The Good-Enough Canon (Your Help Needed)

There is a seductive quality to magic as a hobby that I think often prevents us from using magic for the greatest good. And that is the enjoyment that comes from tinkering with new ways of performing the same old effects. This is something that we as magicians enjoy, but it usually adds very little to our actual performances.

If you learned ten 4-Ace routines over your time in magic (and that would be a low number for many of you) it’s not like the first routine you learned was shit, and then they got progressively better and better and now you have this perfect 4-Ace routine. It’s more likely that the first one you learned was “just ok” and the next few might have gotten quite a bit better. But then it likely plateaued. And all the 4-Ace routines you’ve learned since that time were slight variations with barely any discernible differences to the audience (the people we’re supposedly doing this for).

We’re all guilty of this. We have a trick that’s good enough, but we fiddle around and waste our time with new methods not because they are huge advancements forward, but just because they’re new. This is time we could be performing or coming up with presentational ideas that might have an actual significant impact on audience.

I have a friend who is a massage therapist. She learns new techniques regularly. But her focus is still on the people she’s serving. She’s not learning new techniques just to mess around in front of a mirror.

With magic it’s very easy to feel like you’re doing something when you’re just wasting your time with different variations of tricks that are only minor tweaks for your own entertainment.

Of course, that’s fine if “fiddling around” by yourself is the manner in which you want to engage with magic. But I know magicians who are frustrated with their lack of ability to perform and bond with people through magic and yet they hardly try to. Instead, they’re alone in their room “perfecting” a particular trick or plot. It’s like spending all your time furiously masturbating and expecting that to lead to a loving marriage.

I’ve decided to tackle this issue in a somewhat regimented way for myself and I’m going to track it with a new project that will be covered in the monthly newsletter.

I call it, The Good Enough Canon.

My plan is to take this list of card plots from Magicpedia and work through them systematically—trick by trick—and identify what seems to be one of the best versions of each plot that’s out there. And once I learn that, I’m going to stop fucking with that plot unless I hear there’s some new version that has VASTLY improved upon what has come before.

I’m not necessarily looking for the ultimate version of any given plot. That might involve a very advanced handling or gimmicks or elaborate set-ups. Instead, I’ll be asking - What’s the best version of this effect I can find while at the same time prioritizing things like: ease of handling, gaffless, impromptu, borrowed deck.

It won’t have to meet those criteria, but those are elements I value in the material I perform, so they will definitely carry weight with which version I choose for the Good-Enough Canon.

At the same time, I’ll also give thought to what can be done presentationally to enhance these standard plots. In the end, hopefully I’ll have a “good enough” handling with a solid presentation for each plot listed.

Please note, there are almost 100 plots on that list. This project will take me somewhere between…oh… 8 and 25 years to complete, probably, if I end up taking on a new plot every two or three months.

But I’ll make a deal with you, I’ll be covering this project in the Love Letters newsletter. It will continue on in that newsletter or any other newsletter I do in the future. And when I end this site, I’ll continue to update former supporters as the years go by. And if I die before I finish it, I will make it the goal of my haunting to update you on the newest entrants in the Good-Enough Canon.

But I’m going to need your help to do this. I’m going to need the collected wisdom of the group to “nominate” versions of each plot that you find to be especially good. (Not all at once, but as I come to it.) I don’t have nearly the knowledge that many of you have. So I’ll be asking you to direct me towards what you feel are the best versions of these effects. Remember, I’m doing this with the amateur/social performer in mind. So, while not entirely necessary, we want to lean towards impromptu, or normal deck effects that don’t require sleights that exceed the intermediate level. And ideally it won’t be super complicated to remember. Again, these things won’t always be possible, but that’s our guiding star.

And since I’ll want to be able to direct people to where they can learn the trick, I’ll also be taking into consideration the availability of an effect. If it’s buried in an out-of-print book, I’d be less likely to add it to the Canon than something that is easily available.

Also, we’ll want a version of the trick that doesn’t veer too far from the standard premise of the trick. Turning one of these classic plots into something wholly new, sort of takes us away from the general idea of the project which is to find a strong version of that plot.

So let’s start alphabetically, with the first one on the list, the 21 Card Trick. This may seem like an underwhelming trick to start with, but perhaps that will be a good test of the viability of this project.

