Dustings #97

/

When it comes to the suit order for a stacked deck, a lot of magicians stick to the CHaSeD order—Clubs Hearts Spades Diamonds.

Some magicians go for the SHoCkeD order instead.

Those are both fine, but a little dull.

I would like to formally declare the suit order used by The Jerx and all subsidiary properties for stack work going forward is going to be CHoDeS.

Ollie Mealing has started a new free magic membership group.

You can sign up for it here.

Ollie’s material is always worth checking out.

He also has another project devoted to magician foolers which you can learn about here.

I guarantee more time has been spent these past few weeks debating about card indexes online than actually using a card index to entertain people with magic.

Sometimes the internet magic community is so fucking corny.

My Application for the Psychic Entertainers Association

/

I received this email recently from Joe Diamond…

I loved your recent essays on the Haunted Key. I agree, it needs to be a spooky moment BEFORE moving on to something else.

That’s how I felt when I created this routine: 

It’s also why I felt it was fair game to teach online. The key is in Martin Gardner’s Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic, and OTL is so old it goes back to slate writing in seances.

Well, within 3 days of being accepted into the “Psychic Entertainers Association” I was kicked out for making that video BEFORE I became a member… (they eventually let me back in and I eventually quit due to similar ridiculousness)

What was more baffling to me is how many of these crusty old men actually thought that some people in their audience would/could believe the Haunted Key is genuine PROOF of spirit contact, and my video could make their audiences hip to their con.

I’ll admit that I do feel like I get stronger reactions than the effect should normally get, but I also know I have a better handling of the effect than 99% of other magicians.

Especially with the drawing changing, it’s two things that add up something greater than the sum of its parts. And it’s been a worker for me, I’ve even done it over radio, and it sold over $2K worth of tickets from that single appearance (details in my Penguin Lecture).

But I’m STILL not going to be like these PEA weirdos who think that my audiences see it as anything OTHER than a spooky visual, as you said. I see it as a pendulum. Yes, it’s AMAZING when it moves in other people’s hands, but everyone has a feeling of what’s happening.

So yeah, it just went to show me how much I did NOT want to be in PEA…

—Joe

I do think that’s a better version of the Haunted Key. Having them hold the hand is a nice touch. I don’t think it eliminates the obvious solution, but it gives them a little more to consider at least. And Joe does a better job than most of making it look like the key is moving against gravity.

I’m not surprised the Haunted Key works well over the radio. In fact, the less you actually see the effect, the more impressive it sounds. Hearing, “The key moved in his hand without him touching it!” is much more impressive in the imagination than in reality. Just like hearing, “There’s a woman with really large breasts in the radio studio,” might conjure up images of this

Rather than this…

Now, I suppose if the P.E.A. has a rule of “no exposure,” that you can’t complain if they get upset with a youtube video that teaches a trick. No matter how non-secret the secrets may be.

But actually, Joe’s letter reminded me of a successful prediction I’ve made and I’d like to use this post as my application for the Psychic Entertainers Association.

Remember when people used to be worried about the youtube channel Scam School? A guy teaching simple magic tricks over the course of 15-20 minutes. First he would show a live performance in front of real people and then he would break it down and teach it. Exposure!

Oooh, don’t we all just long for the days of that type of exposure? Sure, you can debate that some secrets might have been “too good” or “too advanced” or “too not-public-domain (which is valid)” to share with the masses. But at least there was some effort and thought put into teaching the content. And someone watching would have to invest some time to absorb the secret. Brian Brushwood wasn’t literally just showing a trick and then showing the workings, as you often have people doing today.

And that is where my application for the PEA comes in. Over five years ago, I wrote that soon a day would come when using the idea of using magic to create a sense of wonder and mystery would be gone: “Or at the very most it will be this very brief moment that happens before the secret is immediately revealed.  Magic tricks will be almost like the set-ups to jokes. And learning the secret will be the punchline.”

