Dustings #66

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Oh, hey boys. It’s me.

I’m in a particularly good mood. The book mailing is over and the funding for the next season is completed. These are two of the less pleasant parts of running this site, so I’m glad to have them in the rearview mirror.

It’s even better than it has been in past seasons because the new support-structure runs indefinitely. Family-level supporters can drop-off at any point in time and be replaced by Friend-level supporters on the waiting list for a full-supporter slot. And should the number of supporters ever dip below the number I need to keep the site running, then that’s just the sign I need that it’s time to move on to my next venture. Being able to automate that decision is particularly satisfying.

The other thing I’m really happy about is the new book schedule going from once a year to once every 18 months. For the first time in years I don’t have the feeling that it’s Friday and I have an essay do for school on Monday that I haven’t yet started. That 6 months extra is revitalizing me. I’ve actually already started work on the next book. And I have some other projects in the pipeline as well that will be available to supporters at either level.

Posting Schedule Notes

I used to take a break from posting from Christmas until mid-February. I won’t be doing that this season. Posting will continue full-time for the next 18 months. The schedule will be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from the 1st through the 25th of each month. So instead of a 2 month break and a week off every season, I will be taking a small break at the end of each month.

In that break I’ll focus on working on the newsletter, which will be a monthly release. Love Letters (the new newsletter) will go into depth on my three favorite effects/purchases from the previous month. The first issue comes out June 1st at noon New York City time. Future issues will come out on the 1st of the month, also at noon. I’m specifying the time because there may occasionally be some one-off thing I have available (like a copy of one of my older books that may turn up) and I will make those available in the email that comes with your newsletter on a first-come, first-serve basis. So if it’s important enough for you to want to try and obtain something along those lines, now you know the time and place to do so.

Speaking of the newsletter, Family-level members can advertise twice a season. You have an 8.5 x 11 inch page to do what you will with. If you get your ads to me by the 25th of the month, they’ll definitely be included in the next month’s newsletter. After that point, it’s still likely, but I can’t guarantee it.

Sorry for the boring administrative stuff. That’s mostly behind us going forward.

Here’s an idea that came to me from friend-of-the-site, Dan R.

From his email…

I call it the "false decoy ploy" or "lazy man's classic force".

Let's assume that you're right handed and imagine a magician would approach you with a deck of cards like seen in the next image (1.) and cheekily said "go ahead and pick a card but don't let me influence you..."


Which card would you (the layman) go for, honestly?

Definitely not the one sticking out, right?

If my theory proves to be correct, you will go for the card I labelled "decoy" in the next image (2.) as it's the easiest to touch or grab from the spread.

So far this force worked for me 100% at a laughable sample rate of 2 (!) tries. And I've been running around with this idea since 2005!

Okay, so let’s test this out. There’s really no chance this will work frequently enough to be reliable, but I’d be curious to see how often it hits if a couple dozen of you were to test it.

So give it a shot and send me an email with your results. Put FDP in the subject line (for “False Decoy Ploy”).

In actuality, what I’m really doing here is a meta-test. I’m testing the idea of testing ideas via readers of the site. I’d like to see the responses I get.

If this is the sort of thing I can get people to help with, then we could do other simple—and potentially more useful—tests. And then something like the double-turnover testing I did over the course of multiple years could be crowdsourced and done in a weekend.

“I’m a magician.” Yeah, no shit. If the top hat didn’t give it away, the 45% body fat with a waistline that’s broader than your shoulders would be a big hint. The inability to tie a bow-tie so it sits properly. The suit jacket button about to pop right off from the strain of holding in your gut. No neck. The forced smile. The panicked eyes. We get it, you’re a magician.

Friday the 13th in Context

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An email from Joe M.

There are 1.7 Friday the 13ths each year (on average).

I think Friday the 13th is an interesting day to perform magic, since you have an inbuilt folklore to bounce off.

One idea is this. You tell the spectator you are worried about attempting a card trick on Friday the 13th.

You then force the Joker in a deck filled with 51 Queen of Clubs.

You show the prediction is THE QUEEN OF CLUBS.

The spectator tells you that you are wrong.

You then ask her to show her card.

It is the Joker.

You then turn over the rest of the deck (showing 51 identical Queen of Clubs) and say: 'I knew I shouldn't have performed card tricks today. This is the fifth one in a row to go wrong!'

I always like those tricks where you apparently fail - but the subtext is that you did something even more impressive.

