A Critical Examination of the Films of Rob Stiff and Magic Makers: Part Two

Today we continue our deep dive into the filmography of Rob Stiff and his Magic Makers ads of the mid-2010s

The Automatic Deck

Plot: This film represents Stiff’s most ambitious work to date. As with many high-art films, I can’t say for certain I understand what’s going on.

It starts in what seems to the basement or backstage area of a theater where a bunch of magicians are gathered to perform beginner’s magic tricks for each other. It seems like maybe they are there hoping to get an opportunity to perform these tricks for the magician who is performing at this theater? Like maybe the headliner is looking for new material?

Well, our first twist comes when we find out the featured magician is a woman! (A woman magician? What will they think of next!) “Not what you were expecting?” she asks. But… I mean… why wouldn’t he be expecting her? He seems to be there to pitch her these tricks, right? Certainly he would have had some idea who was performing at this theater. Again, I’m very confused.

I think we’re supposed to assume she’s a bit of a bitch because she makes her little-person(al) assistant remove her gloves, which seems like more trouble than just taking them off yourself.

“You have two minutes,” she says. “Impress me.” Instead of taking that as an invitation to toss her up on the desk and rail her brains out, Rob Stiff instead decides to introduce her to Deland’s Automatic Deck. His trick amounts to cutting the deck in three piles and telling her the name of the top card. You know that thing everyone tells you not to do with a marked deck? Yeah, that’s the trick he does.

After this demonstration we cut to the female magician onstage rehearsing her new card trick. “Is this your card?” she asks. Clearly demonstrating the originality that garnered her a full theater show.

Then she is murdered.

Trick Rating - 1/5 This is a stripper deck that is also marked. If you’re looking for a deck that is obviously a marked deck, yet somehow also nearly impossible to read, I recommend this deck.

Film Rating - 4.5/5

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The Secret Hand

Plot: With “The Secret Hand,” Rob Stiff ventures into the horror genre, asking the terrifying question… “What would happen if the man in your life was both annoying and a gigantic pussy?”

The film opens on a date-night between T.J. and the unnamed woman in his life. First T.J. plays a “joke” by cutting a hole in the bottom of a popcorn bucket and making his hand pop out of the hole. Popcorn gets all over the place making a big mess. But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if T.J. cut a hole in the bottom of popcorn buckets to insert much more unpleasant parts of his body. So his girlfriend probably got off easy here.

He then ruins their pizza for the sake of another “joke.” (Literally the same exact joke. T.J. isn’t super creative).

His girlfriend then plans her revenge and invites “Rob from the magic store” to help out. Their big plan? Make it look like a fake hand from the magic turned on the TV. This causes T.J. to run from the house.

Why T.J. is that scared is never explained. The opening scene shows us there are already three fake hands in the house. One on the popcorn bucket, one on the pizza box, and one on the kitchen counter. This goon bought at least three fake hands. So he shouldn’t be that surprised when one shows up on the couch later. And, honestly, of all the thing you could find in the grasp of a fake hand, a remote control is probably the least disconcerting.

In fact, I feel like just going into the living room and finding Rob Stiff there would be much scarier. And that very easily could have been the case because he made no effort to hide in the other room. He’s just sort of crouching in the shadows like a weirdo.

Trick Rating - 4.5/5 I don’t use this prop regularly. But it’s definitely a prop with a lot of potential (although not much of it is expressed in this video).

Film Rating - 4/5

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The Prediction

Plot: The Magician wanders into what I’m guessing is the lounge area of a rehab center where he encounters some of the actors from previous films. I don’t think these are the same characters we’ve seen before. But I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps there is a Magic Makers Cinematic Universe, that these characters inhabit, but if so I haven’t quite figured out how all the pieces fit together.

The Magician takes a seat at the table where he gets a request to perform a trick.

“Give me the deck,” the Magician says. “I don’t even have to touch the deck to do magic,” he says, as he holds the deck in his hands just after requesting the deck. That’s our man of mystery!

He then walks them through a trick so bland even the black guy at the table barely reacts to it. A trick so bland it’s actually deserving of the uninspired name, “The Prediction.”

Trick Rating - 2.5/5

Film Rating - 4.5/5

You may find that film rating a little high. At first it seems like there’s not much of a storyline here. It’s pretty much just a trick demo, and the trick itself barely has anything going for it beyond how incredibly average it is. It’s only upon rewatching this that film-scholars have put it all together and learned the Shyamalan style twist baked into Rob’s work.

