Monday Mailbag #69

/

Heh-heh… 69.

Did you ever listen to the This American Life about when Improv Everywhere held a huge sprawling surprise birthday party for a random stranger in a bar, and left him scarred with anxiety and paranoia? (See act two of https://www.thisamericanlife.org/286/mind-games-2005 )

I feel like Just For You would do that same thing, but instead of to one person, to every one of your friends (or every person at the party). Leaving them convinced all of their friends were lying to them. No matter how hard they begged, how much the pleaded or cried… their wife wouldn’t admit she was in on it. 

And yet I’d still love to try it. It would be an interesting experience for sure. —AD

Yes, I'm familiar with that story. I wouldn't be too worried about it messing people up too bad. Whereas the Improv Everywhere thing was designed to affect that one person specifically, and everyone’s focus was directed towards that one person. With Just For You, they have to choose to really see themselves as the focal point of the routine. Yes, “this was all done for you” is the premise of the routine. But it’s done in a way where they have to “opt-in” to choose to believe it. The presentation is—I think—nicely designed so there are no holes in the logic of the premise, but they still have to willingly suspend their disbelief to fully engage with the premise. And if they’re doing that, then it’s because they want to.

That’s considerably different than 30 people coming up to you in a bar, insisting your name is Ted, and that it’s your birthday.

I read the Just For You effect yesterday [last Wednesday] morning. Last night I performed it at a dinner/talent show my office was putting on. I used your script almost verbatim. I won first place and $400. I guess I should start supporting the site now. Thanks! —SC

Nice job. You can PayPal me my 20%. I’ll split your fee and your thanks with Joe Mckay for sending along the original idea.

I'm totally new to your site, and I'm looking for resources that might help me finesse my way into approaching complete strangers in public places so as to magicsh them.

I'm not interested in this because that's how I prefer to perform. It's just because I need to practice, and this is the most efficient way I can think of — to do essentially "strolling magic" without an invitation.

Can you point me to the right articles? —G

“Strolling magic without an invitation” is just about the most terrifying way I’ve heard of describing what I’m focused on with this site—that being magic in casual and social situations. I’m also not a fan of the word “magicsh,” but I’ll let that go for the moment.

“Approaching complete strangers in public places,” is not something I do and not something I recommend.

There are certain situations where I’ll perform for someone who I don’t really know.

Those situations are things like this:

  • For someone who is near me at a cafe or a bar.

  • For someone sitting next to me on a train or plane or bus.

  • The rare occasion when I’m standing in line for an extended period of time (Camping out for them Yeezys). Or in some other extended “waiting” situation.

  • At a wedding, party or other event where I may not know many people.

What do these situations have in common?

They’re all situations where it’s acceptable to engage with strangers. I’m not randomly walking up to a couple at a park bench. I’m not sitting down next to a woman sunbathing alone at the beach, “I want to show you something.”

Get comfortable interacting with people in these types of situations. If you’re uncomfortable asking stranger in these types of situations how their day has been going, then you’re not prepared to show them a trick either. That might not sound true to you. You might think, “Actually, I’d be more comfortable showing someone a trick than having a casual conversation with them.” I understand that. But the type of magic I write about is built on top of casual/social interactions. It is not a substitution for them.

People will be able to sense if your little trick is the only thing that’s allowing you to interact with them. And they will be put off by it, I promise you. If you met someone and they immediately started speaking to you through their ventriloquist dummy—and could barely interact with you otherwise—you’d be weirded out by them too regardless of how good their ventriloquism is.

Use the right material for these sorts of situations. If I’m waiting in a two-hour line for a roller coaster, I’m not going to do a card trick for the guy behind me. I’d probably do something propless or something that uses my phone. At a bar (where there is a surface nearby) you have some more options, but you’d still want to use objects that are natural to the environment. At a cafe I’m perfectly fine using anything I might be carrying with me, even a deck of cards if the layout of the cafe allows for it.

On a train or plane, at a party, in line, or at bar, there will almost always be at least a few minutes of conversation before I transition into a trick. At some point in that conversation they will have learned of my interest in: magic, psychology, gambling, supernatural phenomena, games, fortune-telling, rituals, or whatever the case may be. (These are all real interests. I just might stress one or the other given what I think the person I’m talking to might be interested in and/or what trick I’m thinking of performing.) I don’t just bring the subjects up randomly. I don’t just say, “Hey, I like magic!” But if someone is asking me how my weekend is, I can say something like, “Good. I met up with some friends for a poker game Saturday. Lost a bunch of money. I’m trying to steer the group towards some different games that I think I have a better shot at.” Or whatever. It’s perfectly normal when talking with someone for the first time to hit on hobbies, work, and activities you’re involved in. All of these give me the opportunity to transition into a trick, if I want.