Do you know an especially good version of the 21 Card Trick? What makes it good? Where can I learn it? Send me an email. I won’t respond individually to each email, so let me say “thank you” in advance. I’ll definitely take each nomination into consideration.

The Logbook of Notable Events

Imagine

We’re getting out of the booth of the one late-night Cafe in the area, after enjoying—like the most basic of bitches—our first pumpkin spice lattes of the autumn. My friend Bella goes to put her phone in the back pocket of her pants but as she’s distracted in conversation, she doesn’t quite do the phone/tight-jeans math correctly and accidentally just slides it along her butt and lets it go where it drops to the hardwood floor with an apprehension-inducing clatter.

“Shit,” she says.

She bends to pick it up and slowly turns the screen to herself—mentally preparing herself for a cracked screen.

“Is it okay?” I ask.

She turns to me and holds it up and smiles, the bounce back in her attitude. “It’s good!” she says.

“Oh good,” I say. “Wait, wait, wait. What time is it?”

She glances at her phone. “9:50”

I shake my head. “Of course. Wait. Sit back down. I want to tell you something. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

We settle back into the booth. We’ve been friends long enough and she’s seen enough magic from me that my previous statement has her anticipating something fun.

“So…when I was a kid—starting when I was 9, I kept a journal. And I would make a note of the date and time whenever something interesting (to my young brain) would happen. It could be something big, like the moment I found out someone died. But mostly it was small stuff. Like when my dad broke a glass. Or when I stubbed my toe.

“Then, like eight years ago, I found this journal of ‘notable moments’ and I was reading through it and I noticed some weird patterns. Like, I kept track of whenever we saw a deer in the middle of the road while driving. And I noticed that all the times I made a note of seeing a deer, it happened one minute after the hour. Like not always the same hour of the day, but always a minute after the hour. 9:01, 12:01, 5:01 or whatever.

“And I thought… well at first I didn’t know what to think…I thought it was a coincidence, I guess. Or maybe there was an outside chance that there was some kind of natural phenomenon that caused it. Maybe somehow one minute after the hour was a time that…I don’t know…messed with deer in some way? Like messed with their equilibrium and caused them to run around more carelessly? So they ended up in the road more at that time? It doesn’t really make sense, I guess I was just trying to justify it somehow.”

I sit back in the booth and pause, looking up to the ceiling as if I’m debating if I should continue.

“Okay… I hesitate to go on, because here’s where it gets weird. There are things that happen in our life…. For the time being, forget about scheduled things. So, there are some things that happen all the time. You get a text. Or you get an itch. Or you burp. Or whatever. And then there are events that happen once or twice in your lifetime. Maybe you get in a serious car accident. Or you win a decent amount of money in a lottery or raffle.

“But then there are some things that fall in-between. The type of events where… if they happened three times in a week, you’d think something strange was going on. But if they happened three times in a year, it wouldn’t strike you as that unusual. And if it didn’t happen at all for three years, you’d probably not even notice that it didn’t happen. They’re notable events, but not wildly unusual.

“They’re the sort of thing I was tracking in my journal. And when I read through my old journal and noticed that deer coincidence, I had an idea. I went and added information from that old journal into a spreadsheet. And I started keeping track of other notable moments as they happened as well. And as the years have passed since I started doing this tracking… weird patterns began to emerge. Coincidences that really couldn’t be explained in any natural way.

“There’s a pattern to when these sorts of things occur. Patterns that you would never in a million years start to notice unless you were specifically tracking them—which no one would ever really bother to do. Some things just always seem to happen at a certain number of minutes after the hour.

“And I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if this is sort of the ‘signature’ of a god or a software engineer. I don’t know if this is a wink at us from the Almighty. Or just an example of code re-use by a lazy programmer of the simulation.”

I pull out my phone. “You dropped your phone at…9:50, yes?”

I go to my notes app and have Bella open it and go to a note called, The Minute These Things Happen.

“Scroll down to 50. What happens at 50 minutes after the hour?”

She scrolls down and reads:

50. People drop their phones.

---

Later that night, I’m leaving Bella’s apartment. We’re saying goodbye and I swing on my jacket. My phone flies from my pocket to her floor. Our heads turn to the clock.

