My Biggest Testing Takeaway

A friend showed me a card-to-pocket routine he was working once, and I told him that he needed to draw attention to the fact that his hand is empty before he removes the card from his pocket.

“I am,” he said, “I show my palm empty like this before I reach into my pocket.” He held his hand out, palm facing me, and fingers spread wide.

“No,” I said, "you need to tell them to take note that your hand is empty.”

“I don’t have to tell them because I’m showing them. I don’t want to insult their intelligence.”

“It’s not ‘insulting their intelligence.’ It’s making sure they take note of something they need to remember for the trick to be successful.”

He sighed, like I wasn’t getting it. “Would a real magician say, ‘Note that there’s nothing in my hand’?”

I looked at him. “Yes. That’s exactly what he’d say. Because a ‘real magician’ would be showing you this thing to demonstrate something And thus he would want to make sure everything was as clear as possible.”

I probably didn’t use the word “thus” when this actually happened. But it was something along those lines.

I was asked in an email which of the testing results had the most profound impact for me personally on my magic. After thinking about it, I don’t think it was one specific thing we tested. But something that came through over and over across the time we’ve been testing.

In 1000s of performances and interviews with spectators, when a trick would fail, it was very rarely because they saw something they shouldn’t have. Like they spotted a double lift. Or a card being palmed.

The vast majority of the time, when a trick didn’t hit it was because we failed to make crystal clear one of the conditions that made the effect impossible.

In Wednesdays post I mentioned a trick we did where the method was “obviously” a false shuffle (the magician called off the cards from a shuffled deck). And, in fact, when asked what they thought the method was, 80% of the respondents suggested that the cards weren’t really mixed. But what did the other 20% say? Well, a few would just say they had no clue. Then there would be a couple people who would suggest something needlessly elaborate, like hidden cameras and secret earpieces sending information to the performer.

But a lot of the remaining 20 percent would say something like, “He probably had the order of the cards memorized.” And when we’d talk with them to get more clarity on their answer, we’d say, “But he shuffled the cards.” They might say, “Ooh, yeah…” or, “Did he?” The shuffling didn’t stick with them.

You might think someone shuffling a deck three or four times would be enough for people to remember the cards were shuffled. But I can tell you that frequently it wasn’t.

Laypeople don’t watch magic tricks the way we do. I find it much easier to perform for magicians, because I know how they watch effects and what they will pick up on. But laymen are different. They don’t always note the things that we think might be obvious. You need to focus them to create certainty. Because if they’re just pretty sure the ring was threaded on the string, you don’t have much of an effect. They need to be certain of it. Or else they’ll tell themselves, “I guess the ring wasn’t really on the string.”

I now believe that it is almost impossible to over clarify the conditions of an effect (unless you’re trying to be annoying).. Saying “notice that my hand is empty” or “there’s nothing in the card box, is there” or “all of these cards are blue” may feel kind of hokey or unnecessary. But in all the issues we’ve catalogued people having in our testing, I don’t recall a single time someone suggested they felt condescended to by the magician clarifying or highlighting the conditions. But there were countless times where a trick didn’t get as strong of a reaction as it could have because they didn’t notice or remember something we thought should have been clear.

That’s what I took away most from the testing. Whatever type of magic you’re doing, the effect comes down to something happening in defiance of the conditions you established. So don’t be coy or subtle about establishing the conditions. And if the method you’re using doesn’t allow you to firmly establish those conditions, it’s probably not a strong enough method for that effect.

Shuffle Testing Feedback

These emails came in after yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read that one yet, these won’t make much sense.

Nice posts on the false shuffling experiments. Many thanks.

Here's my question: in social contexts (not stage or planned set pieces) are false on the table riffle shuffles more convincing that false overhand shuffles?

