Dustings #34

I mentioned this in passing before, but given the number of emails I’ve received, I didn’t put a fine enough point on it. The first newsletter for this year’s supporters will be going out later this month. Probably around the 20th give or take a few days.

---

Magician’s Timing

The term “big dick energy” gained prominence about three years ago as we can see on this Google Trends graph where the searches shoot up right at the end.

Guess at what point some magicians put out a show called “Big Trick Energy”?

Timely!

You might think that’s a terrible name for a show, but I’m sure the executives at TruTV (where it’s airing) were just like, “Name it whatever the fuck you want. As long as it’s not as convoluted a name as ‘The Carbonaro Effect,’ then we’re good.”

And the guys behind the show were like, “It’s called Big Trick Energy! You know, like big dick energy. But we substituted ‘trick’ for ‘dick’ because we do magic tricks. (And because our penises are just adequate at best, if we’re being 100% honest.)”

TruTV Exec: Sure. Whatever. Fine. Call the show Abracadouchebags if you want. As long as we don’t have to spend 45 minutes explaining it every time it comes up, we cool.

Here’s an ad for the show…

BUCKET LIST: Using RUN DMC on my TV show promo!! @truTV #bigtrickenergy pic.twitter.com/enqybaep7i

— Chris Ramsay (@chrisramsay52) March 24, 2021

I wish them the best of luck. I’ll be curious to see how the show does. A prank show with four magicians where they “mess with each other” may sound like a great idea, but it seems like it would be really difficult in execution. I think what people love about prank shows, or things like the Carbonaro Effect, or even just a David Blaine special is that they have this fake thing—the prank or the magic trick—but we get to see people’s genuine reactions to that fake thing. If the reactions to Blaine’s tricks didn’t feel legitimate, he never would have had a special in the first place.

But from the clips I’ve seen, when it comes to this show, everything seems fake. The tricks, the reactions, even their reactions to the reactions. And, of course, they would have to be fake. If we’re a bunch of magicians on a show together and you “crush my car with the power of your mind” then my real reaction is going to be, “Huh. Would ya look at that.” I’m not going to be freaking out, because I know we’re magicians on a tv show.

So it’s this weird situation where you have a phony reaction to a phony scenario. My gut tells me that’s going to make it difficult for people to connect to the show in any real way. But what the hell do I know? You have that same situation with fake reactions to fake situations all over facebook and the videos have millions of views. I’m just not sure how well that will translate to tv. For their sake, I hope it’s a hit.

---

I have to say, watching that commercial reminded me of how much more powerful magic is when it’s not in front of an audience or someone holding a tv camera. I really think magic for just a small group (ideally 1-on-1) in a casual/social situation is the most powerful magic there is, everything else being equal. There’s a moment in that commercial above where a woman breaks a plate-glass window with her mind and her reaction is about 20% of the reaction I get when I have someone knock a pen off the table with their mind in my apartment.

That’s not a reflection on me as a performer. That’s just the difference of someone experiencing something in an intimate interaction as opposed to one that’s meant to be broadcast to the world.

---

Andy’s Bible Updates

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve started reading the bible. And now it’s time for my bible update.

But this is supposed to be a magic blog!

Beat it. This is my blog. My magic and bible blog now. If you don’t like it, hit the bricks.

The particular bible I’m using is this one, where the bible is broken up into a reading program that lasts the course of a year. Each day you read some of the old testament, some of the new testament, some of psalms and proverbs.

The entry for April 3rd was a particularly bonkers day in this bible. We’re in Deuteronomy and Moses is wrapping up with the Israelites and letting them know some of the rules they need to follow. (If you thought the 10 commandments were the only rules to follow, you’re incredibly mistaken.)

Here are some highlights from the April 3rd entry…

Honestly, that would feel like the least of my problems at that moment.

Ok, fair enough, Moses. But actually, if the concern is about me being “defiled,” I think I’d feel much more defiled walking around all day in the desert sun with the dried jiz flaking off my stomach. Any chance I can take that bath in the morning?

And finally, here is one of my favorite excerpts of the bible so far. It’s a longer one, so I won’t use a photo, but it’s worth the read…

Deuteronomy 25:5-10

“If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel.

