Monday Mailbag #57

[Do you] recommend a technique for easing ones nerves...

My best trick for this is to address the issue to the people before you - "gosh my nerves are kicking in here - hopefully you won't notice my icy, shaking, sweat drenched hand things..." —GB

I tried to address this in a previous mailbag post, but I don’t really have a great answer, because it’s not really something I deal with. At least not regularly.

But here’s an idea to consider. You wouldn’t be able to do it all the time, but you might be able to get away with it occasionally. And that idea is to attribute the nerves to something else. Something related to the trick, but not just, “I’m worried I’m going to screw this trick up.”

So, for example, you could say, “I might be a little jittery here. To do this trick right you have to practice this mind-centering, breathing/meditation technique. It makes you hyper-sensitive to certain things, but it also kind of puts you on edge.”

Or, “Okay, I’m nervous, so forgive me if my hands shake a little. The truth is, I’m not supposed to be showing anyone this trick. I belong to this kind of underground magic group that shares tricks with each other, but we’re not really supposed to show them to others without permission. We sign an agreement and you can get kicked out of the group if they found out. Not that I think you guys would ever say anything to anyone or post anything online. But there are stories of some members of the group performing a trick they weren’t supposed to for someone in their private home when nobody else was around, and nobody mentioned it afterwards, and still somehow this group knew. So that’s why I’m a little on edge. But I really want to show you this thing that I don’t think anyone outside of this group of magicians has ever seen…”

I can think of three benefits to this:

First, it would give you an excuse to show nerves other than, “I’m a little puss-baby who is worried about fucking up his magic trick.”

Second, now that you’ve provided a reason to be nervous, you’ll probably be less so. I would guess that part of the reason people get nervous is because they’re worried about getting nervous.

Third, if you do end up shaking, or sweating like a maniac, or shitting your undies, or whatever, you will have taken this potentially embarrassing situation and turned it around in the audience’s mind. They will think, “Oh, come on… he’s not really nervous, right? It’s just for the story. There’s not really a secret magic organization that’s going to find out about this that he’s worried about, right?”

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Hi Andy, after reading today's post (which even made me marvel just reading the coin vanish part... That alone was magical after the setup, even in print) it reminded me I wanted to ask you about breaking character.

Obviously they know this didn't really happen (or any of these stories used in your style a lot). So do you ever just give a knowing smile or a wink at some point?

I ask, because if I did this, they would say, "okay, that didn't really happen, right??", whether it was this story, or one of the many examples you have in print using a setup (even if it was more believable or something that could be true, even if only constructed as back story). What they're really asking, is, "yeah I know there's no curse, but how did you do that?"

They'd know I'm telling tales. That means if I really meant to pull it off, it could never be revealed to look anything but spontaneous if you're doing magic that "comes up" situationally, or because you steer it in that direction to perform.

If you ever break character, then it's, "okay, he's just being the magician/mind-reader that he is".

I know that you know your friends know you are a performer/casual magician (or whatever), so do you just maintain the stories you create and stand by them? Or do you ever acknowledge that they know you're just "putting them on" so to speak?

Hard to explain, but I'm sure you know what I'm asking?

Strict example using this post, if I started that up, they would know I'm going into "that mode". It would still be fun and very engaging because that's a fantastic presentation, but I only know one person dumb enough to believe it, and that that's why the coin vanished. And I don't hang out with her.

Anyway, thoughts? Do you step into character/story mode, like a movie, where everyone then let's go of any prior beliefs and just enjoys the narrative? —NS

I’ll answer this in pieces…

So do you ever just give a knowing smile or a wink at some point?

No. Ideally I’m doing something so impossible/crazy/absurd that it would be kind of insulting to wink at them.

Imagine you’re dating someone and it’s Christmas and you sneak a gift onto the coffee table at some point in time. “Whoa… there’s a gift here on the table. It’s from Santa! Wow. I thought I saw something in the sky earlier.” Or whatever. You wouldn’t then say, “Just so you know, I’m only kidding around.” It goes without saying what’s going on.

Now, I don’t always get this right. I don’t always push things far enough. I made that mistake a couple times last month when I was doing some seance-y type stuff. It was almost too believable for the people I was doing it for (people who are open to that sort of thing). So when I found them more in a state of questioning (“is this real or not?”) rather than appreciation for the story, then I did need to give a metaphorical wink.