At the time I wrote that, I received a bit of feedback saying that was nonsense. Saying that people got into magic to make it look like they could do something others could not. And that by immediately exposing the trick, they would be undercutting that notion.

But here we are, just a few years later, and there are numerous magicians on tik-tok and instagram and in other places who literally just perform a trick and then show the workings.

Thus, I have made a genuine psychic prediction and should be made a member in good standing of the Psychic Entertainers Association.(And my dues should be waived.)

A Torn Tweak

/

Torn, by Daniel Garcia, is probably the best Torn and Restored card of all time. It’s a signed torn and restored card that looks nearly perfect and ends examinable. (A torn and restored anything that isn’t examinable at the end isn’t a “Torn and Restored” it’s a "Torn and Sort of Looks Restored.” Laymen know this.)

It’s not easy, but it’s not crazy hard either. It’s just some new movements for your hands to get used to, and there’s a lot of them because it’s a piece by piece restoration.

Here is my tip for learning tricks such as this. Don’t sit down one night and say, “I’m going to learn Torn tonight,” and try to force your way through it all and get it down in a night. It will look like shit, and you’ll be frustrated. Instead, tell yourself at the beginning of the month, “I’m going to learn Torn this month.” Then, every day or two, sit down with a cup of coffee or Ecto Cooler or whatever your relaxing drink of choice is and work your way into the routine just up until you get to something new to you. Then learn that one new movement or moment and end for the day. This way you get to build up the routine piece by piece, and you don’t get overwhelmed having to stick a dozen new “things” together as you learn a trick. You just learn it bit by bit.

I find this to be a relaxing and enjoyable way to learn more complicated tricks. It gives you a more intimate understanding of the material, too. It probably won’t take you a full month, but going into it with that in mind—and getting it done sooner—is a better approach than thinking, “I’m going to figure this out tonight,” and getting annoyed when you don’t.

[Note, supporters will be receiving my newest book soon. I also think this is a good way to go through a book. A chapter a day. Taking it slow and savoring it. Although, to be honest, I have a hard time doing that with a book I’m really enthusiastic about.]

Okay, here’s a tweak you can use for Torn that gives it some depth that goes beyond just the standard impossibility of a T&R trick.

On my coffee table sits this card…

My friend sees it and asks what it is. “Oh, just something I’ve been working on. Here, add your signature to it.”

I then perform Torn with this multi-signed card. Obviously, the gimmick used matches this card where necessary.

The idea being that I’ve been tearing and restoring this same card over and over again.

This has a practical benefit in that it gets them to sign in the area where you want them to, just because it’s the most clearly empty area of the card.

But it also has the benefit of giving this card some history. Like it’s been repeatedly destroyed and restored. And my friend is now part of the lineage of people who have witnessed this.

Usually when I perform magic for people, I want them to think it’s something I’ve never done before. But when the subject of the effect is destruction and reformation, I think there is something to be said for the idea that this happens over and over again.

You might think, “Okay… but doesn’t this suggest that maybe it’s some sort of special card? And that’s why you’re using this one card over and over?” Maybe, I don’t know. Even the concept of a “special card” would still be pretty magical. What would this “special card technology” be that allows paper to reweave itself together? I understand that issue, but for me, it isn’t a real deterrent to doing this.

Later, you can add a bunch more signatures to the card and then put it on your refrigerator. There it will serve as a Rep and a reminder of the trick for the person you performed it for (and it will look like you did it many more times). And it will also be a Hook for you to perform Torn for someone else. “Oh that? I’ll show you. But let me start with a fresh card. That one is getting pretty full.”

Visual vs Cerebral

/

The most common question I get in my email is, “How would you present [insert some new trick that recently came out].”

Today, I’m going to talk about one of my first considerations when thinking about coming up with a presentation. My approach, generally, is to start by asking myself if a trick is visual or cerebral.

