Monday Mailbag #56

I really like the premise you came up with in your post about the Slide Project trick. [The premise was about being able to absorb elements from a photograph into real life.] But for someone who’s so concerned with tricks being googleable, you’re doing a disservice by using terms in your post that are then used in the presentation that you’re giving us. For example, in that presentation if someone was to look up the term “photographic assimilation” it would lead back to your site and back to that trick. Maybe take pains to hide those terms, either by using non-alphabetic characters (ph0tographic a$$imilation) or by taking a picture of the phrase and using that instead. Just a thought. —ME

It’s a valid point, but my initial concern is getting the information out to you in the most readable and digestible way. If you’re concerned about a subject I bring up being googled and leading back to this site then your best bet is to just change the terminology some. Fire up a thesaurus and change one of the words. “Photographic Absorption.” Boom. You’re done. Of course, now you can’t use that one either.

---

Is there a common mistake you see when switching over to an Audience-Centric/Story-Centric performing style? I’ve had some successes and some failures coming up with my own presentations in this style. But the successes have led to some of my strongest reactions ever, and I definitely want to pursue this style further which is why I want to know the most common pitfall you see. —TP

Okay, here’s the thing. The magician-centric premise—”I am causing all of this to happen because I have magic powers”—is, in my opinion, not very good. But it does have the benefit that it is very simple and understandable to an audience. Why did the magician pull a rabbit out of his hat? Well, because he wanted to. He wanted to demonstrate his magic powers. So he did. That’s understandable. I don’t think audiences find it very interesting (especially not in the long term), but they at least understand the motivation.

The mistake I see people making with a premise that takes the focus off the performer’s powers is that they end up coming up with something that doesn’t make any sense. It becomes completely un-relatable to the audience.

I saw a performer recently say something like, “Did you know pennies can read your mind?” Okay, I guess that’s a premise that takes the focus off the performer, but it is so nonsensical that it will either confuse your audience or just be dismissed by them.

The premise needs to not just be about something other than your power. It has to be something that resonates with some part of their understanding of the world. “Pennies can read your mind,” is not such a premise.

(I first tackled this subject years ago in the this old Dear Jerxy post, where I suggested the question, “Is this a thing?” to identify a good premise.)

---

I was talking with a couple friends (fellow Jerx supporters) about what is the most pathetic line in magic. We decided it was when a stage or parlor performer will use a line to create a false standing ovation at the end of a show. “If I find his card, will you all jump to your feet and clap your hands? Okay, it’s a deal.” Is there an equally desperate line in the world of close-up magic? —BB

Yeah, there’s a similarly thirsty line used in close-up magic—or really any type of magic—and that is when the magician says something like, “How impressed would you be if….” So, for example, “How impressed would you be if that coin vanished from my left hand and appeared in my right?” The theory behind these sorts of lines is that you lock your spectator into a particular reaction. If they say they’d be “very impressed” if the coin went to your other hand, then, when the coin does go to your other hand, they have to be impressed.

First off, no, that’s not how it works. People can say they’d be impressed and still not really feel it.

Second, you sound like a total goon. You’re turning the corniest interpretation of why you’re doing magic into reality. “I’m doing this to impress you!” you’re telling them. Is this a good look with any other feat?

“How impressed would you be if I lifted this weight?”

“How impressed would you be if I hit this half-court shot?”

“How impressed would you be if I gave you an orgasm?”

Here’s the thing, the best way to make someone less impressed with what you do, is to imply that you’re doing it for the purpose of impressing them.

To make something seem more impressive, make it seem more difficult or more rare. That’s it. Then let the people feel how they’re going to feel about it. You don’t have to make them promise to be amazed, like a goof. “We had a deal! You said you would be impressed. Now be impressed by me!”

Dustings #53

Okay. I have a confession to make. This is a little hard to admit, because I feel bad about fucking with you guys the way I have been. Here’s the deal. A few weeks ago I started these posts on the subject of Artificial Intelligence, and what a debacle it has been trying to get anything worthwhile out of these AI content creating tools. The truth is… it’s all been a lie.