The only place I come close to going directly into a magic trick is in a cafe where people are sitting and working for an extended period of time. I’ll make eye contact with the people near me as I sit down, or as they sit down. If one of them seems particularly friendly and open, I may ask at some point later on, “Hey, can I get your help real quick?” In that circumstance I would do something that’s under a minute, and legitimately requires their assistance. You don’t want to ask for their help and then make them watch a two-minute coin routine.

That’s the closest I’ll get to performing for strangers with zero preamble.

Performing for pure strangers is not something I put much effort into. I don’t really consider that casual or social magic. Social magic is generally done with friends, family, or at least acquaintances in mind. If you don’t have a lot of people to perform for, then your goal should be to grow your social circle, or at least lean into your comfort zone so you’re having more low-level interactions with people. That will give you more opportunities to perform without having to assault some total stranger.

Dustings #67

/

Some readers have tested out the False Decoy Ploy mentioned in last Friday’s post. The idea was submitted by D@n Ruse (Can you solve the devious puzzle of what his real name is? The @ sign is there so a google search for him won’t direct non-magicians to this site).

Basically, the idea was this… If you casually ask someone to select a card from a spread that looks like this…

They will likely ignore the “obvious” choice—the one sticking right out at them. But while being preoccupied with avoiding that choice, they would end up taking the “easy” choice (the one marked “decoy” above). You can get more detail on this in last Friday’s post.

Here is some of the feedback I got from people who tested it…

10 different people . 6 picked the decoy. 3 picked the obvious card. 1 picked a random card. —DH

✿✿✿

I've been a hobbyist card magician for well over 50 years, and didn't particularly expect this to work.  but I tried it out on my wife, whom I've been with for the last 30 years (so you can imagine how many card tricks she's seen and criticized) and she immediately took the decoy.

More time will tell, but this may be better than I thought it would be. —DE

✿✿✿

I tried the force several times, it didn't work at all. They never went for the out jogged card, as was planned, but they never went for the easy to get card either. 

I don't really like how it feels. Each time I did it, they looked at the deck like, "What the heck is that? Are you trying to get me to do something specific?" Even though their choice was free, it definitely didn't feel like a free choice. —JB

Overall, from the people I heard back from, this seemed to work about 60% of the time. Just enough to be interesting, but not enough to really be useful.

I think the success of this would likely depend on who you’re performing for. If i had a wife who had seen 100s of card tricks, I can imagine this working well on her. But I’ve spent so much time with the people i regularly perform for trying to beat into their head that the card they choose is important. So I can’t really use something that relies on such a casual selection process. When I give people a static fan of cards like this to pick a card, they will frequently dig in with two hands to spread the cards to one particular random card hidden within the spread. After years of working on forces where the selection process is slow and deliberate, that’s what the people I perform for are used to.

That being said, there still may be other uses for this idea. Perhaps even unrelated to cards. Other situations where we can distract people with an “obvious” choice in a way that they don’t realize they’re taking the “easy” choice.

I mentioned in last Friday’s post that this was going to be a sort of meta-testing. A testing of testing, i.e., how many people who read the article would go and test out the idea? Well… not many. I would say that somewhere between .2 and .5% of the people who read that post ended up testing it out and reporting back. So the idea of creating some kind of testing squad for widespread testing is probably not going to happen. That’s okay. When I started the site I was pretty intent on never shifting the burden of content to the readers: no comments, no guest posts, etc. So I’m perfectly happy to handle the testing ideas aspect of the site as much as possible by myself.

My favorite part of putting the books together is working with our friend Stasia on the cover.

The title for the illustration on this year’s cover is “The Entertainer.” On the front cover is a magician performing the cups and balls from, and the back cover shows him from behind. The image was based on the Magician card from Stasia’s tarot deck.

Here’s a variation on Wednesday’s trick, Just For You. That trick involved using a switching box to switch a bunch of slips of paper with words written by the audience for duplicate words, and then exposing that all the words were the same in order to tell a story where everyone in the audience was working together to fool one person. And doing so in a way to get everyone in the audience to imagine themselves as that one person.

Here’s a similar idea. Again, this is something for parlor/stage, so it’s not something I’ve been able to test out.

You have everyone in the audience write a word on a slip of paper and drop it into some sort of container. Someone shakes up the container and dumps the folded slips of paper out onto the floor or table. One paper is randomly selected in some manner and it matches your prediction. Let’s say the word was “button.”

You would then go on to explain how this trick was accomplished.