Visual - Coins disappear, cards change color, billiard balls multiply

Cerebral - The card they named is at the number they named, the Rubik’s cube they mixed matches mine, I predicted the word they merely thought of.

Of course, to a certain extent, most tricks are on a spectrum. The Rubik’s cube trick certainly has a visual element to it. It’s a trick where you are appreciating the effect with your eyes. But the impossibility of it is really something that takes place in your brain. Metal bending is mostly visual, but not completely so. An implied penetration (where you don’t see the object going through the object) may be right down the middle.

The best way to identify if a trick is purely visual is to ask, “Would this fool a monkey?”

If yes, then you have a primarily visual magic trick.

You don’t often have a monkey who is like…

Often, when people are getting into the style of magic I write about here, the mistake I see them make is they take a highly visual piece of magic, and they try to add a cerebral presentation to it. In my experience, it’s hard to make this work.

Visual magic is appealing to a very primitive aspect of our brain. Putting a cerebral presentation on top of it—which is appreciated by a more advanced part of our thinking—doesn’t really go together. It’s like getting a blow job while someone reads you a really good short story. It’s hard to appreciate both simultaneously. And you’re probably just going to be able to concentrate on the more instinctual pleasure.

For the most part, if I have a quick visual trick, I will not burden it with a “deep” presentation. That’s sort of the idea behind the Distracted Artist style. To eliminate the pretense of presentation entirely.

That said, if I do want to add some substance to a quick visual moment, I will do that by “front-loading” the presentation, so I can get it out of the way and the visual moment of magic can be undisturbed. For example, if we were going for a trail walk I might say, “Do you mind if we take a little detour. There’s supposedly an area a little ways off where some weird gravitational anomalies occur.” I get that part out of the way early, so later we can just walk a couple of minutes off the path and when I get there and a pinecone floats between my hands, I don’t need to give a big introductory presentation. This is also a better way to extend the magic of that quick visual moment, by setting it up hours or days earlier. This gives some more meaning to the trick but without dragging down the magic in the moment.

To be clear, I still think a presentation or context is absolutely necessary for cerebral tricks if you want them to be memorable. Visual magic is so primal in its impossibility that you don’t need to add too much for it to be memorable. But if you deal four aces into a square on the table and cover each ace with three indifferent cards and the aces go from each packet to gather at a central packet… that’s not something that’s going to be meaningful and memorable to people long-term unless you make it conceptually interesting by giving it a context they can relate it to. Otherwise, while they may enjoy it in the moment, the only thing they’re likely to remember about it a couple of weeks down the road is, “I saw a card trick.”

(One thing this post doesn’t address is a long-form, visual trick. Like a multi-phase coin trick where coins are appearing, disappearing and changing into different coins. I don’t have a ton of thoughts on these types of tricks because I just don’t like them that much. I think they diminish the impact of the visual magic by repeating it over and over. And I don’t think they work well with more immersive presentations either. Most of these tricks (not all) are in a kind of no-man’s-land for me where they don’t align with either the targeted visual tricks that I like or the intriguing cerebral ones.)

Mailbag #101

/

I began practicing magic only at the age of 20 when I met a magician in a bar. In that moment, I realized how incredibly powerful close-up magic is, and this started my journey to becoming a magician. Now, I have been supporting myself and my family as a mentalist for over 15 years. In retrospect, the tricks the magician performed weren't very remarkable, but they left a deep impression (invisible deck, thumbtip, ambitious card). However, I remember one trick stood out for its mediocrity. It was the "Haunted key". I wondered why the magician first told some ghost story and then showed how the key moved in his hand by just turning it. Since then, I've always been puzzled by how some magicians can deceive themselves so thoroughly. —JA

Last week’s mailbag brought out a few Haunted Key defenders and detractors to my email.

“No one ever questions the Haunted Key” was the defender’s position.

I’ve already broken down this “defense” in this post, so I won’t go deep into it again. But I’ll post this brief clip from a podcast I listened to last week.

