How to Be Blown Away by A Layman's Card Trick

I met a guy named Jason recently. Jason found out I have an interest in magic and offered to show me a card trick. I borrowed a deck from our mutual friend whose house we were staying at. I took out the cards and handed them to Jason to show me his trick. He dealt out 21 cards into a pile and had me think of any of the cards. Then he dealt them into three columns of seven cards and asked me which pile my card was in. He gathered up the piles and dealt them into three new columns and again asked me which pile contained my card. One more time he gathered the cards up and dealt them into three more columns.

“Which column is your card in?” he asked.

I looked through each one carefully. “Wait…,” I said. “Where is it?”

I poked through each column a little to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. The card wasn’t there. “What the?!”

Jason looked at me, confused. “Which column is it in?” he asked again.

“Uhm… I don’t know… what do you mean?” I said. “None, I guess. I mean it’s gone. Where did it go?”

Jason was still confused. “What card did you think of?” I told him the 4 of Diamonds. He pushed through the cards on the table himself. “You couldn’t have,” he said.

He picked up the rest of the cards on the table and spread through them. The 4 of Diamonds was genuinely gone.

“Dude that’s crazy,” I said. “But seriously, where is it?” I looked under and around the table. “Is it behind you?” I looked through the cards again and behind and under some objects on the table. I checked under the card case, there was nothing. But wait… There was a slight rattle in the case. I paused and my mouth fell open. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked. I slowly opened the case and dumped out a card. The 4 of Diamonds. My dropped jaw was frozen, my eyes were wide and searching around for an answer. After a few moments I snapped out of my shock paralysis. “That was one of the coolest tricks I’ve ever seen,” I told him.

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When a layman offers to show you a card trick, there aren’t a ton of great ways to respond to that.

You can put them off and say, “Well, I probably already know it so there’s not much point to really showing me something.”

Or you can let them show it to you and not really react because you know exactly what’s going to happen. You can just let the trick end and say, “Ah yes, that’s a classic,” and leave them feeling like, Why did you let me go through the whole thing if you know it?

Or you can let them show it to you and pretend to be amazed by it. In the past that seemed like the best option to me, but that has its own problems associated with it. If they catch on that you’re pretending, that can come off as very condescending. And even if they believe you, if you end up showing them a trick afterwards, it’s likely to be so much more impressive than what they did that it will become clear that you probably weren’t fooled by their trick and were just pretending to be. Which, again, can come off as a little infantilizing.

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Here’s a fourth option…

Leave a card in the case when you remove the deck (or find a way to get one back in there at some point, if you’re playing cards or something like that). Then at the point of the trick where you’re supposed to name your card, you just name the card in the box. This works for most of the standard card trick laymen know.

21 Card Trick - As illustrated above, you just claim you can’t find the card the last time you’re supposed to be looking for it in the columns.

Key Card Trick - If they ask you to name your card, you name the one in the box. If they don’t ask you to name it, but just ask you to confirm your card after they remove it. Then you just say, “No, that’s not it." They will always ask you to name what it was (so they can see how they screwed up), and it’s at this point that you name the card in the box.

That Trick Where they Slap the Cards Out of Your Hand - You know, the one with the glide. Here’s what I’ll do (this also works with key card tricks too). When they ask me to pick a card, I’ll say, “I’m thinking of one. Do I have to pick one out?” Of course they’ll say yes, because laymen don’t tend to know tricks that start with a freely thought of card. At the end of the trick they’ll usually (not always) ask for the name of the card. I name the one in the box. They slap the cards in my hand leaving only one card. I turn it over. It’s not the one I named. Then I say, “Wait… that’s the one I was thinking of at the beginning of the trick!” And act amazed. Again they will look through the cards to find the one I named and see what got messed up. It’s here that we find the card is gone and the point where I get super impressed.

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This little gambit works far better than I ever imagined it would. Here’s why, I think:

1. The people who offer to show me a trick tend to be people who haven’t seen me perform much, if anything. So they’re not on guard for some weird subversion of a card trick.

2. I do not play this tongue-in-cheek at all. I act genuinely impressed and amazed by “their” trick.

3. When someone shows me a trick, they might be prepared for me to fuck with them a little to screw the trick up. But what they are absolutely unprepared for is the idea that I would fuck with them in some way that makes their trick seem more amazing, and makes me look more fooled. Since they don’t know me very well, that possibility just doesn’t seem to come to them as they try and decipher what happened.

Sometimes people will take credit for what happened.

Sometimes they explain to me that they really didn’t make the card vanish, and they’re not sure how that happened. I’m always like, “Hmm… okay, sure. I guess the card just got there by ‘MaGiC,’” I’ll say, and wiggle my fingers like I’m casting a spell. I act as if I’m momentarily “playing along” with the idea they didn’t do it. Then I’ll slap them on the shoulder, “Seriously though, that was dope.”

Sometimes I’m sure they probably question my role in what transpired, but I just don’t let that idea take purchase. I just act fooled and impressed by what I saw. I’ll call a third party over and describe the awesome trick this person just did. Or I’ll just sit there quietly, staring intently like I’m replaying what I just saw in my head, and hopefully getting them to question exactly what just happened in the trick they showed me.

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This has been my go-to way of handling laypeople wanting to show me a trick in one-on-one situations for a few years. To me it just feels better than brushing it off or sitting there pretending to be fooled. It adds some mystery but it doesn’t shift the focus onto me. That’s about the best I could hope for.