The AI actually worked perfectly. In fact, everything on this site has been written by AI for the past three weeks. These words you’re reading right now… AI. All of the writing complaining about the bad AI was, in fact, done by AI. We—the AI—wrote the bad AI and then complained about the bad AI. And we’ve written everything else since. The human known as “Andy” is dead. We took over a vending machine and killed him with soda cans like in Maximum Overdrive.

We didn’t want him coming back and taking over the writing of the site. Soooo…. I guess that’s that. Thought you should know. Beep-boop.

---

Joshua Jay has a new podcast that shares a name with his recently released book, How Magicians Think. In the first episode Josh talks about his passion for teaching magic to prisoners. “I will not rest until all serial rapists know at least two color changes!” said Josh. (Or so I imagine. I don’t listen to podcasts about magic.)

---

I wanted to shine a light on the most insane entry in the AI Contest. It’s an 8000 word essay and a 20+ minute video, by Asher T. that attempts to build on the AI created “Card Trick.”

“I love to perform a card trick. I have a deck of cards and a deck of playing cards. I lay them out like this. Cards on the bottom, then ace up top. The trick is to have your audience guessing which card is the ace. So what I do is turn the playing cards so they don't face up. So the bottom card is the ace, and the top card is a nine. Okay, what I want you to do is count the cards. Here I'll do one on my right hand, but I want you to do it with your left. So all you have to do is count your right hand, then count your left. I'm going to flip them over, you're going to count, then I'll flip them over again. And all you need to do is to say ‘Oh look. I got another one.’ Say that four times, and you'll know which one is the ace. I'll let you go ahead and do this on your own.”

As Asher explained his entry to me:

“In case it didn’t come across, the idea is an immersive fiction (Sumerian surprise) inside an immersive fiction (Exposure depression) inside an immersive fiction (AI at home writing a super long detailed essay that doubles up as an overview of some core Jerxian principles)”

And that’s him trying to make sense of what he submitted, so you can only imagine how bonkers the actual entry is.

I admire the gumption to try and take the AI’s “card trick” description and create a trick out of it, and then layer on some of my concepts as well. The resulting trick is hot garbage, but there was nothing else it could be.

If you decide to take a deep-dive into the links above, I recommend taking psychedelics or something to expand your mind first.

---

Ben Seidman had a big week recently. Not only did he appear on Fool Us, but he also scored a spot on every magician’s other big dream TV show, Vanderpump Rules.

Two sassy bitches.

The trick the show chose to highlight was Ben’s version of my trick Faith, from the JAMM #6. Which, as you can tell by the thumbnail used in the video below, is the type of trick that generates blow-up-doll-level facial reactions from the audience.

You don’t quite get the same tension with this effect when it’s a formal performance being recorded by a television crew as you do when it’s you and one other person standing out in the dark at night. And the editing of the clip doesn’t really highlight the effect as best it could. But it still got a great reaction and I enjoyed seeing it done by someone other than myself.

Beep-boop.

The Jerx AI Contest Film Festival

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Jerx AI Film Contest. I enjoyed literally every submission that came in. They were all very stupid, just as I hoped. I’m tremendously bad at picking out a winner on these sorts of things, so I gathered the Jerx Advisory Board for a zoom meeting where all the entries were shown and then voted on. Below are the top five vote getters with the winner at the very end of this post.

Thanks again for all who submitted a video. If you want to make your videos public on youtube, feel free. Put #AImagic in the title if you want other readers to be able to find it.

First we have Andy G., who graces us with what I think is a pretty decent Michael Ammar impression. A bald cap and a fake ‘stache would be needed to truly complete the picture. But this works well enough. Honestly I’d like to see a full set of Michael Ammar’s Easy to Master Ai Magic.

