Dustings #85

/

Pete McCabe, sent along this idea which I like quite a bit…

A student of mine had a “nano beauty spray device” in class. It’s a plastic cylinder maybe 5 inches long. Rechargable. Put water in it and turn it on, and it emits a tiny cloud of fine vapor.

I think this has great potential as an Imp. You can spray it in someone's face very safely (that’s pretty much what it’s made for), before they read someone’s mind. I’ll bet you can put a drop of flavoring that would create an interesting smell. You can mist the deck before covering it with a bowl in your haunted deck routine. Runs hands off, which is a plus.

And it just looks cool.

About ten bucks at amazon.

I would definitely add some sort of essential oil scent to it. The best place for these sorts of things is the Demeter Fragrance Library. They have oils in every scent from Crayon to Graham Cracker to Funeral Home to Puppy’s Breath. You can get a scent that evokes childhood to bring someone back to that time in their life. Or you can just get some exotic scent that supposedly unlocks certain abilities in your spectator.

With the oils in it, I wouldn’t spray them directly in anyone’s face. But you can safely spray them near people to be inhaled.

In The JAMM #6, I had a trick called Faith which involved a spectator removing her ring (ideally a priceless family heirloom), tying that ring to the ribbon at the end of a helium balloon, and then letting the balloon go into the sky. The spectator themselves does all those things. They tie the ring to the ribbon on the balloon and they let the balloon go. They can see their ring go off into the sky. The ring then reappears in a locked box or wherever you’ve set it up to reappear. It’s the same ring. No duplicate rings are used.

It’s one of the strongest tricks you can do. The set-up to do this trick is extensive, so I don’t know how many people have ever actually performed it. I would guess probably about 15 or so, because everyone who does try it, seems to write me afterwards to tell me how it went because it’s such an intense trick for people.

A guy called, The Falcon, wrote in to suggest doing a similar effect using the ISO app and the Serial AR feature. In his words…

Replace the ring with a bill. Tie the bill to the end of the string/ribbon and take the photo with serial ar. Then let the balloon legitimately fly away.

Obvious cons are that you would lose a bill every time and not as impactful as using someone’s cherished ring. But it’s 100% impromptu and the conclusion could be instant and limitless.—The Falcon

Yeah, it’s not going to have the same intensity of convincing someone to let go of a ring they treasure that’s tied to a helium balloon, but it would still be a pretty strong trick and the set-up is super easy. So if you’re willing to lose $20 or whatever as it flies away, this is a much simpler alternative. You could do it with a $1, I guess, but then it’s really low stakes.

This…

Has got to be fake, right? I mean it’s just a reworking of this, right?

@justinflom

The blonde’s reaction tho 😲😯😏

♬ original sound - JustinFlom

I’ve never understood the physics of what this trick/prank is supposed to suggest. I mean, if a seat fell down the pole that was supporting it, that pole wouldn’t suddenly JAM STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASSHOLE, you know? Like, I guess if you had a chronically gaping butthole, and your pants were made of wrapping paper, and you centered your anus directly over the pole, then sat down on the seat with all your weight on the surrounding seat and none of it on the pole, then, in that situation, the pole could penetrate through your brittle pants and disappear into the dark void of your rectum. But that seems unlikely. We, as humans, are just so desperate to see some unintended anal violation that we buy into this, despite the impossibility.

This has been: Andy takes an unneccesarily critical look at something stupid.

Next week: You can’t even really fit big snakes in Pringles cans. And if you did, they wouldn’t jump out like that.

The Great Sex Principle

/

A couple of months ago I got a mailbag question that asked if I was going to perform three tricks for someone, in what order would I perform them. Start with the strongest to grab their attention? End with the strongest? Build in impossibility? Or the “traditionally” recommended structure of starting with your second strongest effect, going to your weakest, and putting your strongest at the end?