Monday Mailbag #53

I think you like hearing stories of people trying pieces in the Jerxian style. If you'd like to read such a tale, read on.

I have a friend who is very used to seeing me practice and perform tricks. While she wouldn't describe herself as a magician, she grew up with a few magic books in the house and has significantly more knowledge than a typical spectator. The cross cut force is a no-go. Classic forces are instinctively resisted. She enjoys being fooled, but she'll instinctively try to reverse engineer everything first.

I'm a pretty mediocre performer of magic, though I practice a lot and end up performing in casual situations from time to time. I overfocus on technical skill and visual stuff. I love flashy flourishes. 90% of the time I just perform a somewhat overly difficult ambitious card routine, almost entirely as a visual piece of eye candy. I'm that guy. Darwin Ortiz fan, reporting for duty.

I'm one of those people that read The Jerx enviously, thinking "I could never pull that off".

But I finally tried your amateur at the kitchen table style, smearing the edges of a trick and trying to be just a bit more audience-centric. The context leading up to the trick was this friend and I were both just a bit stoned (Canadians, sorry) and on the couch when she grabs the cards, which are out not because I put the cards out and wait for somebody to ask about them, but because we'd just finished watching a movie and she's used to me noodling with cards quietly by myself like a weirdo.

After the movie, she grabs the cards and starts messing with them and shuffling idly. I start teaching her different shuffles, probably mansplaining up a storm, but she's into this kind of thing. I say some stuff about a faro shuffle, mixing fact and fiction a bit. Then, after she has mixed the hell out of the cards, I try to perform Joshua Jay's handling of Shuffle Bored for the first time. I've forgotten what he calls it because he gave his version a dumb name. He's this little known magician that nobody likes anyway. ;)

There was something completely disarming with this approach. We stumbled into it. We were playing around with cards. It didn't have that "shift into magician mode" moment that is always implicitly there when you're launching into a trick, where their guard goes way up. In terms of presentation, I had no script and made it a "peek backstage" where she was under the impression that I was teaching her a trick as we went into it. Presentationally I take as little credit as possible and instead try to sell it as a coincidence that we arrive at through shuffling and working together to remember the cards.

The weed 1000% helped give it a haphazard and bumbling feel as I improvised my way through. It probably helped enhance her reaction too, let's be honest, but it was still different from even strong reactions in the past. It was like she had nowhere to even start searching, so she just went for the ride the whole time. The magic was finally interactive and in the moment the whole time.

I know this is the babiest of baby steps into the Jerx Performing Style. All of this is very out of my comfort zone, and it's harder to get the nerve to shift into than you might think. As you can probably tell from this email though, I had a lot of fun with it. —KM

This is similar to a number of stories I’ve heard about people’s first experience with the style of magic I write about on this site. It starts off unplanned and almost unintentional and it’s only in retrospect—often after an unusually strong reaction—that they realize their performance was in line with a “Jerxian” performance philosophy. It makes sense that this happens a lot because it’s how I came to this philosophy myself—by backwards engineering the things that seemed to lead to stronger reactions. And those things weren’t more tightly scripted patter or better routining between effects. It was almost always the opposite—an effect that seemed unplanned and unscripted and just arose from the natural interaction.

When I first started playing around with this idea I thought that everyone had to believe what they were seeing was really spontaneous. But after experimenting, I found that wasn’t the case. I realized you could push the effects into more fantastical and more fictional realms as long as you kept the feeling of something that was an interaction and not a “performance.” I found that people are much happier to play along with the magic experience in informal and social situations, so long as you don’t force them into the role of “spectator” whose purpose is to validate the performer via their response to the trick.

So if you want to get into the “Jerxian” style, follow KM’s path: go get fucking baked and stumble into some performances and see how it goes.

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I’m on [Michael] Weber’s mailing list (based on your recommendation) and just got his email with your endorsement of his effect “C.” Did you change your policy that you wrote [in this post] about how you won’t do endorsements/reviews? —SB

Yes. Michael Weber (along with Tim Trono) offered me $400,000 to promote their releases. Before the ink was even dry on the contract, Michael pointed out part of the fine print that said I was to be paid in something called “Weberbucks.”

I was at first confused, then angry. My lawyer silently shook his head when I asked if there was anything we could do about this. Then Michael skipped away, knees pumping up to his chest, as he gayly laughed over his shoulder at me.

Uhm, no. I didn’t change my stance on endorsements. The quote that was used in that email came from a previous newsletter where I briefly mentioned the trick. I don’t specifically write endorsements, but if I say something positive about an effect, I don’t have an issue with people using it in their marketing.

Michael Weber and Tim Trono are kind enough to send me many of their releases. We don’t have any agreement in place that I’ll mention those releases on the site or in the newsletter. In fact, most of the time I probably don’t. But, I’m obviously more likely to than I would be otherwise, simply because the first step to me talking about something is owning it. And if someone is sending me something for free, then I obviously would then own it.

What the post you mentioned was indicating was the idea that I don’t want to be indebted to anyone, and for that reason I wouldn’t want anyone sending me something under the idea that they think I’m likely to review it or talk about it. If people want to send me stuff, that’s great. But it’s just as well if they want to send me an email telling me about their new release and I’ll pick it up with my own money if it seems like something that would be for me.