But usually I want to do something so outlandish that the wink is redundant. This is the idea of the Reverse Disclaimer. The “wink” or the “knowing smile” in this case is the same as the disclaimer. It’s something I want to get rid of.

I ask, because if I did this, they would say, "okay, that didn't really happen, right??", whether it was this story, or one of the many examples you have in print using a setup

If someone said, “That didn’t really happen, right?” I would say, “I swear to god it did. A gypsy put a curse on this ring and made it take my money. I swear on the lives of your children that’s a true story. Why would you doubt that?”

I know that you know your friends know you are a performer/casual magician (or whatever), so do you just maintain the stories you create and stand by them? Or do you ever acknowledge that they know you're just "putting them on" so to speak?

I will talk with them in a general sense about doing magic, or something I did for a mutual friend. And they will say things to me where they mention really enjoying a particular trick or story. And I’m not like, “No, no! It’s not a trick, it really happened!” So I’ll happily acknowledge the reality in a broad manner. And when you do that, you don’t have to worry about how they view individual tricks.

It’s like professional wrestling. In the 80s, they used to sort of pretend what they were doing was real in and out of the ring. Then, at some point, they realized that was stupid and they went to a model where they would just pretend things were real within the show. But when they appeared on talk shows or podcasts or something, they would talk more freely about playing a character and working on a story arc and whatnot.

The difference between wrestling and magic is that in magic there is less of a distinction between when we’re “in the show” and when we’re not. I intentionally like to blur those lines when I perform. But I’ve educated the people I perform for enough to understand that the performance world is fictional and then there is the real world. What I’m interested in doing is not making it 100% clear when you’re in which world.

So do I step into performance mode? Yes and no. Sometimes I make it very subtle and sometimes it’s more abrupt. The Campfire Story Performance Style, as described in the post you’re talking about in your question, would be on the more abrupt end. It would have a “gather around for this story” feel. But in other cases the people wouldn’t know they were “in” a trick until the climax. Playing around with this sort of thing keeps it interesting for me and the spectators.

Dustings #55

Do you have a copy of the November 1967 issue of Genii lying around somewhere?

It’s the one with your grandpa’s friend on the cover.

At any rate, I need to give credit where it’s due. A number of years ago I wrote a post about how snapping your fingers was just about the dumbest, least creative way to “cause” magic to happen. And then I went on to define and codify Imps—the things you do or the things that happen that apparently cause the magic to occur.

Well, 50 years earlier, on page 13 of that issue of Genii, it seems Joe Fenichel had already discovered the ultimate Imp…

[Thanks to Joshua B. for directing me to this as.]

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Fleshing Out the Sankey-verse

I noticed something recently about Jay Sankey’s website and promotional emails. Many of the endorsements for his tricks come from people who have absolutely zero other mentions of themselves online. For example, if you search the name “Wes Perlmann,” who gave a quote about Jay’s trick, Bigger Finish, you will find no record of such a person existing, other than his quote about that Sankey effect.

There are two possibilities here. The first—which I believe—is that Jay has a die-hard following of hermits and mole-people and others who live their lives so far off the grid that there is no record of them online. Yet they love Jay’s tricks so much they just need to come out of hiding to give him a quote.

The second possibility is that these people don’t exist.

I don’t believe that, of course, but if it’s true, I’ve decided to expand the Saney-verse by putting a fake face to the fake name.

I used the site thispersondoesnotexist.com to get the images below. That site creates “photographs” of people that are just generated from an algorithm. They aren’t photos. Those people don’t exist. At least they didn’t exist until now. Now they exist as a group of people with no online presence who are also die-hard Sankey fans.

Here are some quotes from Jay’s site attributed to non-entities, and the computer-generated faces I’ve assigned to them.

"Jay performed 'Melting Point' in his lecture for our club, and when he revealed the gimmick everyone's jaws hit the floor."

-Darcy Bedoin

Darcy Bedoin, whose magic club is easily impressed.

"Melting Point is a mind-blowing trick and the nail makes for a great magic wand.

-Francois Lyrio

Francois Lyrio, who thinks a nail makes for a great magic wand.

"Bigger Finish is the kind of trick people never forget."