After giving it some more thought, I came up with a good rule of thumb for the amateur. Although this is the first time I’ve crystallized the rule in my head, I can look back and see that when I followed this rule in the past, it always worked out well. And I can remember many times in the past when I didn’t follow this rule and it was definitely a mistake.

There are two parts to this.

Part 1: If you’re going to perform multiple effects for someone on the same day, then each successive trick should be more powerful than the one that came before.

That’s not to say every trick you ever do for someone must be stronger than the last, only that tricks that are performed on the same day should build in intensity.

Of course, you never really know how a given trick will be received, but if you’ve been performing for a while, you should have some idea of the relative strength of the tricks in your repertoire.

It probably would help to categorize the tricks you do (at least in your head) in categories along these lines:

Level 1 - Amusing Trifles - Tricks you enjoy performing and get a nice response, but that aren’t really designed to blow people away. Pleasurable oddities or quick visual effects.

Level 2 - Foolers - Tricks that fool people but don’t do much more beyond that. Most decent card tricks will fall into this category. Think “Twisting the Aces” or something like that.

Level 3 - Strong Magic - Tricks that not only fool people but also engage them on some level emotionally via the presentation. Telling someone the playing card they’re thinking of might be a “Fooler,” but telling them the name of a childhood friend they lost touch with would likely elevate the same basic effect (mind reading) to the level of Strong Magic.

Level 4 - Immersive Magic - Your most inexplicable tricks, paired with your strongest presentations, in a way that pulls people into the effect so it feels not just like a demonstration of magic, but a true experience of something “magical” unfolding around them.

Part 1 of the Great Sex Principle suggests that when showing someone more than one trick on the same day, you should always level up. You shouldn’t stay at the same level or go down.

Part 2: If you get a reaction that you would rate a 9 or 10 out of 10, then you shouldn’t perform anymore for that person that day.

You know the types of reactions I’m talking about. The type of reaction where they weren’t just fooled. Or even really fooled. But the type of reaction where they were strongly affected by the trick they just saw.

You never know exactly what trick might cause such a reaction. For example, one night, maybe eight years ago, my friend Gemma was over at my apartment. I had a few ideas for tricks I might show her that night. One of those tricks was something that Real Secrets had released. It was a variation on The Trick That Fooled Einstein where the prediction was written on the fortune from a fortune cookie. If I had categorized that effect in my head beforehand, I would have thought it was a sort of minor effect. A level one “trifle” using the categories from the previous section. It’s a prediction of pocket change. The prediction is anything but straightforward. It’s a little novelty. I wasn’t expecting a huge reaction.

Yet the reaction I got was about a 9 out of 10.

And I should have let that be the only trick I showed her that evening. Even though I knew the other tricks I intended to show her were technically stronger, I should have just let her reaction be the thing that signaled we’d reach the finish line.

Instead, I tried to chase that reaction with more tricks. And while they went over well, they only ended up diluting the impact of that initial magic moment.

The idea behind these two rules is to let the magic experience for your spectator get more and more potent throughout your time together. That’s why you only raise the level of effect as you go on. But also, once you reach that very high “potency” (a 9 or 10-level reaction) you’re done for the day. Let them stew in that for the rest of the night.

Then, the next time you see them, they will have “sobered up” a little from that previous experience. So you can start back in with something of a lower “potency.”

I call this the Great Sex Principle because it mirrors what I’ve learned from really amazing sexual encounters. Generally, you want to build the encounters in intimacy and intensity. But, once you experience a truly transformative moment of connection with that person, you shouldn’t push for more during the same encounter. Instead, give that moment time to reverberate and breathe.

When I was younger, and dumber (and fuller-of-cum’er), I would make the mistake of chasing those types of experiences one after another. If I was with someone and we had a sexual experience that was not just really good, but transcendent in some way, my attitude was always like, “Well, fuck, let’s do that again!” And it was almost always the wrong instinct. We didn’t give ourselves enough time to live in that moment. And trying to re-capture it so soon afterward usually brought us back down from “transcendent” to just “really good” again. And “really good” is, of course, still great. But it’s not that peak level of passion and connection we were at.