You have to understand, this is the position of most people who watch magic. They “look and smile” and watch the performance. I have had to plead with people to tell me when they see through something I thought was deceptive. If you haven’t done that, don’t assume you have an accurate feel for how fooling a technique is. Those people who shout out, “I know how you’re doing it!” are like cockroaches. For every one you see, there are 100 you don’t. 100 people nodding along politely.

Sure, if you are profoundly unlikable, you might get a lot of people stopping your tricks to call you out. But most people above the age of 12 won’t do that. They’ll have some idea how it’s done, but they’re not going to stop the show to say it. Just like they don’t stand up in the middle of a production of Peter Pan and say, “He’s on wires! And he’s a she!”

You can’t take the absence of being called out as the absence of them having those thoughts and suspicions. Magicians think, “That woman didn’t call me unattractive… therefore… she must think I’m beautiful!” That’s not how it works.

The Haunted Keep is at best a spooky visual. But it’s not something that fools most people (as traditionally performed).

Loved the IPMT technique.

To me, the biggest benefit of this is that it makes the story of the performance much more interesting and memorable. Not the magic-trick part of the story, the spectator’s-experience part of it. I would bet that if you did the non-ipmt method (using the DFB to force the right name, for example), a week later the spectator might remember the trick, but they are much less likely to remember the names of the celebs, for example. I think it produces much better engagement on the spectator’s part.

But I don’t think you can throw the baseball into the lake because it will float, and still be visible from shore. Throw it in a river and watch until it is gone downstream. —PM

Yes, there is a “richness” to the IPMT that makes the whole thing more memorable. And that’s true regardless of how the spectator ends up perceiving the final effect. For example, whether they see the effect as the bill really reappearing in their wallet, or whether they see that as a sort of “faux-trick” presentation for a mind-reading effect (in other words they know it’s two bills… but how did you predict the celebrity they’d select?) it doesn’t really matter. Either way, there’s more substance to the effect.

As for your second point about my hypothetical baseball trick mentioned in that post, I sometimes forget the athletic ability of the audience I’m writing for

When you’re a physical stud like myself, capable of anything athletically, the concept of throwing a baseball far enough out into a body of water that it won’t be seen by anyone except almighty Poseidon isn’t difficult to fathom. But you make a good point that it might not be possible for the typical magician.

In all seriousness, though, a baseball will float for about 30-60 minutes before it gets water-logged enough to sink. All the better. Kick back, have a few drinks, tell a couple of stories and watch the ball slowly “vanish” before you make it reappear.

Dustings #96

/

In this post, I responded to a question about referring to a cum-stiffened sock in the premise for a trick. I said it was too far removed from the actual trick to really make sense. The humor of that premise is just laid on top of a trick it really doesn’t have anything to do with.

I know what you’re thinking…

But Andy, the holidays are coming up, and I really wanted to do a cum-stiffened sock trick for my Christmas party shows!

Okay, okay, settle down. Don’t worry. I have a trick for you.

You come out and say…

Anyone who was once a teenage boy or who raised a teenage boy will know what this is…

That’s right… the good ol’ cum sock

[Hold for applause.]

For any of you women in the audience who don’t know, the cum sock is what a young man entering adulthood pumps his hot loads into so as not to make a mess of his sheets or the house cat.

Now, I actually got into magic because of the cum sock.

[If you can cry on command, now would be a good time.]

My mom used to get furious at me because I never had any socks to wear because they were all filled with pints of my warm man-milk.

So I learned a magic spell that solved the problem and transferred the semen out of the sock…

Inside the sock you will have something like a breakaway wand apparatus, so it can jut out, but on your cue you can make it fall limp.

You time this so it happens as you talk about making the jizz disappear from the sock.