- Wes Perlmann

Wes Perlmann, who over-exaggerates how memorable jumbo cards are.

"I just opened the package and the Contained gimmick looks absolutely brilliant!"

-Christopher Orfson

Christopher Orfson, a very enthusiastic young man.

"Soundwaves is even easier than I thought it would be. I love Jay's brain!"

-Stephan Marquote

Stephan Marquote, suspiciously silent about how he feels about Jay’s cock and balls.

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Here is an idea for a pre-trick Rep. It would be used for a coin trick. You ask, "Want to see a coin trick?" And you toss out a washer (or washers) on the table. They might comment that they’re not coins. Whether they say something or not, you just correct yourself. "Ah, well, it's not technically a coin trick. I use washers instead of coins. I got sick of losing 50 cents or a dollar every time I vanished a coin, so I switched to washers.”

Now, what is the point of saying such a thing? I just think it adds a little color to a presentation. You’re saying something in an off-hand manner that makes complete logical sense, but only in a fantastical world. These types of statements are usually interesting, at the very least. And occasionally people will get so caught up in the logic that they seem to momentarily accept the crazy premise it’s based on.

In a world where vanished coins were really gone for good, you wouldn’t vanish coins. You would vanish washers or bottle caps or something. So it makes perfect sense to comment on that. “Yeah, I don’t vanish coins. That just gets too expensive. Some people do it for clout. But if the money really means that little to you, donate it to the homeless.” Or whatever.

Creep Updates

David Oliver (real name David Hussey)—seen here trying to get a peek of Shin Lim’s cock—has been kicked out of the GLOMM after pleading guilty in a Massachusetts court to fucking with boys he was supposed to be teaching magic to. (I don’t know what he actually plead to, but that’s close enough.)

According to his Wikipedia page, “Oliver is known for his neoclassic style of performing stage magic.” But what I know him best for is his love of abusing children and the trust of their parents. After that, I know him as someone who once wore maxi-pads on his head like a sassy beret.

By the way, that creature in the picture above is two years younger than Brad Pitt. Apparently sexually abusing kids doesn’t keep you looking young and vibrant. It makes you look like you’re doing Humpty Dumpty cosplay.

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On a similar note, recently I was threatened with my first lawsuit since starting this site. One of the ex-GLOMM members that I’ve talked shit about wrote me to tell me that he didn’t like what I wrote about him and that since getting out of jail he actually had gotten his life together and what he did was a mistake, and so on.

I wrote him back: “I wish you the best of luck staying on the right path.”

He wrote me back asking me to take down the article because he wanted this incident to “go away.”

I didn’t respond.

He wrote back a few hours later saying he was going to sue me if I didn’t remove the article in 48 hours.

I replied: “This is the last nice message you're going to get from me. No, I won't take the post down. (And no, you can't sue me for making jokes about you.) That post is the consequence of your own actions. I haven't mentioned you on my site for over three years. And, at this point, I have no intention of doing so in the future. We can keep it that way. Or, if you want, you can try and start shit with me. I think that would be a mistake on your part. But it's up to you.”

I haven’t heard from him since. Perhaps he still has plans to send his lawyers after me. I don’t know. At this time I’m not going to mention his name again on this site. But I do want to send a heartfelt message to him and anyone else in the same position who gets a smart idea to threaten me: Eat my asshole, bitch. You don’t like having your name mentioned along with your crime? Well…tough shit. I’m going to be honest with you, when I write these posts, my goal is to do something you wouldn’t like. Sooooo… you coming to me and telling me you don’t like it is just confirmation of a job well done. So thank you.

Here’s the deal, an argument can be made that these people have “paid their debt to society” and therefore it’s wrong of me to bring up their past. Yes, they have paid a legal debt. But they have not paid their cosmic debt. The people they victimized are not suddenly made whole because they did their jail time or probation time. And while it’s much less significant than the toll these perpetrator’s actions took on the victims and their families, their actions also took a toll on magic and other magicians because it negatively impacts the perception of the art and its practitioners. Especially when the perpetrator used magic as part of the grooming of their victim or met their victim through magic (as happened with David Oliver above and many/most of the people who have been kicked out of the GLOMM). So you can see me as the magic community’s small bit of retribution. God knows none of the “proper” magic organizations are going to do shit about it.