At 24 seconds into the film, The Magician is waved over to the table with our other three characters.

Ask yourself this question… What type of person goes to meet with some people, walks into an otherwise empty room, stands there dully, six-feet away from them, and needs to be directed to the table by some guy saying, “Hey man, over here!”

Is it not the same sort of man who goes into a coffee-shop and dumps a dozen decks on the table?

And the type of man who demands his frosting be clumpy?

And the type of man who thinks a marked deck is just what a stage magician’s act is missing?

And the type of man who doesn’t know how hiding works?

You see? Has it come into focus yet?

Rob Stiff is not playing himself in these moves.

He’s not playing the part of a mysterious magician traveling from place to place.

He’s not the puppet master pulling the strings.

He’s a Forrest-Gump-style, goddamn moron, stumbling through these scenes and showing that even a grade-A dipshit can master Magic Makers product line. Rewatch the films with that realization in mind and everything falls into place.

Hitches

I received a few emails in recent days asking my opinion on this trick, CelibriKey.

I think there is interest in the effect because a good effect that you can carry around on your key-ring, is more valuable than just your average “good effect.” The convenience of having it on you at all times would make it much more appealing. Imagine if condoms required you to get them tailor-fit to your penis before you had sex with one on. No one would use condoms. It’s not that a latex barrier over your genitals is such a great solution, but the fact you can carry one around with you in your wallet makes it an attractive option. A convenient, everyday-carry magic option is similarly attractive (even if imperfect).

I don’t have a whole lot to say about CelibriKey, nor do I have a presentation I would use with it. I think it’s certainly possible to fool people with it. The reason why it’s not something I’ll buy and use is because it violates a new performing philosophy/concept I’ve been exploring recently. It hasn’t completely solidified in my mind yet so this post might not be 100% clear.

The philosophy is this:

The most compelling magic has the fewest mental Hitches for the spectator to deal with.

And by “Hitch” I mean anything that might come off as odd or unusual to the spectator. Any type of questionable action, premise, or prop.

I’ll explain with some examples…

No Hitches - I ask you if you can remember a favorite photo from your childhood. You tell me about a picture of you and your siblings jumping on the bed at your grandma’s house. I tell you to turn around, and behind you on the wall is a picture frame with that photo inside. That’s a very direct trick. And it’s a completely “hitchless” trick. Nothing needs to be explained or justified. You thought of a picture and that was on the wall in a frame (a frame on a wall being a perfectly logical place to find a picture).

One Hitch - You think of any playing card. I tell you turn around and on the wall behind you is a picture frame with that playing card inside.

There is a Hitch here. Why is the playing card in a picture frame? You may decide this is something that does or doesn’t need to be explained. You may think a framed card is an obvious presentational flourish that doesn’t need addressing. Or you may come up with a story about it. “My grandfather was the man who originally illustrated the back design for Bicycle playing cards. Most of us in the family have a framed card in our house in honor of him.” Now when that card turns out to be their thought-of card, or their signed-card, that “Hitch” has been justified. Almost as if you were foreshadowing what was to come.

Some Hitches need explanations. Some don’t. But by definition (since I made up the term), a Hitch is something that would make some sense to explain. It may not be necessary, but it makes sense. It makes sense why you would explain a framed card. It doesn’t make sense to explain framed photographs. “We put photographs in frames to protect them and to make for a nicer presentation!” Like, okay you goofy bitch, we get that. You don’t need to explain it.

Two Hitches - You ask someone to think of a playing card. Then you tell them to look on the wall behind them and they see that in a frame on the wall is their playing card. And that frame is made from an origami-folded cereal box.

Now we have the Hitch of a card being in a frame, and the Hitch of the frame being made out of a folded cereal box.

Now, method-wise, maybe the reason the card is in a frame is because the card can’t just be lying on the table, because you need to switch in the right card and the process of taking it from the frame allows you to do that. And the reason for the cereal box is that the folded frame creates the slot for you to insert the card and the stiffness of the cereal box is ideal. Or whatever.

My point being is that while you can understand the method might require these two Hitches, can you also see how kind of convoluted it feels to the audience even with just these two things to deal with? The effect, while still understandably impossible, is getting clunky.