And I’m not just talking about some crazy, tantric, simultaneous orgasm shit. You can have earthshaking experiences with just a crazy make-out session, or fooling around in the backseat at a drive-in movie.

Regardless of how you reach that peak, it’s not a great idea to immediately try and match or top it.

Don’t snuff the afterglow.

Instead, enjoy that post-sex (post-trick) hazy electric energy. And let the momentum of that experience build anticipation for the next time together.

Influence: The A-Hole False Binary

/

Sometimes you can undermine being cast in a potentially negative light by leaning into the negative stereotype so much that it becomes silly.

For example, let’s imagine you’re picking up a woman for a date. You drive a nice Mercedes. The car gives off rich-asshole vibes.

She enters the car and says, “Ooh-la-la… a Mercedes. Well, aren’t you special?”

You could deflect that and be like, “I know what it looks like. But no. This car was my uncle’s. He died unexpectedly and left it to me. I feel a little awkward even driving it. It’s not my vibe at all, but it’s a beautiful car.”

That’s fine. But you can also lean into the stereotype.

“Oh, this old thing? This is just my beater I use for running errands. It drives… alright, I guess. But mainly I just need something with the horsepower and engine thrust to drive over these darned homeless people crowding our city street!!”

Something like that will let the other person know you have some self-awareness and probably aren’t the stereotype they might assume you to be.

You can use this technique with magic and mentalism as well.

The danger with mind-reading/influence types of presentations is that you run the risk of someone who wants to be seen as very “powerful” in some way.

So if you embrace that to a silly level, that subtly suggests, “Yes, I know how this looks. And no, I’m not intending you to take this too seriously.”

Here’s a little line you can use to fully take on the megalomaniacal mentalist persona with an influence effect. In this case, the line works better if there is only one subtle influence cue lying around.

So let’s say I have you touch the back of any card in the deck. You get the 10 of Hearts. I open the prediction that has been on the table the whole time, it’s the 10 of Hearts. “My awesome powers have come through again!”

Your friend might laugh at that. Whether they do or not, you just look at them and say, “Do you not believe me? That the incredible power of my mind knew the card you were going to take before you took it? Well… maybe you’re right. Maybe it wasn’t my mind power that allowed me to know this. Maybe it’s just… well… see that card case over here? The one I placed in your line of sight when you were looking at the deck and then freely touching one of the cards? What card is on the back of that box? Perhaps you’re so persuadable that you saw that card in your periphery and it influenced you to touch that card when I gave you the option of any card in the deck. Maybe that’s what happened. Now you’re free to consider your options…

“Is my mind so powerful that I could predict the card that you would freely choose? Or is your mind so feeble, weak, and easily directed that just getting a glimpse of a card in the distance compelled you to pick that card? It’s your choice, I guess.”

Now, this is a somewhat advanced social interaction. You have to be able to deliver this line with such confidence that it’s clear you’re joking. And it’s a line that won’t work if you have been trying to use your magic as a demonstration of power in the past. But if you have a good relationship with the person you’re performing for, and they know you to be a chill person, they'll take the line in the spirit it’s intended and enjoy this false logic “trap” you’ve set for them.

Mr. Danger

/

Back in December I got an email from reader Brandon C. asking what I thought about an idea he had for Tenyo’s Mr. Danger.

If you don’t know the trick, here it is.

Here was Brandon’s idea…

Don't show what's inside. (The plastic man.)

Tell spectators this is a personality exercise. Give them the swords. Whichever area they attack (first) tells something about them. (Works best with group, each sword gets a reasoning....can be altered for solo) Oh, you went for the groin? Interesting. Have someone you'd like to John Bobbit, is it? Or, right for jugular -- pent up murderer are we, yada yada fun.

Then after all of it, reveal inside. The tissue that's been pierced, the solid man untouched. 