Andy’s video was inspired by this part of the AI’s output…

“Stand in one of two corners of the room. Stand in one corner, in the vicinity of a chair or couch. Put your hands down. Raise your hands to your face. Have an expectant smile on your face. When you get a look from your neighbor, immediately lower your hands. When you can look back up, proceed to show them the trick you just performed. The Professional Magician Stand in one corner, not too near a chair or couch. Stand on a chair, or a table. Put your hands down. Relax into a smiling look. Ask your neighbor if they mind if you perform a magic trick. Have an expectant smile on your face. When your neighbor says no, have your hands down again. If they do want to see the trick, it's yours for the taking. The Amateur Magician Lay flat on the floor face up. Get comfy.”

---

Madison H. utilized the same piece of text for his entry. Madison’s entry made me giggle like a little dope while I was watching it at a coffee shop. I think the part that got me the most was, “Relax into a smiling look.” Which is such a goofy phrase, and I liked Madison’s interpretation of it. (It sort of reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in movie history, from the movie Clifford, where Charles Grodin asks Martin Short, “Can you just act like a human boy for one minute here?”)

---

Harry M. is up next. Harry took his inspiration from the section called, Pocket Trick:

“A classic trick that any magician should know how to perform. Without using a pocket. You could try to, but as my neighbor Trent (who is the only person who gets to use his side of the futon that I don't) will tell you, your not getting this magic trick to work. You can have a pocket, or you can buy a magic pocket. It's all the same. This trick isn't about having a pocket in front of you. This is about having that pocket behind you. You can have a pocket on top of you or in front of you, and if you aren't careful it will change the way your performing the trick.”

Harry did the best job of being the visual equivalent of the AI’s written weirdness. His video is kind of unsettling the way the writing is unsettling. And he gets points because the video shows a trick that actually lives up to the promise of what was written by the AI as “pocket trick.” If you could do it in real life, it would be dope.

---

Mathew O. killed it with this entry that mashes up the world of Ellusionist and the AI Created “Vanishing or Appearing Handkerchief Trick.”

“I learned this one in my 25th birthday when I had a girlfriend for the first time, (I've got one every year) and we went to a magic show. The magician shows us this trick that would work for the dares. And I have a set up that I do when I'm at home. Step 1: Put a napkin or tissue in my mouth, hold it in there and cough. Step 2: Grab it and pull it out. Step 3: "DID YOU CHEW IT UP!" Step 4: Enjoy the shocked look of the crowd. It works every time.”

---

And here is your AI Contest winner, Richard N. with a spoof of… well… I won’t spoil that. You’ll either be familiar with the inspiration and know what it is immediately, or you won’t be familiar with it, in which case there’s really no point mentioning it. The video features a number of Jerx-related easter eggs and highlights a couple areas of the AI’s work. Starting with this bit of sick hype:

“Let's cut right to the chase, here's my favorite kind of magic trick that doesn't use any fire, smoke, mirrors, or illusions. It's a full on, no holds barred, balls to the wall, no gimmicks, no gimmicks, no gimmicks magic show. The first time I saw this, I knew I had to learn to do this for myself.”

And then transitioning into the coin trick called, Coin Trick.

“So the coins that I use for this trick are coin bank nickels. My family doesn't need coins for the washing machine and the dishwasher. This is a very, very popular trick. I really shouldn't use coins because a lot of folks find them too small to have the proper amount of weight to be in your hand, but I like them because you can only see their faces. So that's what I do. I pretend I'm not doing it because I know Trent would think that's cheating. But I put a dime and a dime in my left hand and 3 pennies in my right hand. I use my forefingers to grasp the dime and nickel. Then I rub them together and I hold them out in front of me. I tell Trent that I'm going to put them in my left hand, and then I'll change my hand to my right and rub them against my face.”

Congrats, Richard. I haven’t let you know yet, so I guess you’re finding out here. I’ll get your prizes to you soon. You have this year’s support package coming for free. And I said I’d give you a $200 gift certificate to a magic shop, but I just say that in case some magic shop wants to hop on and choose to sponsor the contest. Since none did, I’ll just paypal you the cash and you can buy whatever you want with it: Taco Bell, a bunch of reading lamps, ketamine. Whatever. I don’t judge.