You might argue, “Okay, but a cereal box picture frame is a pretty bizarre thing to deal with.”

No, not really. Let’s look at a One Hitch trick again.

One Hitch - I ask you to tell me about a photo from your youth. You tell me about a picture of you and your siblings jumping on the bed at your grandma’s house. I tell you to turn around, and behind you on the wall is a picture frame made of a folded cereal box with that photo inside.

See? We’ve gone back to one Hitch and that weird frame hardly seems like such an issue. Now it’s just a picture in a quirky frame, hanging on the wall. The one Hitch is much easier to overlook.

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Now, let’s go back to Celbrikey.

“You’re going to choose a super-hero and I’m going to make their profile appear on this key.”

That’s your first Hitch. Batman is appearing on the key not because it makes any sense, but because you’re set up to make a superhero appear on a key. If we regularly cut keys into silhouettes, that would be one thing, but we don’t.

Can you come up with a rationale for why you’re revealing their chosen superhero on a key? Sure. But then you have Hitch #2.

This is not what keys look like…

That’s what a magic prop looks like.

So you will at least have these three Hitches in the effect:

1. The premise: Why are you revealing a chosen superhero on a key?

2. The prop: Why does the key look like that?

3. The force: Why did I have to name a random number (or flip through a book) to choose a superhero? If such a basic superhero as Batman was on the table, why not just let me name any superhero?

Now, that doesn’t mean the trick won’t fool people, and it doesn’t mean they won’t be entertained. For this concept to be useful to you, it’s important to understand this: Hitches are a way to identify flaws in an effect beyond the typical ones we think of like, “This won’t work,” or, “This won’t fool people,” or, “This is boring.”

In my experience, Hitches tend to make a trick less affecting and less vital. When I have a trick with a good premise that fools the audience, but doesn’t seem to capture them, I start looking for Hitches. What are the questionable elements or actions of this trick? Usually what I find is that the trick has more than a couple Hitches and that’s what’s causing people not to connect with it.

If a trick has a lot of Hitches they are either going to be unaddressed (which can leave the spectator with a lot of questions) or, if you do try to address them all, the effect can feel kind of forced and unnatural, not effortless.

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Imagine this. I give you an uncut key and have you hold it in a fist. I then have you name any friend in town or local business. After that I squeeze your first gently with my hands. When you open your hand the key is now cut. We drive to the friend’s house you selected and the key opens the front door.

This, technically, is the exact same effect as CelebriKey. The magician physically alters a key held in the spectator’s hand based on a (supposedly) free selection. But I think you can see how this would likely hit much harder than a random superhero. From the moment the uncut key is introduced, every part of the trick naturally follows. It’s like a ball rolling down hill.

Of course, CelebriKey has the not-insignificant advantage of being a trick you could actually do. But you could do this too. No, not in a walk-around performance. But you could do it in a casual situation. You’d need to work out a key switch, and force a location which you could fairly easily do from a gimmicked address book or using a map or contact list on your phone. These processes might introduce their own Hitches, but I think you would find them much easier to navigate than the ones in CelibriKey. (Not all Hitches are created equal.)

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I just wanted to take this post to introduce the Hitch concept. I don’t want to sound like I’m shitting on this trick. I’m not. As I said, I think it will likely fool people and entertain people, I just don’t see it really connecting with people.

I like to imagine people describing the effect to a friend afterwards. What is the takeaway? “I chose Batman, and then he appeared on a key I examined!” Is that a story someone would pass on? And would the person they’re telling it to respond with anything other than, “Wait… what?”

When it comes down to it, CelibriKey is a reveal for a forced superhero. But one that has a couple inherent Hitches in it. It also presupposes you have a workable, fooling way to force a superhero. And if you have that, is having that hero appear on a key really what you would want to use it for?

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Dustings #45

After re-linking to an article I wrote for Vanishing Inc’s blog in Monday’s Post, I received a few emails essentially saying that one of my best analogies was over there on VI’s site. That can’t stand! So I’ve excised that part of the post and I’m putting it here for posterity. (I get the inside scoop from some VI guys. That place is losing money hand over fist. They might be around another three months at this rate, but I wouldn’t bet on that. Download any videos you have in your account, because they probably won’t be there long.)

The point of this analogy is to express the importance of giving your trick a context, especially for the amateur magician.