Point is, don't we know where we are going right off the bat with the standard routine? Reverse it to have more fun with the perplexing reveal... And, if audiences are one step ahead on their own -- that's okay, I prefer audience superiority over audience boredom.

I thought Brandon’s idea was an interesting one.

I find penetration effects to have an unusual blandness to them. You would think they would be one of the strongest effects you could do because your audience is seeing the actual moment of magic. What I mean is, when you do Ambitious Card, they see you put the card in the middle of the deck and then they see the card on top of the deck. They don’t see the magic, they see the result of the magic. Same with, like, Coins Across or something. You see the coin in one hand, then you see it in the other. Both of these are normal states of being for a coin. It’s just the fact that one state directly follows the other that makes it magical.

With many penetration effects, you’re seeing the moment of impossibility as it happens. But in my experience, they frequently don’t get the best response.

This, I believe, is why many people prefer performing a penetration where the impossibility of the penetration comes as a surprise at the end. Think of the brass block matchbox penetration effect. “I’m pushing a match through this box of matches. But look, it’s not just a box of matches, there’s a brass block inside.”

This type of presentation gives magicians the sort of twist that they appreciate in their effects. But there is a downside to it. And that downside comes from the fact that because your spectator doesn’t know you’re doing something impossible from the get-go, they don’t always pay attention as they should to the match going through the matchbox. Often they think that if they had known what to look for they would have caught you the first time. Maybe you snuck the brass block into the matchbox somehow after the match went through. Well… how else? That must be what happened. There’s almost no reason for them not to think that.

I gave some thought to this issue and offered a couple of solutions in this post (second email in that post). I got a lot of positive feedback from people who incorporated one or both of those ideas. They’re pretty simple and they go towards eliminating the “I must have missed something” answer, without totally eliminating the twist.

Now, what makes Mr. Danger so nice, is that your audience can pretty feely handle the prop and place the little daggers in themselves. And when they open it they’ll see the plastic guy in his compartment and it seems like there’s no way he could have moved from that spot. So that goes a long way towards preventing spectators from thinking you somehow slipped him in there.

But I agree with Brandon that the standard routine (as shown in the demo) is pretty busted. Once they see the little plastic man and you putting him in the case, they know exactly where this is going. And after you’ve put in a couple of the little swords, I’m not sure that more swords becomes any more amazing.

Here are a couple of ways I’ve been enjoying performing Mr. Danger (which is, by far, one of the best Tenyo tricks released in years). Neither of these will turn this little trick into some gigantic miracle (I can’t think of a single penetration effect that could really be described as such). But they’re both ways to allow for the audience not to get too far ahead of the trick, and they both allow for the “twist” ending.

Version 1: I trace the plastic man cut-out on a piece of tissue paper that fits in the frame. I do this before my friend arrives. When I want to perform, I show them the tissue paper with the man on it and place it inside the frame. (They don’t know anything about the plastic guy that is in there as well.) I tell them to take the swords and push them through the holes. Then I have them remove them. They do. “Isn’t that an incredible trick?” I ask. “You penetrated the swords right through the little guy.” They’re like, So what? It was tissue paper. “Oh, sorry. No. I wasn’t talking about that little guy.” I remove the clips holding the prop shut and allow them to open it to see what’s inside.

Version 2: I introduce the prop and the swords to a friend. I tell them I’m going to turn my back and I want them to take any number of the swords they want and put them in any of the holes they like. I turn my back and ask them to tell me when they’re done. When they tell me, I say, “Okay, believe it or not, I made a prediction of exactly how many swords you’d use and where you’d stick them,” I say, and hold up a folded piece of paper. I turn around with a big smile on my face. Then I look at the prop and I’m like, WTF?? “Uhm… okay. I got that wrong.” I open my prediction. It says: Zero Swords. “How the hell?” I start removing the swords. “I thought I had rigged it so you couldn’t put any in.” I pull off the clips and give them the prop to open. I shake my head. “I wasn’t cut out for this. I can’t even make an accurate prediction even when I rig the thing. And look at you! You’re doing magic and penetrating swords through solid plastic without even trying. Hold on… I’m going to think of a number between 1 and 100. What am I thinking of?”