“But if the man refuses to marry his brother’s widow, she must go to the town gate and say to the elders assembled there, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel—he refuses to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law by marrying me.’ The elders of the town will then summon him and talk with him. If he still refuses and says, ‘I don’t want to marry her,’ the widow must walk over to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she must declare, ‘This is what happens to a man who refuses to provide his brother with children.’ Ever afterward in Israel his family will be referred to as ‘the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off’!

Okay guys, you hear that? Is it clear to you? Hey… look…you’re not being pressured into anything. You have a choice. You either fulfill your brother-in-law “duties,” and bang your brother’s widow or this business about the sandal is going to come out. And buddy, let me tell you, it’s going to be all over Israel. Everybody is going to hear about it. So if you’re thinking, “Oh, well, gee, it probably won’t be that bad. It will blow over soon enough.” No. Don’t get it twisted. We’re going to be talking about that sandal thing ever afterward.

---

Usually when a magician becomes famous there are numerous copycats that come out of the woodwork Blaine created a number of street-magic clones. Derren Brown spawned a bunch of “psychological illusionists.” David Copperfield had his followers, complete with the wind-swept hair and the Peter Gabriel soundtrack.

Yet, for some reason, nobody that I know (other than myself) has run with this style of performance and presentation which—in my opinion—is the finest in the history of magic.

For those of you who are curious what it’s like to see me perform, it’s pretty much this. I look like a total creep, but I sing the catchiest song you’ve ever heard. And my audiences are primarily composed of pre-pubescent future serial killers.

Also, I’m not too proud to admit I was fooled by the balloon trick. This commercial is a mix of real magic and fake bullshit, so I don’t really know if it’s possible. Is there some sort of tubing system allowing this to happen? Is it just a clip run in reverse with him lip-syncing backwards? I admit, the Marvelous Magical Burger King has fooled me with that one.

Untested: Homecoming

This is the start of a new series of posts for ideas I want to put out that are untested by me for one reason or another. Usually because I haven’t been in the position to perform the trick or because it’s an idea I have for a venue or setting in which I don’t perform.

Homecoming

Why It’s Untested: I actually like this idea quite a bit and I’ve been sitting on it since a reader, JP, sent me an email with the basic concept in March of 2020.

It sort of requires a specific situation for you to be able to perform it, and I haven’t really encountered that situation in the past year. But as the world progresses more towards normality over the next few months, you may come across an opportunity to perform this, and I think it would be a big hit.

I will describe a somewhat “idealized” version of a situation in which you might use it, but you’ll easily see how you could vary the presentation to be used in a different scenario.

This is sort of a strange trick because I think the best use for it would be over video chat with someone who is in the same house as you. It’s not necessary to do it that way, but that’s how I’ll describe it, because that’s how I’ve been imagining it.

What it looks like: You tell your spouse, “Hey, so the people at work are bugging me to do a magic trick for the corporate office over video conference tomorrow. I have something in mind, but I need to test it out. Would you mind sitting through it and giving me your thoughts?”

You go to a different room of the house and fire up a zoom conference with your wife in the living room.

She can see you sitting a your desk and in the background, on the wall, is large manilla envelope with a question mark on it.

“Okay,” you say, “so the idea is you’re going to choose a random number to select something from this numbered list on my phone. When I do it tomorrow, they’ll be randomly choosing one of the light bulbs in our line of high-quality, long-lasting light bulbs. But the trick sort of works better if it’s something you care about. So instead I’m going to have you randomly select a member of your extended family. Give me a number between 1 and 42.”

Your wife says 20 and you open up a list you made on your phone of members of her extended family. You scroll down to the person at #20 and it’s her cousin Greg.

“Okay, perfect, cousin Greg. That was a free choice, yes? If you had chosen #19, you would have had Aunt Virginia. If you had chosen #21 you would have had Grandpa Bill. Now check this out.”

You get up out of your seat and walk to the back wall and remove the large envelope with the question mark on it. You walk back towards the desk and sit back in the chair, open the envelope and—holding it up to the camera—you slide out an 8x11 picture of cousin Greg’s bit fat head.

