What You Want To Do and What You Want To Have Done

From an email I received last week:

Just wondering if you have any advice for hacks who should know better.

I’ve been doing magic for 20 years, children’s shows as well as close up and corporate walk around.

Since Covid hit, everything’s been too hard. Cancellations, restrictions, masks, Covid safety etc

Lock downs and the current climate, it seems to me, also gave everyone the chance to scale down any events they ran on an annual/semi annual basis.

Most of the local “full time” magicians, if they didn’t have regular 9-5 side gigs started halving the prices of their shows, but I don’t feel like selling myself short and undercutting anyone when we had it pretty sweet for a long time. The gigs are there, just mostly in regional areas, so a lot of the costs will go to travel and accommodations.

As a result, while my children’s shows are back on track, I am having second thoughts on a few corporates I have lined up for December, so much so, that I’m nearly at the point of offering the gigs to others. I don’t feel I have the confidence to pull it off any more after such a big break, and I don’t feel I’m the only one in this boat.

Do I just fake it till I make it again, like I did the first few years?

Is this something everyone goes through, and it’s time to call it quits?
—DH

This is not a question I could answer for my closest friend, much less a stranger.

I don’t know too much about what’s going on in the world of semi-pro kid show and corporate show performing. I mean, I hear stuff from people who are in those worlds, but I don’t have any first-hand experience.

So, the best I can do is offer you the way that I would go about thinking of this issue in a general sense.

First, I’m operating under the assumption that you don’t need the money these gigs would provide. Yes, of course, the money would be nice to have, but if you needed it, then this wouldn’t be a question in your mind (I would assume).

One of the reasons I can’t answer your question directly is because I don’t know your feelings towards corporate performing in general.

I’m going to discuss how I would go about coming to a decision regarding this. Let me introduce an idea here. We’ll call it The Want Matrix.

For any activity you can think of, you may want to do it or not want to do.

And for that same activity, you may want to have done it or not. What I mean is, at the end of the day, would you look back and be glad you had done it? Is it an activity that would be a good use of time for the person you want to be?

I may not ever want to do the dishes. But, at the end of the day, I would want to have done the dishes.

Conversely, I may want to smoke crack (that is, I may have the desire in this moment to smoke crack). But looking back on that action from a future perspective, I would not want to have done that. I would regret it. There are people who do something every day and then, later in the day (if not immediately after), they wish they hadn’t done it. That’s because that thing is something they want to do, but not something they want to have done.

So we can take a look at any activity and place it somewhere in this grid:

Here’s how I treat the activities in each quadrant.

1. If it’s something I DON’T WANT to do and I DON’T WANT to have done, then I just don’t do it and give it no thought at all. It’s not worth devoting any headspace to.

2. If it’s something I WANT to do and I something I WANT to have done. Then I do my best to make indulging in that activity as easy as possible.

3. If it’s something I DON’T WANT to do, but something I WANT to have done, then I will set a rigid schedule for that activity. For example, I never really want to write. There is always something I’d rather be doing. But making a schedule and sticking to it has allowed me to be the most prolific writer in the history of magic.

4. If it’s something I WANT to do, but something I DON’T WANT to have done, then I just make that activity off-limits in my mind, and that’s the end of the debate.

Now, when I explain this sort of thing to people, they say things like, “Well, what do you mean you just make yourself do the things you know you should do? What do you mean you just tell yourself not to do something that you want to do and you stick to that?” It sounds like a demonstration of crazy discipline, but that’s not really how I see it. What I do is I make the decision and then I just don’t debate it in my mind anymore. I just tell myself the matter is over. If you set your alarm for 7am to get an hour of exercise in before work, and then, when your alarm goes off, you sit there and negotiate with yourself whether you’re actually going to workout or not, then there’s a good chance you won’t. If I gave myself the option of talking myself out of sitting down to write every day, then I’d probably talk myself out of writing all the time. But I just don’t let that debate occur. That may just be another definition of discipline, but it doesn’t feel that way to me.

