Believe It Or Not I Have Thoughts On the Hot Rod: Part Two

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Here’s my no-spelling version of the Hot Rod force.

Actually… there’s not a simple explanation for how it works. While, in practice, the force is just about as straightforward as possible (it mimics something people do all the time) the description of the force will take some time. There are a few different small ideas working in concert. The biggest of these ideas is that instead of just asking them to name a number between one and six, you’re going to ask them to roll an imaginary die. This small change adds more substance to the selection of the number, and we’re going to exploit that substance in varying ways depending on what number they choose.

There are a few different ways this can go, and you’ll just have to kind of familiarize yourself with the possibilities. I’ll walk you through the different paths.

It starts after you’ve introduced the Hot Rod to them. Now, normally when I say I’ve “introduced my Hot Rod to someone,” that means I’ve pulled out my sweet cock for them to behold. But in this case (and for the rest of this post) I’m only referring to the bejeweled plastic stick.

So, you whip out your juicy, throbbing, rock-hard Hot Rod for your spectator, and you show them how it has six jewels on each side, and then you hold it in your right fist. See last Thursday’s post for more detail on this part of the effect.

Dialogue in bold.
Spectator response in italics.
Discussion in plain text.

Start

Phase One

I’m going to ask you to do something a little unusual. I want you to roll an imaginary dice and let me know what number comes up. (I use dice for the single noun as well, deal with it. That’s what most of my friends say. Maybe my friends are uneducated.)

So, for example…

With my left hand, I roll an imaginary die on the table.

I got a… five.

I say “five” as if I’m just tossing off any random number. Of course, I’m actually saying “five” in order to make it less likely for them to say that number.

This is one of the benefits of the “imaginary die” ploy. If I say, “I want you to name a number between 1 and 6. For example, 5,” that sounds like I think they’re a fucking moron. You don’t need to give an example of a number between 1 and 6. In that scenario, they might not know I’m trying to steer them away from 5, but I believe it will seem “off” on some level.

But rolling an imaginary die is something they’ve never done before. So giving them an example of what I’m asking from them feels more natural.

Go ahead… What did you get?

If they say Three or Four.

Okay. Do you want to start from the left side or the right side?

Again, see last Thursday’s post for how to handle this choice of side.

If they say Two

Okay. We’re going to use that little stick like a game board. Do you want to start on the left end or right end?

I open my hand as per the Either Side Ploy described in last Thursday’s post and place my finger on where they wanted to start.

And you rolled a two, yes?

I now count two MOVES from the starting position.

This is the next benefit of using an imaginary die: it allows us to relate the little stick to a tiny game board. How do board games work? How does Monopoly work? You start on a space, and you roll to see how many moves you’ll make. You don’t just roll a number and have your game piece dangling out in the ether, and then start counting the first space as One. No, you start somewhere, and then count the number of moves the die tells you too.

By placing your finger on the starting stone then confirming the number of moves, this way of counting feels completely natural.

If they say One, Five, or Six

Okay, so you get the idea, yeah?

At the start of phase one, I say, “For example.”

If they roll a 2, 3, or 4, then only my roll of 5 was the “example.”

If they roll a 1, 5, or 6, then this whole first phase has been the “example.”

In which case, I am now going to give them more information, and we’re going to do the dice roll “for real.”

Probably 80+ percent of the time—maybe even 90+ percent—you won’t need the second phase because people will say 2, 3, or 4. But to make this force 100%, you can move on to Phase Two if you need it.

Phase Two

Alright, here’s how it’s going to work. We’re going to use that little stick like a game board. We’re both going to roll our dice, and then we’ll use the numbers that come up to determine which jewel we’ll use going forward.

I’ll roll first.

I got… a… three.

You always get a three.

What did you get?

If they say One.

Okay, so that’s a total of…?

Four.

And do you want to start on the left or right side?

If they say Two

Okay, now you have a few options. You can stick with the number you rolled. Or, if you want to throw me off, you can switch for my number. Which do you want to use?

Okay, and do you want to start on the left side or the right side?

If they say Three

Oh, so you got the same thing as me? Okay. That going to limit your options, but I want you to keep your number, so I’ll roll again. This time I got a…uhm… Four, I guess.

So you have some options here. We can use your number. Or we can use my number. Or we can add our numbers together and count back and forth along the stick.

Okay, final decision, should our starting position be on the left end or the right end?