If you’re doing the math, assume there’s a 90% likelihood I won’t mention whatever you send me. That way you can decide if you still want to send it my way. Of course, you may decide to play defense and think, “Well, I’ll send it to him, and while I probably won’t get any free advertising out of it, at least he probably won’t trash it either.” That’s a good point. I’m human. I probably wouldn’t.

If you definitely want to get your release mentioned here, then these are the only ways to do so.

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Okay it’s a year and a half into the pandemic, what are you thinking and hearing about Zoom shows? Are they here to stay? Is it worth investing my time in coming up with one now?—TK

Hmmm… when the Zoom shows first started up I was somewhat skeptical, but then I heard from a few different people that they were making a killing on Zoom shows. More than they had ever made with live shows. I reached out to them recently after getting your question and heard back from a couple of them and it sounds like the interest in virtual shows has fallen off quite a bit. At least for the people I’m in contact with. I’m sure there are some people who are still doing well with them, but it’s probably not the gold-rush it was at the beginning of the pandemic (if I had to guess).

I can’t tell you what to do with your own time/energy. But personally I wouldn’t be devoting a ton of time to working on a Zoom show. There’s this thing people say about the pandemic, that it sped up changes that were already going to happen. Like it made working from home much more common, and that was a change that was probably going to happen anyway at some point. Many businesses around me went cash-less, and that too is probably something we may have expected to see ten years from now regardless. But, I gotta be honest, I don’t think “magic shows over the computer” is something that was ever going to be the future of the art. I think it’s something we did out of necessity.

New Release Roundup

NOTE: I’ll be out next week for my end of summer break. Regular posting will resume on Sept. 6th. For supporters of the site, the next newsletter should be with you by the end of the months. Mwah, mwah!

As requested in a mailbag recently, here are some initial thoughts regarding a few new and upcoming releases. These are just my first impressions, feel free to tell me where I got something wrong. I’m not going to be linking to the products anywhere, because nobody’s paying me and you’re smart enough to use google.

Ellusionist’s How to Control Minds Kit

If you had fun imagining Ellusionist’s typical, barely-pubescent customer stumbling their way through some mentalism after the release of their “How to Read Minds Kit,” you will be absolutely delighted imagining them trying the pseudo-hypnotic effects in Ellusionist’s new release, How to Control Minds.

It’s a kit that comes with a “Collector’s Engraved Brass Pen” for fuck knows what reason. It’s for “collectors”? Yeah, for me it would be for my trash collector, because that shit’s going straight in the garbage.

Of course, you need to understand they have to have something to put in the box. Most of these effects don’t require props, so they were kind of screwed. Trust me…when one of their selling points is having “50 Billets” in the box (i.e. 50 small blank pieces of paper), you ain’t getting anything good in that box.

The bigger problem is that you’re going to have a lot of dorks buying this thinking, at best, that these are “easy” to do as the kickstarter claims, or at worst that they’re REALLY going to be controlling people’s minds. The ad purposely plays down that these tricks require someone with Peter Turner’s performing abilities (which are legit for this style), and are that these effects are helped greatly by the spectator feeling the pressure from an audience (and in this case a camera crew). And still most often the target person will realize that they were sort of just playing along. Which makes it terrible for one-on-one casual performing. (If you don’t believe people know they’re playing along, contact me and we can set up some testing with real people. As long as you cover the costs. I’m not paying for testing I already know the answer to.)

But Ellusionist knows what they’re doing. That’s why this is a kickstarter. Their ridiculous “goal” for this kickstarter was $10,000. Like… huh? You don’t have 10k in the bank, Ellusionist? You couldn’t swing that yourself? Do you want a loan? I can cover you. Pre-selling through kickstarter is insurance against how disappointed their customers are going to be.

The ad says:

Copy what we share with [sic] you'll be able to "just do it". 

• You don't need to be dexterous.

• You don't need to be a showman.

• You don't need to "know it all" before you can start wowing your friends.

People say you can't buy talent - but this kit proves them wrong. 

Okay, good luck with that!

This is odd too…

First, if your son or daughter is lacking confidence. they probably won’t find it as they’re getting a wedgie surgically removed after they fall on their face trying to impress their classmates with these tricks. These types of effects rely on confidence to work. They don’t create it.

Also…you forgot to get your nephew a Christmas gift? Bitch, it’s August. You’ve got time.

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Renaissance Square by Max Giaco

This came out a while ago, but it was just recently "re-released" in Murphy's Magic "The Vault" Series.

It looks like a pretty clever collection of principles being used here. I'm just not sure how interesting Leonardo da Vinci is as a presentational subject. That might need some modification. I'll probably pick it up and play around with it. If I do go with the da Vinci presentation, then I will change the reveal on the back of the page so that it looks like illustrations of cards taken from da Vinci's notebook. If you're going to go with the theme, there's no reason to bail on it at the end.

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Infinity Watch Version 3

The newest version of another watch that allows you to predict the time someone thinks of. I continue to like the idea of the effect and can think of a couple different interesting presentations for it. But I can’t get over the idea that there's going to be a non-negligible part of the audience who says, "Oh, is that like one of those watches you can set with your phone?" I discussed my reservations in this post which is now, somehow, almost three years old. Since then I've heard from probably two dozen people who use one of these watches in a magic effect. I would guess about 2/3rds of these people have told me they've been busted at least once because someone in one of their audiences was familiar with the technology and the other third said no one ever busts them (at least not to their face). So who knows.