When it comes to sticking to a pre-set schedule (of things I don’t want to do, but want to have done) or abstaining from activities (that I may want to do, but don’t want to have done), I find it’s helpful to think of my mind as two separate entities. (Obviously this isn’t something I came up with. There are biological and psychological precedents for thinking this way.) There’s the dumb part that’s is present moment-by-moment and just wants to fuck around and eat and watch tv. Then there’s my “higher-self"“—the part that has the goals and aspirations and knows what I should be doing. I find that-weekly or monthly-it’s a good idea to sit down and check in with y higher self and come up with the plan that my dumb self will follow for the next week or month.

Thinking of my mind as bifurcated in this way means I don’t get thrown off when part of my mind doesn’t want to do work, or wants to eat an entire pan of brownies. Yes, of course part of my brain wants to do that. That’s because there is a stupid part of my brain. Before I used this model, I would think about something that was important to do and I would commit myself to do it. “I’m going to mow the lawn today,” I’d think. But then later on in the day I’d think, “I don’t think I want to mow the lawn.” And at that point my mind was conflicted. And I valued each option equally because I was thinking they were coming from my one mind. But now I know I have two minds. The one that looks out for my higher self, and the one that is stupid and/or evil. That part of my brain is free to have any thoughts it wants. It just doesn’t set policy. I don’t listen to it.

This may make it sound like I’m always hyper-productive or something, because I’m always doing stuff I would “want to have done” at the end of the day. But that’s not entirely true. Relaxing, hanging out with friends, and taking it easy are all “activities” that fall in the category of things I want to do and things I want to have done. So I get plenty of that in as well.

The purpose of the Want Grid for me is to identify the things that are important to rigidly schedule, and the things that are important to completely avoid. Everything else will sort of work itself out automatically.

This may seem like a big detour from the original question. But really I’m just setting all this up so I can answer the question in the way I would answer it for myself.

If I was in D.H.’s position, I would place the activity of doing corporate shows in the Want Grid, and let its placement determine my course of action. From his email, it’s clear that at this time, corporate shows aren’t something he wants to do. But, are they something he wants to have done? Other than for the money, I mean. Would doing corporate shows be a good use of time for the person he wants to be? If the answer is yes, then he should fight through the resistance he’s feeling, just as you’d fight through your resistance to get out of bed and get some exercise. If the answer is “no,” then he should devote that time and energy somewhere else.

Dustings #54

Gizmodo has an excellent premise all set-up for you here:

(It’s helpful to have a folder set up in your bookmarks so you can just dump these types of articles in there as you come across them. Then you can sort through them at a later date to see if they’re something you want to utilize in the future. Well, that’s how I do it at any rate.)

I think you need to do this for more than one person. And the staging I would use is to have the audience split. So you’d have at least one person on the other side of a wall doing whatever it is that you’re going to end up knowing about. And then you’re going to have one or more people on the side of the wall with you, watching to make sure you’re not doing anything other than staring dead ahead at the wall. I think that will be a good, almost slightly unsettling, stage picture.

I’m not saying you should pretend to do exactly what’s in the article, with the cameras and all of that (you could, I guess). I would suggest using the article as a starting point and then saying that you’re learning a similar technique that just uses the human eye to perceive these slight changes through the wall.

Thanks to David S. for sending me the article.

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I’m looking for feedback on a couple of things.

Wednesday’s post had an auto-playing video near the top (not a gif, but an actual video). This is something I’ve tried to do in the past with little success, but I think I’ve got it sorted out. If it didn’t work for you, send me an email and let me know what platform you were viewing it on. I’m not sure I’ll know how to fix it, but I’m curious if there were any widespread issues with it.

Also, a couple people have purchased this shower curtain from the Dumb Houdini Store. If you’re one of them, let me know how it came out. People have been pretty happy with the quality of the shirts from Threadless, but I don’t know much about the quality of the other stuff there. It’s an expensive product (and not much of that money is coming my way) so I only want to keep it available for sale if it seems decent.