If they say they want to use their number (3) or your number (4) you know what to do.

If they say, add them together, then you will need to count 7.

To do this, you’ll start at the end furthest away from your force stone and count the number of moves (as we did when we were counting to the number two).

So, if the red stone was the force stone, you’d count.

If they say Four

The same as the last one. You offer them the choice of using your number or their number or adding them together.

If they say Five

Giving us a total of…?

Eight

Okay, final decision. Do you want to start from the left or the right side?

To count Eight, you will count back and forth, starting on the end furthest from the force stone.

If they say Six

Giving us a total of…?

Nine

Okay, final decision. Do you want to start from the left or the right side?

To count Nine, you will count back and forth, starting on the end closest to the force stone.

No matter which number you end up counting, you always point out how if they had rolled a different number it would have led you to a different stone.

And there you have it. No spelling. You always use the number the spectator names (except for when they don’t want you to). And you always name your number first, so it doesn’t seem like you could be controlling anything that way.

You may realize that you could just do Phase Two and leave out Phase One altogether. That may be the better way to go. I haven’t decided yet. I sort of prefer just to have it as a failsafe.

If it reads as complex, it’s really not. There’s certainly more to it than “I’m going to spell your number.” But it’s not that there’s much more process here, there’s just more apparent free choices for the spectator. And that’s never a bad thing in a trick that relies on a force.

Mailbag #99

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[I received an email from a supporter describing his first time performing an all-day effect. The effect had a time-travel presentation and involved driving around to various spots throughout the day and opening a series of numbered envelopes, supposedly sent from his future self. At the end of the email he wrote…]

This is one of my first long immersive tricks I have tried. I have to say, the techniques and misdirection you have in the arc of a [day-long] story is HUGE, it feels like child’s play. It’s amazing. And you have a ton of fun during the day. The hard part must be getting interesting stories to play out.

How often do you do things like this? I can imagine it loses magic if you do it too often. But I can see the strength of it.—JFC

When it comes to a magic trick where they are devoting a significant portion of their day to experience it, that’s the sort of thing I would probably only perform for someone once a year or so. To ask for that much time from someone, you have to be showing them something really special. And if you start rattling off something like that once every few weeks, that suggests that it’s not all that special.

More frequently, I’ll perform tricks that last a long time, but really only a small portion of that time is devoted to the trick itself. So, I may set something up with them in the afternoon, and it only pays off later that night. It may take 6 hours for the trick to come to fruition, but only 10 minutes of their time is focused on the trick itself. I like this structure a lot because you get the benefits of a trick that takes time to unfold, but you’re not demanding they pay attention to a magic trick for hours and hours. These types of tricks I’m fine with performing a few times a year for people.

As far as a “normal” length trick (normal for me is 5-20 minutes), that’s the sort of thing I’ll show someone one a month or so.

I try not to deny people who ask to see something more frequently, but at the same time, it’s hard to give them powerful, distinct memories of each effect if they’re seeing something from you every couple of days.

In order to try and keep the magical encounters feeling rare and special, if someone is asking to see something a little too frequently, I put them off by laying the groundwork for the next trick I’m going to show them. So if they’re like, “Show me something else,” and I think we’re not on a good pace, then I’ll say something like, “Hmm… let me think. There’s nothing else I’ve been playing around with recently but…

  • My friend, who’s a great magician, is sending me something in the mail soon.

  • I’m going to a swap-meet next week that’s devoted to unusual objects. I should be able to pick up something there that might interest you.

  • I’m looking into [some unusual topic] and there’s something I want to try regarding that soon. I should be ready to test it out in another week or so.

  • In a couple of weeks I’m going to this convention where people share arcane knowledge, I bet I’ll learn something there that will be interesting.

You get the idea. I’m setting up something that’s happening in the future, after which, I’ll have something interesting to show them. I’m creating anticipation and setting the stage for something to come.

I saw this updated version of the silver ball routine…

And in trying to approach the presentation in a more jersey way, my first thought was that you could use that old joke about men cumming in socks and how stiff they get to lead into using this cloth to pick up the drink.

But then I was thinking you could use it to move covered drinks around without people knowing. Perhaps something like the poisoner's stand off in the Princess Bride? Any thoughts? —FM

Ha, I don’t know what it means to use this in a “more jersey” way, but I have thoughts on both of your ideas.