I ask that because at least in my circles, and in all my growing up, which included a lot of social card playing, no one did on the table "Las Vegas" type riffles. In other words, I'm wondering if the very fact that you do either a push-through or Zarrow looks suspicious as compared to a good false overhand shuffle. I don't gamble, have never been to a casino, so maybe I'm in the minority here, but the only riffle I'd seen in my life before magic videos was a common in the hands riffle shuffle. So maybe that's two things to test:

1) Overhand vs. table shuffle

2) In the hands riffle vs table riffle

—JS

Interesting. I grew up with parents who come from large families of card players and I’d never seen an in-the-hands riffle shuffle until I got into magic. Everyone just did their riffle shuffle on the table.

I’m not sure this is anything that needs to be tested though. Or, at least, I’m not sure we’d get any worthwhile data from it. I would guess the most convincing false shuffle would be the one that looks the closest to what your spectators are used to. If they normally do an overhand shuffle, do a false overhand shuffle. If they do a tabled riffle shuffle or an in-the-hands riffle shuffle, do that. I’m not suggesting you need to be proficient at all of these things. I’m just suggesting it in a general sense. Is there a “common” shuffle in your social circles in your part of the world? That’s probably the one to devote your time to if you’re a non-professional.

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Regarding the false exposure thing: 

Equally, you could say, ‘Some people pretend to shuffle the cards by not pushing them completely together, and then pulling them apart again, like this.’ [Demo a bad push-through] ‘But you can see I’m really mixing these, yes?’ [Carefully square a Zarrow shuffle]

For what it’s worth, I think that Jason England Zarrow shuffle sucks balls. Not surprised people thought that was the more suspicious. I think most people do it pretty badly, and that’s somehow become the norm.—HC

Well, the issue here is you can’t really “carefully square” a Zarrow shuffle. You’ve got to square that thing pretty quickly or you’re screwed.

In regards to “sucking balls,” I’m guessing you don’t mean that as a compliment, yes? It really probably should be, e.g., “That girl sucks balls.” — “Yes, isn’t she a sweetheart?”

As far as England’s Zarrow shuffle, I‘m not such a connoisseur of false shuffles that I can really understand the finer points of them. It looks pretty good to me, relative to most of the other Zarrows I’ve seen. But you may be right that the “norm” for the Zarrow shuffle may be “pretty bad.”

Putting the “ideal” Zarrow up against the “ideal” push-through would be something that we could easily test online with 100s of respondents. And I’d be open to it. But I have a feeling whichever ones we chose as the “best” version of the Zarrow or the Push-Though, people would still take issue with them. And I’m not sure the head-to-head match-up is that meaningful. The more meaningful result was that neither false shuffle was more or less likely to be called out in the context of the tricks.

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Both of those table false shuffles feel too perfect. Dani DaOrtiz once told me that “feeling” was more important than what you see. A deck that is handled haphazardly with sloppy false shuffles, cards left on the table as you pick it up etc will feel a lot more shuffled than any Zarrow or push through. The magician’s attitude towards the deck is more important than a perfected table false shuffle. The spectator will feel and remember that the deck is shuffled this way rather than seeing a technique full of finesse. If your routine revolves around a gambling demonstration, a Zarrow or push through would be more appropriate. For good magic, stick to the psychologically stronger alternatives. —DM

It’s a valid point. But look, all of these decisions are going to be trick/performer/audience/circumstance-dependent. When we test stuff we really need to narrow it down to simple A/B testing in order to try to come to some conclusion. When we were doing the shuffle testing it was being paid for, in part, by someone who wanted us to specifically test those two-shuffles because he works in a situation where those shuffles make the most sense.

Although, I will say, going back to Monday’s post, I don’t think you can always count on what the spectators will “feel and remember.” Most people aren’t watching magic tricks like we watch magic tricks. Especially if it’s something like a preliminary shuffling portion of an effect. They may not know the trick has even commenced and may not pick up on the details we think we’re “subtly” implying. Even if your mixing is “casual”—or maybe especially if it’s casual—you need to do something to cement it in people’s brains. (More on this tomorrow.)

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The final email comes from DS who helped conduct the testing when it was originally done.