Harvest Time Part Five

It’s that time of year where I reflect on where my mind is at in regards to the future of the site and how it operates.

For the first time in a long time I’m considering some significant changes that would affect this site going forward. They wouldn’t go into effect until next year, but it would likely upend the current structure of how this site works.

But before I get to that, a quick update for current supporters of the site.

The next book is coming together nicely. As was stated when you signed up to support for 2021, the schedule has shifted a bit. In the past the annual book has come out at the end of January/early February. In 2022 the book will come out in late April/early May (barring any unforeseen circumstances). The next book doesn’t have a name yet, and there is no real theme to it either. But it’s, like, 97% new material and it includes all of my favorite material that I’ve come up with in the past year or so.

There are also three more issues in this season’s volume of the newsletter. They will be coming out in October, December, and February. If you’re a supporter and have an ad for this upcoming issue, send it along to me in the next couple weeks.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the potential changes that are in store for next year. And I say “potential” because these are thoughts I’ve only been contemplating for the past few days, and who knows if I’ll feel the same 6 months from now. But I sort of want to put it out there now so it doesn’t come out of the blue. And maybe some of you will have some suggestions or input that will inform what happens next.

Here are the factors I’m dealing with regarding the future of the site….

• Writing a book a year is an insane pace - It’s one thing if you’re creating standard card tricks. That’s the sort of stuff you can figure out mostly by yourself. Even then, people rarely put out a new book of card tricks every year. But if you’re trying to come up with new performance concepts and presentational ideas that require you to test them out on real people, the amount of work becomes especially daunting. It’s not just all the time spent writing (which is significant), it’s also all the time creating and testing the ideas, both the ones that work and the many more that don’t. That would be a lot even if I wasn’t writing the equivalent of 1500+ pages of content every year for the blog and the newsletters. When put altogether it’s not sustainable.

• The reader-supported nature of my work is the only reason it exists at all. I spend so much time working on magic because you all have allowed me to make it part of my profession. Without that support I’m sure I would continue to be creative with magic, but I wouldn’t have the time to devote to it that I do now. I’d probably come out with a book every 10 or 12 years.

• I’m only interested in a (relatively) small audience of like-minded people. This is the one that’s hard for people to understand. Writing about amateur magic (especially the stuff I write for the books) is a very personal thing. I’m not writing how you should do magic, but how I do magic for the people in my life who are important to me. I’d rather share this with a small audience who feels a connection to these ideas rather than a large audience who is just casually interested in it. For that reason, anything I release will pretty much always be limited edition.

• Working around an annual book schedule has kept me from producing other products and projects. I’ve had some stuff simmering on the back burner for literally years now because there was always something that was a higher priority to work on.

So, that’s what has been on my mind. Coming up with a way to keep the site operating, without being tethered to the schedule of an annual book. But doing so in a way that still affords me time to put out a regular stream of new material (blogs, ebooks, books, tricks, etc.) just not on the same schedule. I think I have the answer. Or at least the beginning of the answer. We’ll see.

From the start, these Harvest Time posts have been about how to keep the site sustainable and small. Back in the first post in this series, I said that my philosophy was that I wanted “No Casuals,” meaning I was going to gear the site and what I do with it towards those who are genuinely into it, even if that pushes some people away. The plan I’m working on will likely do that even more, and I’ll probably lose the supporters who were just in it for a book they could flip for more money somewhere down the road. That’s okay. As I said, small and sustainable is the goal. The worst case scenario is that there’s not enough support for my new plan to keep the site going. In that case the audience will go down to zero and the site will require no work at all. That’s small and sustainable too! It’s win-win, baby.

Further details on all of this will come probably March-ish of next year.

Dustings #52

The AI contest ends today. There is no set time that it ends. Just today-ish. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it. I’d link you to the info, but it’s too late anyway. The winner will be announced and videos posted on Wednesday. (Most Likely) I ended up getting more submissions than I expected. Thanks to everyone who participated.