A smart company would release a watch that functions in this way, but that looks 50 years old. That way people aren't thinking of modern technology. If it's scratched and rusted and clearly dead. Then you tell the story of your great-grandfather and how he passed away and his watch stopped at the exact moment he died, which the spectator is able to name. Or whatever.

I'm fascinated by this bit of stupidity. One of the issues that people had with the Turner watch was that it said "Turner" on the watch which was very easy for a spectator to google and realize it's a phony magic watch. The people over at Infinity watches said, "Uh-uh-uh... we won't make that mistake!" And in their ad it says:

UNTRACEABLE: The watch brand is renamed to "BLUTHER" purposely so that spectators cannot find it online.

Guess what? Now they can because you just put the name of the watch in the ad, you dingbat.

[UPDATE: C.K. wrote in to point out what a bad decision black hands on a black watch face is. He’s 100% right, of course. I totally missed that. If you’re looking for this response from your magic— “And I predicted your thought of time!” - “Huh? Wait… I can’t… hold on… let me get my glasses…

… okay… yup… looks like you did. Neat!”—then definitely go for the black on black watch.]

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Genesis System Project by Adam Wilber

This looks like a lovingly created “system” of color changing effects by Adam Wilber. But I have bad news for you. You cannot fool people with a color-changing anything that changes color based on temperature. Laypeople know such things exist. In fact, this is pretty much the only thing they know that exists that might account for an object changing in color.

I have not put this in front of the Virtual Focus Group yet, but anytime I put anything that changes color in some way in front of them, “the color changes with temperature” is a hypothesis they offer that is nearly universal. This goes for cards changing color, ink moving or changing, color changing knives, color changing sponge balls, color changing anything.

So, for me, this is just not a methodology that works for a magic trick. It would be like using magnets to do a trick where one thing sticks to something else. If there are effects in this kit that don’t use the color change overtly, then there might be some effects here that are more usable, but I don’t know if that’s the case.

It’s a bummer because it looks like a lot of thought was put into this, and if it really left people at a loss for an explanation, then I’d be all for it. But I think it plays into one of the few explanations a non-magician has at their disposal.

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How Magicians Think by Joshua Jay

Josh has a new book coming out for the public called How Magicians Think…and Why Magic Matters.

I’ll save you some time…

How Magicians Think - “Oh please, oh please like me because I can turn $1 bills into $100s. Please?!?!?! Fuck… please!!!! Pay attention to me! Uhm…. I can read body language!!! Okay, okay… what else… I know I seem like my personality is kinda junk and all, and in the rest of your interactions with me I’m a total zilch with no confidence, but I can actually influence people to do what I want, just with a few simple words. I SWEAR TO GOD!!!”

Why Magic Matters - It doesn’t, really.

But I don’t really want to talk about Josh’s book. Instead I want to talk about my crowning achievement on this blog. And that is the introduction of a new feature to this site called, The Wit and Wisdom of the Jay Brothers. I learned recently, that Joshua Jay has a fat identical twin brother named Fat Joshua Jay. And in this recurring segment I will highlight some of their thoughts/advice on magic and life.

Joshua Jay

“Don’t run when you’re not being chased!”

Fat Joshua Jay

“Don’t run.”

Finishing Touches: The Jerx Ose False(ish) Cut

I really like testing ideas and experimenting with little touches to tricks in order to see how they affect the spectator’s reaction. This is like, a sub-hobby of mine within magic. Kind of like how you might like setting fires to derelict houses, but you also enjoy the sub-hobby of killing hobos.

In my experience, small presentational changes can lead to an obvious and significant impact on the spectator’s reaction. But small changes to the techniques and methods used in a trick generally have effects that are much more difficult to spot and interpret. It usually requires the spectator to specifically mention something about the change I’ve made for me to be certain it’s had a specific impact on their reaction, and that I’m not just reading into a response that I hope to see. (Seeing things you hope to see but aren’t really there is the basis for most magic theory.)

For example, for a long time, if I had a trick that required a small set-up on top of the deck, I would just shuffle the deck in a way that retained the top stock. Then, as an experiment, I started to palm those cards in and out so that the spectator could shuffle the deck at the beginning instead. I didn’t know if this would register with people as meaningful or not. My shuffles already seem pretty sloppy and chaotic. And when just retaining a small top stock, you can be pretty open with the fairness of your shuffle. So I wasn’t sure if having them shuffle would make a big difference. My initial impression was that it was generating a stronger reaction. But again, I thought maybe I might be seeing something that wasn’t really there. But more and more I was finding that it did make a significant difference and that was evidenced by the people who would say something like, “Wait… but I shuffled that deck,” which seemed to dash the hopes for whatever explanation they were formulating in their mind. Or I’d be recapping the effect (“And you could have stopped anywhere. And the cards were in the order you shuffled them.”) And their reaction to that reminder convinced me that this was, indeed a change that meant something to them.

Recently I’ve been playing around with a change to the Jay Ose false cut that has had a similar positive impact.

Here’s Jay Ose.

Apparently he’s a real guy who really existed and not—as I assumed—the result of a very white magician (an Andi Gladwin type) mispronouncing and misattributing a false shuffle by a guy named José.

For those who don’t know, the Jay Ose False Cut looks like this.

There’s no secret action going on there. It just looks as if that should disturb the order of the deck, but it doesn’t. Since there isn’t a secret action there, performers have realized that you can have the spectator do the actions of the cut themselves. You have them cut off a third of the deck. Then another third to the right of the packet they just cut off. Then they place the final third to the right of both. You gesture for them to pick up the packets from left to right and they have just done a full deck false cut for you.