Oh, and speaking of shirts. The GLOMM membership kits that were waiting on the shirts to ship should be going out on Monday because the new printing of shirts is supposed to be coming in this weekend.

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Got this email from Ellusionist:

I thought it was going to be a new trick, but it was an email about the bartering economy of the U.S. prison system. Why, Ellusionist?

They followed it up with an email with the subject line: Turn Your Anal Virginity into Protection From the Aryan Brotherhood. Like… what the hell?!?! What’s going on over at Ellusionist? Why are they writing so much about prison life? Did something bad happen. Are they going away for selling counterfeit Zippos?

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With Halloween just 10 days away, you may be in the mood to watch a horror film sometime soon. Regular readers may remember that I watch a horror movie every day in October. The way I choose which movie to watch is as follows. If there’s a release from this year that’s been on my mind to watch, I watch that (Halloween Kills, Malignant, The Fear Street series). When there isn’t something that new I have my heart set on, I find a list of the previous year’s best horror films and start working my way up that.

I’ve been a little bummed as I work my way up the best horror of 2020 list. For me, horror movies are intended to be escapist fare. Give me the horror first, and then if there’s some social commentary underneath, that’s fine. But a lot of these movies I’ve watched this year are only social commentary. It’s like, “Yes, this is a horror movie… it’s about the horror of the refugee experience!” Or, “These characters are haunted… by the dark specter of slavery!” Even Halloween Kills had way too much of this “Who’s the real monster” goofball shit. I think this ham-handed social commentary is a result of the success of Get Out and Parasite which did this stuff relatively well.

That being said, here are my recommendations for my favorite horror films I’ve watched in the past couple weeks.

I enjoyed both Swallow and Promising Young Woman as movies, although I wouldn’t call either a horror film. Certainly not a “movie to watch on halloween” type of horror film.

For that sort of thing I would go with:

Malignant

or

Freaky which is from last year. A solid horror comedy.

Other films from the top of that Thrillist list linked above that I thought were alright are:

The Dark and The Wicked - For me this had that dreary Hereditary feel to it of impending doom. Pretty dark and unsettling.

Color Out of Space - This was well done but it’s a Lovecraft story, which is not really my scene. And it features Nicholas Cage doing his “crazy acting” schtick, which is also something I’m not a huge fan of. Despite those things, I thought it was pretty good.

Also, both those last two movies feature someone chopping off their fingers while chopping carrots. Both of them!

The Fear Street movies on Netflix aren’t exactly good, but they’re easily digestible horror flicks that would be good for this time of year.

That’s what I got for you so far. If anything else stands out these last ten days, I’ll try to let you know before Halloween.

The Worry Hut Hook

Here is a good, but somewhat expensive hook for something that would normally be presented as a mind-reading demonstration.

It comes from the Uncommon Goods shop and it’s called the Worry Hea1ing Hut. (After the email in Monday’s mailbag, I’m making a point to make sure uncommon, non-magic phrases that might come up in your presentation don’t directly lead back to this site with a google search.)

You won’t need me to explain how this could be used. It doesn’t require any huge leaps in creativity.

Here’s what I like about this. It’s a thing that exists in a non-magic context. It’s something the person you perform for can find online from a major retailer. So, while it’s something that you will have to explain to someone, it’s not really something whose existence you have to justify.

Also, the ritual is built into the product. It’s not a ritual you’re tagging on to an existing product. It’s not like, “Did you know for centuries the Etch-a-Sketch has been used to read fortunes?” No, this is a thing that was made for this purpose.

I played around with one of these this past weekend and here are my thoughts.

Asking Them to Write Their Worry

It’s important to say something like. “I don’t want to see what you write down, but don’t write down anything you wouldn’t want me knowing about”

In a normal situation I would leave this object out on my end-table or something and wait for someone to make a comment about it. So they’re not going to be thinking “magic trick” right off the bat. But I do want to warn them that this “worry” they write down might be something that is revealed in some way. It’s not a fun magic trick if it ends with, “And your secret worry is… you might have AIDS! Ta-dah!” You want them to be cool with whatever they write down being revealed.