I wonder if there are other themes suggested by Friday the 13th that could be used in a magic trick? — JM

I’m printing this email (which came to me last September) because this Friday is a Friday the 13th. I don’t know the extent to which other countries have the folklore of Friday the 13th being bad luck (I know Joe is writing from England, so it at least exists outside of the U.S.) but if you’re somewhere that does have that superstition, it is a nice “natural” presentational hook that is just laying out there for you. In modern Western society we don’t have a ton of days with any “mystical” element to them. So taking advantage of Friday the 13th makes sense when they do roll around.

So the trick mentioned in the email is that you make a prediction and the spectator chooses the one card in the deck that isn’t your prediction. This is a fairly classic trick, and it clearly fits in with a bad luck or Friday the 13th presentation. In a traditional type of performance situation, I think it works well. But it’s a little difficult to do much more with it, because it’s a trick with too much of a punchline. Clearly the only reason you have this deck of 51 matching cards and one odd card is so that you can fail. You might as well play this sound effect at the end..

because that’s how performative the failure is.

A few years ago I did a series of posts on Presentation vs Context.

From that original post:

Presentation: Is a motif or subject matter that is laid over a trick.

Context: Is a situation into which a trick is placed.

As described, the trick in the email above has a light “Friday the 13th” presentation.

How might it look with a more long-form Friday the 13th context?

Well, what if that morning you ask your roommate, friend, spouse, lover, child, etc., (I’m not saying ask all of these people, I’m saying choose one) to select a card from a deck of cards. You open your prediction which says, “You will choose the 10 of Clubs.” They turn over their card. It’s a red ace. “Okay, that’s not surprising, I guess. I may want to try this with you again later.”

Later that evening you grab your roommate, friend, spouse, lover, child (maybe you’re lucky and these are all the same person) and you ask them again to help you out.

“So I’ve been trying this trick all day and the results have been kind of fascinating. You know it’s Friday the 13th, right? So it’s supposed to be a day of bad luck. Generally that’s not something I really believe in, but I’ve been conducting an experiment today that’s kind of changing my mind.

“You see, in magic there are tricks that are done with gimmicks—like special decks of cards or fake coins or something. And there are tricks that are done with sleight-of-hand. But then there are certain tricks that rely on more unusual—almost kind of paranormal—methods. You won’t find these tricks on youtube.

“I have an interest in these kinds of tricks, but they’re very difficult to make work. The methods are very abstract and theoretical. But while they’re very difficult to pull off successfully, given the right circumstances, you can demonstrate the ability to fail at these tricks in an a way that is almost kind of unimaginable. Especially on a day like Friday the 13th which is notoriously a day of bad luck. A lot of these types of tricks that I’m talking about have methods that are supposed to work by harnessing the power of fate, or good fortune, or synchronicity. And whether those are forces that exist or not is kind of questionable. But if they do exist, then ‘bad luck,’ is on the same spectrum… but pushing in the opposite way. So if I perform a trick that only works by harnessing good luck, on a day that is famous for bad luck, then it has the chance of failing spectacularly. It would be like trying to build a house of cards—which requires great stability—during an earthquake. That’s just not the time to do that.

“Remember this morning I asked you to pick a card and I predicted you would choose the 10 of Clubs, and I got it wrong? Well, I’ve been doing that trick all day. At work, and on my lunch break and with anyone I could find. I’ve done it about 50 times and it didn’t work all day. Even though I’ve been taking steps to increase my odds each time I do it. I want to try one last time with you and see if we can witness some tremendous bad luck.”

You take the deck and have her select “any” card, but tell her not to look at it. You open your prediction. “You will select the 10 of Clubs.” You turn over the deck and spread them… all 10 of Clubs.

“Every time someone selected a card today I replaced it with a 10 of Clubs. Giving myself better and better odds each time. It would take tremendously bad luck for this to never work with a deck of cards that is all the 10 of Clubs except for….”

You gesture to their card, they turn it over. “The Jack of Diamonds,” you say, as they reveal that card.

In this version of the trick, you plant the seed in the morning, and later in the evening you say this is something you’ve been doing since then. So you’re building this story of a trick that failed over and over and over, all day. You’re taking a 2-minute moment of magic and inflating it into something that took place over 12+hours.

What you lose here is the surprise of a deck that is all the same card at the conclusion of the effect. In this version you tip that earlier on. (You don’t have to. You could change around the way you reveal everything at the end. This is just what I prefer.) I don’t mind losing that surprise. To me it’s not a huge magical moment. People will react to it, but a big factor in that is just because they’re not used to seeing a deck of all the same card. So you still get that interesting object and a laugh there when they see that and see the prediction. But now the reveal of the actual card they picked also gets a reaction.

I haven’t tried this out yet. I’ll do it this Friday and report back if anything unexpected happens.

Another long-form series of effects around a Friday the 13th/Bad Luck theme.