[One thing] that can’t be overemphasized is the strength of being able to pause the push-through shuffle in order to show the cards are “really being shuffled.” I did [his story deck trick] for years, using mainly push-through shuffles and it was mostly seen as a demonstration of false shuffling, cutting, and mixing with a story that went along with it. Then I started using the line, “After this is over you’re going to think I wasn’t really mixing the cards. So I want you to note as I do this that the cards are genuinely being shuffled together in a completely random manner.” And I would pause my next two push-through shuffles midway through to show the cards “really” being shuffled. After I included those moments the reactions got astronomically better. It was no longer even the same trick.—DS

Zarrow vs. Push-Through

In Monday’s post, I ran a poll asking you which false-shuffle you thought was more convincing, a push-through shuffle or a Zarrow.

58% of you thought the Zarrow was more convincing.

42% of you said the the push-through was.

I asked that question in anticipation of this post which was inspired by another email regarding testing that I received last week from Turner B.

I’m thinking about perfecting a good false riffle shuffle. I’d love to have you test a Zarrow and a Push-Through shuffle to find out which one people find more convincing.—TB

Well, good news. We tested false shuffles many years ago. And these are results that I remember well enough to pass along to you.

We tested them in two different ways.

First, we showed people video of Jason England doing a push-through shuffle and a Zarrow shuffle.

We told them that one of the shuffles was a false shuffle and we asked them to pick which one they thought wasn’t a real shuffle. Nearly 80% of the respondents picked the Zarrow shuffle as being the fake one.

Now, you could say that was somewhat of an artificial test. And that’s true enough. They were focused on the shuffles and looking for a false shuffle. That certainly doesn’t suggest that a Zarrow appears false to 80% of people generally. This was just our way of putting one directly up against the other. “One of these is false. Which do you think it is?” Seemed like the most straightforward way of testing the two shuffles against each other in their purest form.

(By the way, the people who questioned the push-through shuffle almost always took issue with the “up the ladder” type of cutting people follow it up with. That was the part that seemed unusual to them. I think the shuffle is more convincing with just the strip-out and maybe one cut after that. Though I’m clearly in the minority about that.)

But, that’s not the end of the testing.

We tested a couple different tricks live with various groups of participants.

In the first trick, the magician shuffled the deck a few times. Then he turned his back and had someone turn over cards one at a time, and the magician was able to name each card even with his back turned.

That’s a trick that sort of screams false shuffle. And that’s what we wanted.

The second trick also relied on a false shuffle, but it was much more subtle than that. I don’t remember 100% what the trick was, and I asked a couple other people involved in the testing, and they weren’t sure either. But we’re all pretty certain it had something to do with finding a matching pair of cards. It doesn’t really matter what the effect was. All you need to know was that it was a trick that required a full deck stack and false shuffle, but that was a much less obvious method for lay people than in the previous trick where the cards were called off.

Four sets of people were part of this testing:

One group saw the “obvious” false shuffle trick with the Zarrow.
One group saw the “obvious” false shuffle trick with the Push-Through.
One group saw the subtle false shuffle trick with the Zarrow.
One group saw the subtle false shuffle trick with the Push-Through.

There were a few dozen people in each group. (Not at one time. We usually work in groups of 6 people at most. And this card trick would just have been one of several things we tested with them.)

As part of the testing, the participants were asked to postulate a method for the effects they saw. There was no statistical difference in the likelihood of someone suggesting a false-shuffle as part of the method regardless of if the trick they saw used the Zarrow or the Push-Through. Approximately 80% of respondents who saw the “obvious” false-shuffle trick mentioned a false-shuffle (or more generally something like, “the cards weren’t really mixed”) in their explanation. Whereas in the “subtle” trick, it was under 15%. To be clear, they weren’t saying, “I know for sure this is how it was done!” They were just suggesting a false shuffle or false mix as a possibility.

So, head-to-head, the push-through “won.” But in actual practice, either shuffle does the job. So if you’re more comfortable with one or the other there’s not a big difference.

