My Current Repertoire Organization System

A couple years ago I wrote about the system I was using to track and maintain the tricks in my repertoire using a database in Notion.

You can read those posts here and here.

A few months back I started using a new system, which I want to tell you about today.

Why I Changed Systems

While the Notion-based system was very robust and was great for cross referencing material, I was finding myself a little more disconnected from the process of tending to the repertoire of tricks. It was very much like data entry. And I felt myself wanting something that engaged me more in the process.

I was thinking I wanted something more like a paper-based system. Being able to handwrite my notes and easily include sketches and stuff like would make my tracking system feel less like a database, and more like something personal. I don’t think of my repertoire as just a list of tricks. I like to think of it as like a garden I’m tending to: planting seeds, pruning, and harvesting the material.

But a notebook wouldn’t really do the trick because then I’d have to leave blank pages after tricks so I could come back and annotate performances. And I wouldn’t be able to rearrange things or remove things easily.

For those purposes, a 3-ring binder and loose-leaf paper would be ideal because you can insert pages between other pages, tear pages out, rearrange things, etc.

But a 3-ring binder is bulky and ugly. It’s not the sort of thing I’m going to carry around with me. And portability is important because I want the ability to reference my repertoire on the go.

My New System

I ended up going with something that has both what I want from a digital organizational system and a physical paper-based system.

It uses my iPad and the GoodNotes app.

GoodNotes is a digital notebook app. But unlike a physical notebook you can easily add, delete, and reorganize pages.

I have three pdf templates I use within my Repertoire notebook.

The Trick Description Page

On this page is the name of the trick, who created it, where it can be found, and what “genre” the trick is in. (My “genres” are pretty much the same as the tags I describe in this post.)

Then there is an area to describe any set-up for the trick, an area to briefly describe the presentational premise for the trick, and a larger area for notes.

These notes might be more details on the method, drawings, presentational ideas, and so on.

Sometimes all the notes I need won’t fit in this one box. In that case I have…

The Notes Page

This is simply a page with a large empty space for more notes.

So, when I add a new trick to my repertoire, I add the Trick Description page for it to my Repertoire notebook in GoodNotes.

If the notes section isn’t long enough, I can add one or more pages for additional notes.

Then, once I actually start performing the trick for people, I add…

The Performance Notes Page

This is, as you would imagine, a page to keep notes on individual performances of that trick

And that’s pretty much it. Once I have these blank templates imported into my GoodNotes, I can just add in any of these pages wherever I need one. It’s a simple two tap process. So I can go back and add in more general notes pages or performance notes pages for any trick. I can rearrange the pages to keep all the tricks of a certain genre together. That means I can easily flip through and look at all my impromptu card tricks, or iPhone tricks or whatever.

It’s very easy to add any page to the “outline” for the notebook, which essentially creates a table of contents for the book that can be accessed from anywhere in the notebook.

I write in the notebook using the Apple Pencil. This is less efficient than typing. But the handwriting is still searchable.

And while this system is less cross-reference-able and sortable than my previous one, I’m willing to sacrifice those things for what I feel is a stronger connection to the material. I enjoy being able to flip through it like a book, being reminded of tricks that maybe I hadn’t intended to look at, and seeing my handwritten notes and drawings.

This isn’t my real repertoire notebook, but it will give you a sense of what an entry for a trick might look like…

While I do the work in the book on my iPad, it’s also available on my iPhone for reference which is super convenient.

I’m pretty sure GoodNotes is only for Apple, but there are similar note-taking apps for non-Apple tablets.

The only other organizational thing I have going on right now is a basic spreadsheet where I have people I perform for regularly and the tricks I’ve shown them. I don’t include any more information than that in the spreadsheet. If I want to know how the trick went when I performed it for them, I refer to the notes in my Repertoire notebook.

There you have it. I don’t know if this sort of thing will appeal to anyone else, but it may give you a direction to consider. You can find the templates I use linked in the section headings above. However you may want to come up with your own versions that collect different information. Mine was just designed to capture the information I need. Your needs may be more complicated.

I don’t know how long I’ll stick with this system, but it feels right for now. If I change it in the future, I’ll let you know.

Mailbag #73

You-Not-I is so good.

Do you think it’s even necessary to bring it back to the performer at the end? I wonder if you could stick with the ‘you’ and say something like, ‘So if I asked you five minutes ago what word you’d be thinking of right now, would you have any idea at all?’