“I don’t think of myself as an unlucky person, but I am bizarrely susceptive to unlucky influences. Bad luck talismans. Black cats crossing my path. Friday the 13th. These things all seem to affect me an unusual amount. It sounds ridiculous, but I’ll show you.”

You then can demonstrate your bad luck over the course of the day. How? Well… any trick that is seemingly 50/50 but you can make yourself win is also a trick that you could make yourself lose, over and over. The 10 Card Poker Deal. HIT by Luke Jermay. Those sorts of things.

Can you control a coin toss? Bet them a dollar per toss and have them call the coin in the air. Just blaze through a bunch of tosses losing over and over. It would be funny.

“Heads.”

“You win.

“Heads”

“You win.”

“Tails.”

“You win.”

“Heads.”

“You win.”

Play a game of “cut to the high card” and always cut to a two.

That sort of thing.

Friday the 13th is a day you can use to justify any nonsensical trick you might have.

“And your bill has vanished and it will reappear in my wallet. Exactly where a bill should reappear. Wait… what the hell? Your bill isn’t here. But why is this lemon seed in here? Oh shit. Is today the 13th? Friday the 13th. This is exactly why I don’t usually perform on this day. Nothing ever goes right. Hmm… well… I guess let me see if I have a lemon in my fridge. Let’s check that out.”

“Bad luck,” when it comes to a magic trick, can be defined as anything weird happening.

Maybe you offer to show them a coin vanish. You try it once and nothing happens.

Come back a couple hours later and this time just a piece of the coin vanishes. (Just grind off a small part of the coin. You can hide that and do the “vanish” of part of a coin without even doing a switch. Just hide the missing part when you originally display it.)

An hour later you return. “I think I got it this time!” And the coin turns into a strawberry.

“The fuck is going on? A strawberry? Sorry, I’ll try it again with you tomorrow.” The next day you come around and finally vanish the coin.

That coin to strawberry trick is pretty, but purely arbitrary. Putting it into the context of an actual day that people understand to be a day where things go wrong gives meaning to the meaninglessness.

“Wait… is today Friday the 13?” you ask your friend.

“Uhmm…. yeah… it is.”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just I had a trick I really wanted to show Emma tonight. But I have incredibly bad luck with tricks on Friday the 13th.”

“Just do it. Who cares.”

“I just don’t want it to go wrong. It’s a really special trick I have planned. I take these three red sponge balls and place them in her hand and when she opens her hand, they’ve turned into the shape of a heart. I wanted to do something special because her parents are going to be joining all of us at dinner and I want to make a good impression. Ah, what the hell. I’ll do it. You’ll have my back if it goes wrong. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Cut to 6 hours later. A red sponge ding-dong is popping out of Emma’s hand. The balls having transformed into something you said you “want to give her.” Her mom has fainted on the couch. Her dad is punching you in the goddamn neck. “I should have waited until tomorrow!” you sputter to your friend.

Monday Mailbag #67

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I’ve signed up to support for the new season. The new structure works good for me and I love the focus of the newsletter. How did the new season launch go from your perspective? Do you keep any demographic data on who supports the site? Do you know what percentage of your readers are supporters? —AJ

I would say it went as I’d hoped/expected. Support slots were made available on Friday and were sold out in less than a day.

Before the new support structure was launched last Friday it had already been sent out to the people who supported last season. I had mentioned in that message to them that I intended to knock off about 10% of the support slots, and that’s right about where we landed. I knew moving to an 18-month book publishing schedule would cost me some subscribers, but it was what I had to do to keep the site going. And lowering the subscriber numbers ultimately makes the physical bonuses more valuable. So it’s hopefully a win-win for everyone.

I don’t really have demographic data on who supports the site. Well, I do know it’s about half international and half U.S. I know that simply from doing the book mailing. It’s probably 99% male, as you can imagine. Other than that, I don’t really know much of anything. I feel the average age of supporters went down with the release of the new support structure, based on what I know of those who left their supporter slot and those who signed up. If I had to guess why that is, it’s probably because older magicians tend to feel like, “I’m paying this money for the book,” whereas younger people are more comfortable with the idea of, “I’m paying this money to support the creator.”

As far as what percentage of my readers are also supporters, I don’t really know that either. I’m guessing around 5%.

Did you get your Lux? Mine arrived last week. It’s garbage. It seems like the majority of people talking about it on the Magic Cafe are having problems with theirs as well. It’s very obvious when the light source switches which makes the whole trick pretty useless. We need to have a Hall of Shame for magic products to warn people against them. The endorsements got me on this one. —CC

First off, no. I haven’t gotten Lux yet.

Second, you don’t need a Hall of Shame. You just need two pieces of knowledge.