Except…

In a future round of testing we were able to take the “obvious” false-shuffle trick and reduce the people who suggested a false-shuffle as part of the method down to about 20% (from 80%). And the way we did that is something you can only really do with one of these shuffles.

So how did remove the idea of a false-shuffle from a trick that where that should have been the “obvious” method?

Go back to Monday’s post that talks about Exposure as Convincer. In the lead-up to the calling of the cards, the performer said something along these lines: “In a moment I’m going to do something impossible with these cards. And the only explanation you’re going to have is that these cards aren’t really getting shuffled. That somehow this is a pretend shuffle. And the cards aren't actually mixing into each other. But you can see the cards are really getting shuffled, yes?” And he would pause one of his push-through shuffles after the initial riffle and pull the deck towards himself, showing both halves woven together. He’d then push the cards back and complete the push-through action. For a lot of laypeople—for whom the notion of pushing blocks of cards through each other is just way beyond their comprehension—this simple act “proved” the cards were really shuffled. And this is something that can’t be done as convincingly with a Zarrow.

I wouldn’t put this moment in every trick that uses a false shuffle. But I would include it in any trick where a false shuffle is likely to be the most obvious solution people suspect.

My Conclusion: If I was going to put my time into only one of these shuffles, I’d go with the push-through shuffle specifically because it allows for the moment I just mentioned—the moment that permits you to pause mid-shuffle to show it’s a “real shuffle.”

But in circumstances or effects where you wouldn’t want to put the focus on the legitimacy of the shuffle, I don’t think it matters much which you use.

Testing Alternates

Here's a testing suggestion that came in last week that we had already looked at previously…

Don't know if you considered this (not sure if it's that important), but I would love to test out how easy it is for a person to spot that the deck is in red/black alternating order, like you'd use a Si Stebbins stack, for example. —MK

I’ve mentioned in the past the “suspicion” testing we did that used aniPhone app where people could swipe up or down to register their suspicion as they watched a trick.

We also did a much simpler version of “suspicion testing” where we would show people a trick and preface it by saying something like: “This is a trick we are testing out for an upcoming theatrical magic show. We want the trick to feel as fair and innocent as possible. If, as we go through the trick, you see anything that doesn’t ring true, or seems questionable, or unlikely in any way, just raise your hand so we can stop the trick and address what you’re thinking. We really want you to be hyper-critical and not hold back. That will help us make this piece as strong as possible moving forward.”

We found this to be a very good structure when it came to the focus group testing. First, because it allowed us to test a number of things over the course of one trick. And this little speech made people want to stop us and call things out. They didn’t sit on their suspicions or questions. They were much more vocal about these things because we framed it as then being helpful.

We tested the “noticeability” of alternating red/black set-ups for 120 participants total in groups of 3-6 people

. The decks were (false) shuffled and spread face-up on the table at the beginning of the effect.

Here is how the testing was broken down.

Group 1: For 60 participants, the deck of alternating colors was dribbled face-up in a messy spread.

Group 2: For the other 60 participants, the deck was spread face-up in a more clean, even spread.

Within these groups of 60, there were three sub-groups. And those subgroups were formed by how we alluded to the deck during the performance.

Subgroup A: For 1/3 of the people (20 in each group of 60) the deck was just spread on the table with no comment.

Subgroup B: For another 1/3 of the people the deck was spread face-up and the performer said, “We have a full deck here. All the cards are different."

Subgroup C: For the final 1/3, the deck was spread face-up and the performer said, “You can see we have a full deck here. All the cards are different. It’s well shuffled. There are no patterns or groups of cards.”

Obviously for that last third we were really asking for them to call us out.

The decks were on the table face-up for at least 15 seconds during each performance.

Here were our results.

Group 1 (The Messy Spread): As you would probably expect, none of the 60 participants ever mentioned any possible alternating pattern in the cards, regardless of how we alluded to the deck during the performance.