As the people filed into the theater for the show, there was a video playing on a screen. You bring up that video again and slow it down and show a number of references to the word “button” that pop up in subtle and/or subliminal ways throughout the video.

You explain that it goes deeper than this. You didn’t simply suggest the idea of button to them. You implanted a complicated hypnotic suggestion in the video that would have them all write “button” when the time came, but it would feel to them like they were writing some other random word. “You’d even see that random word when you looked at your paper.”

You ask a couple people what word they wrote down.

“Dinosaur,” “moon,” “anger,” they say.

“Perfect. I’m glad it felt that way. Now that the hypnotic suggestion has passed, you can see the reality of the situation.”

You pick up some of the slips of paper and unfold them: button… button… button. In different handwritings.

You probably want to have one focal member of the audience who writes down their word in some other format or who doesn’t drop their word in the container, so you can highlight what’s happening with this one person (and apparently everyone else in the audience).

For example, they write their word on a small chalkboard. They think they wrote down “lemon” but when they show their word it says “button” (using some kind of Spirit Slate). Or they write it down on a drawing app. They look and see they definitely wrote down “lemon.” They show the phone to the audience and it says “button.” You break the hypnotic suggestion and now they see button too (using the Jerx App). Or some other switch of whatever they wrote down for something with “button” written on it (switching envelope, switching wallet, or just a billet switch). Tell that person to write their word in “capital letters” because it’s going to be shown to everyone in the audience—that way the switched in word will match their writing to some extent. (Or you could go so far as to research one audience’s member’s handwriting so your switched-in word really matches their normal handwriting.)

Either way, you really need to do the effect both ways: en masse for the whole audience, and then more directly for one person. Otherwise it’s too easy for the whole premise to unravel if they just think, “Well, he must have somehow switched all the slips of paper.” That thought will come to a certain percentage of the audience no matter what. But what you want is for them to think, “Maybe he switched all the papers? But wait… that doesn’t explain the woman who wrote her word on the chalkboard.”

Just For You

/

Received this email from friend-of-the-site, Joe Mckay:

I keep thinking about premises that are neither based in supernatural claims or being a body language expert.

One idea I had was this. You have everyone in a room write down a word on a piece of paper. You then use a switching box (eg AmazeBox) to force a word.

You fool everyone in the room.

You then say that you don't usually explain how a trick is done - but you will in this case since the secret is so much fun.

You then point to somebody and tell them that everyone else in the room helped you in fooling them by writing the same word.

We are using the Dunninger idea of using a hundred stooges to fool somebody idea as a fake explanation.

Everyone else in the room is still fooled. So it puts them in an odd mental space.

Perhaps it would be better to say that everyone in the room helped you with that trick by writing the same word and that you want to thank them for their co-operation. You then say you won't single out the person who all this effort went into fooling - but you just want to be honest about how the trick worked. —JM

I don’t do performances for large groups, but I can see this being a fun idea.

Joe's last paragraph is how I’d handle this.

“So you’re all probably wondering how I predicted the randomly selected word would be ‘tennis.’ Well… you’re not all wondering that. But some of you are probably wondering how I knew the word would be tennis.

“Actually… that’s not quite true either. One of you is wondering how I knew the word would be tennis. The other 79 of you already know.

“You see, there’s one special person in the audience tonight. And if you think it might be you… then it’s definitely you. Only one person right now is wondering how that trick was done. The rest of us already know.”

I’d walk over to whatever switching box was used and grab a handful of the slips inside.

“You see, we all got together to fool you, specifically.” I wouldn’t single out an individual as I say this. I’d just sort of say it to the air as I make a broad gesture.

“A little while ago, myself and the 79 other audience members made a plan. They would come here tonight, and when I asked people to drop a random word in the box, they all agreed to write down ‘tennis.’ Then, no matter which word was removed, my prediction would match.”

Throughout all of this I would be opening slip after slip after slip. Showing “tennis” “tennis” “tennis” and “tennis” in different handwritings and tossing them to the ground.

“Now, when the show is over, the people close to you might insist, ‘No, I didn’t write tennis! I wrote mailbox!’ Or something like that. Trust me. They wrote tennis. Everyone but you did. Their denials are scripted. In fact, a number of the interactions you had before the show—and will have for some time after the show—have all been scripted.

“I didn’t do this just to fool you. No. If I just wanted to fool you I could have used one of maybe a dozen ways I know of to predict a random word. I did this to remind you that you are worth great effort. Sometime in the future—maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now—something is going to come up in your life that’s going to require great effort on your part, or the part of those who love you. If you should ever find yourself wondering if you’re deserving of that effort, I want you to remind yourself of the time 79 people worked together to make something as thoroughly inconsequential as a magic trick work, solely for your benefit. Let that serve as an example of the effort you deserve.”