The first bit of knowledge is that the magic endorsing game is nothing more than a mutual cock sucking society. It doesn’t matter how principled the people involved are. Now, they won’t usually tell you something is amazing if it sucks. But if something is good, they will tell you it’s incredible. It’s human nature to get sucked into that machine. If I tell people your product is great. Then when my product comes out, you can tell them my product is great. It’s not that they’re lying to you, necessarily. It’s just easy to get caught up in that reciprocal kind of process. And they see it as marketing, not lying.

The second piece of knowledge you need is The Jerx Purchasing Principle. Follow that and you’ll never get ripped off or misled by pre-release hype again.

Do you recommend any particular thumbtip? —PT

Huh… uhm, no. Not really. I just use a regular Vernet thumbtip. The hard kind. I going to look into adding some thumbtip effects to my regular repertoire this year. Perhaps during my experimentation with that I’ll hit on a particularly good thumbtip, I don’t know. I can’t imagine one can be that much better than the other. It’s like asking, “What’s the best cereal bowl?” They’re all pretty much alright.

But you have reminded me of something I wanted to ask. I’m working on a special ebook for supporters that’s going to go out in December. It’s going to be an almanac of the different magic tools I use regularly and why. Which peek wallet, which marked deck, which thumb-writer, etc. I’ve covered most of these things in some form or another, but I think it might be useful to have one centralized location for this information. If there’s a “tool” you’d like my recommendation on, send me an email and let me know.

Last Call: Jerx Supporter Slots Are Open (For the final time.)

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[Update: Family-Level slots are now filled.]

For the first time in over a year, supporter slots are now open here at the Jerx. This will be to support the 7th season of the site going from now until October 2023.

(Yes, October of next year. Going forward, Jerx Support Seasons will last 18 months. This is to go along with a more reasonable publishing schedule for the books. A book a year—on top of all the other writing I do related to this site—is bonkers. This new schedule will allow me to keep things going without burning out.)

This is not a post to convince you to back the site. It’s the opposite actually. I want to dissuade most of you.

If the money is even possibly an issue for you, you don’t need to think about supporting the site. Supporting this site is an indulgence, and wholly unnecessary for your advancement as a magician. The tricks and ideas I share in my supporter material are really just specific examples of broader concepts that are discussed for free on the site.

If your interest in the material isn’t that great, but you figure you’ll sign up to support in order to snag the next book because you’ve heard it could be a good investment, I’d prefer you not do that. I didn’t get into this to write books that are good investments. I want to write books people are excited to hang onto, not excited to sell.

This post is for the people who already know they want to support the site. Not anyone on the fence. If you’re on the fence, your money can definitely be used for better purposes.

There are now two levels at which you can back the site.

Friend Level ($10/month - No Physical Rewards)

Family Level ($25/month - Limited Spots)

Actually, there’s a third level as well.

Casual Level ($0/month - No rewards or anything. Just enjoy the site.)

Benefits of Supporting

Friend Level

Those who are at the “Friend Level” will receive the newest iteration of my review newsletter.

This new newsletter is called Love Letters and will be released on the first of every month, starting June 1st. Based on this post, each newsletter will cover the three commercially available effects that were my highlights during my performing and testing from the previous month. These may be individually released effects or something plucked from a book, video, or magazine. It will be mainly new tricks, but I’ll also be looking back at older tricks too. I’ll detail some of my experiences performing with the effect, and let you know how I’m using it and any “Jerxian” presentational ideas I have for it.

I’m excited about this format because it means I get to turn you onto stuff I’m really enjoying. I don’t need to spend four pages talking about a trick that sucks. (Well, I never needed to, of course. But that’s what ends up happening when you’re doing reviews traditionally.)

Since I introduced the concept of a “100 Trick Repertoire,” I’ve frequently been asked to release the details of what my repertoire consists of. I’m not intending to do that just yet. But with this newsletter you will definitely get word of what new stuff I’m cycling in. (My repertoire usually turns over by about a third each year. So with 36 articles over 12 issues, you should catch all the good new stuff.)

At the Friend Level you will also be able to purchase future releases I’m working on. Yes, that’s right. Spending your money will mean you can give me even more money later on. I don’t want to give too much detail on that yet, because I don’t want to commit to something that doesn’t end up fitting into my new schedule. But I have a few physical tricks I’m working on, as well as a hardcover, expanded reprint of The Amateur At the Kitchen Table that will be coming out at some point. The only way to have the opportunity to obtain anything I release is to be a supporter of the site. I’m not trying to be exclusionary with this stuff. It’s just that this is a small operation here, so everything I do is going to be a limited edition, and I’m just naturally going to offer those to things to supporters first. So there would just never really be a chance to make it out to anyone outside of that group.