Look, I see myself as a very reasonable person. I don’t think you’re a terrible person for thinking, “I want to fuck that little league team.” Or whatever your temptation may be. You want to assault every woman walking down the street? That’s fine. You should maybe get help for that so you don’t feel so tortured but I don’t judge you for your desires. I judge you for giving into them when you know your actions will hurt or take advantage of someone else. Listen, pedophiles and sexual predators… I’m trying to empower you! Okay… that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. What I’m saying is: you are not the fucked-up thoughts in your head. You are the things you do. If you’re not a complete psychopath you probably think you’re evil or broken because of these thoughts. But it’s not the thoughts that matter, it’s the actions.

In the parlance of a recent post, these thoughts may be things you want to do but they are likely not things you want to have done.

So let this be your fun little secret you take to the grave with you. Every day you wanted to covertly record your niece going to the bathroom or fist-fuck the neighbor’s doberman or whatever your compulsion was, but you never did. In this way you’re actually a better person than me, who never faced those desires in the first place. You’re a secret hero. I’m not being facetious.

And if you messed up in the past, you can be that hero going forward. But you also have to own your past. And if your instinct is, “I need to write this magic blogger so he takes down the post talking about my rape conviction!” That’s not great ownership.

But whatever you do, if your goal is to distance yourself from your past actions, you must certainly not threaten that blogger that you’re going to sue him. Because then, rather than one post disappearing down the vast archives of this site, I’ll be writing about your dumb ass every day. You’re not dealing with a pre-pubescent child this time. You can’t silence me with threats.

Cog-neato or Cog-NOT-o?

That post title is why I get the big bucks.

I’ve received a few emails along these lines…

Do you have any thoughts on the new Cognito app? It seems like it could be a useful tool. Have you messed around with it yet? Have any plans for how you’ll use it? —SC

No, I haven’t played around with it yet. But my friend owns it and I’ve learned the workings and seen it in action this past weekend.

My initial thoughts are these:

• There’s a lot of really intelligent ideas built into this app.

• It’s a very fair price for the app.

• The app can be used for many different types of effects.

• I will definitely buy the app.

• I probably won’t use it that often.

The app allows you to know what someone is thinking from some finite group of items (playing cards, astrological signs, or whatever else you want) without them ever saying or writing down what they’re thinking. There is a fairly extensive process involved, and that is I think the primary weakness of the app. Not that there is a process. I like process. I have a whole performance style based on highlighting process. But here the process involves a whole lot of focus and energy put into the phone. This is kind of an abstract concept, but ideally you want the “energy” of a presentation to be flowing between the performer and spectator (making the trick seem more interpersonal and connective), or flowing outward into your surroundings (making the trick feel more expansive). What’s not ideal is a trick that focuses so much energy into looking at something on a phone screen over and over.

And some of these tricks do require a lot of focus. There is a pretty cool “card” trick (done without any cards) built into the app. My friend tried this on maybe a dozen different people when I was with him and it had about a 50% success rate. The trick relies on the spectator accurately doing something that’s fairly easy to fail at, and it requires them to do it multiple times. If he had “managed” his audience better and took it much slower, he probably would have had a better success rate. But we weren’t in the environment where that made sense.

My advice is to buy the app, because I think there’s going to be a handful of really great ideas that can only be done with this app. I saw the facebook group for this and there are some interesting ideas floating around there already that are using the app in completely different ways. But for every interesting ideas, there are a bunch of shitty ideas that only seem good because they’re taking advantage of some clever aspect of the app. People are getting swept up by the methods rather than the ultimate effect. The truth is that there are going to be very, very few presentations where the process required for the effect to work makes any sense at all. “Come look at my photo collages of Marvel movie posters that I have on my phone for some reason! One after another, after another, after another, after another, after another. Pause for a while and think whenever your chosen movie appears in the collage. And I’ll guess wha it is. ” That’s not good magic, even if the person doesn’t know how it’s done.

If your only goal is knowing what someone is thinking from a group of items without the person ever saying or speaking its name, then a much better option for that purpose is Xeno by Marc Kerstein. It’s one of my favorite apps and completely underrated, in my opinion. It gets you off the phone and onto whatever your mind-reading presentation or process is immediately, without the spectator saying anything, writing anything down, or even indicating anything, as they would have to do (in one form or another) with Cognito.