Group 2 (The Clean Spread):

Subgroup A: None of the 20 spectators raised a suspicion about any pattern.

Subgroup B: 2 people in 20 noticed the alternating pattern.

Subgroup C: 7 people noticed the alternating pattern.

My Conclusion

I’m pretty confident in saying this is a non-issue and nothing to worry about in almost all circumstances.

We purposely raised people’s antenna to look for anything questionable, and we called out something that was clearly not true (that there was no pattern in the cards), and still only 7 out of 20 people noticed the pattern. Obviously you wouldn’t want a 1/3rd of your audience to notice the pattern, but the number only got that high because we were doing everything we could to get them to notice it.

For my casual performing style, a sloppy spread makes more sense than a clean, even one. And it makes the pattern invisible. So I would go with that if you can get away with it.

But even in a formal show, where a nice arcing spread is esthetically appropriate, I wouldn’t be too worried about it. I don’t think people’s eyes naturally take in the condition of the spread in a way where the alternating pattern really presents itself. And as long as you don’t specifically clue them into the idea of there being a pattern in the cards, I think you can feel fairly safe it will go unnoticed.

Exposure as Convincer

In last Wednesday's post I said that if people had a magic concept they’d like tested in front of a focus group they could send it along to me and I’d consider it for some upcoming testing we’re scheduling for the end of summer. I got a number of good ideas, although they might not crack the list for this particular round of testing. And I got a few emails that I already have some answers for. A couple because we had tested in the past what was suggested in the email (I’ll post those later this week). And this one below because I have some thoughts on it based on some of my own testing.

Here’s the email from Doug G.

I'm thrilled that testing is back. There has been something I've been thinking about for a long time, and my discussions on this with magicians has been, let's say, less than satisfying. Here's my question:

There are a huge number of ways to gain a peek at what is written on a billet. Some are direct (real time center tears, obsidian, stack peeks), some are delayed (center tears, peek wallets), and many are "invisible." But that isn't my issue. It's that regardless of how the information is obtained, the most obvious explanation is that "somehow you saw what I wrote."

I know you have put a lot of thought into how to justify writing on pieces of paper, and I love your approaches And magicians/mentalists always tell me that with suitable staging and revelation (or "pre-revelation") they "never" get this response. Or they tell me to do it pre-show, and it won't matter what they think (obviously unsuitable for casual performance).

What percentage of spectators, given a reasonable "psychological" reveal, give their #1 response as "you used very interesting psychology," versus "somehow you read what I wrote?" Use any "invisible" method that negates the "you read it when you did this" sort of response. I'd love to know. —DG

While we’ve never officially tested the exact question asked in Doug’s final paragraph, I’ve spent a lot of time personally testing ideas to allow us to get people not to default to some Easy Answers.

The “Easy Answer” when you reveal something they wrote down is that somehow you read what they wrote down. WHY ELSE WOULD THEY THINK ANYTHING BUT THIS?? Some mentalists will say something like, “No one I perform for thinks this. If your audience thinks you looked at what they wrote down, then you need to work on your peeking technique.”

People who think that way are not just bad magicians. They’re utterly moronic humans in general. You can’t “technique” your way out of the situation. The only way to believe you can is if you wholly underestimate your audience. “They didn't catch me peeking the information, so they must believe I read their mind!”

(This is the “Wishful Thinking” brand of magic theory. It’s very popular. “Nobody ever asked me to examine the deck. Therefore they must believe it’s not a gimmicked deck.” The most fragile magic egos think this way. And it perpetuates itself, because most people are nice and don’t want to put fragile egos on the spot, so they don’t call these magicians out on their obviously gimmicked deck (or whatever). And the magicians think, “I’m really fooling them!”)

The best way to get people not to suspect a peek is to expose it. That is to say, you have to bring up the idea. And you have to do it before you could possibly get the peek.

So they’ve written a word down. “Now, at the end of this, you’re going to tell yourself, ‘He must have read the word I wrote down. He must have looked at it at some point when I wasn’t paying attention.’ So I need you to be really focused and if you see me even look in the direction of your card, call me out, and we’ll start over.”