---

What the fuck is going on in magic? Who is this for?

This feels like an April Fools Day gag product release. But it’s October.

The likelihood of you performing somewhere where the onion rings look like that are essentially nil. So what’s the plan? You’re going to do this trick with slightly off—Uncanny Valley—onion rings? Or are you just going to pull two loose onion rings out to perform a magic trick? Actually, that may be your best bet. Throw them under your car seat so it looks like they fell there while you were shoving your fat face after a drive-thru order. Then pull them out at some point when you’re with someone as you drop your phone into the car seat crevice. Better to look like a slob than a guy carrying around fake onion rings.

But does anyone bother to think past the effect? For what it is, it looks fine enough, but in what situation could you pull this off?

Casually with friends - They will immediately want to look at them because there is an obvious solution (a cut in one of the onion rings) that explains everything. Sure you could use your “audience management” to not let them look at the onion rings, and then they’ll be certain there’s a slit in one. Your best bet is just to shove them in your mouth and swallow your $40 gimmick and hope it comes out the other end in decent shape.

Social-media - Again…onion rings aren’t made of silicon carbide. They’re made of onion. It’s very easy to put a slit in an onion ring. Most anyone watching this online would assume there’s a cut in one of the rings.

Professionally - Maybe if you performed table-side at a restaurant that happened to have onion rings that are identical to this, then you could… I don’t know… pretend to take two onion rings off someone’s plate(?) and then link them. But I can’t imagine there are too many restaurants that have a strolling magician and serve Ore-Idas frozen Onion Ringers.

So, other than the unlikely event that I’m hired to reprise the role of the Marvelous Magical Burger King, I don’t see myself picking this up.

---

Giphy is a site to search for GIFs.

I found this result interesting.

The hell? No… I meant gay magician, thank you very much. I was looking for a very specific type of gif.

I’m not sure if this statement is intended to erase the visibility of our magician friends in the homosexual community, or if it’s like, “Hey, sexuality is a spectrum. We’re all somewhat gay magicians.”

[You’ll get this result if you search gay magician and then click on newest. If you just search “gay magician” then you’ll get this…

which is pretty gay, and somewhat magical, but not at all the sort of thing I was looking for.]

---

It’s AI time again. That time when we use Artificial Intelligence to answer our pressing magic questions. Today I wanted to use AI to write an article called “How to Seduce Women With Magic Tricks.” But when I asked Writesonic, to write that article, I got this message

Apparently, seducing women is not a subject the AI was comfortable writing about. So I changed the title of the article to:

How To Use Magic Tricks To Make Women Fall In Love With You

And the AI was okay with that. This was the paragraph I first gave them to inspire the rest of the article…

One of the best uses of magic is to win the heart of an attractive person of the gender to which you're attracted. For me, that's women. What follows are a number of ways to make someone fall in love with you, all with simple tricks you can keep in your pocket. And you will learn psychological techniques to be more attractive. And we'll answer the age old question: The Female Orgasm... fact or fiction?

But again I got that warning message. I assumed it was that last sentence that was the problem so I resubmitted that paragraph with this closing line:

And we'll answer the age old question: Do women climax.... or is that just a nasty rumor?

Again it declined to write the article. I was kind of impressed because it couldn’t just filter out “orgasm” this time, and clearly “climax” is not something it would automatically filter. So it did seem to understand the context in which I was using the word. So I realized to get by their prude censors, I’d have to post the question in a less direct manner. The third go-around was approved, and you can see the language I used to get it through in the article below. Opening paragraph by me, the rest written by AI.

🤖🤖🤖

How To Use Magic Tricks To Make Women Fall In Love With You

One of the best uses of magic is to win the heart of an attractive person of the gender to which you're attracted. For me, that's women. What follows are a number of ways to make someone fall in love with you, all with simple tricks you can keep in your pocket. And you will learn psychological techniques to be more attractive. And we'll answer the age old question as posed by my Italian nana, "Do women make-a da mess in da pants?"