Method

DFB, as you know.

This trick comes from an idea that was originally sent to me by Chris Rawlins. His idea is much more “doable” in the sense that you can do it any time you want. You’re not waiting for some random incident to occur. I took his idea in a more… Jerxian [shudder] way and came up with the story and presentation you see above. I will include Chris’ original idea in Friday’s post. Thanks to Chris for sending me the idea and allowing me to pass it along to you.

There is something very powerful about a trick that you clearly could never have planned on performing. This is the ultimate in “organic” magic. The spectator initiates the moment. Even when they didn’t intend to.

This is a presentation where you can predict anything. But to maintain the power of the trick, don’t pick something that happens too often. Ask yourself, “What’s something that happens around me a few times a year?” and use that. If people don’t drop their phone around you, then don’t go with that option.

If you didn’t grow up in an area with deer, don’t use that as the backstory.

Whatever your backstory example is, you’ll say that happens at one minute after the hour. That way it will always show up at the correct position on the list and not get bumped by whatever event you’re using for the trick itself.

Other things I’ve considered predicting: the minute someone experiences déjà vu, the minute someone forgets a name. You can see those ideas and more in the full list I use in the DFB app here. This should inspire some ideas, even if you’re not feeling any of these exact things.

I wouldn’t actually use it to predict the time of anything too negative (although you will find such things on the list). Those are just there to add some color to the concept when your friend reads through the list.

The Minute These Things Happen

You see a deer in the road
A parent yells at a child in public
A sock is found on the sidewalk
The first thunder strike of a storm is heard
Forgotten money is found in a jacket or pants pocket
Liquid is spilled
A deadly-looking accident is passed in a car
The power goes out
Someone loudly drops silverware on the ground
An emergency message is made on tv/radio
A glass or dish gets broken
Someone drops their phone
You hear news someone you went to school with died
Someone vomits
People forget names
A fast-food drive-thru gets your order wrong.
An unknown child rings your doorbell or knocks on your door
Your prom theme plays on the radio
You get the hiccups
A basketball game goes into triple overtime or a baseball game goes to the 12th inning
You see a celebrity in person
You find mold on your food
You lose your wallet
You see a dog with three legs
You pass (or are passed by) a neon green car
Your phone shuts off despite having power left
A car backfires
You pass a house or building on fire
Someone twists an ankle
You're contacted by someone you haven't heard from in over 5 years
Someone falls down
You find a hair in your food
You meet someone with your birthday
You get scratched by a cat or bitten by a dog
You see an unexplained light in the sky
You see a rainbow
You get a phone call from someone who doesn't say anything.
You forget why you walked in a room
You drop something down the drain
You notice a credit card or similar has expired
You notice a huge coincidence
You get caught in a traffic jam
A light bulb dies
You feel a sharp pain in your side
Someone drops food on the ground
You laugh so hard you cry or pee
A cashier gives you extra change
You find something you lost ages ago
You see a friend in an unexpected place
The batteries die on a remote
You get caught in the rain without an umbrella
A car with one headlight passes in the other direction
You experience deja vu
You walk into a cobweb
You hear that someone you know is pregnant
A child swears
A bird flies into a window
A cat vomits
You wake up from a nightmare

Mailbag #104

In last month’s Love Letters you wrote this about a trick:

It looks crazy good. It just requires a thread hook-up that’s slightly more complicated than a Loop, so it’s nothing I’d ever be likely to do.

I’m somewhat surprised by this attitude since you write up other tricks where you go all-out. Why not go all-out for a thread hook-up? What’s the deciding factor in when you’ll put in the effort and when you won’t? —TD

For me, it’s helpful to think of magic as falling into two categories:

• Short, fun moments of magic.

• Longer, immersive magical experiences.

For immersive magical experiences, I will put in a ton of time and energy to make them work because the full encounter tends to stick with people long-term.

But when it comes to short, off-the-cuff, moments of magic, then I prioritize how convenient they are for me to perform. These effects are going to be less planned out and more spontaneous. So, ideally, they’ll be more-or-less impromptu.

The trick you’re referring to was a version of the Dancing Cane done with a straw. While I thought it looked really great, it required a special set-up specifically for that trick. Which means I’d have to leave the house with the intentions of doing a “dancing straw” trick. I’m just never going to be in that mindset.