I’ll start with your second idea first—using this gimmick to secretly move the glass. I don’t own the gimmick, so I can’t comment directly on it. But knowing the general idea behind these types of gimmicks, I find it unlikely that you could do this quickly and quietly, which is what you’d need to do for this to be effective. So I think it might be off the table.

The problem with your first idea is that it’s trying to be a “funny” premise, but it’s too far away from what actually happens in the effect. Trying to somehow correlate cum stiffened socks with a floating wine glass is too much of a stretch.

A funny premise needs to be directly related to what happens, otherwise it’s detrimental to the effect. It feels like you’re apologizing for this thing you’re showing them by slapping on a tangentially-at-best related premise.

It may feel too earnest to you to just levitate someone’s champagne glass without coming up with a “bit” to attach to it, but any comedy in that situation will likely take away from the effect. If you were really showing them something genuinely interesting, would you need to force a joke onto it? Probably not.

That’s not to say I never do “jokey” material, but I try to only do so when the humor is engrained in the effect and not laid on top of the effect.

Dustings #95

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Thanks to those of you who wrote in complimenting the new book cover. I didn’t respond individually, but that’s only because I really, had nothing to do it with it other than coming up with the idea, so I feel weird taking any credit for it.

But regardless, here’s a blanket …

Most magic book covers look like they took 40 seconds of thought and even less time in execution. So I take pride in the fact that people have asked me to release some of my covers as limited edition prints

Or that they’d wear them on a t-shirt.

All credit goes to my immensely talented collaborator, Stasia Burrington.

Here’s an early draft of the final image for book 6.

Never has there been so much Hot Rod talk in my email. A few people asked me which type I recommend. I’m not a Hot Rod expert, by any means, thank god. But I recommend the clear plastic ones with one side that’s flatter than the other. I find this easier to do the paddle move with.

Don’t get the opaque ones. They weaken the effect. You want people to be able to see through them and realize there’s nothing inside. I think this is a listing for the type I’m talking about, but they don’t really show a picture of the clear version, so I’m not 100% sure.

I pretty much dislike everyone in this story.

I don’t like the hacky magician who was absolutely dumb for performing this at a college orientation. With enough charm, and the right relationship with your spectators, you can pull off some good-natured smutty magic. But not with 5 random female volunteers.

I don’t love the reaction of the student body. “I am disappointed, frustrated, and ashamed to be a University of Ottawa student,” one said. The student union said his act, “played into harmful dynamics of sexualization of women, sexual violence and the perpetuation of rape culture.” Unless they are leaving out something incredibly significant from the story, these reactions seem a little over-the-top. It sounds like he did a presentation that involved guessing the color of their underwear, likely with some inappropriate jokes. I understand that may have come off creepy or uncomfortable, but associating this with “sexual violence and rape culture” feels ghoulish to me and a little absurd. “Oh, you were violently raped? I know how you feel. A magician once guessed the color of my underwear.”

I’m not trying to downplay the event. I just think we can say things are shitty, lame, inappropriate or whatever, without piggybacking on the emotional trauma of the worst thing that ever happened to someone.

And it’s wildly disempowering, too. This could have been a teaching moment. If you really think a performer is being inappropriate, boo him off the stage. Or at least walk out. If you’re a volunteer and feel offended by a performer (and to be fair, it doesn’t seem like anyone complaining was one of the volunteers) tell him to fuck-off. If a magician tells you he wants to guess the color of your underwear, grab the mic and say, “Me first. My powers are telling me your underwear has a yellowish hue with brown streaks.”

And finally, I dislike this magician’s friends and other people who have seen his show and haven’t tried hard enough to convince him this bit doesn’t go over well. And why hasn’t anyone told him that hat looks terrible on him? It’s not a hat for a fat-headed man.

I once said the Magic Café reminded me of a mall that had once been popular but was now mostly empty and dilapidated, with just a handful of weird stores, few customers, maybe an empty fountain, and some old signage.

I was reminded of that today when I scrolled the Magic Cafe and saw this…

Genii magazine’s 80th anniversary was in 2017. We’re just a few years from its 90th anniversary.

Believe It Or Not I Have Thoughts On the Hot Rod: Part One

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The first trick I ever saw at a magic shop when I was a kid was the hot rod. The owner showed me a little plastic stick with 6 different colored jewels on each side and he asked me to name a number between 1 and 6.

I thought a while. What should I say? I bet everyone just says one. Because it’s the first number. So obvious. Or maybe six because it’s the last thing he said. I’ll really mess him up and go for something he’d never expect.