People at the Friend level will also form the waiting list to get to the Family level (if they so choose).

To sign up at the Friend Level, visit the support page here.

Family Level [Currently Full]

Family Level supporters will receive the benefits described above, as well as:

Free advertising in the Love Letters newsletter up to two times a season. (You can advertise anything. It doesn’t have to be magic related. Hell, it doesn’t have to be an ad. Maybe there’s just a really handsome picture of yourself that you’d like others to see. You have two chances every 18 months to put whatever you want in front of all the Jerx supporters.)

A copy of my next book, Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon, which will be delivered at the end of the 7th season. (October 2023)

Family slots are limited and will definitely be gone by the end of this weekend—more likely the end of today. (Why do I limit the these slots. Two reasons: 1. This protects the financial investment of the people who support at this level. They end up with a physical product that is a limited edition and will maintain its value. 2. As I wrote in a recent letter to my supporters: “I like to know the people who are supporting my work. I'm always writing about my own personal journey and interests in magic. I'm not trying to create ideas that are broadly popular. I like knowing the name of every supporter, and the personal details about yourself that many of you have shared with me. There are a lot of magic sites out there trying to make a ‘community.’ I'm not interested in a community. I only want a bunch of individual relationships with the people who support the site. And I can't maintain that if I have an unlimited amount of supporter slots.”)

You can of course cancel your subscription at any time. I would recommend not signing up at the Family Level if you think you may cancel, as the primary bonus for signing up at that level (the book) is only available to those people who supported through the full Season 7 (May 2022-Oct. 2023)

As I wrote in the title to this post, this will be the last time supporter slots are officially open. In any future seasons that may happen beyond season 7, slots will go to returning Family members first, and any unclaimed slots will be offered to Friends. If a time comes when there isn’t enough interest from those groups to keep the site going, then I’ll know it’s time to shut this bitch down.

The Project on Word Transmission

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I have something for you today that is a combination Hook, premise, justification, and (potentially) a trick in itself.

It’s this site here, which simply consists of images of words written on business cards with a little information attached to each image. It is, apparently, some site that is devoted to a project related to “word transmission.”

I’ve purposely left the details of what any of that means as vague as possible, so you can fit this site into whatever story you want to make it about. More on that in a moment.

As a Hook

You’re checking out your phone while waiting for a friend. Maybe they’re meeting up with you at a bar or cafe or perhaps they just stepped away for a moment to use the bathroom.

When they get to you, you’re scrolling through this site. Maybe they’re nosey and they’re like, “What is that?” And the Hook is set.

If not, you can show them a picture (with the information scrolled off the screen) and ask them something like, “If you had to guess, how old would you say the person who wrote this is?” Or whatever. Either way, you have their focus on the site.

As a Premise

So this site exists, but why does it exist? This is where you come up with some kind of story for your presentation. Obviously it has something to do with learning to pick up on words, in some manner. But how exactly this site came together is going to be up to you to convey to them.

Is this something you and a group that you’re a part of have been putting together?

Or is one person behind this site and they’ve been collecting these images in their travels? If so, who is that guy and what’s his story?

Is it part of some kind of research project? Or just a mentalism rehearsal tool?

Example

Maybe your friend asks you what the site is, and you say, “Oh… it’s a little hard to explain. Okay… let’s try something. Think of any word—any word at all, no restrictions. Now forget that word and think of a second one. Got it? Okay now forget that one and think of a third. Last time. Forget that word and think of a new word.

“So that’s the fourth random word I had you think of. In mentalism [or psychology or linguistics or whatever your premise may be] the fourth word someone thinks of is kind of like a black hole. You can learn to get pretty good at guessing the first word people will think of. And if you know enough about them, you can often intuit the second word they’ll jump to. With years of practice you can begin to recognize the patterns in picking up on the third word people will think of. But the fourth word is just… a void. It’s completely unpredictable there’s no rhyme or reason behind what people think of as their fourth word. So it’s almost impossible to pick up on that thought because it’s like you don’t even know what you’re looking for.

“But I’m in a group of people that is trying to crack that code on the fourth word. So this is a collection of 'fourth words’ from people around the world. The idea is that if we get enough minds looking at it from different angles with enough examples to look at, we’ll eventually being to spot the patterns. We all send in our pictures of the words people thought and every month or so they get uploaded for everyone to study.

“Wait… do you remember what your fourth word was? Can I get you to write it down for me?”

As a Justification

Whatever story you come up with, this site of pictures of words written down on business cards certainly justifies why you might have someone write a word down and then why you might take it back.

