Hardcore Rationalizing

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I saw my favorite type of hardcore rationalizing on the Magic Cafe recently. It was in a thread for a trick called Overdraft.

It’s a trick with credit cards. They change color and change places among other things. I don’t really have anything to say about the trick because I don’t own it or have any particular thoughts on it. But in the discussion over on the Cafe, they were talking about examinability and we got this post:

“If you are able to build your routine that allows the spectators to handle the props during the routine, there is no need to hand them out for inspection.

I just don't grasp the constant need to hand everything out to be inspected. In my opinion, when constantly handing the props out; allow people to enjoy the magic moments and don't ruin it by offering inspection, they know magic is not real and by handing the items out all the time, IMHO, one is just presenting puzzles.”

I’m not going to call the author out by name (it’s easy enough to figure out if you care). But do I think the writer really believes what he wrote? Hmmm… you know when a woman will say about her abusive husband, “He beats me because he loves me!” I think the person who wrote that post believes it in that way. He wants it to be true. But it’s not.

The first sentence is just objectively inaccurate. “Handling” an object early on in a routine does not negate the power of having the object examined after the magic. Handling ≠ Examination. That’s because people don’t know what to look for if they’re just “handling” an object. If I said, “The cashier gave you a fake $20 back.” You wouldn’t say, “No she didn’t! I handled it!” You’d say, “Hold on, let me get a look at that.”

The other paragraph there is just straight-up nonsense. I don’t think the person who wrote it is dumb. He has just been so thoroughly brainwashed by magic marketers who say things like, “If they want to examine the deck, you need to work on your performance.” If you believe that sort of thing in the least, you are so far away from understanding how real humans think, you have zero chance of truly affecting them with a magic trick.

“[T]hey know magic is not real and by handing the items out all the time, IMHO, one is just presenting puzzles.”

There is not a spectator alive who would have this thought: “When the credit card changed color, it seemed incredibly magical. But then when I got to look at it at the end and see it was really a normal, ungimmicked credit card… then it became just a puzzle to me.” What kind of kicked-in-the-head-by-a-donkey, brandead dipshit would your spectator have to be to think that way?

This idea that people “know magic isn’t real” so you don’t need to go out of your way to present magic in a way that seems real, is insane to me. Why are you bothering to perform the trick with any elements of deception then? Just let them read the instructions.

Certainly you could go overboard with having things examined. You don’t need to force examination down people’s throats. You don’t need to get them to examine things they have no suspicion of. But when the ONLY answer they have in their mind as to what happened is “trick deck,” “trick coin,” “trick credit card,” or whatever, then giving them the chance to examine the object in question is the final step in creating a magical moment for them.

Your Clueless Spectator Stories

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In this post I asked people to write in with their stories of clueless spectators. I got a good number of responses, however not all were what I’m referring to as “clueless.” Some were stories of dumb spectators. That’s something different. I like stories of dumb people too, but they’re not as interesting to me as a clueless spectator. Dumb people may mess up your trick. But they’d mess up their multiplication tables or an Arby’s order too. Fucking up is what they do.

“Clueless” spectators may be dumb. But sometimes they’re reasonably intelligent but just have a blind spot for magic. These are people who seem specifically clueless to even just the concept of what a trick is. They react to tricks in way that are almost impossible to prepare for.

There are certain elements that play into this. They might not have ever seen close-up magic before. They may be somewhat disengaged with the performance, so they’re not really following it like they should. Or they may be so unwilling to be fooled that they twist the experience in their head into one where they know what’s going on, when they really don’t.

I don’t know that there’s too much to be learned from clueless spectators. But it’s helpful to differentiate a clueless reaction from a bad reaction. I’ve had people not respond very well to a given trick, but then I find what sort of thing they like and I can get them really into certain types of magic. But a clueless response is really indicative of someone who will likely never be a particularly good magic audience. If you’re an amateur performer, I wouldn’t waste much time trying to find material that works for the clueless people in your life.