Now, perhaps some day I’ll come up with an idea for a grand magical experience where floating a straw is the climax of the story. In that case, I’d put the energy into it learning it.

But for a casual moment of “hey, look at this,” then I’m not looking for a trick that I have to be unusually prepared for.

This kind of flows into the next question as well…

---

I’ve been meeting with a “productivity specialist” and the question he wants me to answer for myself is what areas of my life I find myself wasting the most time. I’ve been asking others that question, and I thought I’d ask you as well. When it comes to creating or performing magic, what areas are you wasting the most time/energy?—TP

A month or so ago, I found out they made tiny little Skittles.

Then a couple of weeks ago I was in a store that sold obscure snacks from around the world and I learned that they also make giant Skittles.

And so I bought them and spent a few hours coming up with a handling where a Skittle would shrink and grow, change color, etc.

I worked on it for a few days and showed it to a couple of people and their reaction was…

They liked it. It was a nice, quick visual moment. But there was nothing about it that truly captured their imaginations.

This type of primarily visual magic is fun for the eyes, and it can really rock a kid’s brain, but I’ve never had much luck with it connecting with an adult audience. I know this. In fact, I’ve written posts about the limits of visual magic. And yet, there is a part of my brain that is still 10-years old and expects so much more from these tricks than they’re really capable of producing.

It’s still worth it to me to know some tricks like this. I think “eye candy” should be a part of anyone’s repertoire. But if it requires a big investment of time or money or for me to carry around stuff (like a mini skittle, a giant skittle, and a bag of skittles that I’ve rejiggered into a change-bag)—then, for me, it’s a waste of time and energy.

It goes back to what I was talking about in the previous question. I don’t want to invest too much in something that doesn’t amount to too much more than a “fun moment.” But I find myself falling into that trap often, and when I do, it usually ends up feeling like a “waste” of my time and energy.

---

I'm excited to perform some version of your Stackless Slates trick [which appeared in an old newsletter and with a different handling in the 2022 book] In addition to performing for adults, I'd like to perform it for some kids. However, I'm not comfortable doing spirit-based performances with kids for reasons that I assume are obvious. "Uncle Colin" is already pretty weird due to his unusual hobbies like magic. I know you don't specialize in performing for kids, but that demographic is an important part of my social magic audience at this point. I'm wondering if you have any ideas of alternate presentation stories that work well with tricks that typically use "ghosts". I realize forcing this change will likely dull the impact, but I'd rather do a great trick for a hungry audience at lesser potency than not do it at all. —CC

Hmm… I feel like “ghost stories” are perfectly appropriate for kids. In fact, that’s usually the audience for ghost stories, so personally I wouldn’t hesitate to do a “light” take on that theme with them.

But, if you want to get away from that all together, then the “entity” behind that trick could be:

• Fairies

• Trained Fleas

• Your “imaginary friend.”

• An invisible Bigfoot who lives in your closet (have one of the kids toss the “slates” in the closet and then have the kid remove them later). If you could rig up some growling sounds to play while you wait outside the closet, that would be…

Dustings #99

My Buddy Paul
a Clarification Technique

Building on ideas talked about in Wednesday’s Pre-Climax Summary post, here’s another way you can emphasize the fairness of certain conditions when you perform.

“I did this for my buddy, Paul, the other day and he completely forgot that he had shuffled the cards at the start and the whole experience was lost on him. So keep that in mind that we started this out with the deck shuffled by you.”

Or (as in yesterday’s Half Down technique):

“I did this for my buddy, Paul, and he was convinced that I somehow made him eliminate one of these halves as opposed to the other. So I want to slow down and make it clear to you that you have a completely fair choice of either of these packets. Which do you want to keep and which do you want to get rid of?”

If it’s not completely clear, you’re verbalizing anything questionable or anything you want to emphasize, and claiming it was something your buddy Paul said or questioned. (Your buddy doesn’t have to be Paul. (It could be Saul.))

So instead of, “Here’s what I want you to remember,” or, “Here’s what you’re probably thinking,” we have “Paul” as, like, an independent “third party” to give some weight to these points.”

I think it’s a fairly natural way to emphasize certain conditions when you perform.