After they write their word down you take it back and place it in your wallet saying something lie, “Thanks. I’m going to put it away because I don’t want to accidentally get a peek at it. Tonight I’m going to take a picture of what you wrote and send it in. But for now I want to be in the dark about what it is so I can try something out with you.”

You had them write it down because apparently that’s part of the process that dozens of people around the world are doing for this particular project. You took the card back because you need to take a picture of it later on. Those actions are pre-justified by the existence of this site.

As a Trick

Those of you with the Xeno app will recognize this is a Xeno site which also works with the Inertia Pro app. Those of you with knowledge of those apps already know what this means. If you’re not familiar,, what it means is that the spectator can look at this site on their phone and you can peek whatever they’re looking at and you can force any particular entry on them as they swipe “randomly” (with them looking at the screen and the phone in their hands).

Combine this site with Xeno, Inertia, and a peek wallet and you could have a three phase one-ahead type of prediction routine where you seemingly predict three thoughts but no one ever has to name what they’re thinking of at any point in the routine.

I don’t really do routines with multiple phases myself. But I do perform “long-form” routines that take place over multiple interactions. So maybe the first time the site is introduced I use Xeno (or Inertia) and I’m able to give them the sex and general age range of the person they’re thinking of who wrote the word. Part of the reason for having the name, age, and location data that goes with each photo is to allow for these “lesser” reveals. You can also pick up on things related to the handwriting style, ink color, cursive or print, etc.

The next time I see the person a couple weeks later, I say I’ve been practicing and now I’m able to pick up on whatever word on the site they’re thinking of.

Then a month or so later… “Remember that site we were looking at with the words written down? Well, I think I’m read to try that now with any word at all. Can I get you to write something down here….”

Those effects together build nicely. It starts with a simple tick where you’re able to pick up on the sex and age range they’re thinking of. This is mildly impressive, but saying, “I think it’s a guy in his 30s” is a fairly minor effect.

But when you come back a second time and directly nail the word they’re thinking of—from dozens of options—that’s going to feel much more impressive.

Then, sometime later, you’re able to remove this trick from the screen into the real world and do it with any word they can think of.

Those tricks are all similar enough to belong in the same “storyline” but also different enough to not feel like the same thing, over and over. And at the end, you bring it full circle by telling them you’ll be sharing their word with the group in the next “collection” of words, which ties everything together nicely and connects separate performances that happened over weeks (potentially) into one cohesive whole.

[Thanks to Xeno-master, Dan R. for putting the site together for me. And thanks to everyone who submitted images so I didn’t have to attempt to write in dozens of different handwritings, when I can barely write in one.]

Dear Jerxy: Pet Tricks

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Dear Jerxy: Last August my wife and I adopted a dog. His name is Tony and he's great. (Photo attached.)

I've never had a dog before, but many of my co-workers do, and they passed along the Rule of Threes. Basically, as your dog acclimates to the new environment, you'll see different aspects of their personality emerge after 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, and maybe even 3 years. I'd never heard about this before, but apparently it's common knowledge among dog owners. (And it's been more or less true -- Tony's a lot more playful and expressive since we first took him in, and the personality changes have roughly followed the Rule of 3s timeline.)

This seemed like an interesting premise for a potentially long-running Jerxian performance -- kind of like receiving a Yento package every year that you open in front of your family, except your dog is now taking the place of the mysterious self-working trick. So the story would be that my dog just started exhibiting some new, weird behaviors, but because of the Rule of Three-ish nature of things: a) his latent abilities couldn't have emerged until "X" months of acclimating to us and his new home, and b) this is now just another aspect of his personality that we're going to be learning about and dealing with at regular intervals for the rest of his life. ("We've been trying to keep track of it and it seems like it's every seven weeks or so. [Opens calendar on iPhone] Oh wow, you came on a good day -- it's been seven weeks since the last incident...")

In trying to compile a catalogue of tricks that would work with this premise, it seemed like the Jerxian angle would get lost if I'm participating too much -- it risks coming across like a typical "storytelling" trick where the story about my dog just feels tacked on and there's nothing really immersive about the experience. Something along the lines of Moon Barks At Dog would fit the parameters of what I'm aiming for. (But not exactly that because of potential logistical problems. Put your pet and a haunted deck in another room, close the door, and then come back to find that he's cut the deck to the right spot -- pretty good, unless your dog messes with the deck after the door closes...) Also, I'd want the catalogue to include tricks that could be performed in places other than our home -- like if we're out for a walk and run into someone -- so any props involved would have to be organic to the setting where you might naturally encounter a dog and their owner.

Anyway, i was curious how you would tackle this project. (And I figured there were probably some other Jerx-offs out there who've incorporated their pets into a trick at some point and might have thoughts on this, too.)