I’m trying not to sound negative about Cognito, because I do think it’s a good app. The problem is, like many good apps, it will be tempting to overuse it. I would just be cognizant of if a given effect is truly best done with this app.

As for how I’ll use it, I haven’t given it that much thought yet. I’ll let you know if I come up with any good ideas. What I’d like to do, although it would take some effort, is throw a small party and have my friends help me with the pictures I would use in the effect. Then afterwards I could approach someone who wasn’t there and show them some pictures of the party. (A normal thing to have on your camera roll as opposed to… say… a bunch of maps of the United States with different states arbitrarily colored in.) I’d have my friend think of anyone who was at the party, then go through the photos and anytime there was a picture with that person it it, they would pause and try to send a thought, or connect in some mental way to that person. At the end of the photo roll they’d find a photo of the one person they were thinking of holding a sign that says something like, “Thanks for thinking of me. I’ve been thinking of you too. A creepy amount. A lot of it is perverted.” Or something along those lines.

Nutless Wonders

Next month we get into No-Nut November. That is the month where some guys dedicate themselves to not having an orgasm for thirty days. Some do it for potential health benefits, others just do it as a challenge to themselves.

But you can also do it (or just say you’re doing it) as a long-form magic premise. Just mention early on in the month that you’re doing No-Nut November and you’re following a program where the retention of semen and sexual energy is supposed to amplify psychic abilities.

Then, three or four times during the month, test out these abilities with your target spectator. This long-form presentation would finish with what is hopefully a profound demonstration of psychic power at the end of the month.

For example, let’s say you’re going to end with a mind-reading card trick (which isn’t that exciting, but will serve fine as an example). The first time you meet up, you’re not getting any information better than chance. The next time you’re identifying the colors of the cards (red or black) at a 90% clip. At the following meet-up you’ve mastered colors and are now pretty decent with suits. And then, at the final meet-up, you’re able to read their mind of the specific cards they’re thinking of.

I’ve never done this specific presentation with someone, but I’ve done similar things where the spectator sees me progress at something over time and it always seems to keep them engaged and intrigued, even if the ultimate goal isn’t all that exciting, e.g., learning how to know what playing card someone is thinking.

Certainly they’re going to understand you’re probably not 100% serious, but seeing someone progress along a path of learning is just one of those things that’s interesting to people. And while this is something that would occur over the course of a month, it would only take a few minutes each time you get together. So it’s not a huge investment of time.

I can certainly see that some people might find this a little too risqué for the people in their life. Personally, I don't see it that way. You might not want to do it for your boss or pastor, but very few people in my life would bat an eye at this.

If you have a target audience in mind, but you don't see them that often, you could have the preliminary stages occur over video-chat, once a week, leading up to an in-person meeting at the end of the month.

Then, if you really have someone who's into the spirit of this, early the following month (Destroy Dick December) you can do a final pièce de résistance. You tell them, "Look, I'm about to go in the other room and have at myself big time. Here's the thing, the psychic energy I've been building and manifesting for the past month will be released at that time, but it doesn't dissipate immediately. If you come in the room afterwards, you'll be able to absorb a bunch of that energy. Now, to be clear, I'm talking about energy here. I'm not asking you to expose yourself to any fluids, just energy. And when you do, you'll be able to demonstrate some pretty impressive psychic phenomena." So now you turn this month-long project into a spectator-as-mindreader type of plot.

Yes, again, this is not for everyone. But for one of your guy friends, or someone you're in a relationship with, or someone you have some sexual flirtation with, or just someone who isn't easily offended, I think this trick would be a ball (sorry). I mean loads of fun (shit, I didn't mean that). I mean it would be a blast (no, that's not good either). What I mean is, it would be an enjoyable "story" to unfold over a few weeks, and the "twist" ending—where they are able to absorb the energy and do something themselves—would be a perfect climax. (Really, my bad.)

The Ring and The Campfire Story Performance Style

“Let’s try and put it on my card, Hopefully it works. I don’t carry cash anymore,” you say. “Well… I can’t carry cash anymore.”

“What do you mean?” your friend asks.

“Stupid curse thing…. It’s nothing.”