The reason many people feel card tricks are lame or boring is because so many of them are inherently meaningless. If people can't connect to what's happening—even if what they're seeing is impossible—then there's going to be a limited shelf-life as far as how long they will find that sort of interaction entertaining. If you found out your new roommate could legitimately make playing cards change and transpose and all of that, you would be fascinated the first night he showed you, but then, by night three when he said, "Do you want to watch me make playing cards change?" you'd say, "Uhmm... nahh...that's okay, buddy. I want to pick at this thing on my arm."

If you're a professional and you're continually cycling through new audiences, that doesn't matter that much. But I come from the perspective of someone performing for friends and family. I want to keep them engaged in the magic I show them over the course of months and years, ideally.

So let's go back to your new roommate. This time, instead of being a true wizard, he's just a guy who always has a funny or interesting story about his day to share with you. You would listen to that for the rest of your life.

Good stories never get boring, meaningless impossibilities do.

To beat this point home, I’m talking about interesting stories as contexts in which the tricks exist. I’m not talking about shitty “story patter.” Talking about a guy walking into a bar and his twin brother walking into a bar, then a black-haired lady, and a red-haired lady, and that sort of thing—that’s not an interesting story. That’s a meaningless story laid over a meaningless impossibility. That doesn’t really get us anywhere.

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I mentioned the new Ellusionist tattoos in last Friday’s post. If any of you idiots is willing to get this garbage tattooed on your chest, with your nipple as the sponge ball, I will use Jerx funds to pay for it.

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The “Wild Card” video from Wednesday’s post reminded me of my least favorite type of presentation. If your explanation for why something is happening is because a certain card is “the most powerful one in the deck,” you have told us absolutely nothing about what’s supposedly going on. You’ve just explained one vague concept, “this card does magical things,” by renaming the phenomenon: “this card is the most powerful one.”

“The most powerful card,” “the most magical card,” “the leader card,” these are all designations that a card would get because of some reason. Swapping out one designation for another doesn’t really tell us anything. And it just stalls the story.

It would be like if you wanted to write a story about a teacher and her “favorite student,” but you didn’t have much more to go on than that. So we start workshopping the idea and I ask you why this is her favorite student. And you say, “Because it’s the one she likes the most!” That doesn’t help. Those are both just designations. But if you give the reason for the designation, then we can build off that.

• “It’s her favorite student because he’s the kindest, and she was always bullied when she was a kid.”

• “It’s her favorite student because he’s very funny. And she used to have dreams of doing comedy when she was younger and he’s rekindling those dreams in her.”

• “It’s her favorite student because he’s the smartest, and he lifts the average test scores for her class right above the state-mandated minimum level. But now his family is moving out of state and she needs to take drastic actions to make sure that doesn’t happen. ”

The reason is the story.

And you might be saying, “Who gives a shit? It’s Wild Card.” That’s fair enough. It’s just a dumb packet trick. You don’t really expect anyone to care much about it one way or the other. I’m just trying to make a more general point that if you want to create a performance that can engage an audience beyond just the visual interest of the trick, then a good place to start is with a rationale for what’s happening that is not just a matter of semantics.

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I don’t usually ask for help with methods, but I’m stuck with something, so maybe you’ll have some suggestions.

I saw on reddit that this video of a guy not being able to open a bottle was the second most viewed video on the MLB’s youtube channel.

I’m trying to think of a way to make a bottle un-openable by a spectator, and then at a certain point (of my choosing) they can open it. Let me know if you have any ideas (other than switching the bottles completely).

A Critical Examination of the Films of Rob Stiff and Magic Makers: Part One

In 2013, with Breaking Bad ending production, there was a hole in the landscape for prestige dramas.

Enter Rob Stiff, the man behind the much maligned Magic Makers corporation. What Rob realized was that what magic ads were desperately missing was a goofy, ill-conceived, storyline into which the tricks could been shoe-horned. And with that, Rob went to work putting together ads—sorry, short-films—to showcase some of the effects offered by his company.

Rumor has it that HBO wanted to buy a season order of 24 episodes of the Magic Makers Theater Playhouse to run in 2015, but they were turned down by Rob who wanted to do half the number of episodes in order to maintain the quality.

Today we will take a look at some of the original masterpieces released by Rob Stiff and Magic Makers in 2014.

