Dustings #72

One of the weird things about doing this site for so many years now is the way certain types of emails will come in waves. There will be a wave of emails suggesting I start a Discord or Facebook page or something. (Nope.) There will be a wave of emails asking me about my Every Day Carry. (I’ll get to that soon. It won’t be satisfying.) There will be a wave of emails asking why I save my best tricks for my books that supporters get, rather than posting them free online. (As if the normal thing people do is giveaway the stuff they’ve worked hardest on for free.) There will be a wave of people asking my a/s/l and if I “wanna cyber.” (14/f/California, and yes I do, you sick fuck.)

Okay, “wave” might be a bit of a grandiose term. But these emails definitely come in cycles.

One subject I’ve been getting more emails about recently is if I’m available for consulting work. The answer, as of now and for the foreseeable future, is “No.” I have an exclusive consulting contract with one client. It’s an annual contract and won’t be up until February of next year. (Although it’s likely to get renewed.)

I wanted to announce that because there was a time where I did offer consulting, but as of now that’s no longer available.

Of course, this only goes for magic and mentalism. If you want to hire me for some other purpose—maybe to build a dock for you, or something—feel free to get in touch.

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More Bad Equivoque

From this trick.

It’s almost shocking how bad people are at using equivoque. You’ve lived on this earth for some time, yes? Have you ever chosen or eliminated something by raising it slightly? Well then that probably shouldn’t be your equivoque script.

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When people say that they’re not a magician, they’re a mentalist, I’m always reminded of this clip from Law & Order.

To clarify my point, I’ve subtly edited that clip.

It’s okay, guys. Come out of the closet. There’s no shame in being what you are. You’re a magician. Yes, you may be drawn towards mentalism. Which is a branch of magic. Own it, you sassy little bitch!

A Theoretical Bifurcated Trick

Here’s a theoretical idea for a trick. I say “theoretical” because it’s not something I’ve ever done. And it’s not something I would guess anyone would find themselves in the circumstances to do. But I find it interesting to think about. And part of my enjoyment in magic is thinking about “interesting” methods and techniques.

The original idea comes from an email from Pete McCabe. I’ll include that email at the bottom of this post.

Here’s what it would look like.

You’re sitting with two friends at a table.

“I’m going to ask you both to do a simple task. You will have no trouble doing your task. And yet you will be doing something incredible. Never in your life will the disparity between what you do and what you accomplish be greater than it will be right now.”

You give your friend Amanda a piece of paper and a pen. You give your friend Bob a deck of cards.

“Amanda, your task is this… I’m going to turn around. While my back is turned, I want you to just try and open your mind for a moment and then write down any word on that piece of paper. Then fold that paper up and put it in your pocket. Okay?”

You turn your back. She writes down a word. And puts it in her pocket.

You turn back around.

“Okay, Bob, your task is this. I want you to deal that deck of cards into two relatively equal piles. You don’t have to deal back and forth. You can deal however you want. Just end up with two piles about the same size at the end.”

Bob does this.

“Easy, right?” you say. “I know that felt like nothing. Writing down a word. Or dealing a deck into two piles. A five-year-old could do these things. But I’m being honest when I tell you that I think you’ve each done something amazing. Let’s see….

“Amanda, when I turned around earlier I was trying to send you a word with my mind. I didn’t know what word to send at first. I didn’t want to do something too simple like ‘house’ or ‘tree.’ But I wanted it to be a significant word in some way. So I chose something that is the building block of life itself. I chose the word… carbon. What did you write down?”

Amanda goes nuts because that’s what she wrote down.

“And Bob… you dealt these cards out completely blind, yes? You didn’t look at any of the faces or anything? And yet, look what you managed to do….”

You reveal that Bob has dealt all the red cards into one pile and all the black cards into another.

Method

Okay, don’t stop reading when you read the initial part of the method, because then you won’t get to the interesting part.

Amanda’s word is written down with any writing implement on any piece of paper and it goes straight into her pocket. You never see it.

But Bob does see what she writes.

And Bob codes you the word via Morse code as he deals the deck into two piles. So one pile is the “dot” pile, the other is the “dash” pile. Between letters he just needs to break his rhythm and pretend to “consider” where to place the next card. Once he’s spelled out the word he can speed up and deal out the rest of the deck.