Don’t overdo it, or people will start to wonder what Paul’s fucking problem is. But used sparingly, it’s helpful.

---

“Here’s my used rubber to take home as a souvenir.”
- A magician after having sex

I haven’t made this point in many years, but I was thinking about it again this week…

In most cases, it’s up to your audience to decide what is a souvenir and what isn’t.

I’ve had plenty of people who have kept signed cards from card tricks. And I’ve had plenty of people who have loved the trick, but wouldn’t even consider taking the detritus from an effect.

Telling someone, “You can keep that as a souvenir,” is like saying, “Hey, do you want my autograph?”

It’s kind of presumptuous to say, “You’re going to want to remember this so much, you’ll hold onto this piece of trash to remind yourself of it.”

Of course, if the item is something that they might feel like they couldn’t ask for (something seemingly expensive, or maybe something that they would assume is a “trick” magic item that they can’t take with them), then I’ll make a point that they can keep it.

But with, like, a signed card or a billet they wrote “Tree” on, I just leave that out on the table while I put the other stuff away. If they want it, they will either just take it or ask for it.

---

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Okay, sure, this is lovely. But let’s be honest. He should have brought up a translator and then “talent swapped” with him. Or acted like he got shocked by the microphone and could now speak Korean. Or sent around a magic “elixir” to the Korean-speaking members of the audience so “you will hear what I have to say next as if it was spoken in your native tongue.”

If you’re going to bother learning something in secret, make the most out of it.

Half Down

One of my issues with the Classic Force and many other forces is that they happen too quickly. If the purpose of any force is to make the person feel like they could have ended up with any card, then speed is your enemy.

When I was first learning magic, there was this idea that you shouldn’t just force a card and then do some kind of crazy reveal. Like, you shouldn’t classic force a card and then show that the card is printed on the back of your t-shirt. “If you do that, then people will know the card was forced.”

Well… yeah…but maybe that should give you some clue that it’s not a good force.

The classic force, the riffle force and other forces such as these are good for getting a potentially random-seeming card into people’s hands quickly. So they have their place in magic. But when it comes to getting close to convincing them that this was a random, free choice, they’re not well suited for that.

For a sense of conviction, there needs to be some distinct choices made by the spectator. Saying “stop” as cards riffle by isn’t a choice. Nor is reaching out into a moving spread of cards. Those are actions, not choices.

---

Here is a technique you can add to any force. This technique offers them a genuinely free choice that seemingly would have an undeniable impact on how things play out.

Start by having the deck shuffled by the spectator. Take the cards back and cut half of the cards off the deck and turn them over face-up.

“We’re going to start by eliminating half of the cards and it’s your choice. I’ll even show you what you’re keeping or getting rid of.”

You now start spreading through the face-up cards. If you spot the card you want to force, cull it under the spread and skip to the paragraph with a bee at the start of it.

If you don’t see their card in the face up half, turn everything over and spread again and cull the card out here.

So you’ve either shown them both halves of the deck, or just the half that was face-up originally. You have their card culled out of the deck beneath the spread of face-up cars.

🐝 Pull your hands slightly apart, so the packets are fully separated.

“It’s up to you. Which half do you want to get rid of? The face-up half, or the face-down half? … You’re sure? I just want to be certain because at the end of this I don’t want you to think I somehow made you take either pile. Whichever one you want to get rid of, we won’t use.”

They reiterate their choice.

Path One

If they say face-down. You can cleanly just toss the packet aside.

Path Two

If they say face-up. You bring your hands together, placing the culled card beneath the face down cards, as you square up and remove the face up cards and go to set them aside.

Now pause. “Final chance. Are you sure you want to get rid of the face-up cards?”

• Branch One - If they say, Yes. (And at this point I’ve never had them not say yes, I don’t think.) I cleanly toss aside the face-up cards.

• Branch Two - If they change their mind and say they want to get rid of the face-down cards. I double-check with them. If they’re sure, I place the face-up cards under the face-down cards and then start taking the face-down cards in groups up four or five off the top of the deck. I turn these groups over and toss them to the table. “Okay. You’re getting rid of these and these and these and these.”

What we’re going for here is a situation where the packets are fully separated, the spectator makes their final choice, and the packet they choose to discard is directly tossed aside and eliminated. That’s what happens here 95+% of the time. The other 5% is still relatively clean, just not perfectly clean.