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Out of this World

Plot: A virgin on his first date with a non-cousin suggests showing her a card trick after playing poker. She shoots his ass down when she realizes he’s planning on showing her the 21-Card Trick. She instead proposes that she show him a trick of her own that involves him separating the cards into reds and blacks without looking at the faces. Fortuitously, he happens to stop exactly half-way through the dealing allowing her to do the necessary switch of the leader cards required by the method.

After the dealing is done, the woman switches the necessary packets in what I genuinely believe is a pretty good casual way of handling the switch. She then goes on to reveal he has separated the cards into reds and blacks.

At the end, he’s convinced she can read his mind, but the truth is that she just knows all simps think the same.

What’s weird about this film is that it begins with our male lead making the incredible claim that he “never loses a poker hand.” Not a single hand!

“Until today,” the woman replies.

“We’ve got to play best of five,” he shoots back.

Is the implication here that they sat down to play one single poker hand? That’s hardly worth pulling the cards out of the card case to do that. And then he suggests playing “best of five.” But still, that’s like two minute of playing time.

Between playing one hand of poker and then offering to stumble his way through the 21 card trick for her, it’s clear he was attempting to set her up to be used to things that are quick and underwhelming.

Trick Rating: 5/5 Out of this World is a Classic.

Film Rating: 3/5

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Wild Card

Plot: Rob Stiff—living up to his last name in both his acting and card-handling abilities—plays the role of “the magician,” in this heartfelt drama about how to compassionately handle the mentally ill who enter public businesses. Taking a seat at a coffee shop/diner, Rob does what I fear people who only casually read this site assume I do: He dumps a bunch of decks of cards on the table desperately hoping someone makes a comment about it. When the waiter engages him, we get an overdubbed performance of Wild Card that will have you wondering why you ever thought that was a good card trick, and begging for the dumpy pedophile who accosted Tommy Wonder in the video clip in Monday’s post to come and liven up this performance.

Trick Rating: 2.5/5 I find Wild Card more fun to perform than to watch.

Film Rating: 2/5 Rob Stiff is a Rob Schneider type. He shouldn’t be the lead.

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The Vanishing Coin Trick

Plot: In this erotic thriller, a love triangle threatens a young couple’s relationship—and the bakery they co-own—when Rob Stiff rocks their lives and vanishes a coin.

This film features the same actress as Out of This World, who also reappears in a lot of Rob Stiff’s other work as well. That’s understandable. You can’t expect a magician to know more than one female to put into these sorts of things. And it’s fine that she’s used a lot because she always steals the show. As the character of Jen, you really feel her heart being torn between this mysterious stranger who knows one coin trick, and her long-term boyfriend who seems to really get off on unnecessarily getting his hands all over the baked goods.

You may find it odd that the phrase “clumpy frosting” is tossed around so frequently as if it’s a common saying. It’s not, of course. What it is is a nod to the famous “gay bakeries” of the early 20th century, where asking for “clumpy frosting” was a secret signal to the proprietors that you were part of the gay lifestyle. And, “eating the clumpy frosting from another man’s cinnamon roll” (as happens at the end of this film) was gay code for what would eventually be known as felching.

Trick Rating: 3/5 - It’s alright. The half dollar isn’t really justified. It’s just there because you need it for the mechanics of the trick.

Film Rating: 5/5 - Stiff’s masterpiece.

That’s all for today. We will look at the rest of Rob Stiff’s oeuvre in a future post.

Monday Mailbag #49

I’m new to the site and have been reading a few posts per day for a couple months now. The amount of information on the site is really overhwelming.

[…]

What do you feel is the most easily implementable advice that will have the greatest impact on the performance of magic for an amateur? —EB

I will give you two related pieces of advice that you can implement instantly and have an immediate impact on your performances.

Those pieces of advice are:

1. Slow down

2. Don’t make jokes.

Slow Down - Your instinct is likely to rush to the climax. It’s understandable because that’s the “interesting part.” As magicians we decry the part of the trick where cards are being dealt in piles or counted or whatever the process of the trick might entail. And thus we try to barrel through that part to the point where the magic can finally happen. This gets you in a bad habit of not putting effort into the process of the trick, because that’s the part you’re trying to get through as quickly as possible anyway.