Here are some of your stories…

I was performing the linking finger rings in a show a few months ago. After the rings linked, I walked up to the first spectator to verify that her ring was on the chain and that it was truly linked. Her jaw was on the floor as she confirmed, "Yes, that's definitely my ring!" But her drunk husband said "No, that can't be your ring because yours isn't connected to two other rings." At first I thought he was being sarcastic, but it quickly became clear that he was just clueless. I dryly responded, "Yes, I've been doing magic tricks for the last 20 minutes, that might have something to do with it," and everyone had a good laugh. After the show, I was behind the curtain and I overheard him asking his wife about that trick because he still didn't understand.

Sometimes, a spectator will half-jokingly make a dumb guess ("Oh you must have hidden cameras," or "You guys are all in on it to screw with me"), but its rare that I get a spectator who says something whole-heartedly idiotic like in that story above. —KK

I had one clueless spectator who really stands out to me. She was a co-worker who was very interested when I started learning card magic. Some time later, I had gotten competent with David's Cull, and was using it to do Shuffle-Bored impromptu. So one day I was doing a couple tricks over coffee for a member of our organisation, and this co-worker was at her desk. Since she had was interested in the couple of tricks I showed her weeks prior, I asked if she could helps us with one.

When she came over, I had her shuffle the deck, and then used a Lennart Green type of presentation where I'm going to track the cards through some more shuffling, but this time face up and face down. First, I went through the deck, allegedly to concentrate on the order of the cards so I could track them through the next bit of shuffling. Of course, I was separating my stack for the coming reveal. I "cut" the cards and handed my stack to the guy, and the rest to her. They each shuffled, then the face up and face down bits, etc.

I told them the number of face down cards, number of black, number of clubs, and that all the clubs were even numbers. She pointed out that the three of clubs was in there, so not all even. I just shrugged and said I got close, so it was pretty good. She agreed.

But then the weird part happened. I asked her to look at a pad of paper over on my desk, the last page. As she went over, I said something like, "I did ok. Everything was right except the three of clubs." Naturally the last page had "except the three of clubs" written on it.

She paused a moment and then said, "Oh! So it's the same every time." I asked what she meant and she said it must be that any time you shuffle a deck of cards that way, you get the same result. Like she thought if you genuinely shuffle them (as she did at first), then two people each mix half-ish, then you shuffle the face up and face down bits, you'll automatically get the result we got. —LT

Here is one clueless spectator story that stood out for me from a long time ago. I was at a wedding reception and did a handful of card tricks for a bunch of friends of friends. At one point I did Invisible Palm Aces. After the next trick (be honest what is it), one guy said something along the lines of “you’re just palming the cards”, as if that would explain how two cards had changed in someone’s hands.

My own assessment —having had a lot of other cases over the years — is that many clueless spectator are the result of either a) the spectator wasn’t engaged in the trick to begin with and is basically zoning out or b) they find the experience of not having an answer so frustrating they just toss out any thing they can cling to, and decide that has to be the solution, even if it doesn’t make much sense. —AP

Did a coin bend in the spec's hand. When she opened her hand, her friends freak out. She turns to them and says "What's the big deal? I was squeezing as hard as I could." —AG

The following is a true story that haunts me to this day.

It was my first year in magic. I was 13. I was performing a show for my relatives. After I successfully transformed nickels to dimes (with a cool brass prop that I still use 49 years later), my Aunt Jeannie picked up one of the dimes.

Aunt Jeannie was neither retarded nor brain-damaged. Just dumb as a stump.

I watched in disbelief as she held the dime to her ear and shook it.

I shrieked, "What are you doing, Aunt Jeannie?"

She looked at me with a knowing smirk and said, "I know the nickel is inside the dime. I'm shaking it, trying to hear it rattle."

I was horrified and slack-jawed. I said nothing. I ended the show and beat a hasty retreat.

I couldn't comprehend how she couldn't understand that her satisfying solution was impossible. What the hell was going on inside of her head? —TF

When I wrote back to TF to suggest that clearly the woman was joking, he responded:

Nope.  She was serious and certain that she busted me.  She really was “a block, a stone, a less than senseless thing.”