Now, let’s back up. If they say they want to get rid of the face-up cards, and then confirm they want to get rid of the face-up cards (Path Two, Branch One), you will be left with a face-down half with the force card face-up at the bottom. You can either half-pass it. Or turn it against your leg on an offbeat. Or you can take small packets from the top of that half, turn them over, and show the audience some of the cards that are still left in play, and place them underneath that half. Eventually you’ll end up with all face-up cards with your force card at the face (this will also happen at the end of Path Two, Branch Two). Obviously, you don’t want to bring too much attention to that, so you’ll turn everything over and give the cads a shuffle that retains the bottom force card.

From here you can go into a Cross-Cut force or pretty much any other force (even a classic force) with the remaining half-deck. If at the end, they say, “You somehow made me pick the 4 or Hearts.” You can bring it back to this clear moment of choice, e.g,. “Well, I don’t know how I could make you pick the 4 of Hearts. I mean, I didn’t even know what cards were going to be in play at the end. You shuffled and got rid of half of them at the very start. What if the 4 of Hearts had been in that half?”

Pre-Climax Summary

“Oh, shit. I’m gonna cum!”

No. Not that type of Pre-Climax Summary.

Jonah B. writes:

I wanted get your opinion on something I see as somewhat of a trope in magic. The trope is to summarise all of the strong, fair points of a trick to the participant just before the climax. For example, 'Remember, you shuffled the cards, you thought of any card at random, you shuffled the cards again and I never went near the cards. I was blindfolded and upside-down the whole time, and I have been illiterate since birth, so even if I did see the card I wouldn't be able to read it...' and so on. It seems to be common wisdom among magicians that this kind of summary of the 'fair' moments makes the trick stronger. I see the logic of this approach, and I've done it many times myself, especially as, in my experience, some participants actually do forget the fact that they shuffled the cards etc. Stylistically, though, I wonder if it comes across a little cliche, or at worst, desperate. If the emphasis on the fair points of the trick is strong enough throughout the routine, does this summary need to happen at the end? I'm torn, because it seems to make the trick seem stronger, but the experience feel worse. In other art forms where the audience is called upon to remember earlier parts of the narrative (I'm thinking in theatre, film or music), allusions or refrains that echo previous elements of the story seem to be more artistically satisfying than direct flashbacks or repetition ('Remember when that happened?'). 

What do you think? —JB

This is a great question.

I find the Pre-Climax Summary to be something of a necesasry evil at times. It frequently has to be done to remind someone of the conditions of the effect. But it also does come across as semi-pathetic in practice. And it certainly gives the performance the rhythm of a magic trick, rather than a more normal type of human interaction.

Sometimes you can’t get around the PCS, but I’ll give you some potential alternative ideas and advice.

Self-Assurance

I fucking hate mayonaisse.

Okay, Andy, that was an unexpected left turn. Where is this going?

Stay with me.

At a restaurant I’ll frequently find myself ordering a sandwich and saying, “No mayo.”

And then I get the sandwich and it’s fucking slathered with that shit.

This happened enough times that I would find myself reiterating it when I ordered. “You got that I wanted that without mayo, yes?”

That’s fine. But I could tell that asking that would annoy some people. As a competent person myself, I get it. It can be annoying when people treat you as if you’re incompetent. And asking for something with “no mayo” and then clarifying “no mayo” 14 seconds later suggests you don’t think the person is super competent.

But the issue is, there ARE a lot of incompetent people and I don’t know who I’m dealing with the moment I step into your sandwich shop.

So I came up with this technique.

“I’ll take the club sandwich. No mayo on that. And… I’ll have the fries. And a Coke please. I think that’s it.” Then, before the waiter leaves or I walk away from the counter, I say, “Oh… wait… did I mention ‘no mayo’ on the sandwich?”

You see? Now my message isn’t: “I think you might have screwed up.” It’s: “I think I might have screwed up. Can you reassure me?”

You can do something similar with the PCS.

Instead of saying, “And remember, you shuffled this deck before we even started.”