“Three,” I said, and gave him a “bet you’re fucked now” devilish grin.

“Okay, three,” he said and counted to the third gem, a red-ish thing. “So we’ll use the ruby.” Even my barely-pubescent brain knew there was no chance that was a “ruby.”

He gave the stick a jolt and all the gems on both friggin’ sides turned to the stone I selected!

The Hot Rod is a joke of a trick, with the worst force in the history of magic. “What number did you choose? Six? Okay, so we spell S-I-X.” There are certain times you can maybe get away with spelling instead of counting, but not when you’ve asked for a number from 1-6, and you have a row of six objects.

But I’ve always had a soft spot for the trick. Maybe because it was the first one I saw at a magic shop. Maybe because it was the first trick I saw in real life that wasn’t a card trick or a coin trick.

I recently picked a Hot Rod back up for the first time in 20 years and started playing around with it.

Now, I’m not going to say it’s a good trick. Because it’s not. But there’s something fun about it, and it’s kind of “pretty,” even if it’s just cheap plastic jewels. It’s pretty in a way most close-up tricks aren’t. It’s great for kids. And not bad for adults that like a little visual treat. And it’s fun to mess around with.

I don’t really have anything to add to this presentationally. I don’t yet have a rationale for this resin stick with jewels on it. But I have come up with some ideas that have made this a much greater fooler for the people I’ve shown it to. And I’m going to share three of those ideas with you on the site. Two today and one next week.

Intro

Typically, people will introduce the Hot Rod by saying something like, “This little plastic rod has six colored jewels on this side. And six on the other side as well.”

There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s pretty straightforward. But I believe you can cement the condition of the “rod” in their head better by saying this.

“This plastic stick has six colored jewels on this side: purple, green, blue, red, white, and yellow. And they’re in the same order on the other side: purple, green, blue, red, white, and yellow.”

Here’s why I think this works well. Often when people watch a magician, they are more than ready to disbelieve whatever the magician says.

If I say, “This stick has different colored jewels on each side.” Then their inclination is to disbelieve that.

So instead, I’m saying, “The jewels on this side are in the same order as the jewels on the other side.” Now, whether they believe that or don’t believe that, they’re still reinforcing in their head that there are different colored jewels on each side. The suspicious ones are thinking, “Ah, I bet they’re in a different order.” Because that’s what I dangled in front of them. But that won’t get them any closer to figuring out the trick. In fact, considering the order they’re in only fools them more.

This is a technique I’ve been considering in other effects as well. One where I use their own suspicion to cement in a condition I want them to believe. In this instance, the condition that there are different colored jewels on each side.

Choices - The Either Side Ploy

If you do what I do and leave them with the Hot Rod at the end to look at (or even keep, in rare circumstances) then you have to do it where you transform it from different jewels on each side, to all the same jewel on each side. And then you “pause the transformation” halfway, so it’s different jewels on one side and all the same on the other, and then hand it out.

This is good because you’ve supposedly “magically” put it in a state that just so happens to be examinable. But if they hold onto it too long, or think about it too much, it’s not difficult to conceive that maybe you showed them the same side twice. In that case, the power of the routine can only rely on how free and fair their selection seemed. It’s one thing if you showed them the same side twice, but since it still ended up the color they chose, that’s still a decent mystery.

As in all the forces I look at, my goal is to slow things down and give them a greater sense of choice.

So while a number is being determined, I put the hot rod in my fist like this. (Assume the spectator is opposite me.)

Then I explain that we’re going to count along to the number they chose, and whatever stone is there will be the one we use.

Before we do, I give them a final choice. “Do you want to start counting from the left side or the right side?” And I make it clear so they don’t think I’m trying to be sneaky. “From your left or your right, I mean.”

For the sake of explanation, let’s assume they chose the number three and the force stone is the blue stone and the hot rod is in my hand like so (blue stone third from the left)…

If they say they want to start counting from the left side, I do the most natural thing in the world and open my hand so we can count the stones. The blue stone is now third from their left.

If they say they want to start counting from the right side, I point to the thumb side of my fist, to confirm we’re talking about their right, and then I pull out the Hot Rod revealing stone by stone and showing that the third from their right is the blue stone.

Both of these actions come off as 100% innocent and don’t require you to do anything shady. It’s just that one final moment of free choice before the ending. And you can make that clear, “If we had counted from the left instead, we would have ended up on _____.”