“Wait… what?” your friend says.

You let out a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll tell you. But you’re not going to believe it. You see this ring? I was at the flea market a little over a month ago. There was this one table that was run by this very old woman. She was this tiny, wrinkled figure in a headscarf. And she was working the table with a kid who was about 11 or 12. I guess her grandson. Maybe great-grandson.

“The irony is, originally I went over to the table just to be nice, you know? There wasn’t really anyone else looking at their stuff, and they only had a couple dozen items—some jewelry and little trinkets—spread out on their table.

“I saw this ring and was drawn to it, for whatever reason. I tried it on and thought it looked cool. I asked them how much it would cost and the woman blurted out a quick response in a language I didn’t understand. But then her grandson chimed in and translated for her.

“At first I thought he said ‘eighteen dollars’ which seemed high for such a simple ring. Especially in this flea market where I can usually get stuff like this for a couple bucks. But I thought, ‘What the hell. It’s not worth 18 dollars, but this will be like a bit of charity work.” And I tossed them a $20 and told them they could keep the change.

“‘Eighty dollars,’ the kid said. And I was like, What the hell? Eighty dollars for this ring? That’s ridiculous and I took the ring off and tossed it back to them, and took back my twenty and put it in my wallet and went on my way.

“I was actually kind of mad that they’d have the nerve to ask that much for this ring. It’s not unusual for people to ask for more than they expect to receive at these sorts of places, of course. But this was just an insane amount and it annoyed me.

“So I went and did some shopping at some of the other tables, bought some stuff, and got ready to leave.

“As I was heading out, I saw that old woman’s table again, but this time there was nobody behind it. So I made my way over to it and—without thinking too much about it—I pocketed the ring. I felt a little guilty about it. But honestly, not that much. For the most part I felt like I was teaching them a lesson. Although that sounds dumb now.

“After I got to the parking lot I slid the ring on my finger and headed home. Later that night I noticed the $20 I had remaining in my pocket from earlier that day was gone. I must have dropped it at the flea market or somewhere else. I wasn’t too bummed about it because that was the $20 I was going to pay for the ring. So I figured I was now square with karma.

“Then a weird thing started happening that week. I started misplacing my money. Not too much, because I don’t really handle that much physical cash and coins these days. Who does. There are just a few places where I use actual money—like the flea market—because that’s all they’re set up to take.

“But it happened a few times. I remember pulling out a stack of quarters for the laundry in my building. I was in my apartment, just getting things ready, and I completely forgot where I put the coins. One moment I was jangling them in my hand, and the next time I thought about them, they were gone. I looked to see where I set them down and checked all over my apartment but couldn’t find them anywhere. So laundry would have to wait until I had another 8 quarters.

“Then later that week I misplaced a $20 bill I had intended to give my nephew for his birthday. I was getting the money, the card, the pen and the envelope together, and the next thing you know, the money wasn’t there.

“At this point, I was just chalking up these incidents to me being absent-minded. Then the thing with my rent happened.

“My landlord gives you a 5% discount for paying cash, and a 5% discount for paying three months ahead. So I went to the bank and withdrew the money for the next three months rent. The teller put the money in an envelope and handed it to me. I put it in my bag and went home.

“Later that day when I went to go pay my rent, the envelope was there, but it was sealed and empty. I was fucking freaking out. I didn’t understand what could have happened. Was this a different envelope? Did I lose the one with the money? Did the teller switch the envelope and keep my money? That seemed like a crazy idea. Certainly I would have noticed putting an empty envelope in my bag rather than one with $2900 in it. But I just couldn’t come up with an alternative hypothesis. I went to the bank the next day and they even went to the trouble of showing me the security footage which clearly showed the teller placing the money in an envelope and me putting that full envelope in my bag.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was going to have to transfer some money around just to have enough to pay this month’s rent. But that was going to take a few days to get that sorted out.

“A couple days later I was driving by that flea market again. And it hit me that I’d been having all these issue with money since I got this ring. I convinced myself, as silly as it sounds, that the ring was bad luck. And so I turned my car around and drove back to the flea market, because I needed to at least eliminate that possibility.