You see what happens here, yes?

It’s a little more than just warning them what’s going to happen.

Think about this… Imagine you wake up in the morning and there’s a ceramic squirrel statue on your kitchen table that wasn’t there the night before.

I call you up on the phone and say, “I made a squirrel statue appear on your table by magic.”

You’re going to say (or think), “No you didn’t. I probably left a door unlocked. Or you had a key. Or a window was open.” You’re not going to believe the “magical” solution when there are many other reasonable explanations.

Now imagine instead, I call you the night before and say, “Something is going to happen tonight and you’re going to be certain that someone came in your house. But that’s not the case. That’s why I need you to make it impossible for anyone to get in without you knowing.” So you go and board up all the doors and windows with sheets of wood and nails. You set up video cameras. And put in an alarm system that senses any movement.

Now the next morning a squirrel statue is on your kitchen table that wasn’t there the night before and I say, “I made a squirrel statue appear on your table by magic.”

Do you say, “Oh, I guess someone must have got in without me knowing”?

No. And you don’t say that for two reasons:

1. That itself would be a magic trick. How did anyone get in when you were on guard for them? That’s no longer an “Easy Answer.” It’s an impossibility.

2. If you say, “Someone got in without me knowing,” you are saying you failed. Because you were warned. That was your one job, to make sure that didn’t happen. To say that someone got in makes you complicit in somehow fooling yourself.

So now we go back to the word written on the slip of paper.

“Make sure I never even look in the direction of that card. This is super important. If you see me look at it, stop me.”

At the end your spectator won’t say, “Well, he probably just saw the word.” They might not believe you read their mind or their body language or whatever. But they should be left without an answer to satisfy them. This is how we create mystery. No Easy Answers. They may, in fact, believe you looked at the paper somehow, but now that explanation is itself a mystery because they are sure they didn’t see you look near the paper. And why would you tell them not to let you do that if that’s what you were going to do?

Now, an issue you might run into is that your peeking technique doesn’t hold up to exposing what you’re going to do beforehand. If you have to go back into your wallet to get a second business card, of if you’re looking at the billet while you tear it up, or if it’s a business card in a stack of other business cards and they’re not certain where their card is, then they may very well may call you out for looking at the card when you are in fact looking at the card. This is letting you know that this technique isn’t strong enough for the effect.

Years ago, I wrote about “broken tricks.” I defined these as: Tricks where the method that is used prevents you from establishing the conditions that are needed for the trick to be seen as truly impossible.

Many peeks are “broken” in this way.

Here’s the thing, if your peek doesn’t hold up to them guarding against you peeking the information in the moment, then it ALSO won’t hold up to them searching their memory to be convinced that you didn’t look at the card at some point. Does that make sene? It’s actually harder to demonstrate that something was fair after the fact, than it is to demonstrate it in the moment. That’s because it’s impossible to do it after the fact.

So what types of peeks hold up to this level of scrutiny? Generally (but not always):

• wallet peeks where you never go back in the walle

• center tears that aren’t peeked during the tearing

• peeks that happen after a billet is switched (if, for example, they believe their billet is over on the side of the table, but really you’re unfolding it in your lap)

There are plenty of options that will work for this. But there are also plenty options that won’t. Common sense and testing for real people will help you determine which are which.

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In an upcoming post we’ll look at which is the better false riffle shuffle: the Zarrow Shuffle or a push-through shuffle. I have some data on that from previous testing. And it’s sort of related to today’s post.

Just out of curiosity, let’s see what you think is stronger:

New Release Roundup #3

More uneducated opinions on new releases based solely on the advertising copy and first impressions.

Faraday Pad by TCC

I gave some initial thoughts about this briefly in the post.

They demonstrate the pad on the episode of the Wizard Product Review episode I took a clip from yesterday—the one where a phone call induces a stroke in David Penn.