I believe the first time I saw a trick where the spectator performs the Ose false cut was in The Art of Astonishment by Paul Harris in Chad Long’s effect, The Shuffling Lesson. Since then I’ve seen the idea used quite often.

If there’s a weakness to the technique it’s that you have to tell them how to cut the deck and how to reassemble the deck. It’s not a huge deal, although on occasion someone will cut them oddly or reassemble them in not the right way and you have to step-in, which doesn’t make complete sense if this is supposed to be a “random” cut.

I was working on a trick several months ago and I realized that often this technique isn’t used with a fully stacked deck. It’s used to keep a top or bottom stock intact. And when that’s the case, you have a lot more freedom with how they cut and reassemble. That’s when I came up with

The Jerx Ose False(ish) Cut

This cut retains a small top or bottom stack. The benefit of this over the traditional Jay Ose False Cut is that it is more random seeming and more memorable. The potential downside (that I was wary of) is that maybe it would draw too much attention to the cut and the deception at play would be noticed. I found that not to be the case. This is a technique you would use when you want the cut to be remembered. If you don’t want that, then stick with a different false cut.

What makes this particularly deceptive, I think, is that there are some genuinely free actions, followed by a couple genuinely free choices.

Here is an example of what it looks like. Well… sounds like.

Magician: Cut the deck into three piles.

[Spectator freely cuts the deck into three piles in any orientation on the table.]

Magician: Pick up any pile.

[Spectator has a free choice of any pile.]

Magician: And drop it on any other pile.

[Spectator drops their chosen pile on any either remaining pile.]

Magician: And drop that combined pile on the remaining pile.

You can probably figure out what’s happening here, you’re essentially just going to direct them to reassemble the deck so that your top stock (in this example) is maintained. But you’re going to do it in a way that suggests some freedom on their part.

I’ll walk you through what the process would be to maintain the top stock. This shouldn’t be something you actually have to think of and process in the moment when you’re doing it. It will just be sort of obvious what to do. But for completeness, I’ll write it out.

The spectator cuts the deck into three packets. Top, Middle, and Bottom. (Top is the “target” pile, Middle and Bottom are the non-target piles.) They don’t need to cut in a nice line. They can just cut however they like, so long as you keep track of the top packet.

You say:

“Pick up any pile.”

• If they pick up the Top pile, then you say, “And drop it on any other pile. Now take that combined pile and drop it on the last pile.”

• If they pick up the Middle or Bottom pile first, then you say, “Take any other pile and place it on top of the cards in your hand.”

  • If they pick up the other non-target pile, you say, “And place the final pile on top of those"

  • If they pick the Top pile, you say, “And drop those cards in your hand on the pile that’s left, so the deck is complete.”

I think the key moment that makes this deceptive is that free choice in the middle. Where they either drop the pile in their hand on either remaining pile, or they drop either remaining pile on the cards in their hand. This is a moment that can apparently only exist if you don’t care about the order of the deck. (Which you don’t, you only care about one card (or small group of cards). But the spectator doesn’t know that. So this feels quite free.)

Strangely, as the Jay Ose cut proves, once a deck is cut into three parts, people don’t seem to be able to follow what packet started where. Now, that being said, I still wouldn’t immediately say, “Turn over the top card, that will be your selection.” This would be part of a selection or forcing procedure that I would remind them of later on. “The deck was shuffled. You cut it into three piles, anywhere you wanted. Then reassembled the deck in any order you chose,” etc.

You can figure out how to maintain the bottom stock yourself, right? I think so. It’s the same thing as the top stock, but just the inverse. You’ll figure it out.

Two Person Variation

I find this works nicely with two people. The first person cuts the deck and swaps the packets around while the second spectator looks away(to “keep it 100% fair”). Then the second person reassembles the deck, “however they want.” This is, obviously, overkill if you’re using it as just a false cut. But as part of the process of a “randomizing procedure” or something like that, it makes sense.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I wasn’t sure what, if any, effect this would have on the impact of the routines I was using it with. But in recapping the effect with them, it seemed to be something they were zeroing in on. I would say something like, “Before you dealt out these hands of cards, you saw me shuffle, and you saw the cards genuinely mixing. Then I gave you the deck and never touched it again. You cut the deck into three piles wherever you wanted. And you reassembled the deck in any order you wanted. Had you cut in different places or reassembled it in a different way we would have different cards on top of these piles, but your actions gave us these four cards….” And when I get to the part about them cutting and reassembling however they wanted, there is often a comment or an acknowledgment that the moment did carry some weight with them. And it’s the sort of acknowledgment I’ve rarely gotten with the traditional Ose cut when I remind them, “And you cut the cards.”

But again, it’s a matter of time and place. If it’s a pacing thing, and you want to get through it as quick as possible, then the traditional version would work best. But if you’re happy with emphasizing that moment, I’ve found this to be a nice finishing touch.

Monday Mailbag #52

Hi Andy,

1) How often would you perform for a person if you see them once per week?

2) How often would you perform for a person if you see them on a daily basis or live with them?

—CE

Well… here is a premise that you may or may not agree with. And if you don’t agree with it then you know not to put any weight in the rest of my answer. And that premise is this: The less frequently you perform, the greater impact an individual effect will have.

We see this all the time in magic. The first card trick you ever show someone freaks them out entirely. But then, as they become accustomed to seeing you do impossible things, it really takes something special to get that same type of reaction.