Now, okay, you could say that last paragraph is a little hokey or maudlin. I’m not really trying to “inspire” anyone with that paragraph (although it might). I’m simply trying to justify why I would go to these lengths for the sake of a trick. Otherwise it’s just being clever for the sake of being clever and it would be easier to completely dismiss. But if people think it’s something I did to prove some kind of point, then they’re closer to considering that it’s something I really did.

This explanation—“We all came together for the purpose of creating a magic trick to entertain/fool just you.”—Is one of those perfect premises, in my mind. It’s the type of idea that no one is likely to really believe, But it’s also kind of a seductive idea that they might find themselves considering more than you would expect. “Okay, that’s probably not what happened… but what if?”

Plus I like that it’s a trick that is not just based on one reality, or dual reality. Instead, each person in the audience gets their own reality. And no matter how much the people they’re with or the people around them deny that reality, it can’t undermine the premise you established.

If anyone of you ever tries this out, let me know.

Monday Mailbag #68

/

So penguin just sent an email out advertising Rick Lax and Justin Flom's new download. It's currently free but apparently the price will change to $150 in a week or so. That's probably a marketing strategy from Rick and Justin.

https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/17184

I thought I'd take a closer look because a few of the presentation ideas sounded a little familiar. On a quick skim throughout the download (which is over 2.5 hours long) the tricks seem pretty good and they seem to do a great job of explaining them all but... at times it feels they're just directly lifting from your work. They credit you several times in the video. In fact in every explanation of each effect you get credited so the whole video seems like an advertisement for your blog more than anything. Here are a few examples:

In Freakout, the presentation where Justin talks about "facebook magicians with fake videos and reactions" (no comment) and asks the audience to pretend to go hogwild for a video seems like it's taken from the James Lange Universal Presentation. The recording a video part seems like a similar ploy to version 3 in In Search Of Lost Time. The effect is essentially Chad Long's Shuffling Lesson (which is credited), but the reveal and twist feels very similar to The Shitshow from MFYL. Here they mention your Card Force Study.

Secret Noise Mind Control is basically Tiki and Ronde. I mean sure there's a difference with using bills and signed cards (oh and it's "grey noise" instead of "black noise") but it's essentially the same presentation and trick. Rick does mention and credit here though.

The Gypsy Love Test takes the premise of what seems to be The Harmony Ritual (Justin even says it's a Romanian ritual as well) and does Ben Earl's Red Herring (which Justin does credit). He talks about The Engagement Ceremony in this part and shows off his copy of Here Be Bunnies.

The Mob Boss Poker Deal seems to take a presentational style that feels similar to the one presented in Spectator Cuts To The Aces. Another mention to your blog is made here.

Red Black Fortune Telling is a presentation for out of this world but using the 1-2 separation from Lennart Green. They do credit you in this section for the use of the separation in an OOTW effect, but a lot of this feels like this takes a lot from A World Out Of Time from MFYL.

Now, if I were to take a guess as to why Justin and Rick made this download then it's probably to tell people how great your blog is (that and to try and sell some more penguin marked cards. Rick definitely wanted people to buy some penguin marked cards). I have no idea whether you're collabing with Rick and Justin on this project but Justin does say some nice things.

I'm not even sure why I wrote you this email. It's probably not a big deal and you've probably had several fans emailing you about this already, but I thought I'd let you know just in case. —EF

Okay, so this has been the big topic in my email box these past few days, understandably. I decided to print EF’s email because I thought it might be the most useful for anyone wanting to take a deeper dive into these effects. And it was the email I was most impressed with. I’m not sure I could have made/found those references if I had to. One bummer about constantly trying to come up with new material is that after I’ve polished a trick enough to publish it, I might not come back to it that often, even if I really like it. So it was cool to be reminded of some of these effects. It made me want to go through my own output again in the near future. I don’t know if that sounds masturbatory or not, but it was genuinely the feeling I had.

So yeah, let me paraphrase and answer the questions I got the most:

Was this a collaboration between you and Flom/Lax? Did you write this and have them perform it for you?

No. Although that’s a funny idea.

Are you Rick Lax or Justin Flom?

Nah, I’m Jibrizi.

Did you know this video was coming out?

Yeah. They wrote a month ago to ask if they could use some of my presentations in their download.

How do you feel about it?

I’ve only watched a couple of the performances so far. I enjoyed what I saw.

Do you really want to be associated with Rick Lax and Justin Flom and their [shitty tricks/fake videos/exposure] that they do on Facebook?