The pad looks like it works well, and the guy are very excited about it. And then they go on to demonstrate a totally average card trick with it. Like, if there was a non-electronic version of a trick where you roll dice to get a number and then count to that number in the deck to find a card, and find that it matches a card in another card box, no one would ever perform that.

I’m sure people will come up with some cool uses for this. Ones that don’t immediately scream “magnet,” but also ones that are more exciting than the trick demoed in the video above. Personally, I’m just never in a situation where pulling out a mat like that would be normal. As soon as I did my friends would be like, “What is this bullshit?”

You can remove the actual magnetic element from the mat and put it somewhere else. I thought about putting it in the center couch cushion of my couch, since I often do tricks there when sitting on the couch with someone. And it would allow for some fun hijinks if anyone ever sat on that cushion with a nickel buttplug up their ass. But I have a feeling it would look a little obvious in the cushion.

If you already use a close-up pad, you could probably find something worthwhile to do with this. But it’s not for me.

The Bat System by Carpenter Wong

This is another hyper-expensive effect. $750.

It’s very tempting because it feels like the type of thing that, with some thought, I could come up with some particularly strong presentations for.

But I just can’t justify paying that price. I feel like in 6 months there’s going to be something similar on the market for $250.

It actually feels like something made for the amateur, because the biggest strength to me is being able to do this from another room, which is not really an option in most professional performing situations. But as an amateur it’s way too hard to justify paying that much.

If one of you ends up picking this up, let me know how you like it. Especially if it really sucks, that way I’ll feel better for giving it a pass.

Ash by Pen and MS Magic

Ugh… I really dislike how stupid some magic effect producers are.

This is a cool effect. I like the way the words appear in the ash of a burning piece of paper.

Buuuuutttt….

Why did you print “Fire Spirits” on the paper you goddamn goofballs!?

The only thing you really want spectators not to be thinking is, “Oh, I guess it’s special paper.”

So leave the pad blank. Or print “Grocery List” on it, if you have to have something. But don’t put something that suggests, “Special fire paper.” That was the one thing not to do.

Bounce by Luis Robles

For the price of one RFID deck, you could buy the instant download 62 times. (If you’re an idiot.)

The visuals on this are unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

I don’t really know what to make of the effect. “Playing cards appear when I bounce a ball,” is sort of pointless. But this might be a situation where the visual is compelling enough to overcome the meaninglessness of the effect.

Maybe you could give it some cartoon logic. Ask someone to bounce the ball a couple of times. “What is the sound of a bounce?” you ask. Whatever they say, you say, “I’ve found a way to manifest in physical form the sound of a bouncing ball.”

Then you bounce the ball four times and blank cards with “Thump,” “Whoomp,” “Boing,” and “G’doink” written on them in colorful lettering appear on the table.

“Thump, whoomp, boing, g’doink? Sounds like my honeymoon! Hey-o!!!” You say to the confused spectators. “This guy knows what I’m talking about,” you say, and point to a reserved, bespectacled man in the first row. “You banged your bitch silly on your wedding night, I bet.”

Dustings #70

Great Moments In Wizard Product Review History

Okay, someone’s phone going off isn’t a big deal. Feeling the need to reset (so you can edit it out) is kind of strange—this is a magic review show on YouTube, just roll with it, nobody gives a shit. David Penn being so thrown off—like he was just told a loved one died—is funny. And the fact that no one made a note to edit out this minute-long dead end is kind of amusing.

But what I find the most fascinating is what’s happening at 30 seconds in. Agnimonity? What??

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If you like reading detailed reviews of (primarily) magic books, check out Madison H’s reviews on his site magicreview.org. He’s been doing reviews for about a year and a half, and he clearly puts a ton of work into them. He generally gives thoughts on every item in the book. Recently he’s taken his reviews up a notch and added in some video demos. If you’re on this site, you don’t mind reading, so you’ll probably enjoy it. And because they’re written, his reviews can’t get derailed by a phone call.

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An anecdote from reader Nick S.