And then begin the revelation. Probably a small point that makes little difference, but I guess I’ve never really liked that ‘there’s no way I could have known’ line anyway. —HC

I believe the You-Not-I technique benefits from bringing yourself into the equation at the end. I know the implication is already there—the implication that says, “If you didn’t know you would do/think X, then of course I couldn’t have known either”—so you may feel it’s unnecessary to say it yourself. But my feeling is that I can’t be 100% sure everyone will do that same math in their head, so it’s good for me to “close the loop” for them on that idea.

Thais could all come down to a matter of personal preference and how much you want the other person to to have to think. As was obvious by my posts last month on clarifying conditions, I think it feels more real and natural to be as explicit as possible with these things.

If you prefer to be less explicit, then you don’t have to bring yourself into it at the end.

So you can use the technique in an implied way or an explicit way, and a third way as well…

You-Not-I Implied

“I asked you to think of an animal and change your mind a few times. Could you have known what animal you would write down on the business card?”

Here the implication is if they couldn’t have known, then you couldn’t have known.

You-Not-I Explicit

“I asked you to think of an animal and change your mind a few times. Could you have known what animal you would write down on the business card? And if you couldn’t know where your mind would go and what animal you’d think of, then of course I couldn’t either.”

Here’s the third option:

You-Not-I Mid-Range

“I asked you to think of an animal and change your mind a few times. Could you have known what animal you would write down on the business card? Right, and if you couldn’t have known, then of course no one else could either.”

This “Mid-Range” option may be the most appealing. You still finish the thought for them, but you don’t bring it specifically back to yourself. “If even you didn’t know what card you’d go for. Then nobody could have known.” You’re just lumping yourself in with the rest of the world.

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What do you think about Feel Better by Chris Philpott?

I like the idea of the word on the card changing in the image on the spectator’s phone, but I don’t know how I feel about the “pandemic” presentation. Is this something you think you’ll pick up? —JF

I’m kind of torn on this one. I may get this, but if I do I can pretty much assure you I won’t be mentioning the pandemic when I use it. In general I do my best not to base my presentations on something that possibly killed my spectator’s dad four months ago. There’s also absolutely no reason at all to present it in such a way. You can just talk about negative emotions, indicate to them that you don’t want to go into any super traumatic places emotionally, but for them to pick out something unpleasant that they occasionally feel, etc., etc.

I’m perfectly fine with a trick that hits on unpleasant themes, but I would want to guide them so they don’t go too dark. And the fact of the matter is, you just don’t know how someone was affected by the pandemic, so it would be a weird thing to use for a magic trick.

That being said, this seems like a nice structure for a trick:

• they concentrate on a negative emotion they sometimes deal with

• you “read” that emotion from them

• you take their picture holding the card with that emotion written on it

• you conduct some sort of little ritual, or give them some kind of advice to put them in a better headspace when dealing with that emotion

• you reveal the emotion on the card has changed in the picture

I like that quite a bit.

My issue with the 100th Monkey principle (which is used in this effect), when used in close-up, casual situations, is that the words already look somewhat odd when you initially read them. There’s something “off” about the words. So the fact that something strange happens with the word is less impossible seeming. The “font” becomes a little suspect (how could it not). And it’s very natural for someone to ask to see the word again. You can deny that request, of course, but then you’re just kind of confirming their suspicions.

So if I was going to get this—and I might—I would get it knowing that the power of the routine would come from the totality of the experience. I wouldn’t buy it thinking, “And the word is going to change in the picture on their phone and they’re going to have absolutely no clue how that happened!” Some people will have a pretty solid clue. But for them you can play off the finish as an interesting allegorical optical illusion about transforming these emotions by gaining distance or changing our perspective… or something like that.

Dustings #71

The fuck does this mean?

I guess they’re on the vanguard of a new style of mentalism. Propless mentalism with props.

Of course, all these things go in cycles. Propless mentalism with props without props is bound to be coming next.

(Props to MK for directing me to this.)

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If you’re an amateur, now is the time to get back into performing over Zoom or FaceTime. It no longer feels like a sad attempt to replicate an interaction that should be happening in person. It once again feels—to me at least—like a fun way to (occasionally) connect with someone for a spontaneous (seeming) trick.

The best advice I have for amateurs performing over Zoom is in this post.

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How Fat Is My Readership?

Here is the breakdown of the size shirt requested when people have ordered their GLOMM Membership Kit.