What they’re doing in that download isn’t really related to their Facebook videos. So I don’t really care.

Look, I understand people not liking their Facebook output. But my reaction to their Facebook stuff isn’t, “How dare you! This is awful and CLASSLESS garbage!” It just doesn’t raise my pulse at all. I just feel it’s not for me. Which is what I feel about most stuff on Facebook, which is why I’m not really on Facebook. Problem solved.

Did you get paid for this?

Hahahahaha. 😂

So, are you happy this video exists or upset about it?

I’ve heard from people I trust that the download is very good, the tricks are strong and the teaching is well done. And I’m happy that some people for whom this style of magic is a natural fit, are going to learn about it for the first time from this download.

That being said, I’ve never been trying to bring more people to this site, or to this style of performing. The thing that is most likely to kill the casual/social style is a bunch of fucking nerds ruining it by doing a shitty version of it. I would like 98% of the magicians to perform in the traditional manner. For my sake. Because I want what I’m doing to stand out from what people are expecting from magic.

The good thing is, you can’t really capture this type of magic on video. Not fully so, at least. You can get about 60% there. But when you have cameras out and you’re performing for a group larger than a couple people, you’re not really getting the same experience of talking to someone in private and saying, “The strangest thing has been happening recently…”

So I think Justin and Rick have really just cracked the door a little. I don’t think they’ve shined too bright a light on this style to the point where it will become less special. The truth is, I’ve gone far deeper and weirder than the ideas they talk about in this download. So there is still much more to explore in this style that no one is ever going to put on film.

Can you tell us any more about the tricks, books or other projects you said you will be putting out and making available to supporters? I’m excited to hear there’s going to be something besides the book to look forward to. —CL

I’m hesitant to talk about these things for a couple reasons. But the main reason is that I don’t want someone supporting the site solely because they want to pick up one of these limited edition books or tricks or whatever. And that’s what will happen if I start pushing these things too much.

The idea isn’t, “Oh, if you pay at least $10 per month, then you’ll get the opportunity to buy these other releases!”The idea is that I want to make the other releases available to people who resonate with the site enough that they feel they’re getting $10 worth of enjoyment already from the site and newsletters. I don’t want people to feel like they’re paying to be on a potential distribution list. Then I’d feel like shit if I wasn’t regularly putting out new stuff.

But, to put maybe a little more pressure on myself, some of the products that are fully formed and just need to be produced are:

  • A dream prediction/influence effect. This is a premise I’ve played around with before, but this is my simplest and strongest version yet.

  • A new Hook t-shirt that provides an intriguing backstory related to something that people are already fascinated with, and can lead into all sorts of different tricks.

  • An expanded hardcover version of The Amateur at the Kitchen Table. By “expanded” I mean, like, by 400%. It’s going to be much bigger and contain a bunch of the ideas geared specifically towards amateur/social magic that have appeared on the site, but not in any of the books yet.

  • An old “Executive Decision Making” product, supposedly from the late 80s, that can be used to force essentially anything in the world.

  • A card matching effect! Okay, that doesn’t really deserve an exclamation point. But it’s the story and props that go along with this that make it fascinating, and I don’t quite want to spill the beans on it’s just yet. It going to be designed to look like an old game from the 1970s, and the backstory of the game provide the context for the card matching effect.

  • A book on 50 different ways to reveal peeked information.

  • And one of the strongest card effects I’ve ever performed. The outcome of a simple card game is predicted. The prediction is made and set aside. Then any deck can be borrowed. The deck is shuffled by the spectator(s). The magician genuinely never touches anything. Not the cards, not the prediction. In fact, it’s not even the magician who makes the prediction. A spectator makes the prediction. Sleight-free. Can be done completely impromptu. Although I will likely be making it available with a small prop which will simplify the story that goes along with the effect.

As I said, I have no clue when these will be coming out or even if they’ll come out. So don’t sign up to support the site if your sole reason for doing so is to purchase one of these.

I came up with a trick that I think would be perfect for you and maybe for a future book. […] Are you open to being pitched effects? —SB

Sure, I’m open to it. Send me an email if you think it’s something that’s really in my wheelhouse. All my write-ups are based on real performances and if it’s a good trick but not the sort of thing I’d ever do, then you’d have better luck sharing it somewhere else.

Also, I’ll say this… if it’s literally like a fully formed trick, and it’s something new, then having me publish it is probably going to be one of the least effective ways of getting your name out there, if that’s your goal. However if you like the idea of releasing it in a more limited fashion, then I’d be happy to be able to share it with people. And you’ll be paid (which is unlike most magic magazines or outlets like that).

Dustings #66

/

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

/

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

/

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.