“62?”

“Yes! Goddammit, how are you so good at this stuff?”

Mailbag #88

/

Did you pick up Scribe by Christian Grace yet? I’m wondering if it will be in next year’s Jerx Almanac as your go-to thumbwriter? —SL

I did, in fact, pick this up. I get almost every new secret writing device that I hear about.

No, it won’t replace the thumbwriter I currently use. That’s not to say it isn’t good. But I spent so much time working with a more traditional thumbwriter in order to get things legible, that my muscle memory is now all set up for the standard version. If I was a beginner, or I was recommending a thumbwriter to a beginner, I could see myself leaning towards Scribe. But as it stands I would have to relearn secret-writing with this gimmick, when I have something pretty workable already. I don’t see myself doing that. I’m lazy.

Again, that’s not saying that Scribe isn’t better, but in my hands, it felt clunkier and more awkward than what I have become used to. Like if you learned to ride a bicycle and then someone said, “I’ve got something much better.”

That’s definitely more stable and easier to ride, but if you already put the time into getting good on a normal bicycle, you might only see the downsides of this new version.

There’s a bit of a debate on hypnotism in this thread on the Magic Cafe. It’s a trick where you make it so a spectator can’t lift a sharpie from a table. There’s some debate about the usefulness of hypnosis and the spectator’s experience. What are your thoughts on this sort of thing? Or hypnosis in general?—LL

Every hypnosis thing I’ve looked into or experienced has involved the spectator playing along with the situation in some respect. That’s my understanding of stage hypnosis, clinical hypnosis, and these types of suggestion-based stunts. Perhaps there exists something where that’s not the case. Where the person truly feels they were compelled to do or not to do something and it was entirely beyond their control. But if so, I don’t know what that technique is.

I had a friend in NYC who used to stick people’s hands to the table with “hypnosis.” It seemed like their hands were really stuck and it was against their will. I watched him do this with many people over the course of a couple of years.

Then, one day, a mutual friend of ours who was out with us said to the person whose hand was stuck, “I’ll give you six dollars if you raise your hand.” And they raised their hand. This story got around our friend group and after that point, whenever my friend tried to stick someone’s hand to a table, someone else would say, “I’ll give you six dollars if you lift your hand.” And 100% of the time they lifted their hand. It wasn’t $1000 or some other amount that might be powerful enough to “break the spell.” No. It was just six bucks.

Perhaps some people are more or less conscious to the extent that they’re allowing these things to happen. But, I don’t know that anyone is completely in the dar. And, as someone who prefers to perform one-on-one, I’m not really into these sorts of stunts where the spectator going along with it is such a big part of the “method.”

From time to time, I enjoy practicing DayGame in my country, and I never perform sleight of hand during an approach, only on dates. It appears that you only perform magic when you are alone with the woman. However, if you were to perform a magic trick for a woman whom you approached on the street and wished to establish a connection with her, perhaps by guessing her zodiac sign or some other such nonsense, would you perform a trick? Do you have a particular trick in mind, or would you reserve it exclusively for a date?—DM

It’s not the trick itself that’s going to really matter, it’s the timing. I wouldn’t approach anyone on the street and perform a trick for them. If you’re recording a tv special, that’s one thing. But if this is meant to be a normal human interaction, then it would be way weird (at least in the United States).

If you do anything that’s meant to look “impressive” too early on when meeting someone (a magic trick, bragging about your bank balance, showing them your MENSA membership card) that’s going to come off as low-status and trying too hard.

I don’t think you can “establish a connection” with a magic trick. At least I never have. At least not a genuine connection. You can establish a connection between “audience and magician” but not really between two regular people. Once you know the person, then a good magic trick can further a connection. But not build one out of nothing.