On another occasion, a bunch of us kids were submerging our squirt guns in a tub of water to fill them.  Jeannie put a balloon in the tub of water and was surprised that it didn’t fill with water!  It works with squirt guns, why not water balloons?

Honest to God.  That’s what makes it so chillingly horrible!  This was in rural Cambridge Ohio.  My relatives and most people there could have been extras in Deliverance. —TF

Didn’t happen to me, but I think it was David Roth who talked about a time he was doing a coins across, and got to the second coin, where he did the standard bit where you release the coin from classic palm to clink on the coin that’s already there. We think of this as the magic moment, but this one spectator looked up like she had caught him out and said “Oh—I heard it.” And for her that was the end. It wasn't magic that the coin travelled, because she heard it. —PM

The Dress-Rehearsal Performance Style

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AFC, writes:

I was wondering what presentation you’d end up with, for the trick: cylinder and coins by John Ramsay.

I was thinking about it, and I found it difficult for these reasons:

It’s magician centric, there’s no participation on the persons part other than watch lol, and the traditional props involved are strange. Leather cylinder, cork, 4 old dollars, a wand. […]

What would you do out of curiosity? Or is this trick just so contradictory to your style it’s dead in the water? —AFC

You’re correct in guessing that I’m not a fan of this trick and wouldn’t really ever perform it. I know Joshua Jay is a big fan and recently released his version. Usually I trust his judgment, but this trick is a snooze. It’s like the Cups and Balls. Something meaningless happens multiple times. Nobody cares. But it’s fun to practice so we inflict it on people.

You know it’s not a good trick just based on the name: Cylinder and Coins. Again, this is like the Cups and Balls or Ring and String where the effect is so bland they’re like, “Hmm… what should I name this trick? Ah, shit. I can’t think of anything. Well, let me just look at the objects that are on the table.” That’s not how you name a trick. That’s just lazy. Crazy Man’s Handcuffs… now that’s a fucking name for a trick!

At any rate, in his email, AFC actually hit on how I would perform this trick if I was going to. I edited that part out because it would have been somewhat anticlimactic if it was in there.

Basically what I would use is…

The Dress Rehearsal Presentation Style

The DRPS puts a layer of pretense between you and what you’re demonstrating and adds a context to what would otherwise be a meaningless exhibition of skill.

Essentially it involves telling the audience that what they’re about to see is a “rehearsal” for a future presentation. It’s similar to the Peek Backstage Style of performance.

You might say, “I’m working on a routine for a magic competition. We all have to do our version of a classic effect called Cylinder and Coins. Would you mind watching a run-thru of it? I want to get a couple reps of it in with someone watching to make sure it flows right.”

You might say, “I’m working on a version of a trick for my uncle’s birthday. He was the first one who showed me this trick 40 years ago—which originally got me into magic. Could you take a look and see if it all flows together well from your perspective?”

Or, “I’m working on a trick for a talent show at work. They’re running a vintage talent show, where everyone has to demonstrate a talent someone might have had 50 or more years ago. Singing old songs. Telling old jokes. Or, in my case, demonstrating a classic magic trick. Could I get your opinion on it?”

The thing about tricks like the Cylinder and Coins or Cups and Balls is that they tend to be impersonal and long. So you want to have a rationale for why you’re taking their time with something so utterly disconnected from them (and from you). Without a rationale, an extended, impersonal effect is going to feel awkward in a social setting. By giving people the context of a “rehearsal,” it frames the effect in a way they can more easily appreciate.

While We Were Out

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Here’s some stuff that came up over the break..

I was out with a friend who had recently received a trick called Light Year. It’s brand new and I was focused on other stuff this past week so it slipped by me and I hadn’t seen it before he showed it to me in person.

It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s these little tiles with holes all over them.

And when the cards are aligned over a light source, the holes form a number the spectator is thinking of.

I thought it was really cool. If you had told me the effect and then put me in a room to figure out exactly how to create the tiles in a way where this would work, I would probably die in that room. My mind just doesn’t work in that manner.