Your wife reacts and after a beat or two you pull the picture aside and reveal that you are now cousin Greg. That’s right, you’re transformed into the randomly selected family member. Cousin Greg can now go downstairs and reunite with your wife who he hasn’t seen in over a year.

Method: This is based on those classic stage illusions where the magician is wearing a mask for whatever weird reason. Then at some point he walks behind something and switches with someone in a matching mask. That person now acts as the magician for a little while as the real magician runs backstage and around the theater and up to the balcony so that when the faux-magician on stage vanishes, the real one can jump around on the balcony, “Here I am! It’s me! Mr. Magician!”

Here’s Copperfield doing it with a motorcycle helmet instead of a mask. But you get the idea.

The beauty of doing this over video chat is you can do it without a mask. You just need a brief moment out of frame to switch the two people, and then to block the person’s head with something until the change is revealed. That’s not hard to do. You can block out your head with a quarter if you hold it close enough to the camera.

And in this case you have something much better than a quarter. You have a large envelope and the large prediction you pull from it.

Here is an overhead look of how, generally, I see the choreography working.

So, you see, the natural walking path you’re going to take is going to take you out of the field of vision as you walk to the prediction and back to the desk with it. (It’s the “natural” walking path because your chair is directly behind you, so it makes sense you would veer around it rather than just trampling over it like a moron.) It’s as you return with the prediction, in the brief moment you’re fully off screen, that you’ll switch with the other person (with them either taking the prediction or already having a matching envelope in their hands ready to go).

From the point that the other person enters the camera’s field of vision, they will be holding out the envelope so it blocks their face. This isn’t unnatural. It makes sense that “you’ would be putting that front and center.

Ideally the other person would be in matching clothes, or at least something similar. If their body is vastly different than yours, they may need to block more of the image than just their head, but that pretty much goes without saying. They will hold out the envelope to the camera, remove the image of their face, then slide that image off to the side to reveal that it’s them holding the image now.

Obviously you’ll need to force the person at the beginning of the trick, but it really doesn’t matter how you go about doing that. You can use DFB, or a svengali pad, or names written on cards that you riffle force to, or whatever. No one is going to care about that part of the trick by the time it’s over.

You could, of course, do the trick for anyone over video chat. It doesn’t need to be for someone in your house. It doesn’t even need to be someone the person watching even knows. You could force one photo from a group of photos, then reveal your prediction matches, then reveal you’ve changed into that person. That would work too. However, the reason I wrote it up the way I did is because, as a trick, I think it’s pretty good. But as a way to surprise someone with the appearance of a loved one they didn’t know was in town, it becomes a capital-M, Magical moment.

The Penguin Magic Monthly Interview That Wasn't, Part 2

Continuing on from this post, here is Part 2 of the Penguin Magic Monthly Interview That Wasn’t…

It seems like you could easily make magic your fulltime career, but you don’t. Why not? Do you just love your day job? Are you nervous that if magic was your fulltime job that you’d get sick of it?

The other work I do outside of The Jerx is all writing/consulting work. So I just consider it all sort of the same thing. In magic I write and come up with ideas and outside of magic I write and come up with ideas. It wouldn’t make sense to solely focus on magic, because the other projects I’m involved in are as enjoyable and probably more lucrative if I broke it down on an hourly basis. And it’s not like I have some great love of magic or something. I’m only passionate about it in the manner that I incorporate it in my own life and in my own interactions. I hardly ever watch magic on TV or online. I don’t sit at home and think, “Ah, I know want I want to read…a biography of Thurston!” So it’s not like I’m looking to enmesh myself more in the magic world.

You have shared a lot on your blog, most of it for free. Is there anything that you regret sharing? Is there anything that you wish you could have kept for yourself?

Yeah, there are a few things I wish I hadn’t shared, but I’m not going to mention what they are because that would only bring more attention to them, when I’d rather they fly under the radar. Some things I’ve removed from the site completely because I realized I wanted less people potentially doing them. Almost everything that makes it to the books I find myself wishing I hadn’t released at some point. That’s probably because I tend to look back on the actual experiences of performing the trick and I want to keep the “magic” of those moment for myself. It would be like if you wrote a poem for your wife and she really loved it and then you said to people, “I’m going to put this poem in a book so you can give it to your wife.” That would be weird.