When you get to the climax you can say, “And if you look at the cards—oh hold on… I had you shuffle the deck at the start, yes? Okay, good. I thought so, but I wasn’t 100% sure. This will be much crazier knowing you shuffled at the beginning. Okay, so if you look at the cards…,”

That’s the idea. Instead of reminding you, I’m assuring myself.

This won’t work if you have a whole litany of stuff to summarize. But you can use it to clarify an important condition.

Clarifying Conditions

Last year I wrote a post (and a couple of follow-ups) on the biggest takeaway I’d learned in my time testing magic. And that was the idea that you cannot really overly clarify the conditions of an effect. People forget too easily. And if you take the standard (bad) magician advice that you shouldn’t tell them what to notice(e.g., “Don’t tell them your hand is empty before you put it in your pocket. Simply show it empty”) then they are even more likely to forget, becuase you didn’t mention what they were supposed to take note of.

That’s the whole point of the Pre-Climax Summary in the first place: reminding them of the important stuff they might have forgotten.

However, this is less necessary if you take the time to properly note these things as they’re happening.

Don’t be afraid to do this. If you’re the person demonstrating some incredible power, the EXACT thing you would do is make sure people understood all the conditions along the way that make this particularly impossible.

Third-Party Summarizing

But often, I’m not the one demonstrating an incredible power. In those cases, it might come off as weird for me to overly clarify the conditions as we go if I’m trying to play the part of someone who is also “along for the ride,” as opposed to the person driving the bus.

Fortunately, in those situations its even easier to justify the ending summary. You just treat it like a checklist to make sure you’ve done everything correctly.

So, for example, if I’m showing them some sort of psychological test, or we’re following a ritual my grandfather wrote in the back of one of his weird books, or we’re plaing an obscure game, then I can pause before the ending and go over the instructions or the rules or whatever and act as if I’m just clarifying to myself that we did this right. The instructions or rules don’t necessarily have to be phsycially in front of me. If they’re not I can just act like I’m running through them in my head.

“Okay… let’s see if we go this right. So we started by shuffling the cards, yes? And then you freely eliminated one of the the halves? Okay. So then we cut the remaining cards into four smaller piles. Then we made that blood sacrifice to the Guardian of the Dark Water Bog. Okay… looks like we got all that right. Let’s see what happened…. the four aces! Wow!”

Minimize

“And you shuffled. And you stopped whenever you wanted. And you cut the cards at places you chose. And you turned over the cards yourself.”

Does all of that matter? Probably not. Don’t summarize every last detail. Just the imporant ones. In this case, all that likely matters is that they remember they shuffled the deck at the start of the trick. Pointing out all those other details will just bury that most imporant point.

---

The nice thing about performing socially for friends and family is that you usually get a feel for the type of people who don’t need you to do the pre-climax summary because they were attuned to everything all along.

If at all possible, roll it into the presentation, But if that’s not possible I probably wouldn’t elminate entirely. It’s perhaps better to come off as pedantic than to waste their time with a trick they can’t fully appreciate because they forgot some element of the trick that really makes it sing.

Dead Goose

Anthony O. writes:

So in April, my best friend gave me a late Christmas present in the form of Sherlock Holmes themed playing cards with different things on each suit.

She specifically asked me if I could come up with a trick with them. I said "Yes" because a lot of really basic ideas came to mind but I quickly decided I wanted to go bigger and do something truly inexplicable because she's important to me, she's never seen me do anything that extensive, and it's rare to get an opportunity to do a magic trick with a gift someone gave you.

The first thing that came to mind was forcing multiple cards to make a story. Like I'd have her pick a victim, killer, witness, weapon, and location. The only problem with that is that the deck isn't as straightforward as Clue cards where you have an equal number of people, weapons, and locations.

Here's what I counted:

• 28 Characters (30 if you include the Jokers)

• 12 Objects

• 6 Animals

• 6 Locations

So I was kind of stuck on how to force different things in a way that feels natural. If there were equal numbers of each type of thing, I could just use the same force for everything but because there's so few locations and objects compared to characters, I'd have to do something different for those and using multiple different card forcing procedures just seems excessive. I'm also having trouble coming up with a good reveal. I thought about doing something similar to your Humanity's Twins trick where her choices match up with something in an "unreleased" Holmes story or a fanfiction or something.