Conversation is the only way I know to establish a connection. In that initial conversation you can plant some seeds about your interest in: magic, psychology, sleight-of-hand, astrology, mind-reading, gambling, or whatever the case may be. If the other person is intrigued, then you can transition into your trick after they demonstrate their interest in seeing something like that.

If someone walked up to you and said, “I’m going to sing you a song.” You’d find that weird. If they started up a conversation with you and at some point mentioned being a singer and you expressed an interest in hearing them sing, then it might be perfectly natural for them sing a few bars. And at that point, sharing that song with you might deepen your connection, but if they had just started with that shit immediately you’d be like

On the occasions where I do show someone I just met something (in a coffee bar or on a train/plane) then it’s very clear that I’m not trying to create a connection with them. I’m just asking for their help or their opinion on something. It’s very, very casual. “Could I get your help with something real quick?” It should feel like the equivalent of asking someone for the time. People usually don’t want to feel singled out by a stranger. So you don’t want it to feel like, “Oh, I want to do this thing especially for you.” Instead, you want it to seem like it could have been anyone and they just happen to be nearby. That takes some of the pressure and weirdness out of the situation. And that moment could then transition into conversation/connection, but only because it didn’t seem that was my intention from the start.

Until May...

/

This is the final post until next month. The next newsletter will be sent to supporters on May 1st and new posts will start that same evening.

Before we go, some follow-up on this week’s posts…

A recent email from JR-

I really loved Ryan Plunkett’s idea for the Instant Rebate effect and I’m planning on trying it out this weekend. Then I read this comment in the Wikitest facebook group…

Is he missing something or am I? You were just talking about hiding the tip in the area where the snacks get deposited right? Or am I misreading something?—JR

He’s confused. First, you can’t use “etc. etc.” after you give one example. That’s not how that works. And you’re correct, JR, you’re not hiding it in the inner workings of the vending machine. You’re just popping it into the area where the food gets deposited. It does take, maybe two seconds at the machine without the person you’re performing for. If that’s not “practical” enough, you can also buy yourself something from the machine first and load it while you remove that item.

I performed this a couple nights ago at an ice-cream parlor/bowling alley place with a friend. I didn’t have a thumbtip on me so I just folded the bill and stashed it in the area where the food drops out. Then I brought my friend over and had the bill reappear in her bag of gross veggie chips.

I just sort of finger-palmed the bill behind the bag and dumped it out with the contents of the bag. It wasn’t as clean as reaching in with the thumbtip would be. But she had video of evidence of me reaching into the machine with empty hands, pulling out the bag that she chose, and dumping out the bill that I had never touched before. There’s still no explanation. So you don’t even need to let a lack of a thumbtip prevent you from trying this.

After yesterday’s post, I’ve already received a few emails asking if we can create the ability to save some presets into the DrawCycle function for the Jerx app. I asked Marc Kerstein about it and he had it updated and approved within hours. You should see that update in the Jerx App soon.

Regarding Closed Circle, Tomas B. writes:

What a delight to read your method to Closed Circle!

It made me think of classic endings to such scenes with a built in silence delay, which I hope means that you don't even have to touch the cup:

After speaking of all the clues you say:

”Which means that the killer iiiiiiissss..."

and you first look over the assisting spectators, then focus on the wrong one, as if you are about to accuse him/her, which is funny since it's a corpse.

"...YOU!" Quickly turn to the only survivor and hit your fist hard on the table to freeze the cycling in the app.

Does that work, or is it the compass direction that needs to change for it to stop?—TB

Unfortunately, no. I don’t think that would reliably stop the cycling of the outs. It could probably be made that sensitive, but then that would prevent using the feature in other ways.

But still, I like the idea of using the “built in silence delay” you talk about, that is inherent in stereotypical detective revelations. As the cycling comes around to the number you need, your pause can be seen as building dramatic tension. “Putting all the clues together, it’s clear the murderer is…[wait for the out you need]. You!” And in that moment you can push the mug out of your way to stop the cycling.