Signed,
Bringing Entertaining Spectacle Through Interesting Animal Legerdemain Is The Yearning

Dear BESTIALITY: I do tricks with pets relatively frequently (every few months or so).

The Haunted Deck is one of my go-to effects for this. Place the deck and the animal in the bathroom. Close the door and give the animal a chance to “do their thing,” then open it a little bit later to show the dog/cat/bunny/ferret or whatever has cut the deck and dragged out the selected card a little bit. (You will need a hands-off Haunted Deck to do this.)

But I can understand why you might not want to leave your dog alone in the bathroom with an expensive gimmicked deck. (“He found your card! And chewed it up. And peed on it. Great.”)

More often than not, the tricks I do with pets follow that type of format. They are put in the room with something and left alone with it for a minute. When we come back something has changed, and I pin that change on the animal. Why does the animal have to be left alone? It’s evolution. They’re not inclined to demonstrate their powers in front of people because it’s an evolutionary advantage to appear less capable than they truly are.

Triumph the Close-Up Magician Dog

With a Cheek-to-Cheek deck, have someone select a card. Mix the cards face-up and face down and return their card to the deck. Put your animal in the bathroom. Spread the cards to show your friend that the deck is completely mixed up. Throw the deck in the bathroom with the animal. In the process, turn it over so all the cards are facing the same way except the selection. Toss the cards in such a way that they spread across the floor somewhat. (Don’t let the spectator look in after the deck has been thrown in.)

Come back a few minutes later. The cards on the floor have been rearranged so they all now face the same way except the selection. Good boy!

The Invisible Dog

“I’ve reversed one card in this deck. Your dog will be able to determine what it is.”

Two pieces of paper are laid on the ground and a treat or piece of food is placed on each. On one sheet it says “RED” and on the other it says “BLACK.”

The dog eats the black one first.

You scribble out red and black and write in clubs and spades. He eats “clubs” first this time.

You continue on with this winnowing process:

  • High-Low

  • Odd-Even

  • 2 - 4

Eventually the dog has “selected” the Two of Clubs. You reveal that’s the card that was reversed in the deck earlier on.

Cat Scratch

You use the Hoy Book Test (or a Svengali pad, or whatever else you like) to force a word. Let’s say you’re using the Hoy procedure. You don’t have the participant look at the word. You tell them to open the book to that page and show that page to your pet (we’ll say it’s a cat for this example). You toss the cat into a room and close the door. Then you show two small blank slates and toss those in the room too with some chalk and close the door.

“Kitty! I want you to write the first word you saw on that page of the book.”

You put your ear to the door. “I think I hear him writing something,” you say. You tell your friend to listen in as well and some scratching sounds are heard.

(For the scratching sounds, just stand with your ear against the door. Motion for your friend to stand in front of you with their ear against the door too. In this position, just scratch the door itself with your finger down at your hip. You can’t really tell where the scratching is coming from. Even if they do suspect you’re making the scratching noise yourself, that will only serve to lower their expectations, which should only make the climax hit harder.)

Now, you tell your friend to open the page and see what the first word is, “so we can verify if he gets it right.” After a minute or two you go in the bathroom and poke at the slates with your foot. One of them seems to have random scribbles on it. The other one you can just barely make out something written on there. “Darn…something maybe. Oh wait… damage? Was the word damage?” It was! Good kitty.

On The Go

I’ve never really done any completely impromptu, on-the-go, pet related tricks. Not that I can remember, at least. I’m not sure it’s the type of premise you really need an anytime, anywhere version of.

But if I had to come up with something on the fly, the easiest option is to use some kind of mentalism-related phone app and stick the animal in the middle of that process.

So rather than you reading your friend’s mind. Your friend would look at any word on a particular page (Xeno app or Inertia app or something similar) then whisper that word to the dog, then the dog somehow transmits that word to you. For example you can hold the dogs two front paws and do a sort of “20 Questions” type of thing with him. “Okay, Scrapple, is what they’re thinking of something natural [shake left paw] or man-made [shake right paw].” Pause a moment and act as if the dog is pressing down on your right hand. “Ah, okay. So it’s man made. Is it bigger than a phone booth [shake left paw] or smaller [shake right paw].” That sort of thing… until the dog has clued you in to the person’s thought.

Or using the Jerx App, if you force a word on someone (perhaps using the Hoy procedure mentioned above), you could then go to a drawing app and hold that out to the dog and they could use their nose to write some sort of sloppy reveal of that information on the phone.