There was another magician-friend out with us as well. He liked the looks of this too. And we watched it performed 5 times and it got nice reactions every time. But interestingly, the reactions weren’t like, “How do these crazy tiles work?” The reactions were more like, “How did he know the number I chose?” Everyone seemed to understand that these tiles could be aligned in different ways to make different numbers. So while the reveal was kind of cool to people, that didn’t seem to come off as the impressive part. The impressive part was how he figured out the number (he used a couple different peeking methods). What interested us as magicians was the less interesting aspect to normal folks.

If you watch the trailer you’ll see the trick gets a sort of descending “whoaaaaaaa” reaction each time it’s performed. That’s a decent mid-range kind of reaction. And that’s what my friend was getting from his performances as well. Because I like the trick, I’m going to try to come up with some presentational angle that will boost those reactions from good to great. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.

Interestingly, the tile reveal got the strongest reaction when my friend had the tiles laying out from the beginning, and didn’t touch them throughout the trick until the reveal. That required him to force the two-digit number.

What does this tell us? I don’t really know. As I said, it was just a few performances total, and only one where the number was forced. So it’s hard to draw any strong conclusions from that. I’ll give it some more thought and borrow my friend’s set and see if I come up with any ideas worth sharing.

Hey Penguin Magic,

The Bestsellers on the right side of the home page haven’t been updating for weeks. Get your shit together.

[Update: Here’s the info from a Penguin insider known only as, “The Emperor.”]

There's a reason the bestsellers on Penguin haven't changed. Our web developer has updated the site so that the right side of the page is all-time best sellers, in no particular order. The left side of the page is what is trending.

It reflects this list:

https://www.penguinmagic.com/top10.php

All of this is helpful for new people that visit the site but the labels have not been updated.

For instance, when you click on See All Best Sellers on the right side of the page it takes you to the expanded top 10 list from the left side of the page.

Also, as I said, the list on the right is in no particular order, yet for some reason, it is numbered. The list on the left is in order, but it is not numbered. Go figure.

I agree, it's a mess and the whole team has made repeated complaints.

Well, folks, there’s your answer. God knows why this has been going on for weeks. It seems like changing the headers on these lists would take about 6 minutes for anyone who took one class of “Intro to HTML for Active Seniors” at the public library. But what do I know.

I got to see our JAMM #2 covergirl, Mallory, in a show called Magic Rocks at the Rochester Fringe Festival last week.

Here’s Mallory replicating Michael Ammar’s totally normal pose…

And here she is with the rest of the Magic Rocks crew.

I don’t think of myself as much of a stage illusion enthusiast. But it’s been so long since I’ve seen this type of show, that I really ended up having a good time, and it was great to see Mallory in action.

Poor Joshua Jay was scandalized after watching the Tom Hanks classic, Big, this past week.

Relax with the caps lock, sweetie. It’s just a movie. Poor, Josh, getting all riled up. Calling the local police precinct. “Pardon me. What are the laws involved with BEING INTIMATE with a 13-year-old who has made a magical wish on a carnival machine and his body has transformed to that of a 30-year-old man?”

I understand the concern. In the movie his mind is still that of a child, but they make it clear his cock and balls are all man.

I get it though, you don’t get involved in magic at a young age like Josh did and not have your antennae up for people trying to take advantage of kids. If Josh had grown up on the rim of Mt. Vesuvius, would I be surprised if he was a little on edge while watching Joe Versus the Volcano? No. That would make perfect sense.

Until October...

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It’s that time where posting ends for this month and I go on to work on the other Jerx-related projects: the October newsletter, the next book, and some testing we’re finishing up.

Thinking about the Hooper trick from Monday, I had an idea of a way to do it with no technology. The structure of the trick allows for this in a way that doesn’t really raise any red flags, even though the method is kind of blatant.

It would essentially look identical to the version described in Monday’s post, but you can toss your Apple Watch in the trash. It’s not needed.

In the no-tech version, instead of peeking the word, you just get it when you ask for it at this point in the routine:

“Okay, let’s try again and hopefully it will work this time.”

I start resetting the props. Dumping out the ashes and grabbing a new slip of paper.

“What word did you end up thinking about before?” I ask.

“Pudding,” she says.