Also in regards to Closed Circle, Leslie T. writes:

Really like the routine.

In the spirit of keeping it self contained…

How about using Quinta to force a murder weapon that people have on their person?

Could be pretty funny if the object is miles away from what people consider a weapon.

The killer bludgeoned their victims to death with a cell phone, stabbed them in the jugular with a house key, or suffocated them with tampons. —LT

I considered something similar and I will probably add it to the outs to see how it goes. I just have to think of where it would fit in the flow of the routine.

But yeah, that’s definitely a good addition to it that would keep it completely anytime-anywhere (as long as you have your phone).

Okay, everyone, see you back here on National Black Barber Barber Shop Appreciation Day for a dope-ass high-top fade and more magic discussion.

Closed Circle - Method

/

Okay, let’s solve the mystery.

The part that I left out in yesterday’s description is that when you write down the prediction, you don’t do it on a piece of paper—because who carries around paper and pen with them all the time?

So you write it on your phone.

Actually, this trick uses the Jerx App. Specifically the Draw Cycle feature of the app.

Draw Cycle is a way to do an index of outs. The phone cycles through the outs and whenever you move the phone in some semi-significant way, the out that’s on the screen freezes.

With one killer and three victims, there are 24 possibilities you need to account for.

“So what am I supposed to do? Just stare at my phone and wait for the out I need to come up?”

Not quite. It’s actually slightly more clever than that.

The characters in the play are the robot, the billionaire, the chef, and the duchess. Let’s call the robot an “automaton.”

Automaton, Billionaire, Chef, Duchess.

A, B, C, D.

A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4

As the characters are killed you will keep track of the order in which they die. And that will give you a three-digit number. So, in yesterday’s example, they died: Duchess, Automaton, Billionaire. So the number we remember is 412.

At the top of each prediction in the Draw Cycle app, there will be a “speed” for the NW wind. You don’t need to read the entire prediction to know which one you need. You just look for the speed that corresponds to the number you remembered. Because I remembered 412, I was looking for 41.2.

The numbers go in order, so if I look at my phone and see a number that begins with 1 (and I’m thinking of 412) then I know I can take my eyes off the phone for a little bit as I have some time to kill. But if it’s a number that starts with a 3, then I know my number is coming up soon and I shouldn’t let my attention stray too much. As soon as the number appears, I just have to slide the mug out of the way and the prediction freezes in place.

Writing the predictions.

You’re going to have to do this yourself. It will take you about half an hour. I considered having them pre-populated, but really it should be in something close to your handwriting (at least your handwriting as written on a phone).

You’ll probably want to get a stylus that works with the iphone, as you’re going to be doing a bit of writing.

Here are the numbers you need to account for.

  • 123

  • 124

  • 132

  • 134

  • 142

  • 143

  • 213

  • 214

  • 231

  • 234

  • 241

  • 243

  • 312

  • 314

  • 321

  • 324

  • 341

  • 342

  • 412

  • 413

  • 421

  • 423

  • 431

  • 432

Bring up the blank page for the first out in the Draw Cycle feature. Your first number is 1,2,3. That tells us the order of who was killed. The number that’s missing (4) tells us who the killer was.

So first you write down the windspeed note - NW → 12.3

Then you write “Almonds” or some other random “clue”

Then you write the killer. The killer, as I said, is whoever is associated with the missing number. In this case, you’d write: “Killer is Duchess!”

Then you’d write the order the people were killed in. This is just the order of the numbers in your wind speed. 123 = “Killed Robot then Billionaire then Chef.”

Remember the Robot is the same as the Automaton

Then you will add a new prediction and write out the prediction for the next number on the list. (NW → 12.4 - Almonds - Chef is the killer! Killed Robot, then Billionaire, then Duchess.)

You will continue this until you have all 24 outs.

“Writing” the Prediction

When it comes time to apparently write your prediction on the phone, you will just appear to write it with your finger. Keep the phone tilted toward you and take some time to write it. The “cycling” of the outs doesn’t start until you touch the screen, so don’t touch the screen until the phone is placed in the position where it will rest during the performance.