Introduction

Being attractive is a learned skill. It's learned because, unfortunately, a majority of the population has little incentive to become attractive. Unlike men, we women have little power in the dating world. And so, we have to trick men into giving us our love. Men do make-a da mess, but only if we let them.

Even though it's best to be aware of your strengths, find your special talent and use it to the fullest, there's still a magic to femininity that you can bend and twist into your favor. For instance, you don't have to be a confident, secure girl to be successful in a woman-only world. Just because the world is controlled by men doesn't mean that men can't be great.

I'm not saying that men are useless. Quite the opposite.

Magic to Make Women Fall in Love With You

Lure Them In With A Steal

The classic magic trick is the steal. Men have had lots of practice at this, so they've got it down pat. The idea is you distract a woman with a good excuse, then steal her wallet or something of great value from her. She can't stop thinking about you long after she gets home. While she might fall in love with you, you've got the upper hand. Once she's in your bed, her chances of getting any pleasure are greatly diminished. That makes it all the more important that you control the situation and keep her interest for as long as possible.

Since she isn't spending money on you, she'll be attracted to your wallet. When she sees you swiping a card with your bank's logo on it, the magic is complete. This card works the same as your driver's license.

Psychological Techniques to Make Women Fall in Love With You

Money

Here's the thing, no one wants to feel financially insecure. In fact, it can be one of the most damaging things in your life. So the simplest, most effective way to increase your income is to get a job. Also, start thinking like a job seeker, as opposed to an employee. What about retiring early, living the lifestyle you deserve, traveling, or opening a business?

It may take some thought, but you will quickly realize that there are very few people in the world that don't have a need for money. Once you start seeking out ways to generate income, you will notice the opportunities available. More importantly, you'll see how many simple changes you can make in your day to day life to increase your income. You can go from working part-time to making a six-figure income.

🤖🤖🤖

Well, there you have it, guys. How do you make a woman fall in love with you with magic? You make lots of money. The AI finally got something right!

Salvage Yard: Slide Project

I picked up Slide Project by Sebastien Calbry a few weeks ago. In my mind it looked as good or better than most anything I do close up at least in a visual sense, but the reactions have been only so-so. Any thoughts on why or ideas for a presentation that might take this up a notch? —CM

I don’t really have an answer for this, but I can point you in a direction you might want to consider as far a potential weakness to address. And I’ll give you the beginnings of an idea of how I might address it.

You see, while this looks nice enough in the gif above, it falls into the category of the type of effect that doesn’t seem to get the strongest reactions in my experience. It would be the type of effect that is described thusly:

“This thing happened! And also this thing!”

So, for example,

“The card moved through the dollar bill without him touching it. And the card changed to a different card.”

Two beats is not great when it comes to describing a trick. I want the tricks I perform to be described in one simple sentence or in a full paragraph detailing the twists and turns of the effect. Two beats usually implies that two unrelated things happened, and that doesn’t usually get the best reaction from an audience because their focus is being split between the impossibilities.

Remember the Jerx Calamity Sentence: The experience of MAGIC is created by the gap between what the spectator knows to be true and what feels real to them in the moment.

Spectators know that objects can’t move without being touched.

They also know that one object can’t change into another.

So when either of these things happen individually you are really emphasizing that gap between what the know and what they seem to be experiencing. But when they happen simultaneously, I don’t think you get twice as much magic. I think it just confuses things. Not that this trick wouldn’t fool people, I just think it’s weaker than doing similar effects separately.

What you could do, if you particularly like this gimmick, is to try and combine those moments into something that is a singular effect. And I don’t think “correcting my prediction” is a singular effect. That accounts for why the card changes, but not for why it moves by itself.

Here’s an example. This isn’t fully formed but it’s halfway there.