To conclude the trick, you should give some explanation as to where it all went. If you’re a real charmer, like a Channing Pollock type, you can imply it’s gone out to the vaginas of the ladies in the audience. “In 9 months, many of you will be having a magical delivery that looks…a bit like me.” *wink*

I would probably rig something up in my pants so it looked like my balls suddenly grew as the spunk went back inside, and I’d double over in pain.

Or you could say something like, “The bad part is, you never know where it’s going to go.” And then a couple of seconds later you’re like…

Is anyone going on the The Retreat to Egypt? The Retreat is something Vanishing Inc puts on where they get a bunch of magicians together and visit different parts of the globe.

It looks like the Egypt Retreat is sold out, but waiting list spots are available. For just $10,000 you can explore Egypt—see the Pyramids, ride a camel, and take a cruise down the Nile—with Joshua Jay and Andi Gladwin.

I was lucky enough to land one of the premium “deluxe” packages for $15,000. It’s all the same stuff, but you don’t have to do it with Josh and Andi.

Am I dumb? Is this really how it’s done?

Bill to Unpossible Location featuring The Incorrect Prediction Marking Technique

/

Imagine

Last weekend, I was staying with my friend Tim in Maryland.

On Saturday, when we went out for lunch, I said…

“Do you have a dollar? I’ll show you something.”

He takes a dollar from his wallet and gives it to me, and I say, "Hold on," and I proceed to draw something on the front of the bill, shielding it from his vision. Then I turn the bill over and place it in the middle of the table between us.

"I've made a prediction. I have a list of famous people on my phone. You're going to choose one at random, and it will be the person I predict. If I'm right, I get to keep your dollar. If I'm wrong, you keep your dollar and... you get a prize."

"What's the prize?" he asks.

"Oh boy, it's something...," I look around as if scanning for what his prize might be. "It's something really great. I don't want to get you too hyped about it because you're not going to win. Go ahead, name a number between 1 and 100."

He names 16.

I furrow my brow a little. "I think that's right," I say. I turn on my phone and have him open the notes list and go to my list of famous people. "Who's at that number?"

"Ronald McDonald," he says.

"Are you sure that's 16?" I ask, turning my head to get a better look at the list. “It’s not Spock from Star Trek?”

He points out the number to me, so I can see it clearly.

“Oh… okay. Yeah. Let me clarify my prediction,” I say.

I turn the bill over. It’s clearly Spock. It’s labelled Spock.

“Just need to add a couple more details here so it’s really clear.”

I scribble out “Spock,” and add some clown details to the pictures.

“Bam!” I say, turning the bill towards him. “Ronald McDonald.”

“No, okay. I fucked up. It worked yesterday, and I really thought I had that down. I will think of a good prize for you.”

A couple of minutes later, I say, “Oh, I know. I’ve got your prize. I’m going to show you something amazing.”

I take the bill and ball it up and hold it in my fist [false transfer]. A moment later, I open my hand and it’s gone.

“I’ve sent the bill back in time. It is now in your wallet again, unmarked, and completely unwrinkled.”

Considering that would make the bill completely indistinguishable from any other bill in his wallet, this doesn’t seem like much of a trick

I acknowledge the look he gives me because of this fact and say, “Oh, right, that wouldn’t be much of a trick. Okay… it’s just back in your wallet.”

Unconvinced, he pulls his wallet out of his pocket and opens it. In amongst his bills is the uncrumpled (but still very wrinkled) and marked up bill. “Okay… that one actually is really messing with my mind,” he says. Which is just about as good as a reaction as I’ve ever been able to squeeze out of this guy.”

Method

This is not a method for bill to wallet, necessarily. It’s a method for bill to impossible location. I was able to do bill to wallet because I was staying with my friend and had access to his wallet the night before, and he happened to have enough bills in there that I could pre-load a dupe in the middle of them without it being noticeable.

I included this technique in another trick I’ve posted here in the past, but I think the concept deserved a little more attention than I originally gave it.

It’s an interesting concept because we’re using magic to get something wrong.

Let’s start with a bad Bill to Impossible Location effect.