You might say, “If you were really going to do this, wouldn’t you just type the note rather than write it with your finger?” I don’t think you need to worry about that. First of all, taking notes on the digital equivalent of a small pad is more in line with the “detective” archetype than typing in the notes on your phone. And secondly, a scribbled prediction is more unique and less susceptible to be messed with (from the spectator’s perspective) than a typed out note.

To make the hand-scribbled note even more “necessary” you could draw a little sketch of some “clue” in the corner of each note.

The only thing that might come off as somewhat suspicious about writing the note on your phone is if there’s actually a pen and paper near at hand. So I just don’t perform this when there is.

Settings and Timing

In the Draw Cycle settings, turn off the Image Change Haptic, and turn off the Confirm Haptic. Because the phone isn’t going to be in your hand, you don’t want these on.

Change the Delay (the time between outs) to whatever you’re comfortable with. Mine is set at 1.5 seconds. But you can go up to 2.

Go with 2 seconds if you’re nervous about it.

Here’s one of the great things about this presentation. You will know which number/out you need the moment you know the third person who was killed (and you’ll be building up the number in your head until that point).

Now, even if you learned the number you needed, and when you look at your phone you realize you just passed it, the most you will have to kill time for is 48 seconds.

That may seem like a lot of time. And it would be for other presentations.

But what happens at the end of a detective story?

That’s right. The detective rambles on about what just happened and how he solved the case. The bullshitting time is baked into the presentation.

I place the phone in a mug or leaned up against something in front of me after I “write” my notes. I want to be able to gaze out as if I’m thinking and staring forward and be able to see the numbers as they pass by, without it looking like I’m staring intently at my phone.

When the number hits, I move the phone or the mug aside as I talk and put it somewhere near the “killer.” What I usually do is pause when I see my number coming up. I stare out as if I’m thinking and processing what just happened, while I’m actually noting the numbers pass. And when the number I need appears, I slide the phone to the person and say, “I’m going to have you read what I wrote in just a second.” And then I go back to recapping what just happened.

When I do this trick, I can easily filibuster long enough to go through two complete cycles at the slowest speed. Although I’ve never had to. But I pretty much always talk much longer than I actually need to.

Anytime, Anywhere

Once you have this set up on your phone, you’re ready to do it at any time in any situation, as long as you have four people who can play the characters.

If you have more than four people, then choose the four most outgoing people to act in this little play and encourage the other people to see if they can identify the murderer when you do (before the murder happens).

I love having such a big, extended effect on me that requires nothing on hand. Since the killer is chosen genuinely randomly, any method you want to use can be used to determine who the killer is. They can draw straws, decide between themselves, or one of the other people watching can choose.

I knew I wanted to do a trick where I talk about being a detective who figures out a crime before it occurred. When I thought about using the Jerx App’s Draw Cycle feature as the method I was pretty happy. But I wasn’t looking forward to writing new predictions for each group I performed it for.

It was a very satisfying stroke of inspiration when I realized that if I had them playing characters, I could write specific seeming predictions that were actually generic. I could name who exactly killed who, but without using real names. This made the trick 1000 times more practical, as you can now get into it with no notice at all. And it adds a whole element of fun to the proceedings as you have the people playing these different characters.

You obviously don’t have to use the same characters and qualities that I use. But you’ll want characters who are easy to act out, and easy for you to associate with the numbers 1-4.

Weapon

I’ve considered adding in a force of a weapon so the prediction can list the murder weapon used as well, but without the need for any more outs.

I decided against it for the time being because I don’t want to add another app to the equation or other props in order to force a weapon. But it’s something I may consider in the future.

There you go. It’s a great little trick and one of the stronger ones I do that requires me to have nothing extra on me. It gets everyone involved in a fun way and the revelation gets a great reaction. It’s sort of got the feel of a “chair test” but one that can be done casually and close-up.