But I wouldn’t have the time to explore and create and perform magic without the people who support the site. So as much as I feel like there are things I’d rather hold onto for myself, they are part owners of the material, in my eyes.

What’s the best worst idea you have ever had? What’s an idea that seemed really promising but just fell flat?

I very rarely think, “this is promising,” only to have it fall flat. Sometimes a trick will need some tweaking but I hardly ever overestimate a trick. I underestimate tricks all the time. That why I made the rule when I started doing reviews in the newsletter that I wouldn’t give a trick a proper review without performing it at least a couple times first.

I can’t think of a “best worst idea.” But I’ll give the story of a trick I put a lot of effort into that just got an exasperated shake of the head in return. And that was when I ate my friend’s throw pillow. (I mentioned I was going to discuss this trick wayyyy back in 2018, but forgot to.)

My friend had this small, ugly, red, vinyl-ish throw pillow with black Chinese characters on it that always looked very out of place on his couch. It seemed like whenever someone was over his place when I was there, they would comment on it.

So one day when I had unfettered access to his place I took the insert out of the pillow and replaced it with white cotton candy. And when I was in the company of my friend I unzipped the pillow, emptied the “stuffing” out, folded up the cover up and set everything in my lap and began eating the elements of the pillow.

Inside of the pillow, along with the cotton candy, were a few squares of red fruit roll-up that I had another friend paint the pattern of the throw pillow on with edible paint. So the folded up cover of the throw pillow somewhat resembled this packet of painted fruit roll-ups. At one point while eating the cotton candy, I pushed the actual throw pillow cover, which was in my lap, between my legs. Leaving the duplicate edible cover visible under some of the remaining cotton candy stuffing. As I got down to the end (which went somewhat quickly because I was drinking water and dissolving the cotton candy as I went), I picked up the fruit roll-up packet—masquerading as the red, vinyl pillow cover—and I shoved everything in my mouth and chewed it up and swallowed it.

I think the extent of the reaction was him saying, “What are you doing?” As I went, “Mmm-mmm-mm!”

So I went to the hassle of special ordering white cotton candy and edible paint, and having a friend paint on fruit roll-ups to do a “trick” with no purpose. The only reason I thought to do it was because my friend had this bright throw pillow on his couch and one day another friend of ours said, “That pillow looks like a fruit roll-up.”

This was many years ago and I’ve become much better at giving these weird moments context.

What products do you recommend to other magicians (Your own products excluded)?

Outside of the recommendation I make in the newsletter, I don’t really.

But let’s pretend I do. If I were to recommend stuff, I’d recommend utility devices over individual effects. I like multi-taskers. If you buy “Grandpa’s Floating Top” then you’re just floating grandpa’s top like everyone else who bought it. However, if you buy a good IT system you can work on various effects and mix it up more.

Some of my most-used multi-taskers are: a Jak’s style wallet, Xeno app (to know a free choice), DFB or Inertia App (to force things), Loops, Vernet-Band writer, a thumbtip, and Quinta.

What do you think about magicians who take your amateur presentations and adapt them for their professional work?

It’s cool but a little strange because 99% of the material I’ve released came out of performing for friends. So seeing someone perform a trick of mine on stage is a little bizarre, but it’s interesting.

Unfortunately for the professional magicians, the best ideas I have—ideas about alternative ways of presenting tricks, getting in and out of tricks, extended the experience of the trick beyond boundaries of the effect itself—tend to be the things that don’t really translate to stage.

How do you find so many opportunities to perform in amateur settings?

If I’m doing something for my own benefit then I’m really kind of lackadaisical about things. But when the site became reader-supported, then I owed it to the people who were funding the site to schedule time to perform. So that’s what I do. I make sure I’m performing a certain number of times a week. Mostly my own material and ideas, but also trying out new releases for the review newsletter.