So the “mind reading” of Amanda is very clean.

But think about the effect on Bob. He thinks he’s just coding you the information. He doesn’t know where his part of this is going. So that will be pretty mind-boggling when he sees—somehow—he dealt the cards into piles of red and black.

Now, the reason why this is more of a theoretical trick is because it depends on someone being willing to learn Morse Code for the sake of doing magic tricks with you. But also that person has to be not versed enough in magic to know about Out of This World. You’re probably not going to stumble across too many people like that. But hey, maybe you’ll run into a total newbie in magic who wants to learn stuff and you can convince them to learn Morse Code and pull this on them.

Here’s Pete’s original email…

I loved JFC’s idea of hot and cold.

Here’s an idea that popped into my head.

You are going to do two different tricks on two different people. One of them is your friend/stooge, the other is the audience.

First you do the trick for your friend, which is Out of This World. The order of their red-black guesses keys you to whatever you need.

Now you do the second trick, using the info your friend coded to you.

The best part is that, in the world of the trick, it’s impossible for their red-black guesses to have been a code because they all turn out to have been correct.

Second best part is that although your spectator helps you with the second trick, they will still be fooled by the OOTW.

Biggest drawback is that now your friend needs to memorize the morse code.

Make This: The Digital Thumb-Writer

This is a repost of something I wrote almost two years ago. It was up for less than a day before I took it down. I took it down because someone expressed a desire to work on this. Since they haven’t yet done anything with the idea, I’m now reposting this so that anyone who wants to take a stab at it can. Apparently it’s much more difficult to do than I imagine it to be. But if someone could figure this out, it could be a very valuable tool for anyone who does app magic.

[Update: I’m now hearing that someone may have cracked the code on this. If so, consider this post a sneak preview of something that may be out in the coming months.]

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Here’s an idea for one of you magic app makers out there. It’s an idea I had years ago and I’m surprised nothing similar has come out yet (as far as I know). So I’m putting it out here so that hopefully one of you will take the idea and run with it.

Essentially it’s an idea for an input method, which you could then attach to many different effects.

For example, let’s say we just met and I say, “I get a good vibe from you. I bet we have the same spirit animal. What’s your spirit animal?”

You tell me you don’t have one.

“Of course you do,” I say, “you just haven’t thought about it. Go ahead, take a guess at what yours is.”

You say it’s a duck.

“Bingo,” I say.

And then I show you my phone and my wallpaper is an image of a duck. “I knew we had that in common.”

Or, I show you a picture I’ve taken of a page in my high-school yearbook, zoomed in on the face of one person.

“This is a photo of my girlfriend my freshman year in high school. I got in trouble for carving her initials into my desk. That’s a very strong memory for me, and they say strong memories are the most easily read by others. So I want you to give it a shot. What do you think her initials were?”

You say, “S.R.”

I draw your attention to my phone and tell you to zoom out on the image. When you do, you see that under the photograph is her name: Stephanie Richmond.

So, as the name of this post implies, the idea would be an input system where the phone’s screen works as a pad that you can thumb-write on with your thumb.

You WOULDN’T write the word (or multi-digit number) across the screen in one go. Let me be clear about that. That would be difficult. Instead, you’d do it letter by letter. So if the person says “duck,” you would write a D in the middle of the screen with your thumb (get some sort of vibration saying the letter was recognized), a U, a C, then a K.

(And in the second example you’d just write S then R and the app would load an appropriate name for the person under the image.)

The phone could either look like it was off (as in the first example) or apparently be on a photo or webpage.

The beauty of this method is how disarming it would be. Most input methods for apps require some level of concentration on the phone at some point, but this would require none. Your hand would just be holding your phone down at your side, while you carry on a conversation. It’s very easy to write, letter-by-letter, with your thumb while maintaining your focus on someone else.

The difficult part would be—I assume—to get the handwriting recognition to work behind the scenes. But one thing that would make this much easier (again, I assume) is that it wouldn’t have to recognize words. It would just have to recognize individual letters. Even just individual capital letters.

Being able to input any word, without breaking concentration, and without looking at your phone would be a game changer in the app game. If any of you decide to give this a shot, let me know.

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.