Yeah, but Andy, why bother polishing this turd? As you said, it has the worst force in the history of magic. Who cares about giving them the choice of which side to start from if you still have to spell to four out of the six numbers?

Oh, sweet child, don’t worry. I fixed the force. Free choice of 1-6, no spelling, and nothing required other than a standard Hot Rod.

I’ll write that up in next Tuesday’s post. (If you want to email me with a guess at how this might be accomplished, I’d be interested in hearing your ideas.)

I Can No Longer Keep My Blinds Drawn

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From: thejerx
To: stasiab
Subject: Cover

Hey Stasia,

Do you think you'd have time to do a cover painting/illustration or whatever for the next book over the next couple of weeks?

I know it's last minute, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do with the cover until a little bit ago. 

Let me know! Hope all is well. 

From: stasiab
To: thejerx

Hey Andy,

I would love to do the cover for you! And I do have availability the next couple of weeks, so let me know what you’re thinking! 

From: thejerx
To: stasiab

okay, the front and back cover are going to be one image. It's going to be, more or less, this image of Joni Mitchell and David Crosby

With these changes:

1. Crosby's hat should be a magician's top hat

2. He should be rolling a coin on his left knuckles

3. Joni isn't playing the guitar. She's concentrating on doing something with a deck of cards.

4. There should be a bunny in the grass near Joni.

As for what she's doing with the deck of cards, I don't really care. Something that looks magical. She can be holding a deck in one hand with a card or cards floating above it, or whatever.

The rabbit can be sleeping, or sitting and looking up at Joni, whatever you feel like drawing.

I've attached the template for the book cover. In general the guy will be on the front cover and the woman on the back. You'll probably have to add some "padding" around the image or crop it in some way to make it fit the dimension of the cover. Whatever you need to do there is fine.

Stylistically I'd like something on the realistic end of the spectrum. Not necessarily "photo realism" but realistic human features and proportions and stuff like that. Beyond that, whatever style, technique, medium you want to use is up to you.

Let me know if that makes sense or if you have any questions. 

Thanks!

From: stasiab
To: thejerx

Cool, I think you’ve covered all the bases I need to start. I’ll let you know if I have any questions pop up. What’s your deadline for this?

Thank you Andy!

From: thejerx
To: stasiab

Ideally, in the first few days of July.

Also, if you have a recommendation for what endsheet color would complement the cover, let me know. Thanks.

From: stasiab
To: thejerx

Andy,

Here’s progress on the cover! I will continue working on this, and when I get to the color stage I will consider complimentary end sheet colors! Thoughts so far? I’m really enjoying this and will keep you updated.

Stasia

From: thejerx
To: stasiab

I'm loving it! So good.

From: stasiab
To: thejerx

Hey Andy,

I’m happy to announce the new masterpiece that is your cover is done! I’ve uploaded it to the folder, along with the elephant illustration.

For endpaper color, I recommend both the saffron and the turquoise, both would be great. Do let me know what you think!!!

From: thejerx
To: stasiab

It’s beautiful!!

The hardcover proof of the next book is here. For supporters at the Rich Uncle Millionaire-level, the book ships in October. More details on that will be in your email at the end of this month to make sure I have the correct shipping info for you.

The next book’s subtitle is taken from the final essay in the book: Young Girls Are Coming To the Canyon. This essay looks at the fundamental ways of making magic a more communal experience (as opposed to a magician-centric one) and relates it to the Laurel Canyon music scene from the late-60s, early 70s.

If you want to do your homework before you get the book, you can watch this video. This is the soundtrack and inspiration for the final essay in the book.

(And to save anyone from having to write an email, no, there will be no extra copies of the book available.)

Spex Mix: Anchoring Deck Switches

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Spex Mix is a series devoted to the most disarming thing you can do with a deck of cards: have the spectator shuffle them. Search the sidebar for “Spex” for the other posts in this series.

This is one of the most powerful techniques I’ve ever stumbled upon. I first used this while creating my story deck trick, which ended up in The Jerx, Volume 1. As far as I know, I haven’t seen this idea mentioned before—certainly not as a general concept with broad applications—but those of you who are more well-read than I am might be able to direct me to a precedent.

Anchoring Deck Switches

This technique reduces the suspicion that maybe you switched decks during a trick to almost zero, in my experience. That’s with laypeople, of course. But I’ve even fooled knowledgeable magicians with tricks that should have obviously screamed deck switch to them.