Don’t make jokes - Have fun, be funny, and make funny comments that come to you in the moment—if that’s part of your personality. But don’t have canned jokes you insert into your patter. You want the interaction to feel genuine, not scripted. Whatever you may gain by a laugh on a scripted joke you will lose more by making everything feel more premeditated.

You’re the one showing the trick so it’s up to you to frame the interaction. Speeding through it or forcing in jokes makes it seem like you feel apologetic for wasting their time with this thing.

Watch this lady give airplane safety instructions. She goes through as quickly as possible with a bunch of added jokes.

You might think, “That’s great! She made the whole thing entertaining.” I agree with you, but what she didn’t do was make you give a shit about the actual safety instructions. Even if you had never heard safety instructions before, you would know not to care too much about them. You would know they were a formality. Her speed and humor was her apology for making you sit through this mandated safety speech.

Instead, imagine you’d never been on a plane before. And this flight attendant sits you down one-on-one, leaned in close, and took great pains to focus your attention on the safety instructions. She walked you through how to use the belt buckle step-by-step. “I need you to focus. This is going to be super important,” she tells you, as she guides you through the way to use the life vest. For the rest of the flight you’re going to be on edge, head on a swivel, looking around ready to pounce into action because the instructions were delivered to you as if they were something important.

I’m not suggesting you be somber or move at a glacial pace when presenting magic. I’m just saying a good way to get people fascinated with the trick is to present it in the way you would something fascinating. If you had something really worthwhile to show them, you wouldn’t rush through it, and you wouldn’t add a bunch of dull jokes.

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What post of yours generated the most negative response? —RC

Hmmm, that would probably be the post where I disagreed with Tommy Wonder’s thoughts on misdirection. I thought his ideas were a little too caught up in semantics. And beyond that I think his notion of directing their attention away from a move with something “thoroughly intriguing” is the wrong way to go (particularly in informal performances). If I want to misdirect someone attention, I’d much rather do it with something forgettable (adjusting my glasses) rather than something “interesting.” In my opinion, if you’re trying to misdirect what someone is looking at, you want something that is as unmemorable as possible, while still working consistently. Striking that balance is the hard part.

Now, the truth is Tommy and I were just coming from very different performing perspectives. And I think the kind of heavily choreographed misdirection he talks about does work well with long routines and in formal shows. But I don’t perform formally. And the fact he thought a multi-phase routine where the same thing happens 7 times in a row was a good choice for a talk show appearance, suggests maybe performing in more informal/interactive situations wasn’t his strength. (And yes, obviously the tubby host in the too-small glasses was no help with him getting through the routine. But the host wasn’t nearly as “hard” on Tommy as he was with this boy, and that kid never stopped singing.)

Now, because I’m me, and Tommy Wonder was Tommy Wonder, just the fact that I was disagreeing with him was considered blasphemous by some. So that garnered quite a bit of negative feedback. It didn’t bother me. I don’t mind when people disagree with me. I’m happy to learn more about things and change my mind. In this case though, the feedback was just more or less, “Who do you think you are!?” Which is actually a really ineffective way of arguing. Because you’re not saying, “Here are the reasons why you’re wrong.” It’s simply, “You must be wrong because you disagree with someone I like.”

Now, while that post got the most negative feedback, the follow-up post, Practical Misdirection for the Amateur Magician is easily in the top 2% for positive feedback on this site. With one magician calling it “some of the best actionable advice on misdirection ever written.” And the person who provided that quote was another Tommy Wonder-level magical genius, so Who do you think you are!? if you disagree with him.

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Let’s say in your 100 Trick Repertoire you have the Invisible Deck but you have multiple presentations for it.

Do you class the Invisible Deck or the presentations as the factor taking up space in your repertoire.—CE

I would keep this as one listing in my 100 Trick Repertoire. The reason for that is I have 21 different presentations for the Invisible Deck that I’ve used in the past three years. And I wouldn’t want to list them all separately because it would take up too much space or just list a couple and forget about the other ones. So I have a main Invisible Deck entry and then a list of the presentations below it. When I’m “rehearsing” my repertoire, it’s just a matter of reminding myself of the ideas behind each presentation with the ID. I don’t actually bother performing them in rehearsal.

This is possible because—despite the wide variety of presentations with the Invisible Deck—the handling is almost always the exact same (spread the deck, separate at the card). This makes it a “Blank Slate Effect” in my terminology. And those types of effects generally only take up one “position” in my repertoire.