You give me a bill, I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

You say, “It’s a different bill.”

A little better

You give me a bill, I sign it, I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

Maybe a brief moment of surprise, but you soon think: “Surely, that’s a different bill he signed.” If the purpose of “signing” it was to make it unique, then I would have had you do it, you realize.

A little better

You give me a bill. I write the date and time on it to mark when this event happens. I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

This is getting stronger. Now I’m not signing it “to make it unique.” I’m writing on it for another purpose, and the byproduct of that purpose is that it’s now a more distinct bill. But still, after a moment you’ll likely consider I may have timed it out and this is just a duplicate bill.

A little better

You give me a bill. I write the date and time on it to mark when this event happens. Oops, you inform me I got the date wrong. Let me cross that out and correct it. Now I make it vanish. It reappears taped under your seat.

You can see how this is getting more and more convincing of it being the same dollar. But despite that, a spectator can still work out that I’m the one who controlled everything that was written on the dollar. And while a duplicate bill with the same markings might not be the solution they come to as immediately, it’s still the one they’re likely to come to.

Another method people use as a way to distinguish a bill other than a signature is to write a prediction down on it. I feel like maybe this is something I’ve seen from David Acer or Richard Sanders or someone else equally Canadian. [Update: It was Richard Sanders. Bill Anywhere from The Richard Sanders Show, Vol 2 (great DVD set, btw).]

So, for example, first I predict the card you’re going to pick on this bill. Later I make the bill disappear, and it reappears with that same written prediction on it, suggesting it’s the same bill.

While this adds another piece to the puzzle, if you could accurately know what card they would pick in advance, then it’s not so difficult to imagine you could write that down on a different bill.

When you predict their card, the question in their mind is, “How could he know what card I’d pick?” If they suspect a duplicate bill, then it’s still the same question in their head, “But how could he know what card I’d pick?” The impossibility of the situation hasn’t really strengthened. It’s still just predicated on you somehow knowing the card.

The Incorrect Prediction Marking Technique

Here, we’re going to force the outcome (in the example above, using the Digital Force Bag App) but we’re going to get the prediction wrong.

We then correct the prediction in a humorous way.

This leaves us with a seemingly uniquely marked object, that you (the magician) could not have anticipated.

What makes this so psychologically disarming is that it just doesn’t occur to people that a magician would use trickery to be wrong. This is so far from their conception of how magicians work and what motivates them. Here we’re actually using the negative stereotype of magicians—that we use trickery to make ourselves look smarter or better than other people—as a way to fool people.

You might say, “Just use a torn corner on the bill if you need a dupe that can’t be signed by the spectator.”

I would say: Use Both. The torn corner will make the Incorrect Prediction Marking Technique stronger. And the IPMT has a benefit the torn-corner doesn’t. (See if you can figure out what that benefit is before the end of this post.)

To be clear, this is not a Dollar Bill/Digital Force Bag/Bill to Impossible Location trick.

This is an Any Object/Any Force/Any Effect where you need a duplicate object technique.

For example, you show someone your book of baseball players autographs. You make a prediction on a baseball of the person whose autograph they’ll choose. They pick Mickey Mantle (via a Svengali pad autograph book). You wrote down Derek Jeter.


Refusing to admit defeat, you jank it up so it looks like Mickey Mantle. “See, I got it right!” you say.

In mock defeat, you throw the baseball into the lake.

“I’ll show you a better trick,” you say. And you mime grabbing some energy from the lake and projecting it to your lake cabin.

You go inside, and on a bookshelf, in a glass display case, is the baseball wrapped in seaweed.

The beauty of this technique? The added benefit of the IPMT that I mentioned above? Here’s what it is. This technique very strongly suggests a unique object. BUT… if it all falls apart—if they say, “No way… that’s a different baseball (or bill or whatever)”—then what you have is… a strong prediction trick that plays out in an entertaining way. There’s no downside.