“Hmm… I don’t know,” I start to say, and then catch myself. “Wait… what??”

Then you get the person to watch the video, and as they’re focused on that, you write the word on a card as you stand behind them. Sharpie on a double-blank playing card is essentially silent.

A couple people wrote in to suggest pocket-writing at this point. You could certainly do that. But it’s probably overkill.

Now, I know writing something behind someone’s back while they watch something on your phone is not the height of cleverness. But this is one of those amateur, one-on-one methods that can be surprisingly invisible. Specifically when the structure of the trick is designed to take the focus off of you.

Here’s the thing, if the Mystery Box gimmick you’re using is appropriately fooling, then even having the opportunity to write down what they said won’t really explain how it got in that box in the other room.

What’s something you’re doing that you’re excited about?

This is what I’d like to know. One of the most enjoyable periods of communicating with the readers of this site happened at the beginning of the pandemic when I had a contest that involved people telling me their plans for how they were going to improve themselves during lockdown.

I really liked hearing and seeing about the stuff you all were involved in.

So now I want to know what you’re working on or planning that you’re excited about. You know those people who shit on anyone else’s excitement, and discourage their plans? You probably know someone like that. Maybe you’re married to someone like that. Well, I’m the opposite of that. I love hearing about that sort of stuff.

So if you want, send me an email and let me know about it. It could be magic related or something else. A personal project, a professional project. A new grandkid. A trip. There must be something you’re excited about. If not, that’s a fucking bummer. Let’s work on that.

This isn’t for a contest. It’s just because I’m interested. But know that my return email will probably just be a sentence or two. Only because I don’t have the time to give as thoughtful a response as I’d like when I’m getting a ton of emails. Don’t see it as a lack of interest.

And I won’t be sharing anything about what you write on the site, unless I specifically ask to. And if you’re sharing some magic thing you’re working on, don’t worry, I won’t blab about it. I like the opportunity to keep secrets.

Supporters will get the next issue of Love Letters on the 1st, and I’ll be back here with new posts on Monday the 3rd. Until then, enjoy the last day of summer, the equinox, and these first few days of autumn.

Mailbag: Distracted Artist and Audience Belief

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Finally got around to trying distracted artist style yesterday. Moved a fork with my mind at a strategic moment and it had a huge impact on a stranger. The only issue was they were convinced it wasn’t a trick. I created a kind of elaborate story around it that seems too fantastical to be believed, but I’m pretty sure they took everything at face value. Thoughts? —AG

The “problem” with the Distracted Artist style is that it’s a blank canvas. If I’m telling you I’m moving a fork with the power of my mind, you may believe or disbelieve it. If I tell you I’m moving a fork with trained lice, you’ll probably disbelieve it. If I tell you I’m moving a fork with via channeling the electromagnetic force in my cell phone and aiming it at the fork, you may think, “Is that possible?” Depending on the story I tell, I can dial in your belief somewhat.

With the Distracted Artist style you’re putting it in the audience’s hands as far as how they’re going to interpret the event. Was it something legitimately strange, or was it just some guy doing a trick?

My personal philosophy is this: I’m never trying to genuinely convince someone I have any type of powers or that this is anything other than a trick. But it’s also not up to me to babysit their mind. If they choose to believe something, then whatever. That’s a choice they’re making. This is especially true with the Distracted Artist style.

One thing I’ve maybe never made clear is the issue I have with claiming real “powers.” My primary issue is not that you’re really going to convince people and that that’s somehow going to harm their life in some way. My issue is just that it’s pathetic. “I want people to really believe I have magical powers!” [Or powers of persuasion, or psychic powers, or memory skills, or card-cheating ability, or whatever.] You want people to really believe you have abilities you don’t actually possess? That’s very sad. And it’s poisonous to your psyche.

If you can do entertaining, mystifying magic… that’s enough. You won’t feel the need to try and genuinely convince anyone of “real powers.”

I went off on a tangent there. To get back to your question, AG…

In your situation, if the person was taking it more seriously than I had intended, I would say, “Oh, I was just practicing a magic trick.”