Now, conversely, let’s say I had two tricks with a Svengali deck. Those two tricks would require two separate listings because it would be quite likely that the tricks themselves would have different handling and choreography of action and all of that. So I would want to practice each one separately.

Dustings #44

Do you have a manipulation act? Do you want to go on America’s Got Talent or some show like that? I have an idea for you.

One time, years ago, I was watching a guy on youtube doing a manipulation act. I have no idea what he was making appear. Probably cards or some shit. Anyway, whenever he would produce a new fan of cards he would make this expression of surprise, like, “Where did that come from?”

My reaction was, “Why are you surprised? What did you think you were going on stage to do if not to produce these cards?”

But that gave me a good idea for an AGT audition piece.

You walk on stage. “I’m here to sing ‘On My Own’ from Les Miserables. [Clears throat] On…my ow-BLECHHH!!!” And you do that thing where it looks like you vomit cards out of your mouth. You’re legitimately concerned. Both because you just spit up a bunch of cards and because your big singing debut is ruined. You toss away the cards. “Sorry, I don’t know—I’ll just start over.” But as you go to reach for the microphone, a fan of cards appears in your hand. You immediately drop it, scared of what you’re seeing. Then you notice one in your other hand. You start tossing these fans of cards aside but they keep reappearing. “I’m sorry! I don’t know what’s happening. I just want to sing my pretty song!” you wail, as you keep pulling cards from the air and from every orifice.

Well, it’s the beginning of an idea, at least. The basic concept is that instead of conveying faux surprise when you’re clearly there for a magic performance, you act as if you’re there for some other reason.

If you’re thinking, “Yeah, but they’re going to know it’s not real after the first few seconds,” then you may not have the comic sensibilities to pull this off. Yes, I realize they’ll know it’s not real. This is just the premise you would use as the comedic structure of your first appearance on the show.

It might be good to foreshadow what’s about to occur. Perhaps you could get them to do one of those sappy intro pieces on you. “I lost my job in 2019. It’s been a real struggle. I couldn’t even afford a suit for my appearance today. I had to borrow this one from my brother-in-law, from his days as a magician.” Next thing you know, you’re trying to sing Memory from Cats and at every gesture you make doves are appearing all over the place, changing color, vanishing, etc.

Perhaps this is a notion that just appeals to me. That might be the case. I just think there’s something funny about a manipulation routine where the magician isn’t reacting with cocky pride or theatrical confusion to whatever’s appearing, but with genuine human confusion.

“What the crap? Where did this bird come from?”

“Holy shit. There’s another bird here. That F’n bird was like… made up of two different birds or something! Did you see that?!”

“Another cage? How can this be? I’m sorry… I just wanted to twirl my baton for you. I don’t know what’s happening.”

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For those who have been following along with the evolution of the Alphablocks concept on this site, there is a new variation called Linguablocks that you can check out on Warwick Harvey’s site here. Linguablocks is similar to Alphablocks with the difference being that it gives you words rather than random groupings of letters. So whatever “oracle” you’re using to divine their word (even if that oracle is just your mind) is going to be spitting out words rather than as opposed to letters, which may make more sense depending on the premise you’re using.

Warwick has also added a timeline of the tool and associated ideas on the main page of the site. So if you haven’t been following along here, that might be a good place to start.

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For those of you who aren’t on Ellusionist’s mailing list, you missed an important announcement recently.

They get this request at least ten times a week! So, conservatively, over the past year, they’ve received 500 emails asking them for their artwork so that someone could get an Ellusionist tattoo. Wow! One thing that’s unclear is if this is 500 different people making this request, the same rabid group of ten fans each week, or just one very persistent retard.

What type of Ellusionist tattoos might you want? Well, here are some of the offerings. And no, this isn’t me trying to be funny. These are tattoos they think people might get.

And just so you’re not confused, the ad clearly states the artwork can be scaled up and down. So if you thought you had to gain and lose weight to match your body to the printed artwork, you can actually do it the other way around.

If you’re heading to prison and you don’t want to just go ahead and get a swastika or a Latin Kings tattoo to keep you safe on the inside, then I’d recommend getting an Ellusionist tattoo before you go in. It won’t signify a gang affiliation, but it will send a clear signal to everyone that you’re fucking insane.