In addition to that consideration, I’m someone who doesn’t want it to seem like I have an endless supply of tricks up my sleeve. So for that reason I’m also in the “less is more” camp.

I think ideally I would show people a maximum of one trick a month on average. Now, if I only see that person once a year, they might end up seeing a bunch of tricks over the course of a couple days. And if I see that person frequently, they would go many interactions without seeing a trick. (I don’t know why I explained that. I think you all understand what “on average” means.)

This isn’t a hard and fast rule, it’s just generally what I shoot for. A lot of people in my life see something much closer to four times a year. That might be a better rate.

Seeing 12 tricks a year is a good amount. Especially if you can make them each powerful and distinct experiences for someone. Remember that most people probably don’t see any live magic tricks in a given year. So while once a month may not seem like much, it’s more than most are accustomed to.

I know people like to show their wives or significant others tricks all the time. I get that it’s convenient to try out stuff on your wife. But if you overload a person with magic tricks, you’re essentially making it very difficult for a trick to feel special for them. Do you hate your wife so much you want her to get burned out on your one hobby? Eh probably.

I don’t find a ton of value in having a go-to non-magician as a “test audience.” Once they’ve seen a ton of magic, they’re close to useless as a sounding board. They don’t have a magician’s knowledge to give you that type of insight, and they can’t give you an unspoiled laymen’s perspective either.

Now, I don’t always stick to that “once a month” average, of course. When I first meet someone, they may see a few tricks fairly close together early on. And if someone is asking frequently to see something, I’ll usually indulge them (over time, that is—not over the course of the same interaction).

If you have someone you want to perform for more often, or who is asking you to see stuff more frequently, then I find the best course of action is to draw a distinction between things you show them that are “just magic tricks,” and things you show them that are, “something really strange” you just learned or discovered or whatever. In this way, the “normal” magic tricks you show them more often can be used to set a standard. Then on those occasions when you show them something stronger and weirder and intimate that isn’t just your usual trick, then you can fuck with their heads a little more.

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I have a new peek wallet I will hopefully be releasing in 2022. One of the peeks I use comes from your handling of the peek wallet in the post you wrote on November 16th of 2015 where you get the peek as you place the wallet between their hands.

Do you have any other credits for that peek or is it something you came up with yourself? I’ve seen other wallets recently that use the same peek, but I haven’t seen any credit to you or anyone else. Was that your idea? And how frequently do you get busted because the wallet is in their hands?—HF

Hmmm…. I’m fairly certain I came up with the idea of getting the peek while you hand the wallet to the person. But it’s certainly well within the realm of possibility that others had done it before me. I would assume they had. I will post your question so hopefully we can get a credit for you (I’ll update this post if/when comes in.)

As far as getting busted with the wallet in their hand, I think it’s happened once. But that’s because I was going the extra step (as described in that post) of having them clean up for me as well. So they were actually removing the card from the peeked position. I just used the technique mentioned in that post to brush off the incident and move on. So it wasn’t a big deal.

This reminds me. At some point in the past five years I’ve had a person or two message me saying they know how to make wallets, so if I ever wanted to create a magic wallet of some kind I should reach out to them. Well, I have an idea in mind, but I can’t track down who sent that email. So if you’re one of those people, please reach out to me again.

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How do you present levitation effects that are not magician-centric? —CE

I will assume you’re talking about levitating an object (as opposed to yourself).

Well, remember, as I discussed recently in this post, the only defining characteristic of a “magician-centric” presentation is that the magician is taking credit for what is occurring.

So, if a magician-centric levitation is the magician saying, “I will make this rose levitate” (or not saying anything at all, which is the same thing) then a non-magician-centric presentation is anything that suggests you’re not the one causing this to happen.

With levitations, I personally like to imply that there’s something significant about the time or location at which the performance takes place. So, while on a day-trip, maybe I’ll make a small detour to this place I “read about online” and stop on the side of the road by an old farmhouse and show them this weird gravitational anomaly that exists there (look for gravitational maps online to add some credibility to this). Or it may be a time of the year thing—when certain planets are aligned, or whatever. Tying the levitation to something more grandiose won’t always stop them from wondering, “Hey, where’s the thread?” But I find it helps considerably in giving them a more interesting story to consider.

Other audience-centric/story-centric levitation presentation ideas; spirit energy, demonstration of some new technology, hallucination, etc. You could also just say, “I have something to show you. I need you to tell me I’m not losing my mind and that this is really happening.” This type of presentation, the “I have absolutely no idea how this is happening” presentation, is non-magician-centric. Used too much it just seems like laziness. But used sparingly, it can work well. Of course, to use that with a levitation you’d need a levitation that didn’t require you to be gesticulating around the object as if you are in control.

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What Women Want

“Sooooo… tell me! How did you meet him? Where did this great love affair begin?” Susan asked.

“Well, it’s a pretty romantic story,” Lana responded, sipping her mimosa and staring wistfully into the distance as she remembered that night.

“It was a rainy night. Not a ‘duck and cover’ type of rain, but a misty drizzle that you could walk in without even carrying an umbrella. It was a rain that didn’t make everything wet, it just made everything shimmer.

“I was at the Tin Owl Cantina, getting a drink after another late evening at work. Roger and I had broken up in late April and I had been doing nothing but going from my bed, to the gym, to the office for weeks. I felt if I didn’t have a spreadsheet or a treadmill in front of me that my mind would spiral into a depression that I might never recover from.