Handling

I had intended to use this with a center tear. The person writes down their worry. The paper is ripped up and burned and then the worry is revealed in some way.

I decided against a CT for a couple of reasons. First, the construction of the little house itself is such that there are gaps in the bottom, where small torn pieces of paper can slip through. Second, if it’s a bunch of torn slips rather than one piece, some might not burn in the process, which is not ideal because you want it to feel like this burnt offering has been, ya know… burnt.

So I decided to go with a billet switch instead. I played around with a couple of different ideas where the billet would be switched in the process of taking off the roof of the house and the billet being placed inside, but in the end I settled for something much simpler. I just lapped the original while picking it up off the table and placing the (now non-existent) billet into my other hand, where a dupe was secretly waiting.

So I started my performances last weekend by showing the house and describing its purpose.

I had my friend write down their concern on a slip of paper and fold it in half twice.

I had them set the paper down so they could trace a simple sigil on the palm of their left hand with a finger from their right hand. This is, supposedly, part of the ritual. But really I just want an excuse for them to set down the paper so I can pick it up and switch it in a moment.

The “sigil” is any simple design. I just made it up. But if you want to be “legit” with it, here’s a sigil that is supposed to protect against anxiety and worry.

I had them hold out their left hand flat. I placed the paper on their left palm, and told them to pin it there with their right index finger. It was in the process of picking up the paper and placing it in their hand, that I did the switch. (I’m not a huge fan of having a set billet switch. It’s not really necessary when performing for one person, in my opinion. If you have some fundamental techniques of lapping, shuttle pass, and a one-hand billet change in your toolbox, you can just sort of feel out what’s the right move to use in the moment.)

The purpose of asking them to “pin the billet to their palm” is because it justifies me touching the billet, because it’s not 100% obvious what I mean. I don’t like in magic routines when you demonstrate something that there’s really only one way to do. “Hold the coin tightly in your fist, like this.” “Put the cards behind your back.” Does this stuff usually fly? Probably. But I’m still not a fan, because I feel on some level it comes off as unnatural.

So they’re holding onto the dupe billet and I have the real one either palmed or in my lap. If it’s in my lap I grab it before we go outside (where the burning should be done).

They do the rest. They drop the paper into the house, put on the roof, light the match and burn paper. Fortunately, this takes time. And as they do this, I just step back a little and open the billet to see what they wrote.

Revealing the Information

You have a few options. You could reveal the information in a sort of “showy” way with an Ashes to Arm type of effect. I don’t think this is a good idea, necessarily, but you do have the time to prep yourself while they light the paper (which takes a good 20 seconds or so). And you have ashes around naturally. So it’s something to consider. I just don’t think it makes a ton of sense along with this prop

Or you could not reveal the information at all. You could just have this information of something they’re concerned about and then maybe do something to ease this concern for them without them knowing.

But what I did, and what will probably be my standard way of handling this, is I said, “The way to know if the ritual worked, and the worry will be diminished, is if you can see the words in the smoke. That’s why I didn’t want you to let me see what you wrote. You might just imagine you saw the word, but since I don’t know what it is….”

I can then look into the smoke and “read” what their concern is as it dissipates into the air. “Okay… I feel like i see something. A mate? You’re worried about finding a mate? No… there’s more. A roommate? You’re worried about finding a new roommate?”

The nice thing about this is that—while you are revealing something you couldn’t know—the premise of the routine is that this is evidence not of some power of yours, but of the fact that the ritual has worked. So you still get that moment of the reveal, but without having to play the role of “mind-reader.” And, unlike most billet routines, the writing is 100% motivated with this prop.

Thanks to Paavan B. for giving me the heads-up about this product.

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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.”

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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?”)

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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.

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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.”

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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.