The “Just For You” trick reminds me of the weird interaction that sparked my interest in magic in 2012. I was working in a coffee shop on 14th St. in NYC, locked out of my apartment and waiting for my wife to get home. It was nearly closing time, and the shop was empty except for a couple of young, attractive women sitting next to me, who were chatting with each other as I worked on my laptop.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a group of men walk in. It was David Blaine and a posse of about 4 or 5 other guys. He walks right up to the women, and without hesitation he says, “Hi, my name is David, do you mind if my friends and I show you some magic tricks?” What!? I tried to play it cool, but I was freaking out because I knew he was kind of famous from his Street Magic special. I didn’t see any cameras, though. From what I recalled at the time, one of the guys solved a Rubik’s Cube by throwing it up into the air and David performed a routine where a signed card kept popping up to the top of the deck.

Up until this point no one had acknowledged me. They were directing all the attention toward the pretty girls and I was just kind of hovering nearby. Another guy vanished a torn card corner and for the first time, he looks at me and says, “hey, you...can she check inside your hoodie pocket?” and the woman reaches in, pulls out the torn corner, and shrieks in surprise. The corner had somehow teleported into my hoodie pocket.

But things just got weirder from there. One of the crew asked the girls if they want “to see something that wasn’t really magic but some sort of psychological experiment?” and that it was something about "swapping minds with another person." Only one of them was into it (the other was freaked out at the idea), so the guy nonchalantly asks me if I want to participate. Of course I agree, and he asks me and the woman to sit down in chairs about six feet apart, facing each other. He directs me to close my eyes and imagine I’m walking down a long staircase, descending deep underground. And at the bottom of the stairs is a mirror, and when I look in the mirror I don’t see myself, but the woman who’s sitting across from me. Now, my heart is beating out of my chest at this point, but I feel a light touch on my shoulder. He asks me to open my eyes, and also if I experienced any physical sensation while I had my eyes closed. Before I can even get the words out—“yeah, like...a little tap on my shoulder”—both the women and David’s posse start losing their minds. Everyone quiets down and the performer asks the woman to confirm that "he never went anywhere near me", and that he had only tapped her on the shoulder. She’s visibly shaken but she agrees.

Now we repeat the experiment. This time I keep my eyes open and she shuts hers and then the performer runs the edge of a playing card down the bridge of my nose. After she opens her eyes he asks her the same question he asked me. There’s another huge reaction from the group when she starts to say something about her nose.

And then, as abruptly as they entered, David and his posse head out into the cool NYC night. I go back to my laptop, speechless, and pull my headphones back over my head, but I could hear the women ping-ponging trying to make sense of what had just happened.

A decade of practicing magic later and I’m still not sure. Of course, now I know about Rubik’s cube shells, and double lifts and dual reality and PK touches. But none of it explains the torn card in my hoodie, because I’m positive it couldn’t have been planted beforehand. Or how the guy would have touched the woman’s nose, because I’m sure that he didn’t go close enough to her, even to execute the face-wavy method using IT. Several days afterward, I realized that the only explanation was for everyone to be in on it, including the women. I’ve never had big, exaggerated reactions to magic, and I got that sense that I wasn’t very helpful to them as an unwitting spectator. But whether I’m right or wrong, the “contrecoup” shock of realizing that it might have been “all for me” was the thing that will always stick with me. —NS

Now, I don’t know if Nick was really the only one who wasn’t in on it (I might hear from someone in David’s group who will let me know). I mean, a hoodie pocket is likely the easiest thing to load without someone knowing. And maybe he’s just misremembering about the nose thing. That’s possible. Or maybe he really was the sole target audience.

Either way, this is a good example of how leaving people wondering about the nature of what they just saw can be one of the most compelling and memorable parts of the magic experience. Everyone who sees me perform knows I’m doing a trick. But because my performing style is so casual, I’m able to blur the lines of what elements of the experience are real, and which are not. And that can be the most fun and enduring part of the whole thing.