• Small - 11%

• Medium - 18%

• Large - 29%

• X-Large - 25%

• XX-Large - 11%

• XXX-Large - 6%

I’m shocked that as many smalls were ordered as XXL. Either magicians are getting fitter since my days going to conventions, or my readership is an outlier.

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Okay, I’m not against people changing their look and getting a bit of a makeover. For instance, I much prefer Dan Harlan’s current hairdo and beard to his former shaved sides, ponytail, flavor-savor look.

But when it comes to the man who took over for Dan as the host of Penguin Live, Erik Tait…

I have to say I don’t really love his new look with the shaved beard. At the very least it’s going to take some getting used to.

Clueless Spectators

Last month I was writing a lot about clarifying the conditions of an effect to make the magic moment hit harder.

One of the emails I got from reader Anthony O. shared a number of examples of some of his spectators missing the point of the effects he was showing them. He felt maybe this was an issue with failing to clarify the conditions. And maybe it was. But these stories seemed to go beyond that.

Here they are in Anthony’s words…

1. I did a full ambitious card routine to these girls including the card to mouth and the part where the bent card jumps to the top. I know for a fact I said things like "your card goes into the middle of the deck" when I was placing it in and "It jumps to the top" when I revealed it on top. Despite this, at the end of the trick, the girl said "That was cool, but I know how you did it. You saw the reflection of the card in the window behind me" and her friend agreed. What I think happened is that as she was picking her card, she realized that I might be able to see the reflection of it in the window behind her, concluded that that's how the trick was going to be done, and then checked out for the entire routine because she thought she had already figured it out. If that was the case, I'm not even sure how you'd counteract this. 

2. I had done the "two card monte" (Eddie Fechter's Be Honest, What Is It?) with the standard patter of "follow the ace of hearts, not the ace of diamonds". I always show the cards as much as possible before the reveal. At the end, I revealed the two jokers and said something like "You see, no matter where you bet, you would have lost". They replied "I'm sorry I think I messed up the trick. This whole time I thought they were two aces, not two jokers". 

3. One time I did Michael Ammar's Tiny Hand for someone and told them I have a Canadian Leprechaun friend who helps me make coins disappear (I say he's Canadian because the coin that came with my hand was a Canadian coin). I did the trick as it grabbed the coin, I said a high pitched "Sorry" in a Canadian accent. When I was done, they said "That was pretty cool but I could see the tiny hand come out and grab the coin."

4. Another time I was doing the invisible deck and my presentation was that I had already put a single card upside down in the deck and asked them to make a card piece by piece (color, suit, then value). After I got to the reveal one guy said "You just had it upside down in the deck the whole time" as an explanation. Then their friend had to explain to them why that didn't make any sense as the solution to the trick but they weren't getting it.

Now, look, I have no idea what is going on in these situations. Anthony might not have been a strong performer at the time (these incidents were 5 or 6 years ago). Maybe he has dumb friends. Maybe there’s something about his presentation that is lacking. I can’t really know without seeing video evidence of it.

But it could just be bad luck. Generally I don’t ever blame the spectator for the lack of a response. I would find a way to make it my fault (which means it’s something I can fix). But sometimes you just get a truly clueless spectator. They might not be stupid, they might just be coming to the interaction with misguided expectations and so they’re just not on the same page with you the whole time.

I don’t really have any advice for this, because I haven’t dealt with it too much. The closest I’ve had recently is spectators who just wholly buy into the premise too much. (I remember doing an ESP matching effect a couple years ago and my friend’s response was really underwhelming. She basically said, “Yeah, you sent me the symbols with your mind and I picked up on them. So what?”)

I love hearing stories about clueless spectators. I find it so fascinating how spectators’ minds can work. And I think there may be something we can learn from them. I just haven’t cracked the code on what that is just yet.

So this post is really just to ask you to send in any stories you’ve had of clueless spectators. For my entertainment, mainly. But if I get some good ones, I’ll share them in the future.

The You-Not-I Technique

Here's a small verbal technique I've been using for a few months now. I feel like it's helping elicit some stronger and cleaner reactions from people when it comes to certain tricks.

Think of the trick in Monday’s post, the Hoy Book Test. 

Now, normally in a trick like that—in order to clearly establish the conditions—I might say something like, 

(Version 1) "And there's no way I could have known what book you would choose, yes? And even if I did, there's no way I could know what page you would randomly choose to stop at, correct?"