Or go the other direction, “Please promise not to tell anyone. I’m Christ. I’ve returned. I’m moving forks at the moment. But I have bigger plans on the horizon.”

Hooper

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Imagine

It’s Saturday night. My friend Bella has came to my place to have some dinner and watch the 1978 classic, Hooper. (“Classic.”)

After the movie is over, I ask her for her help with something I’m working on.

“Myself and some of my friends who are also interested in magic have a little competition going on. It’s kind of like a tournament where for who can come up with the best trick. You have head-to-head match-ups and the winner gets to go on to the next round. It’s a long-term competition. You have three months for each round. So with 16 of us ‘competing’ it takes about a year to crown a winner. There’s quite a bit of money involved, but really it’s just a way for us to make sure we keep in touch, because we don’t live in the same city anymore. So this is really just an excuse to get together—on Zoom at least—every few months. And then once a year we all meet up to do the ‘finals’ in person.”

I take out my phone and set it up to shoot video and prop it up against a candle on my end table.

“I’m so far behind on my submission for this round. Can you help me film something for it? It will be easy.”

I give her a piece of paper and pen, as well as a lighter and a silver bowl.

She agrees to help, so I start recording on the camera.

Speaking to the camera, I say, “Okay, guys, this is Andy. And this is my entry for Round 2 of the competition. I call it… Smoke Reading.”

I tell Bella that I’m going to walk over to the other side of the room with my back to her and the camera. I’ll stay in frame the whole time, so it’s clear I don’t turn around. I ask her to keep her back to me so that her body blocks anything she’s about to do.

“Before we do this, have I set-up anything with you before we started recording? Did I ask you to do or say anything in particular?”

She says “No,” and I ask her to say it into the camera.

She looks into the camera. “We haven’t set anything up,” she says, and gives it a wink.

“Wait… why’d you wink?” I ask. “Now it looks like we have set something up.”

“Oh, that’s not what I was going for,” she says. “We haven’t set anything up. I was just being cute.” She winks again at the camera.

Fair enough.

I walk to the other side of the room with my back towards everything.

“Bella, I want you to think of a word. Any word in the English language. Something that it would be very unlikely for me to just randomly guess. Do you have something in mind?”

She says she does.

“Great. Write it down on that piece of paper. Show it to those watching. And then fold the paper in half and in quarters. Now I want you to take that lighter, set the paper on fire, and drop it in the bowl. Be careful. Let me know when the paper is mostly burned away and there’s no chance I could read anything on it.”

After a few moments she tells me the paper is mostly burned up.

“Perfect,” I say, and turn towards her. “So even if I came up next to you I wouldn’t be able to see what you wrote down, yes?”

She agrees.

“Okay, I’m actually not even going to get close enough to look at the paper. Instead I’m just going to look at the lines in the smoke.”

I stare from the opposite side of the room into the smoke coming out of the bowl.

After a few moments I say… “Bella… be honest with me… were you thinking of the word… poetry?”

She smiles.

I smile back.

“No,” she says.

“Wait… seriously?” I ask. “It wasn’t poetry?”

She shakes her head. I walk over to her and stop the recording.

“What the hell,” I say softly as I contemplate what went wrong.

“Okay, let’s try again and hopefully it will work this time.”

I start resetting the props. Dumping out the ashes and grabbing a new slip of paper.

“What word did you end up thinking about before?” I ask.

“Pudding,” she says.

“Hmm… I don’t know,” I start to say, and then catch myself. “Wait… what??”

“Pudding?” she says again.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes.”

“What the…,” I pause, trying to understand what just happened. “Did someone tell you to say that or anything?”

“Huh? No. What do you mean?” she asks.

“Are you positive?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know a guy named Woody Sullivan, by any chance?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, “I don’t know him. I don’t know any Woodies.”

“Fuck me. How the hell?…” I mutter.

I snap out of my reverie and pick up my phone.

“Here, check this out,” I say.

I pull up a video on my phone. There is a guy sitting at a table.

“This is Woody Sullivan,” I say. “This is the guy I’m competing against in this round of the competition. He sent me this video like two months ago.”