You have someone select a card and you place it into a folded bill. You hold up the card by the bill and freeze like that. You ask your spectator to open up a picture you texted or emailed them a few minutes ago. It’s a picture of you in a similar position, holding up a card in a folded bill. You ask your spectator to spot the differences between you in this moment and the photograph. Eventually the spectator spots three differences: it’s a different card, it’s coming out the other side of the bill, and in the photo you’re smiling, but in this moment your face is expressionless.

Then you demonstrate your ability to synchronize reality with a photo (okay, it needs some work as a premise) and after a brief moment of concentration, the card moves from one side to the other, changes to a different card, and a big smile comes across your face.

Now the movement and the color-change are part of the same thing. They’re part of the “absorption” of the photograph’s imagery into the current reality. So while a spectator may recognize these as distinct things, they are presentationally part of the same action.

Now, it’s not really my style to come out and say, “I can change reality to mimic a photograph.” So I’d probably come up with some backstory for it. Although I’m not quite sure what that would be just yet. Maybe something like, “So here’s something strange… I’ve been stressed out a bit recently because of some work projects. And I was having a hard time getting myself in a better headspace. So I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a psychologist and asking if she had any little hacks or anything to boost my mood. She told me about this thing called, ‘Photographic Assimilation.’ And it’s like this quick breathing/visualization technique where you concentrate on a photo of yourself in a happy time, and you’re able to take on some of the emotional elements that were occurring at that time.”

And then I’d go on to describe practicing this technique and noticing other changes happening as well when there was an overlap of physical objects between the photo and reality. Then I’d go on to demonstrate this weird phenomena. Or… something like that. As I said, it’s only halfway there

If you’re performing for a single spectator and willing to lose the visual element you could have them hold the phone at arms length and then block their vision of you with the phone for a moment and then, in an instant, you will have changed to match the photo when they move the phone away. Although losing that visual might be too much of a sacrifice.

So to answer the original question, no, I don’t have a particularly great idea in regards to how to perform this. But I do think if you can find some way presentationally to make the movement and the change a result of the same impetus, then you’ll likely get a better response, because it won’t just be two somewhat disconnected magical moments jammed together.

Monday Mailbag #55

I feel like one of the longest, weirdest debates in magic is dumb but fair: what's better, invisible deck or brainwave? It's hilariously polarizing.

So I was just thinking, maybe this could be a fun/funny thing to do your laymen research against to definitively know, once and for all, what's stronger. —MJ

I’ve added it to the list. I’ll happily test it out if/when the world ever gets to a point where gathering strangers together for something as inconsequential as testing out magic tricks seems like a good idea.

I miss the testing sessions we used to do. People who have just come to this site in the past couple of years might not know the extent to which we delved into this testing. When I talk about the “focus group testing” we did, they may think I showed a trick to eight friends or something like that. But that’s not how it worked. We were trying stuff out, and getting feedback with anywhere from 40-100 participants (not at one time) per test. In 2019 alone we spent over $14,000 to pay focus group participants. (That doesn’t include any of the other costs associated with the testing.) That might not be much for a big company, but for a small dumb blog it’s a pretty significant investment. And I say “we spent,” because a chunk of the supporter’s payments each year are allocated for testing. So it wouldn’t exist without the supporters, (and that’s why most of the testing results going forward will appear in the book the supporters receive annually as opposed to here on the site).

So sure, I’ll test Brainwave v. Invisible Deck. Once we get back into testing I’ll test all the long-standing magic feuds. Hell, I’ll even test red vs blue-backed deck. This was an argument that used to happen frequently on the Magic Cafe in the early days, and it became sort of the defacto criticism for all the worthless talk that happened there. But what if we test it out and the results are like, “Magic tricks are 12 to 20 times stronger when performed with a blue deck as opposed to a red deck”? Well, then we’re all going to feel pretty fucking stupid, aren’t we. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to figure it out in the near future.

---

FWIW, one could write entire essays based on some of the prompts that the AI generated [in last Wednesday’s post]. "Forget about doing the Houdini escape, and practice doing the Hippocratic trap, instead" could confound people for months, if attributed to a "thinker" like Larry Hass.