Another idea I had was to use "deductive reasoning" as a presentation and do something similar to your Closed Circle trick. So I'd get a few people involved and have them each select character cards and do some sort of real-time murder mystery with them.

I'm just not really sure what direction to take this trick and wanted to see if you had any ideas off the top of your head. I don't expect you to completely write out the trick (unless you want to of course) but just wanted to see if you had any ideas or suggestions to get the ball rolling since I want to do something special and don't want to waste this opportunity. —AO

You’re thinking along the same lines I would be thinking. Here’s exactly what I would do. I would first go and buy another deck of those cards. Having duplicates of something she doesn’t suspect you have duplicates of can be very useful.

I would force a card on her. I would take advantage of the duplicate I had and use that for some form of an ultra-fair force that involved a free choice at some point along the way. For example, by cutting the deck in half, in a way which leaves one of your force cards in either pile, you can fairly let them eliminate either half of the deck and then perform the force with the remaining half. You can make it clear that whichever half is eliminated will be out of play. They will remember that very fair elimination and will have a hard time getting around that, especially when they’re not conceiving of duplicates being in play.

So I’d force a card and have it hidden away without me knowing what it is (perhaps without her knowing what it is as well).

“I was really happy you got me this deck because it goes with something I’ve been looking into. Usually, card tricks involve sleight-of-hand or something. But there is a branch of card magic that actually uses techniques similar to what Sherlock Holmes used: observation, deduction, and reasoning. And I’m going to try and use those techniques to determine what card you picked.”

I would then have a group of cards chosen in some way. Perhaps cut the deck in thirds and then force one with equivoque. It doesn’t have to be super strong because it’s not going to be the focus of what they remember.

“Okay, these cards will be our clues. We can set the rest aside. But not all clues are equal. Very few are actually important. Some are red herrings. The key is being able to identify which is which. So we’ll use your choices to identify which of these clues are important.”

I would then do some sort of mixing procedure that leaves a certain pre-determined group of cards face-down. Think Shuffle-Bored. Think David Regal’s Letter Perfect. Think John Bannon’s Origami folding procedure. (I think those are all more or less the same sort of thing, but look a little different.)

So now you push aside all the cards other than the five or six cards that your spectator has seemingly chosen as the “important” clues.

“Okay, okay. Let’s see. We have a violin, we have a butcher’s cleaver, we have John Clay, a waterfall, and a dead goose. Hmm….”

I’d spend a few moments examining the “clues” and then look up, “Ah! I know what it is. You have the… the 4 of Clubs! Elementary!” She’d remove the card, showing I was correct.

“A very simple deduction. We had the violin and John Clay, of course. So that was making me think a red card. But then we had the waterfall, and the cleaver, and the dead goose. So then it was clear it was the 4 of Clubs.”

This will likely get a blank look.

“Okay, I didn’t really use deductive reasoning. I tried. But honestly these clues made no sense to me. But then I remembered that story. That famous Sherlock Holmes story. The one with John Clay, a waterfall, a cleaver, and a violin. And also a dead goose. You don’t know that story? It’s a good one.”

I’d walk over to my bookshelf and take down a book

“Yeah, this is the one. I’m pretty sure I remember the ending.”

And I’d flip to the last page of the book and rapidly read the last paragraph.

Holmes leaned back in his chair, a faint smile playing on his lips as Mrs. Hudson gathered the cards. The room was silent for a moment, the weight of revelation hanging in the air. Mrs. Thompson's eyes met Holmes's with a mixture of awe and gratitude. "The Four of Clubs," he stated definitively, confirming the unspoken truth that lingered between them. The flicker of the gaslight caught the glint in his eyes, and with that, the curtain descended on yet another chapter in the chronicles of the great detective.

“See, that’s how I knew. I just remembered this story.”

---

For me, that would be the right mixture of amazing and silly. And it’s the type of trick that grows in impossibility the more they think of it.

I might not actually reveal the card myself. I might have it just as the climax at the end of the book. I’d have to give it more thought.

And yes, I’m suggesting you make a hard-copy version of a fake Sherlock Holmes story. You could use AI to do it chapter by chapter, it wouldn’t have to make complete sense. And then print up a single copy. There are plenty of places online you can do that. Here’s one. You could bang it out in an evening, and it wouldn’t be that expensive.

That’s the route I’d take.