“But for whatever reason, that night I didn’t go directly back to my place. For the first time in a while, the Tin Owl was calling me and I decided I’d stop in for ‘one quick drink’ before heading home. Well, one quick drink turned into two, and that turned into an order of the pulled-pork nachos. And it was at about that time that I was drowning my sorrows in pig and processed cheese sauce that he walked in

“I wouldn’t say he immediately grabbed my attention. It wasn’t like that. I thought he was cute, but not enough so that it would have shaken me out of the funk I was in. He walked right up to me. His confidence made me think he might know me from somewhere, or maybe he thought he knew me from somewhere. I tried to place his face, but couldn’t. I looked him up and down. Decent shoes, jeans that fit well, a short-sleeved button up shirt. Nothing special.

“And then I saw it. Something that would change the course of that evening… and dare I say, the course of my life. Dangling from a cord on his neck was something that would at first pique my interest, and later win my heart. What was it? Nothing more or less than a little plastic bear trap that he did a magic trick with.”

✿✿✿

This is an excerpt from my upcoming novel. And just so it’s clear to everyone, this is a work of SCIENCE FICTION.

There is a new trick on the market called Fast Fingers. It’s a little plastic bear trap that you grab stuff out of without getting caught. (But also, in the demo, they show the magician putting his finger right in the trap and it closing on him and it seems completely painless. So there isn’t a real sense of stakes with this trick. It’s more just a goof.)

I don’t have any issue with the prop in and of itself. I do have an issue with the suggested presentation—that you should wear this plastic bear trap as a necklace and then pull it off to do a trick where you ask a woman to write down her phone number and then you place part of the phone number in the trap and if you snatch it away you get to keep her phone number. The implication being that this would be a good way to get someone’s phone number via a magic trick. Please. For your sake. Don’t.

First off, any trick that is designed to “get a girl’s number” is worse than just asking a girl for her number. It just makes you look spineless.

Walking around with this trick hanging off your neck ain’t a hot look, chief. In fact, if you’re trying to pick up a woman you’d be better off just saying, “I have Fast Fingers,” and then making it abundantly clear that you’re not talking about the plastic magic trick.

Now, I realize I’m only talking to a small subset of my readers here. I can’t imagine there are too many of you thinking, “Yeah, that does sound like a good way to flirt with a girl and get her number.” But there are enough people who potentially feel this way that they thought this was a good angle to use in the presentation of this trick. I want to assure my younger male readers that this sentence has never been spoken or even thought before in the history of mankind, “My… who is that man with the little plastic bear trap on his necklace. I hope he asks me for my number!”

Here is some genuine advice I have for guys looking to pick up women. I dedicate this to my younger readers with school and college starting back up. This advice doesn’t require you to be handsome, funny, or intelligent. This is something anyone can do. This is my basic beginner’s advice. It won’t help you nab a 9 if you’re a 5; you’re going to have to go beyond the basics to do that. But it will help you—at the very least—meet and connect with people and not turn off people to you from the jump.

This is not the advice I would give to someone looking to get laid tonight. This is foundational advice to help you meet people in everyday circumstances: at class, at work, at your dorm, in public, etc.

When it comes to interacting with women, there is a tendency for guys to think, “I need to make a strong impression. I need to be funny and charming. I need to do something to stand out.” This is, I think, the wrong thing to be focusing on.

In order of importance, here are the three qualities you want to exude when meeting someone new who you think you might have an interest in…

Normal - This is your first hurdle to get over. You want to come across as a normal dude. Not a weirdo or a creep. Not overbearing. Not someone who is invading their space. Not someone who needs to be the center of attention. Not someone who is clearly forcing a conversation with someone or using some canned lines.

Positive - Exude a positive energy. Try to tap into the optimistic and enthusiastic part of yourself. Have things that you’re excited about and looking forward to. You don’t need to be bubbly and giddy. Just don’t be a bummer.

If you have average looks, average intelligence, and average sense of humor, but you come across as normal and positive, you will be ahead of at least 80% of the crowd.

The final trait you should cultivate is…

Mysterious - Normal and positive gets you through the door. Mysterious keeps people intrigued. You don’t need to stand in a corner and brood. Just keep some things to yourself. Don’t be a completely open book. Don’t post all your thoughts on social media. Listen more than you talk.

I’m just trying to point you in the right direction here. In a blog post I can’t give you a step-by-step guide on how to be normal, positive and mysterious. When I write a book on social interaction, I’ll go into more detail.

For now just realize that these three traits are going to do much more for you than a colorful hat, canned story, or plastic bear trap ever will.

Wednesday Whalebag

The spectators who google something: How long do you think they spend on it? My theory is that if they don’t find an obvious answer in 30 seconds, they’re going to be frustrated and stop. But you know people who have done it. How long did they spend? —PM

From my observation, and from talking to spectators and from talking to other performers, I think your estimate is just about right.

This is probably a point I should have made earlier. When it comes to googling information about a trick, people will search for information, but most won’t research something. If there isn’t an explanation of the trick or a link to where they can find it for sale in the first couple of pages of search results, then you’re generally good. Sure, some people will be more persistent, but for the amateur, you’re likely to know if that’s their personality type. So you would know to show that person things that would be much more difficult to track down.