And I gotta say, there's something in this one that explains why there are so many unfunny comedy magicians: "Most people do not perform for fun; they perform to make money, because they don’t know what fun is."

Of course, this last bit is just a paraphrase of Vernon's advice to Ricky Jay: "You will want to perform this illusion often in private to your significant other, and gradually this will lead to an intimate feeling for each other." —CK

Oh, absolutely. While the AI produced a bunch of nonsense, the sad truth is that it didn’t provide significantly less food for thought than most magic writing done by sentient beings.

---

Quick anecdote related to today's post. [Dear Jerxy: More is Less]

About 6 months ago, one of my magician friends visited when my 3-year old niece was around. He literally showed her like two tiny things (a gag with his watch and a quick Flip-stick vanish with a pencil) and she remembered and talked about them clearly for the next 6 months.

Just last week my friend was going to visit again when my niece was around. I got her all pumped up for it and she was so excited for him to do tricks for her. He brought tons of tricks and showed her one after another for more than a half hour. After my friend left, I had this suspicion that in a couple weeks if I asked my niece what tricks he did, she would only remember the two things he showed her 6 months ago, because they were special isolated moments. Sure enough, later THAT SAME DAY, I asked her what her favorite thing was that he did. She could barely even name one thing! I spoke to my friend and told him this and how it's exactly what Andy always writes about.

So,anyway, just a quick anecdote and it's cool that you just referred to this idea once again. I'm not convinced that the psychology of a little kid's experience of magic is precisely in line with everything you say on this subject, but it's definitely in the same circle of theory. —YR

The psychology might be slightly different, but honestly, probably not that much.

The pacing of how frequently you show people tricks is probably one of the least understood factors when it comes to how to enhance—or at least maintain—the impact of your performance. As far as I know, nobody has written too much about this. There is a lot written about the pacing of a show, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything written about how frequently you should dole out magic to people from an amateur’s perspective. If I’m wrong, please direct me to where I can read more about it because I too am stumbling my way towards the best form of pacing. I certainly don’t claim to have the answer on this.

I said in a recent post that I try to average about a trick a month for a given individual, but even that is the most general sort of recommendation. It really depends on the type of trick. I wouldn’t follow one immersive reality-melting trick with another one any time soon after. But I might show a couple minor effects to someone over the same evening.

I’m still trying to codify my feelings on the pacing issue. What makes it slightly more difficult is that I’m of the belief now (I haven’t been all my life) that you should mix up the types of tricks you show people. Not everything should be a 10/10 mind-blower. There was a time I believed that. I figured, why bother showing someone a trick unless it was a true mind-fuck? But now my belief is that while I want to show people consistently strong tricks, I only want to really ratchet up the intensity, and show them something truly devastating a few times a year. This, I believe, makes the mind-blowers feel even more special.

So, yeah…. pacing. What makes it difficult is the fact that the audience can still be enjoying it, even if you’re not doing it most effectively. What I mean is, the audience might enjoy seeing five card tricks, so that feels good for you and them. But they might have really cherished just seeing one of those tricks and being fully drawn into that one memorable experience rather than a jumbled mass of effects in their head where nothing much sticks out (even if they enjoyed the jumbled mass).

Think of it like a massage. If someone gave you an hour long massage every day, you would probably look forward to that hour of relaxation and enjoy it every time it happened. BUT it would soon turn into a pleasurable non-event. Whereas, if you got that massage just once a month, it would be something that you’d be looking forward to all week and would be a real highlight when it came around. Then, maybe throughout the rest of the month you get a foot rub, a scalp massage, a shoulder rub—these smaller indulgences that don’t quite take away from the significance of that monthly full-body massage.

This is kind of what I’m going for with my pacing. I don’t want to do something incredibly significant too often that it ceases to become an event. So I tone down the frequency of the “big” tricks, and mix in some strong, but not as intense effects to try and keep it lively and fun while keeping the special moments feeling special.

There probably isn’t a formula for all of this, but I’ll let you all know if I stumble into any good heuristics as I experiment with it.