I now say something like...

(Version 2) "You didn't know what books were going to be here, correct? So you didn't have any clue what book you would take, yes? And you had no idea what page you'd stop me at as I ran through the pages of the book, right? Of course. And if you couldn't know what you would do, then there's no way I could have known.”

So instead of making statements about myself, I’m making statements about them.

Why I Like This

In Version 1 there is tension, because I'm asking them to agree to something that they can't really know. There's less of a "crispness" to the conditions I'm establishing because they're not things of which they can really be certain. So even if they answer yes—that there's no way I could know what page they'd stop on—it's a very "muddy" yes. There's some doubt there. Could he somehow have known what page I'd stop at?

In Version 2, however, there is a certainty to their responses. Because the questions are about them. If I was asking you if you knew which book you'd pick before you showed up or which page you'd stop at, you would feel 100% comfortable in saying "No. I had no idea."

I then cap that off by making a simple logical statement: If you didn't know what you yourself would do, obviously I couldn't have known.

So we're taking something they're 100% certain about, and attaching it to something that seems to logically follow. "You didn't know which card you were going to end up touching, yes? So, of course, nobody else could know."

That is less debatable to me than saying, "I couldn't know what card you'd touch, yes?"

Not all tricks/presentations will allow for this type of linguistic technique, but in the months that I've been using it, I've found it to be sneakily powerful.

Promotion

“I was surprised to see your name associated with the [recently released peek wallet] The Peak. First because I don’t usually see you hyping a product and second because it’s not very good. Is there a story behind that?” —WO

No, there’s no real story behind it. I don’t hype other people’s products. I don’t even hype my own products.

I was sent a video of the wallet in action and my response was:

“Damn. I'm impressed. That looks pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal. I can't wait to get my hands on one so I can try it out in the real world.”

I stand by that. The wallet does look exactly like what it’s trying to look like. That is something of primary importance to me. And I worded my response to make it clear that I hadn’t actually used the wallet in real life (in case what I said did end up being used in their advertising).

I was sent one, but I’ve been traveling and haven’t gotten a chance to use it. I asked my friend who monitors the PO Box (and who is also a magician) to open it up and play with it this past weekend. His reaction was what I’ve heard from others: American sized business cards don’t really fit in it, and the peek is hard to see unless you’re in the right light. If that’s the case, I probably won’t end up using it. Primarily because I don’t love this style of wallet stylistically, and so it would have to function perfectly as a peek wallet for me to make it the wallet I carry with me everyday.

I will say, I actually like one of the solutions they suggest for the “size” issue, which involves tearing a business card in half. When I perform, I grab a business card from wherever we are and treat it as if it’s scrap paper. So tearing it in half, and having them write on one half while I write on the other, makes perfect sense. Of course, if you’re using your own business cards, tearing them is probably not a good option.

As far as any types of quotes I may give about a product, you can rest assured I’ll never say anything I don’t genuinely mean. And I’ll certainly never say something positive just because I’m promised a free copy. My momma didn’t raise no whore.

And you’ll have no problem discerning when I like a product. I’m not subtle. I literally write pages every month about my favorite releases in the newsletter. You can get the straight dope there.

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I’ve been getting a few more requests than usual from people asking me to mention some release of their on the site. I don’t do that. “Even if I send it to you for free?” Yes, even then.

Now, you still may want to send it to me. And I may like it. And if so there’s a good chance I might write about it in my Love Letters newsletter where I write about stuff I like for the supporters of this site. But if that’s too many “mays” and “mights” for you, then I don’t recommend sending it to me. There are plenty of online magic reviewers who will happily promote any dumb thing they get sent, so long as they get it for free. Seek one of them out.

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I am making a change to one of the ways to obtain free advertising at the Jerx.

It used to be that if you have a book or a multi-effect video release, or something like that, I would promote it on the site if you sent along the second best thing in that release to post on this site. I’ve changed that policy. Now if you’d like me to mention your book or multi-trick release on the site, I’d like you to allow me to post the most average effect from that release. This way people will get a sense of your style and what the book/video is like. And they’ll know that you consider 50% of the things in the release to be better than what you’re sharing with them on this site. The new policy goes into effect as of… now.

The Little Free Library Book Test

Here’s an idea that came in from reader Colin R…

I had an idea the other day while on a walk concerning any kind of book test that requires anything prepared and a way to do it casually. But in a very specific situation: taking your friends on a walk around your neighborhood, assuming your neighborhood contains a Little Free Library.