Here’s an example of the technique in action…

Anchored Out Of This World

I give you a deck of cards to shuffle in any way you like. When you’re done, I have you remove the Aces and mix them face down, and then try and separate them into reds and blacks.

If you don’t separate them properly, that just proves how hard it is with four cards.

If you do, I point out that could just be luck.

The aces are tossed back into the deck, and I ask you to try it now with the full deck. And somehow you impossibly are able to separate the deck into red cards and black cards.

How?

A deck switch.

When?

The deck was switched after you removed the aces, for a deck that already had the aces removed.

As the spectator, you, of course, remember shuffling the deck and then spreading through it to remove the aces. Those aces then got put back into the deck later on.

This is the idea behind “anchored” deck switches.

A card (or cards) are removed from a genuinely shuffled deck. The deck is then switched for a stacked deck that is missing those cards. Usually (although it’s not necessary) those cards are placed back into your stacked deck, and you go on with the trick. These few cards, which never leave their sight, help “anchor” the mixed-state of the deck, even though the deck has been switched.

This becomes even more deceptive if the cards that are removed seem random.

For example—keeping with the OOTW theme…

Have two decks. Remove the 4 of Hearts, 6 of Hearts, and Ace of Clubs from each.

Separate one deck into red/black and have it in a position to be switched in.

In performance, the other deck is shuffled while you hold out the three cards. They are palmed in and the deck is cut into three piles using a variation on a Spectator Cuts the Aces procedure. The top card of each pile is slid off.

“We’ll look at the cards you cut to and see if there is a preponderance of red cards or black cards in order to see which color you’re more naturally attuned to find.”

As the focus is on those three cards, the deck is switched.

In this case, where random cards have been removed, I often find it better to keep them out of the deck. That way, if the spectator does suspect a switch, they have this visual reminder of the deck they shuffled and cut three random cards out of. And those three “random” cards are not duplicated in this remaining 49 card deck, so how could a switch have occurred? There are too many interconnected layers of deception here for people to unravel.

That’s why I think this is so powerful. A deck switch, by itself, is a pretty “dumb” method. It’s a method a non-magician could easily conceive. Anchoring the switch adds some more layers to it. Especially when your “anchoring” procedure involves things like palming out and a seemingly fair cutting sequence which forces “random” cards. The non-magician doesn’t stand a chance at untangling that.

Not only that, but the anchoring procedure provides the necessary misdirection for the deck switch. At the point in time of the switch, the locus of their suspicion and interest is on the cards which are never switched.

Here’s another example. Let’s say you wanted to perform Sam the Bellhop (because you like shit). The deck would be shuffled by the spectator and spread toward them to see if they were satisfied it was well mixed. Meanwhile, you cull a known force card (missing from your stacked deck) into position to be forced. The card is forced and while the spectator takes a look at it, you do the switch for your stacked deck. You try to read their mind of the card. Maybe you even get it wrong. “What was it? The 4 of Spades? Damn.” You take the card back and casually toss it into the middle of the deck. (Made possible because the card below the 4’s position in the stack is a corner short card, which you can cut to easily.)

“My mindreading abilities have taken such a hit recently. I’ve been spending a stupid amount of time working on this thing called StoryShuffling where you try and make a story from a shuffled deck.”

That’s bound to get a “Huh?” From which you can transition into Sam the Bellhop.

You don’t have to get that first card wrong. I just think the acknowledgement of your failure could make a good transitional moment into Sam the Bellhop, as you admit you’ve been working on this other stupid skill.

Okay, to wrap it up…from my experience, when it comes to anchoring deck switches:

  1. The more cards that cross over from one deck to the other, the stronger the anchoring is.

  2. If you named the cards to be removed, e.g. “Give me the four aces,” then you’ll want to place them back into the other deck before moving on. The physical action of those cards coming out of a deck and then going back in one, suggest it’s the same deck.

  3. If the cards involved appear to be random selections, then they can either go back in the deck before the “real” trick starts, or they can be pushed off to the side where they will serve as a subconscious reminder of the “random cards removed from this deck after it was mixed.”

Mailbag #98

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There’s a rumor that I normally wouldn’t believe but I heard from two reputable people who don’t know each other that you wrote part or all of Derren Brown’s new book.