To perform social magic a lot—without wearing out the same people with magic tricks—you need to maintain a large social circle, meet up with them regularly, and put yourself in positions to interact with strangers. I make a lot of plans to see people, and I work in public places like coffee shops or co-working spaces. So I have a pretty good influx of new and old people to try things out on. I’ve become a lot more chatty with people since starting this site, simply because I need to be to meet new people and get new feedback.

Obviously Covid changed how I went about all that, but I’m gradually easing into a return to more regular performing.

If you want to see a numerical breakdown of a typical performing month pre-Covid, you can find that here.

As time goes by your blog moves more and more out of the “underground” and becomes more and more popular. What do you think of this popularity? Do you like that you are becoming more popular, or do you prefer obscurity?

I have no interest in being “popular” and, at the same time, I’m not trying to be “underground” or “obscure” either.

In my utopia, only the people who really like the site and feel they get value from it would bother visiting the site. This isn’t something I’m doing for a mass audience. If this site brings something positive to people, then I’m glad that they find it and enjoy it. But if people don’t like it, I’m perfectly happy with that too. I don’t need or want more readers.

Dustings #33

I’m so angry!

After making my big announcement yesterday, I went to the bank with the $600 check that Vanishing Inc., gave me to buy this site and the check bounced! Apparently they didn’t have enough money in their business account to cover it. And when I brought it up to them they were like, “Can we pay you in Vanishing Inc Points?” When I refused that option they stopped returning my phone calls and emails. They had changed the password to get into my squarespace account for this site too, but I was able to guess what they changed it to (magicboyz69) and recover the account.

So it looks like I’m going back to running the site myself. Ignore everything that was said yesterday.

---

Supporter Jon S., sent me this article about an advertising campaign that used images secretly hidden in a block of color that are only revealed when you adjust your filter settings in Instagram.

I can definitely see some presentational uses for such a thing, but I have no understanding of how one might go about creating such an image. Is it a simple step-by-step thing you could do in photoshop? Or is it a more complicated process?

If you know how it’s done—especially if it’s something that’s doable by the average person—send me an email and let me know.

---

Second Helpings: Cyanotypes by Elisha Ott

In the pdf here you will learn the second best thing from Elisha’s ebook, Cyanotypes.

If you’d like me to post the second best thing from your book/lecture/multi-trick download, etc, then you can find the details about doing so here.

---

I just did an unintentional trick at the grocery store about 30 minutes ago. It’s probably not something I could pull off again if I tried, but it just so happened to work out tonight.

Sometimes when I’m in the grocery store and I’m pushing the cart and I want to do something on my phone real quick—like change what I’m listening to or reply to a text—I will push the cart so it rolls away from me at about the same pace as I’m walking behind it. So the cart is moving in front of me, but I’m not touching it, and my hands are free to do something on the phone.

So I did that maneuver in the store just a little while ago, and I walked passed the end of an aisle. A woman who was in the aisle saw me walk past and said, “Hey!” and ran up to me. I thought it might be someone I knew, but I couldn’t really tell because everyone is masked up. So I was like, “Oh… hey?” And she looked from me to the cart to the phone in my hand and she said, “We’re you controlling your cart with your phone?” From her perspective, she just saw the cart moving without me touching it, and me doing something on my phone behind it. Like they would make an app to steer a shopping cart.

Had I understood what she was saying immediately, I would have joked around with her. “Yes. Of course. Wait… you’re not still pushing your shopping cart these days, are you.” But I had no idea what on earth she was talking about, so I said, “What on earth are you talking about?” She explained she saw the cart moving in front of me and I wasn’t touching it and eventually we got it sorted out. It was a strange exchange. But also an enjoyable one. So I got her number. I’ll let you know if it turns out she always makes the least probable assumptions about things, or if this was a one-off situation.

The New Jerx!

Hey, everyone. So I have some big news to share. As the announcement video above explains, after almost six years as an independent magic blog, the Jerx has been acquired by Vanishing Inc., and is now part of the VI family.

Josh and Andi have a lot of ideas for the future of this site and I’m really excited to see where they take it.