The idea is simple, you would take the largest books in the "library" and pick one. You create a crib sheet in the back of that book containing a list of all the other books in the library and the word that is on the force page(or the crib could also contain page numbers if you wanted to use different pages to have it be repeatable for whatever reason). 

You take the person on a walk to the Little Free Library, stop and mention how cute/interesting you think they are, and go into the Hoy Book Test by letting the spectator pick a book, free selection. You pretend to search for a moment and then take the crib book. If they pick your crib book, you say that you'll take that one and have them pick another one. 

Obviously there are problems with books being taken out of the library over time, including possibly your crib book. You could check it every couple weeks and update your sheet, and if you get there with a friend and the crib is gone you can just go into the impromptu handling. Or you could have a backup crib on your phone and first say you want to take a picture of the little library for instagram or to send it to your sister because she loves them. 

I love ideas like this.

I’m not someone who needs to acquire more tricks, but I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate tricks into my interactions, and this works perfectly with the ultracasual style that I prefer.

Little Free Libraries are more common than you might think. At least, they’re plentiful around me. If there are some around you, you should be able to find them here: Little Free Library Finder.

Colin originally sent me this idea about two and a half months ago, and I set it up in one of the Little Free Libraries near me. (I guess the word “free” isn’t necessary. All libraries are free, pretty much. If you think you’re in a library, but you’re paying for the books, there’s a good chance you’re in Barnes & Noble.)

Here are some tips I have if you’d like to try this yourself.

1. Get hold of an unfashionable book for your crib book. I picked up the autobiography of Lee Iacocca at a thrift store and used that. It might be a great book, and I know it was a best seller back in 1984. But these days it’s likely going to stick around in one of these libraries for quite some time. You don’t want something too dull/obscure, (e.g., “A Field Guide to Northwest Conifers”) because whoever runs the little library might toss that away as being uninteresting.

2. If you’re going put a crib in a book, you might as well prep it some more. I trim down the force page (or the page before or after the force page, depending on how you riffle it) a millimeter or so. This means I can flip to that page automatically without holding a break and without doing a miscall.

3. You might feel like a weirdo if you’re standing in front of one of these libraries and looking into every book and taking notes about what’s on page 225 or whatever. Or, at least, I felt like a weirdo doing that. So instead I just put my phone on video mode and stuck it in the breast pocket of my shirt. Then I just let that record while I removed each book and flipped to page 225. Later, when I was home, I watched the video and transcribed the first “interesting” word on each page into the crib book.

I stop by the library once a week to take note of any new books in there. I ignore children’s books or anything too thin. Generally there around 15 books total to account for.

In my experience, there doesn’t tend to be a ton of turnover with the books in these libraries, unless, perhaps, you’re in a very high-trafficked area. In which case this pre-set version of the Hoy test might not be feasible.

To reiterate, the handling is this: You ask them to grab any book. “Make it a fairly large one, with a lot of words,” cuts out the kid’s books. If they take the force book, take it from them and say, “And now grab one for yourself too.” If they don’t take the force book, just say, “And I’ll take one too,” and get it yourself.

Flip to the short page to force that page number on your spectator. Allow them to verify the page number.

Send the person 20 feet away. Tell them to open their book to the random page and read the first word on that page. “If it’s a short word— ‘and’ or ‘the’ or something—go to the first longer, more interesting word.”

As you tell them to open their book, open your own. Just to the back page where your crib is. And as you tell them to take al look at the word, you get a look in your crib of what they’re looking at.

You can now read their mind. Or have them whisper the word to their dog and then have the dog send the message to you. Or make a game of “figuring out the word” before you get back home. Or whatever you want to do with that information.

This is a situation where an object in the environment justifies the procedure. If I ask you to look at a word in. book so I can read your mind, that might seem contrived. Why do I need a book involved? That needs to be solved presentationally. But if we’re walking around and stumble on this library, then I don’t need to justify the book, really. The justification is that we’re here at this little library, let’s try something interesting using these books.

This is my kind of thing. I like the option of having this trick available along one of my usual walking routes. And I like “tending” to it and keeping it updated every week or so. That sort of thing is more fun than practicing a bottom deal or something like that for me.

Magic for an evening stroll isn’t a very large subset of magic, but it’s one that I’ve always had an interest in and enjoy performing.