I’ve read it and I can definitely see your influence at the very least. There are ideas in there that are more similar to your books than anything Derren has written in the past but there’s a lot he must have written himself as well.

It’s also interesting that you took a longer break between your books that just happened to coincide with the release of his book.

Were you involved? Or was the reveal five years ago [See here] the real deal?—CT

Who me?!?!?!?

The secret author of Derren Brown’s new book?????

That’s totally ridiculous.

That I, a simple magic blogger, could ever write anything so wonderful is utterly absurd!!

Seriously though… no.

I didn’t have anything to do with Derren’s book. If it sounds anything like what I’ve written, it may be because he read my books a couple of years back, and those ideas were floating around in his head. He once told me that before he read my books, he had read only one magic book in the previous 20 years. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there were parts of my philosophy that resonated with him and permeated into his work, given that he isn’t someone who is consuming a ton of other outside magic content.

But other than that, no, I didn’t have anything to do with the book.

You’re going to be getting a lot of emails asking about Weber and Pictionary, although you might already know that….

Weber’s debuting a booklet with new work on Pictionary and a couple new cards to go with it at Magic Live.

Max Temkin wrote the foreword where he describes TheJerx.com as being Weber’s blog citing his distinctive performance style. —MC

Who me?!?!?!?

Secretly Michael Weber—the newguy himself?????

That’s totally ridiculous.

That I, a simple magic blogger, would ever be compared to someone who is described as a “living legend” by no less an authority than Vanishing Inc., is utterly absurd.

Seriously though… no.

I’m not Michael Weber. I know we have similar philosophies in some regards, but I’m not him. I’ve never even met him.

It’s not crazy to me that someone might suggest it, but if there’s one person that should know I’m not Michael Weber, it’s Michael himself. So I’m surprised he would print that. Especially without running it by me.

But he may be so much on my wavelength that he knows I couldn’t possibly give less of a shit about it. Anyone who wants can claim to write this site, as far as I’m concerned.

But if you care about the reality of the situation, no, I’m not Michael Weber.

Did you get Enigma yet? It’s been a fooler for me but the reactions have been just “okay.” And ideas yet to squeeze a little more juice from this? —MC

Who me?!?!?!?

Oh wait… that structure doesn’t work for this question.

I got to play around with Enigma this week. It’s pretty cool. My initial introduction to it was a bit inauspicious. I was working my way through it with a friend who has had it for a while and while he was demonstrating one of the inputs, it gave him no results. That is to say, we coded the information to the app, and it gave us no results, but there definitely should have been results. We went back and forth doing the same input a few times, sometimes it would give us a bunch of options. Sometimes it would say there were no results. Normally, I would assume we were the ones screwing up, but it tells you what you have inputted, so it was clear that we hadn’t. So it seemed a bit flaky originally, but I haven’t heard of anyone else having this issue. So maybe it was just a weird quirk.

Then we went to the drive-in movie theater (an surprisingly good place to find social, friendly people with a little time to kill) and between features he performed it for a girl sitting in the back of a truck that was parked next to us. He nailed her word and she seemed pretty impressed. When this girl’s sister got back from the concession stand, she asked him to do it for her. So my friend started performing it for the sister and the first girl said, “Is it spoon?” She made a lucky/educated guess just based on watching along and decoding the information, and maybe some sisterly-intution. So it was kind of a weird performance overall and I think after that they sort of looked at it as a game he was good at rather than “mindreading” because they started thinking up words and going through the Enigma process back and forth with each other to see if they could guess each other’s words before the next movie started.

Since then, I’ve performed it a couple of times to good reactions. I like it a lot, but I’m still missing something that will push it to the next level for me presentationally.

And I don’t love that the information you openly collect from the spectator is also the information that is used to determine their word. I wish there was a bit more of a disconnect there. Somehow.

I got an email from someone saying it actually didn’t diminish the effect that people inform you the length of the word and where vowels are and so on. But that’s a hard argument to make, given that Christian uses dual reality to hide that he’s getting this information from the participant. If it didn’t weaken the effect somewhat, you wouldn’t bother with that. (On top of that, it just doesn’t make sense to use dual reality when performing socially. The next person will say, “Try with me!” and realize what’s going on.)

I’m trying to conceive of other techniques to use that might hide that they’re giving away information, even to the primary participant (since I prefer to perform one-on-one). If any of those pan out, I promise I’ll let you know. And that’s a promise you can take to the bank, or my name isn’t Derren Weber.