That’s not to say I won’t be involved going forward. I’ll still be here, mainly in a behind-the-scenes capacity. I will still have a monthly post here, but in the future the site is going to rely primarily on user-submitted content and funny memes found on facebook.

In July this site will be going behind a paywall. It will be just $15 a month to read the site (and the archives) or $150 for the year. Or you can have access to it with the Vanishing Inc+ plan which is only $70/month and includes Masterclass: Live; Vanishing Inc.’s Showtime; free shipping; and Vanishing Inc. Presents, The Jerx, A Magic Humor Blog™.

(This is a separate fee from the supporter fee paid a couple months ago. The rewards package for that is still set to be released in 2022. The book that will be coming out at that point will be called Magic is Fun. It’s a collection of essays Josh wrote for his local IBM ring when he was 8.)

As was mentioned in the video, the Vanishing Inc team is going to be going into the archives and deleting any posts with curse words or sexual innuendo, so if you’re interested in any of those posts you should go and make a copy of them for your own records. I understand why Josh and Andi want to make this a “family friendly” site, and I look forward to the challenge of working within those confines. (The truth is, dirty words are a crutch. As some critics of this site have said in the past, I only use them for “shock value.”)

And, as a commercial entity, it doesn’t make sense to have posts that are too critical of other magicians or their products, so those posts will be removed as well. As Josh repeatedly said during our negotiations, “It’s fun to be funny without making fun!” He wants that to be our “guiding principle” for the site.

I know some details about the future schedule for the site, but not everything has been finalized yet. I know my posts will appear here on the first Thursday of every month. So check in then to hear from me.

On Fridays, there will be a new feature called, Josh’s Joke Book, which Josh describes as, “A silly celebration of japes and guffaws to tickle you ribs and your brain. My ‘joke book’ will shine a spotlight on humor in and out of magic, and will feature some of my favorite comic voices of all time. From Cosby to Garfield!”

So that sounds fun.

On Wednesdays, Andi will take the reins with his column, “Things I Should Have Said.” Here’s how Andi describes it: “Things I Should Have Said is going to be a column that will include excerpts from my notebooks of clever comebacks and devastating heckler stoppers that I thought of well after the incidents that inspired them occurred. Whether dealing with a jerky spectator, an angry spouse, or a group of teens making fun of you on a bus, you’ll never again be at a loss for words because you’re flustered or crying too hard to put together a sentence. These clever retorts will allow you to turn your Sad Losses into GladWins!” Andi says he has material to fill this column for “at least the next decade.”

Just so you know, I no longer have access to the inner workings of the site itself. I will write my posts in email and send them to VI to upload them onto the site. If there’s a link that doesn’t work or something like that, please contact the Vanishing Inc staff to get it fixed.

Don’t expect much to change with the look of the site. One of the great things about going into business with Josh and Andi is that they’ve assured me the VI partnership will be as unobtrusive as possible. This site won’t just be some lame marketing tool for Vanishing Inc. I think they may end up putting a small banner ad in the sidebar, but beyond that, the aesthetic of the site should remain the same. Which I really appreciate.

There you have it! A new age begins for The Jerx. It’s been great running this site as a one-man operation for six years. But it’s also exhausting to be the sole content creator for the site, the newsletters, and the books. So I’m really happy with this deal I’ve cut with Vanishing Inc. I can’t wait to see where the site goes next and I’m proud to have a 2% stake in The New Jerx.

Taking a Personal Day

Hey there. I don’t like to do this, but I’m going to have to push today’s post to tomorrow. I have something kind of big in the works that’s going to be keeping me a little busy today, and rather than rush something out to you, I’m just going to delay it until tomorrow. See you then.

For those who need their daily fix, here is a dumb post from my old blog where I pretend to get worked up about the trick, Any Card at Any Number.

Shining the Spotlight of Truth (From April 2005)

The Magic Cafe used to have a great section called Sweet and Sour where people could complain about magicians or magic dealers that had done them wrong. Brooks got rid of it because his advertisers were like, "What the fuck?" and Brooks caved.

But where does one go when he wants to complain? Well, I can't speak for you, but I go here because it's my own damn site. And let me tell you...I am livid! I was duped! I was scammed!