I play the video.

Woody says:

Hey. Okay, so my submission for the competition is in the box that I sent you. Feel free to open it up and take a look inside. It's not going to seem very magical just yet. But trust me... it will. So hang onto it until the deadline.

Best of luck with whatever you're working on. I look forward to seeing it.

Okay, I guess that's it. Take care.

"Check this out,” I say. I take Bella by the hand to my office area and show her a little plastic box sitting on a shelf. There is something folded up inside the box.

“Woody sent this to me two months ago.”

I open the box and remove the small white card in side. When I unfold it, it says…

Pudding

Bella’s arms reach out in front of her, palms to the sky. “Wait… what?!?!” she says. “Are you fucking serious?”

I shake my head. “I guess he’s going to win this round of the tournament,” I say, dejectedly.

Method

This idea came to me via Madison Hag1er. The underlying idea is to use the camera remote app on the Apple Watch to get a peek at something someone has written or drawn and shown to the camera on your phone. For those who don’t know, the remote app will show on your watch whatever your iPhone camera is looking at.

While this idea has probably been considered in the past, it likely didn’t catch on because “show what you wrote to my camera” is sort of transparent as part of a presentation. At the very least it would come off as suspicious if you didn’t have a fairly solid reason for why you wanted them to show what they wrote to the camera. Here, the reasoning is pretty unassailable, so long as they buy into the story you’re telling them.

But even more important than having a good reason for them showing it to the camera, the most powerful thing going on here is that you’re not taking credit for the impossible thing they’re going to see.

Not taking credit is the most disarming technique in magic, in my opinion. Laymen can conceive of the idea that you spent 100s of hours perfecting sleights. They can understand that there are maybe technologies unknown to them that would permit you to do things that look like miracles. They can imagine psychological techniques or mathematical methods that are beyond their comprehension, but which you could maybe harness to do this impossible.

But one thing they have a hard time grasping is that you'd put the effort into showing them something magical and not take the credit for it. It spins their brain off in a different direction.

That’s the real secret here.

The mechanics of the method are simple. I had the face of the Apple Watch (I never wear the thing) on a bookshelf across the room. And I had a card and a Sharpie in my pocket. As Bella was burning the paper I had far more time than I needed to take out the card, write “pudding” on it, fold it, and put it back in my pocket. I could have done anything at that point. She was setting something on fire—an action which people usually devote most of their attention to.

You could theoretically be in the other room when they show the camera the word, but I didn’t want her to think I was doing something in another room. If there was any question about what I was doing, she had video evidence that I was standing on the other side of the room with my back to her the whole time. From the camera’s perspective, you couldn’t see me doing anything.

I eventually removed “Woody’s” prediction from a Vision Box 2.0. These are mostly sold out at the moment, from what I can tell. But you could use any type of mystery box.

And you don’t have to use the camera remote peek. It you have some other stratagem to get the peek from across the room, you could do something similar. Maybe one of those clipboards that sends you an image of what they write/draw. Or perhaps there is a low-tech way I’m not considering. The nice part about the camera remote peek is how clean it is when paired with this premise/presentation.

Madison is responsible for both of those things as well. He had the general idea to be recording the video as a submission of some sort, and for you to get it wrong and have an outside entity be the thing that successfully completes the trick. Those elements are his. The only thing I added was this specific story.

And this story is doing a lot of work for you. It takes the focus off of you as the performer. It gives a much richer idea of what it’s like in the world of learning and sharing magic with other magicians. And it blows out the experience so it’s not something that just happened in this one 5-minute moment, it’s something that began weeks ago when you were sent this package in the mail.

I’m calling this trick Hooper, not just because it’s the movie I watched with my friend this weekend, but also because I see parallels between the movie and this trick. Hooper is about stuntmen. A stuntman’s job is to add thrills and excitement without taking credit for what they’re doing. They are doing this in service to the story and the audience’s experience. This is the goal of audience-centric magic as well. Not making every trick about you in a desperate attempt to seem special. But rather being a facilitator that creates a thrilling and mystifying experience for others without making it all about themselves.