“I was thankful to see the old woman and her grandson at that same table in the flea market. I walked up to the and told them some story that I had ‘accidentally’ put the ring in my pocket the previous week. ‘Blah, blah, blah. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to give the ring back. Blah, blah, blah.’ But when I went to take the ring off, it wouldn’t come off. It was stuck.”

You hold your hand out and pull on the ring, grimacing a little.

“It was weird because I knew I had removed the ring from my finger originally when I thought about buying it. But now it was stuck.

“As I tried to remove the ring, the woman said something to the young boy. He turned to me and said, ‘That’s your ring now.’ I told them that no, I didn’t want the ring. And I wasn’t going to take the ring. With all the money I had lost recently I certainly couldn’t pay $80 for it now. The boy was rapidly going back and forth translating between me and the woman.

“‘I don’t want this!’ I said

“‘It’s yours,’ said the boy

“‘I’m not going to pay for it,’ I said.

“The boy tells that to the woman and she smiles and says something back.

“‘Yes you will,’ the boy said, calmly. ‘But the price has gone up.’

“I asked him what that meant. He grabbed a pencil and a pad of paper from near the cashbox on the table.

“‘50,000,’ he said, and wrote down 50,000 on the pad. ‘Minus the $2942 you’ve paid. So…. $47,058,’ he said, and circled that number on the pad.

“I was so confused. Did they think I was going to pay $50,000 for this ring? And what was $2942? And that’s when I realized that was the amount of money I had ‘misplaced’ over the course of the week. But I wasn’t misplacing it, of course.”

“‘At 50,000, the ring comes off,’ the boy told me.

“So that’s why I’m not carrying cash these days… because somehow the ring is taking what is owed.

“And, as I’ve been coming up with a plan to live my life completely cashless, and the inconveniences of that, I’m haunted by what the kid told me before I left. He said, ‘Good news. In the near future we’ll be set up to take debit and credit.’”

You sit back in your chair and shrug your shoulders. “So that sucks,” you say.

“Do you want to see?” you ask. “Do you have a quarter or something?”

You borrow a quarter and place it into the hand with the ring. Moments later you open your fingers and the hand is empty.

---

Of all the magic powers a person could pretend to have, the ability to make money vanish has got to be the fucking dumbest one. I mean, bending a spoon with your mind is pretty dumb, but at least you can unbend the spoon and still eat some bisque with it. But vanished money is just something of value that is no longer there. For such a fundamental effect in magic, you would think our presentations would reflect a better understanding of the symbolism of such an act.

Anyways, The Ring presentation described above came from the idea of wanting a context where money vanishing was something that was not wanted by the performer, but also something that wasn’t a surprise to the performer. I originally intended to use that story along with Joshua Jay’s Triad Coin trick, or something like that. But my friend has been using the story with a single coin complete vanish (using a Raven) and has been having a lot of success with it, so that might be the direction I go as well.

---

The presentation above is an example of what I’m calling:

The Campfire Story Performance Style

The idea behind this style is simple. It involves creating a detailed backstory for what would otherwise be a simple quick trick. This is a style I’ve used and had a lot of fun with in the past, but I never really codified it and recognized it as a different type of performance until now.

It’s not like a traditional type of story patter where you’re telling a story and illustrating it with your magic props, e.g., “These four jacks are the four thieves and this deck is the bank.”

And it’s not the same as the immersive style of presentation that I like, where the story is unfolding mostly in real time with the spectator as a participant, e.g. “I’ve heard this house is haunted. Let’s try something….”

This has the feeling of a campfire or ghost story. It’s a more performative style. For 5 minutes, or whatever, you’re just setting the stage. And it’s only in that last moment that the story gets pulled into the present.

The story should put the magic moment in a completely different context (or else what’s the point of the story). This story puts a coin vanish into a different context. Another example of this style would be The Passion of Donny Ackerman, which puts a straight-forward mind reading trick in a different context.

Now look, I agree with you that a simple coin-vanish—with no presentation at all—can be a beautiful piece of magic. I’m not saying you should always do this type of performance with a coin vanish, obviously. I’m just offering another potential style in which to present your tricks that might otherwise be fleeting miracles. The coin vanish by itself may look great, but that disconnected moment of magical beauty might not be enough for that moment to stick in people’s minds long-term. It may make sense—sometimes—to build to that moment, and the Campfire Story Performance Style is one way you can do so.

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.