’d have some public back and forth, and it was always a bloodbath because they couldn’t formulate a compelling thought to save their lives. So then it became the equivalent of them setting a ball on the tee for me, and me crushing that shit half a mile over the outfield fence. Then they’d get all mad and threaten to beat me up, threaten to get the site taken down, tell me I was going to get cancer, tell me they were going to sue me, or have me thrown in jail. (Scroll way, way down to the MCJ Advent Calendar I did on this site in December 2015 for a trip down memory lane.)

At the time, I was writing MCJ when I was working a day-job in the field of medical copywriting. So bashing some magic dullards was preferable to thinking about whatever mysterious bacteria or new breed of herpe I was supposed to be writing about. But now my time is my own, so pretending to care enough about some goof in order to write about them is just not a rewarding way to spend my time. Instead I just want to write about the things that get me excited, not pointing out how lame some other magician is. That sort of thing only works when you’re low down on the totem pole, not when you’re the Tipsie Award winning person behind the most acclaimed writing in modern magic. If I attack almost anyone it would be seen as punching down. Who can I go after? David Copperfield. Hmm… maybe, I guess. Derren Brown? That’s guy’s my puppet.

But, that being said, I do still like the artistry of some well-constructed shit-talk. So I just use Josh as the go-to butt of my jokes. That way I don’t have to deal with some angry-worded email from some other magician who didn’t have friends growing up and thus they take every silly joke as if it’s an attack.

But hey, look, if you’re someone who is known in the magic world and you’re okay with me taking shots at you as well, just send me an email with, “You have my permission to roast my ass,” in the subject line. (It would be particularly helpful to me if you’re at least somewhat fat.)

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Speaking of magicians being delicate little babies who can’t handle criticism, there used to be an excellent twitter account called Magic Transcribed. This account would post video clips of magicians and transcribe their performances. That’s all the account did. They didn’t comment on the performances, they just posted them. The site was removed from twitter a few weeks ago.

I tried to figure out why and I reached out to the young lady who ran the account and a couple JERX: UK members who are also part of the Magic Circle. I had heard the Magic Circle had issues with the account and were trying to get it taken down for “bullying.” That’s a fascinating definition of the word “bullying”: posting—without comment— performance clips that were available online. There are some real fragile-ass dudes in the magic community.

Anyway, the twitter account had that going on and some DMCA strikes against it and ultimately it got removed from Twitter. But now she has an instagram, which you can find here. I’ve told her if she wants to give a more detailed explanation of what went on with the account that I’d post it here.

I’ll also post the Magic Circle’s side of the story here as well, because I guarantee you it would be hilarious.

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I received a major award recently. It was quite unexpected. It just showed up in the Jerx PO Box. I don’t live in the area of the PO Box, and I didn’t know I had anything coming, so I hadn’t told my friend who monitors the box to be looking for anything. So it came as a surprise to both of us when he randomly checked the box, found a package, and when I told him to open it up and tell me what was inside, he said, “A golden thumbtip.”

But not just any golden thumbtip. A Sarah Trustman First Annual Tipsie Award Golden Thumbtip.

I’m no metallurgist, but the front of the award features what I believe to be a 24k gold thumbtip. The engraving on the back (done using a very expensive process that mimics the look of Sharpie marker) reads:

Sarah Trustman’s
First Annual
Tipsies
Awarded to Andy Jerxmann
For advancing magic by writing truth
2020

I didn’t know Sarah before receiving this, but it turns out she is an author, artist, mnemonist, and—I think it’s fair to say because I received this award—a keen judge of genius.

So thanks to Sarah (and Dan Harlan). With this and my Tarbell award, I am just one award* away from achieving magic’s Triple Crown!

* (The Goshman Golden Sponge Ding-Dong for Excellence in Genital-Centric Magic.)

If there’s something you’d like to send to me via mail, the address is:

White Wand
PO Box 2026
Liverpool, NY 13089

Don’t put “Andy” or Jerx on there, just use that address. It’s best if you email me to let me know something is on the way, or else it may be some time before someone picks it up.