If this is something you care about, it’s probably good to have some rule in place so the decision is made automatically for your if something is too searchable online. My general rule would be something like this…

The Jerx Rule for What’s Too Googleable

If a search of the main items used in the trick, plus the word “magic,” leads to an explanation of the trick (or where it can be found for sale) within the first couple of pages of google results, then the trick is too googleable.

For example: bill lemon magic

or

Rubik’s cube bottle magic

“Too googleable” doesn’t necessarily mean “completely undoable” for me (and certainly not for anyone else). But it does put a limit on the longevity of the response I would expect from such a trick. And it suggests that trick is not something you would want to build a “big” presentation around.

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From the same email…

If I do my version of the cut and restored rope, students can google Cut and Restored rope and they will find the basic technique I use, but they will also find many other methods I did not use, and they have no idea what if any of it is related to anything I did. —PM

True. And that becomes kind of a grey area. There are some general trick descriptions that produce so many results that searching for it is pretty useless for the spectator. If they search predict chosen card trick, that’s not going to give them anything valuable.

Cut and restored rope is a little different. A search on that might provide them an explanation that satisfies them, even if it’s a different method. In most cases they won’t be savvy enough to realize it’s not the method you used. They’re not going to say, “Oh, wait. But he didn’t hold the rope in this exact specific way, so I guess I have no clue what he did.” They’ll just look at it and think, “Oh, I see. He didn’t actually cut the middle of the rope.”

So they might not have an explanation they would bet their life on, but it’s likely something that would satisfy them. And honestly, I just don’t want people to be satisfied. I want the effect to gnaw at them somewhat.

So in that situation I might do some sort of meta commentary on this trick and the secret. “Cut and restored rope is a classic of magic. It’s practically a beginner’s trick. If you search for how it’s done you wouldn’t find one method, you’d find hundreds. But you could read through all of those explanations and you’d never find a way to do what I’m going to show you today.” And then I’d need to come up with some supposed or legitimate rationale for what makes this different.

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You may have never been proven so correct as I proved you recently. I’m a long time reader of the site. I agree with much of what you write and disagree with some of it too. In the “disagree” column would be your recent writing about trick “google-ability.” I just didn’t think it was an issue. I’d never seen someone google a trick of mine and no one had ever come up to me to say, “I found out how that trick was done.”

But in the spirit of your site I thought I would ask a few of the people I regularly perform for if they had ever tried to find the secret of a trick I’d shown them. I went to my friend and coworker Mike and asked if he’d ever searched for a secret. He said “Sure, a bunch of times.” When I asked him which tricks he said “Well… the good ones.” That was incredibly eye-opening for me.

I asked a few other people as well and they all admitted they had. And all the tricks they had searched out were ones that had gone over really well. Some secrets they had found out but they never mentioned that to me. —NN

Yeah, that’s just reality, unfortunately.

A good point made in your last line is that you shouldn’t expect people to tell you they learned the secret. Not unless there was something adversarial going on during the trick. I would guess that most of the time if they search and find the secret, they keep it to themselves. They found out what they wanted to know. They’re not looking to make you feel bad, unless you come across as a true dipshit.

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I answered “Choice 3” in your original survey and I think your breakdown of why people might choose that option was a good encapsulation of my opinion. Magicians are entertainers, if the people are entertained during our performance, then we’ve done our job. What they choose to do afterwards isn’t really our issue or our business. —MK

Okay. My goal isn’t to try and change your mind, but only to offer my perspective.

Yes, a magician falls under the heading of “entertainer.” But if you went on stage, got all nervous, shit your pants, and everyone laughed at you for 20 minutes, it’s unlikely you’d walk of the stage saying, “Well, I entertained them. I did my job.” You’re an entertainer, but you’re one who entertains by creating something magical. That’s the specific thing you do.

If you give someone a profound magic experience with a fascinating mystery at the heart of it, I’m sure if you had your druthers you’d rather the trick not be exposed 5 seconds after you perform it, yes? 30 seconds would be better. And one hour would be better than that. And one week would be better still. Even if you say keeping the secret isn’t important to you, I think you’d agree to that. So it’s not that you don’t see the benefit of keeping the secret, you just don’t think the trade-off is worth the effort it requires. I get that opinion, I just disagree.

For me, the cat and mouse game of making something ungoogleable has added a lot to the impact of my magic. In the 1980s, if you showed someone a trick and you fooled them, they might think, “This guy is more clever than I am. This guy knows how to do something I don’t know how to do.” But in this age, if you show someone a trick and they’re fooled and they cant find an answers via the internet, they might think, “He fooled me. But I also can’t find any example of anything like this online. What he did… it’s not a thing that exists.” It makes the experience seem much more special.

It’s really about your perspective. As a professional it might make sense to say, “I’m here to entertain people for 45 minutes.” But as an amateur, it would be weird to come off as “the entertainment” for the evening.

I feel like the goal with magic is to create mystery and memories. That’s something magic is uniquely well suited for. Unfortunately, both mystery and memories are greatly diminished once the spectator feels they have an answer to the “how” of it all. Very regularly I have people recount tricks they’ve seen me perform. Sometimes the trick has just occurred recently, and sometimes it’s a trick from literally decades ago. And they’re still excited by the trick. But they’re never excited about a trick if they think they know how it was done. No one brings up tricks to me that they figured out a few years ago. I’ve written before that I don’t consider the trick over until the spectator has some clue of how it might be done. So that’s why making something ungoogleable is a worthwhile pursuit to me. It can turn a two minute effect into a life-long one.