Pacing

This is not the sort of premise I’d want to beat into the ground with the same people over and over. I probably wouldn’t do a pet-related trick with the same people more than twice a year. It’s such a strongly different premise that using it more often would be overkill.

Dustings #65

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Gee… I wonder where that smoke might be coming from?

This is the new Mist Watch release. Look, I’m on the side of anyone who wants to take a run at making a smoke-producing gimmick. The idea of such a thing is certainly magical. And something vanishing or appearing in a puff of smoke is just classic. We should definitely be working to perfect this idea. But if the best we can do now is to strap a grandfather clock to our wrist, we might have to admit we’re not at the point where we can make a smoke-producing gimmick that isn’t obvious due to its size.

I like big watches. I’ve worn big watches in the past. They don’t look like this. This watch looks suspicious long before smoke ever comes pouring out of it. The watch is so big that someone might not see the smoke appear because your colossal watch is in the way. “Smoke appeared? I’m sorry, I didn’t see that. Your watch was blocking out the sun. It’s very dark in here.” Or you might get this, “Yes, I saw the smoke. I didn’t know it was a trick though. I just thought that was from the gears on your massive watch grinding together.”

Feel free to show that gif to your non-magician friends and ask them where they think the smoke might be coming from. My friends—even my dumbest ones—all said the watch. Maybe they’re uniquely skeptical, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s just a combination of two things: “where else could it be coming from” and “giant fucking watch.”

I will accept this argument for this product: “Yes, anyone thinking critically will likely identify the watch as the source of the smoke. But everyone knows it’s just a trick anyway, and I’m just using it to add a little atmosphere to the mystery (not as the trick itself) and for those purposes it will be fine.” Okay, fair enough. I think there’s definitely a style of performing where that works. There are people who think, “Who cares if the prop looks real?” “Who cares if the premise is illogical?” “These are magic tricks, they’re just supposed to be entertaining.” I think that’s a perfectly valid approach to magic and in that context I think this watch will work for you. Even if you know where the smoke is coming from, it’s still magical if not fooling.

I too agree that magic is first and foremost about entertaining. But I also feel like for the magic to be the most impactful that the other elements should not draw attention to themselves. Magic hits the hardest when people don’t see the seams. For me, this fat bitch watch is a big “seam,” so unfortunately I don’t think we’ve quite cracked the smoke-production gimmick situation just yet.

Guess it’s back to this shit…

I was thinking of the question in Monday’s mailbag about the show where there’s a guy that comes to your house as the pizza man and it turns into a magic show. I think a whole series of shows could be built around this concept. That is: People coming to your door and the interaction morphs into an immersive magic show. A girl scout comes to your door selling cookies, a Jehovah’s Witness comes by to preach the good news, a traveling salesman stops by to sell you on a vacuum. Gradually things shift and you’re somehow into a unique type of magic show.

I’d probably show up as cop. “We’ve had a noise complaint. What is this… some kind of bachelorette party or something?” Bam! I rip my pants off. Grab my boombox. It’s out of batteries. Shit. I’m standing there in half a police outfit and a g-string. “You don’t happen to have 8 D-batteries, do you?” It’s all quiet. “I’m kind of really only comfortable dancing to my special mix tape. I feel bad. Did you guys have other entertainment planned or anything?… Hmmm… Well, I know a card trick if you want to see one.”

Okay, that’s not the greatest transition, I know. I’m spitballing here. I just like the idea of coming to the door as one thing, that becomes something else, that becomes something else.

Rob D., sent along this page from the new book, The Expectation Effect by David Robson. This is very much in line with my attitude towards “rituals,” when I perform effects that use them. I can understand if you don’t want to use those types of presentations because they suggest some kind of witchcraft bullshit or something you don’t want to get behind. I often will use the idea that it’s not that the ritual is some kind of “magic” but that it’s a way to channel the power of the mind. Which is an idea that is still mysterious and wonderful, but also kind of true.

Speaking of including ritual style presentations in your work, I recommend picking up a set of something called Platonic Solids.

This is the set I have.

Platonic Solids are crystals or stones cut into shapes of the regular polyhedra. They are supposed to do… something. I don’t know what. Some chakra something or reiki? I don’t really understand it. But that’s the beauty of it. I’ve never met anyone who understands it. So I have completely free range to make up whatever I want to say about these. So I can suggest that certain combinations of these stones laid out in certain orientations can affect: luck, intuition, coincidences, memory, psychic connection, gravity, or whatever. That’s tremendous presentational freedom that comes just by having a set like this on a shelf somewhere. Any trick you might not currently have a good presentation for can be folded into this framework. And you can use that until you come up with something better. And they’re just kind of interesting to look at and hold for the person you’re performing for. A good, cheap, all-purpose presentational tool.