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A post shared by Joshua Jay (@joshuajaymagician)

Impressive? I mean… sure… it’s okay. But I’m not sure what he’s so impressed by. Yes, the mixed media with the sticker and the pencil on the envelope is somewhat advanced, but I’ve done stuff almost as good and I don’t even really try that hard. I will also admit that if one of those figures in the second image is supposed to be Josh, then she does a very good job of capturing the lack of musculature in his legs. But otherwise, I don’t really see what’s so great about this.

Also, Josh, it’s stationEry with an E (you’ll remember because it goes in an Envelope). That, for once, is not a shot at Josh. I mix up my homophones all the time when writing, even though I know which is correct if I bother to think about it. This is just to pass along the “envelope” mnemonic which is one of the few grammar mnemonics that’s always stuck for me.

Luck and Four Levels of Presentation

In last Friday’s post I mentioned the idea of an Imp using a “luck absorbing crystal,” after which I received the following email.

Of course, the converse with the stone is that some people are vulnerable to having their luck drained, so maybe I have my luck drained and then somehow give it to you?

Could I give someone else my bad luck, too? —AB

Definitely. I like any premise that treats “luck” like an actual natural resource that can be collected, manipulated, re-routed etc.

I would definitely routine it in a way that any trick ends with the spectator feeling like they’re leaving with more luck than they came in with. Not because the audience is really believing any of this, but just because… why not?

This is a good opportunity to look at four different levels of presentation, using “luck” as the subject of the presentation.

Level One - No presentation

Maybe the spectator deals out some cards and they mysteriously are able to match up cards of the same value. There is no stated presentation here.

In my experience, people will often enjoy tricks like this as they are happening, but they will remember very little about the tricks the next day. And if they’ve seen a few different card tricks from you, it doesn’t take long at all for this to blend in with all the others.

Level Two - The Bookends

This is what I see a lot of magicians doing, and frankly I think it’s probably worse than no presentation at all.

They’ll pull out a deck of cards and say, “Do you believe in the power of luck? I think you’re probably a lucky person.”

Then at the end when the cards match they’ll say, “See! I told you. You’re lucky!”

I hate this kind of thing. There’s something I find displeasing about “the least possible amount of effort” even more-so than “no effort at all.”

If you’re not going to put any effort into the presentation then just do the trick without a presentation. Adding a couple of lines to the beginning and end of a trick don’t make it any more enjoyable or memorable.

Level Three - Context

Context is a story within which the trick exists. If you do a ctrl+F for “context” you’ll find a bunch of posts with titles that start with “Presentation vs Context,” where this idea is explored more fully.

In this instance the “context” might involve me removing the stone, telling the story of how I acquired it, explaining how it supposedly works, going through the process to “invoke” the power of the stone, and then finally testing it with “a simple game.” The trick now really only makes complete sense in relation to the context. The cards matching up is a demonstration of the luck generated by this stone. (I’m not suggesting this is a brilliant context, just using it as an example.)

A context immediately ups the memorability of the experience of a trick. It’s like taking random notes and putting them into a melody.

Level Four - Immersion

Immersion happens when the context and real life start to overlap and blur a little bit, using the extra-presentational techniques I’ve written about over the course of this site.

Imagine a trick where I transfer some of my luck over to you via some sort of process. At the end of the trick—as a demonstration of this luck—you’re able to match up cards in a game we play. So you’ve absorbed my luck.

Now, the trick is over. But think of what could happen afterwards in terms of Reps. How can we extend the absurd premise as if it’s real? Since I’ve given away a bunch of my good luck I should have an excess of bad luck in my system. I’m unbalanced. So when I go to put the cards away I knock them off the table and all over the floor. As I pick them up, I smack my head against the underside of the table. I get up and stub my toe. I break a glass. Etc.

Perhaps I tell you there’s one way to “burn off” the bad luck and to do that I place a bunch of low-dollar wagers on some baseball games happening that night. At the end of the night we look and see that all my teams lost. (So this would just be some type of headline/sports prediction. But I would be picking all the losers rather than all the winners.) In reality this is an unrelated trick, but it gets wrapped up in the same premise (earlier I transferred some of my luck to my friend) extending that premise beyond the trick.

Immersive presentations aren’t things you can or would necessarily want to do all the time. But if you’re looking to create a lasting memory with a particular trick, this is the best way I’ve found to do so consistently.