I recently purchased Volume Six of this Alan Ackerman’s DVD set specifically so I could perform "Any Card At Any Number." What a great sounding effect! I can't wait to perform it! I gleefully thought to myself.

Boy was I wrong.

Dreadfully, dreadfully, wrong.

I admit it, I got taken for a ride.

Any card at any number? Hmmm, not quite. Just try and perform this effect with the number 6.5 or -40 for instance. Doesn't work so hot, does it Mr. Ackerman? Or should I say: Mr. Ack-conman.

Oh, and it really should say any playing card. Like, for instance, say you wanted to perform the trick Library Card At 112—well brother, you're fucked.

Please join my campaign to rename all effects called Any Card at Any Number to Any Playing Card In A Standard Deck Of Anglo-American Playing Cards (Not Including the Jokers) At Any Whole Number Between One and Fifty-Two Inclusive.

It's time we fight for some honesty in magic ads.

Tricks to Present With Distraction

Could you talk about the tricks you perform in the Distracted Artist Style?

Also do you do any tricks when you are paying for something at a shop like a bill change? —CE

I’ll take these in reverse order, because the second question is easier. No, I don’t do anything when paying for something at the store. Honestly, if I was working as a cashier, I probably would like someone to break up the monotony of the day with a quick magic trick. But while I’d like it, I’d also probably think that person was a little thirsty for attention. And I’d rather not come off that way.

We don’t think about this much as magicians, but I can tell you from talking to normal people that they feel there is a transactional nature to magic: I will do something amazing and you will give me a response. I feel it’s awkward to rope someone into that transaction who didn’t ask for it.

That is, in fact, one of the benefits of the Distracted Artist style of performing. You can perform magic for strangers without putting them in a position where they feel they have to acknowledge how clever or incredible you are. They are released from that obligation. It’s magic that happens on the periphery. It’s not something you do for someone. It’s something you’re either doing for yourself or something you don’t even realize you’re doing at all.

That said, what types of tricks would best fit in this style? What types of tricks are most likely to seem like they’re “just happening”?

I think the answer is:

• Vanishes

• Levitations

• Animation/Telekinesis

In a more fantastical version of the world, these are the sorts of things that I think could “just happen” or at least they could happen without much thought on the part of the magician. Making something appear feels more like it would take concentrated effort. But those three things above feel (to me) like you might just do them without thinking (assuming you had such abilities).

Here are the tricks I do most from those categories:

Vanish - Vanishing Napkin - This is probably my most performed trick ever. It’s become second nature. I do it even if no one is around. Whenever I’m eating or drinking something and have a paper napkin, I will ball it up at the end and vanish it. (Just a false transfer and a ditch) This is the small-scale, environmentally friendly magic I would likely perform in real life if I had low-level magic abilities.

Levitation - Floating Hoodie String (Calen Morelli) - This comes from Calen’s Penguin lecture. I am someone who once, while driving home from work, tied my hoodie strings together absentmindedly and I didn’t really notice it until I was turning into my neighborhood and I realized I had tied them together through one of the spaces in my steering wheel. And when I tried to turn the wheel I couldn’t because the way the strings were tied prevented it from turning. I had to lower my head down so it was even with the dashboard so I had the slack necessary to turn the wheel enough. I almost drove off the road. This would have definitely been in the top .1% of dumbest ways to die.

My point being, distractedly playing with my hoodie strings is very natural for me. So this trick fits perfectly with that predilection and my casual fashion sense.

Animation - Forklift (Geoff Williams) - This is off his Miracles for Mortals DVD and it’s a way to make a fork move on the table. I’ve always liked this animation because the fork moves while you’re not moving. So it doesn’t look the fork is connected to you and you’re just dragging it along.

Those previous two tricks use the same gimmick which is very easy to carry with me unobtrusively, so that’s why they get a lot of play.

There are other tricks I’ll do if I’m carrying the necessary prop or gimmick with me (which maybe I’ll get into in a future post) but those three above are probably at the top of my list. And I think the broad categories of levitations, vanishes, and animations are probably a good place to start when looking for effects to use in the Distracted Artist style.