Mailbag #112: Hot

On the cafe at the moment there’s a bit of debate about the trick Hot by Alexander Marsh.

[Hot is a trick where you are able to know, without looking, the results of a spectator’s coin flip. It uses a “decision-making coin” rather than a normal coin.]

I like the effect, but I’m not sure if I should buy it for the routine and then just use gimmicked normal coins rather than the gimmicked decision making coins. WWJD? What would Jerx do?—RJA

I completely understand the desire to do this with “normal” coins. For twenty years, at least, I was a big believer in the idea that magic should use “everyday objects.” I still believe that in most cases. Unless the strange object that you’re using is, in fact, the focal point of the story you’re telling. (See my discussion on the Nickels to Dimes gimmick).

Most magicians are telling the same story with every trick: “I have a special power.” And if that’s the story you’re telling, then yes, you’ll probably want to use normal coins.

The benefits to using normal coins for this are obvious. (To be cleaer, I say “normal” but you will need to switch in and out gimmicked coins, if I’m understanding how the trick works correctly. I just mean “normal” in the sense of a coin the spectator is familiar with.)

But there are drawbacks to normal coins for this trick as well:

First, If you leave a quarter on the table, it’s not going to inspire anyone to ask about it. Whereas, if this coin is sitting out, there’s a likelihood they might pick it up, look at it, comment on it, etc. Which is a nice, natural transition into the trick.

Second, from the social magician’s perspective… okay, so I show you a trick one day where you flip a “normal” coin, and I’m able to tell you how it landed.

Now, what happens the next day, or a month from now, when you pull out your own quarter and say, “Hey, let’s try that again”? If you’re a professional, or you won’t see that person ever again for some reason, this isn’t a concern. But if you’re a casual performer, then your ability to know the result of a coin toss actually is something that’s likely to come up in the future. And if you have to run off to get your own “normal” quarter to demonstrate it, then that’s actually going to be far more suspicious than using this coin, I would think.

Third, story-wise, this coin offers a lot more than just doing it with a normal coin. Where did the coin come from? What’s the history behind it? How did it end up with you? If you can make the coin feel like a unique object, that’s going to help disguise the method.

And instead of the story being, “This is something I can do with any coin.” It becomes, “Yes, this is an unusual coin… more unusual than you know.”

Maybe the story is that you’ve been using this coin since your uncle gave it to you as a kid, and that’s why you have this connection to it.

Or maybe it’s this “really convenient” decision-making coin. “I don’t know how it works. But you don’t even need to carry it with you throughout the day. Somehow, if you just concentrate, you’re able to know how it would land if it had been flipped. I’ll show you….”

Or maybe you tell this story…

You ask your friend to help plan an imaginary evening for you, using this decision-making coin. “Should I follow my head and do my taxes? Or should I follow my heart and read my collection of Juggs magazine?”

They flip the coin but don’t tell you the results.

“Okay, should I follow my head and have a healthy grilled chicken breast for dinner? Or follow my heart and order a large pizza?” They again flip the coin but don’t tell you how it landed.

“And finally, should I kill myself tonight by drinking bleach? Yes or no?”

For a final time, they flip the coin.

You ask what the coin said you should do tonight. Read Juggs, eat pizza, and kill yourself.

“Here’s the thing,” you say, “this isn’t really a decision-making coin. It’s better. The guy at the curiosities shop who sold it to me explained how it works. Sort of. It doesn’t make a decision for you. It somehow… knows what you already want. So if you’re not sure what you really want, it will tell you. And if you are sure, you can justify your decisions with the coin by seemingly ‘leaving it up to fate.’”

You get up from the couch and start walking to the kitchen and wave your friend along to follow you.

“The truth is,” you say, “I already knew what my plans for tonight would be ages ago.”

In the kitchen now, they see the table is covered with porno mags, pizza boxes and a wine glass full of bleach.

So, while I can’t speak to the strength of the method or the handling used, I can say that I wouldn’t be turned off by the decision-making coin aspect of the trick. I’d probably be more likely to do the trick with such a coin rather than a normal quarter.

Keep in mind that while it isn’t a “normal coin” it’s also not a completely made-up thing for a trick. Decision-making coins do exist. You can buy them on Amazon. I’m sure most people have heard of them, and if they haven’t, it takes about three seconds to explain what they are.

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite use of this type of prop which uses my friend Stasia’s unique decision-making coin, which has a YES but no NO. More details can be found here.

Dustings #106

Schedule announcement:

You’ve got nine months to prepare. I will be taking most of January 2025 off to finish book number eight. At that point, it will be my first extended time off from the site in three years. But trust me, time off to write a book is not “time off.” Just like the week at the end of the month when I write the newsletter isn’t like…

Book number eight, is called The 88th Parallel (I think). And it will be out in April/May of next year for supporters at the Rich Uncle Millionaire level. (Those supporter slots are limited and currently sold out. But if you’re a supporter at the lower level, you’ll be on the waiting list for R.U.M. slots when they become available.)

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If you’re at the intersection of Tenyo, the Jerx, and 3-D printing, like supporter Nick O., then you might be interested in this email he sent recently.

I've been getting into 3D printing over the last year and one of the best uses for it is making one-off home organization things nobody else in the world cares about.

Recently I've been cleaning up my shelves to try and build a little "wonder room" display and thought it'd be nice to have some of the examinable Tenyo tricks out and ready to go in a neat manner. 

So I designed this little display stand for Mister Danger.

https://www.printables.com/model/805654-mister-danger-display-stand

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Finally… FINALLY!!!

People are finally creating magic that addresses the question… “What would you do if you had REAL magic powers?”

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Me in school when the teacher says, “I want you to have three supporting bullet points.” And I have a total of zero supporting bullet points.

Two Comedians: Part Two

Today I want to talk about a magic lesson from Bill Cosby.

“Ah, what is this, exactly? Some sort of roofie palming technique? A way to get quaaludes into someone’s sweet tea without them noticing? Excellent.”

No. Sorry. You’re going to have to manage that yourself.

This lesson can be found in Bill Cosby’s special, “Himself.”

It happens when he gets his first laugh of the show.

What does he do?

He reacts with surprise.

Like, “Oh… you’re laughing!”

It’s a reaction that tells the audience: “Your response has an effect on me.” And it’s especially effective when you acknowledge their first moment of reaction.

I think we sometimes forget this with magic.

We can encourage their reactions by letting their reactions affect us.

This is, of course, a life skill as well. People will be kinder to us if they see their kindness affects us. They’ll be more generous to us if they see their generosity affects us. They’ll laugh at our jokes if their laughter affects us.

Don’t take their reaction for granted. And don’t be in such a hurry to rush to the climax of your coin routine, that you don’t take time to acknowledge their response to the first coin vanish.

I’ve seen magicians actually stop people from reacting so that they can move on with their routine. I’ve also seen magicians completely ignore audience’s responses. Like, “Yes, of course you’re amazed by this.”

All this does is train people that their reactions are irrelevant.

Don’t do that.

Be like Cosby.

(In this one, very specific, way.)

Two Comedians: Part One

Today’s and tomorrow’s posts will be about two lessons I was reminded of by two different comedians.

Those comedians are Louis CK and Bill Cosby.

And, of course, the lessons I learned are about how to deal with women.

Relax. I’m kidding.

They’re two lessons that apply to the performance of magic.

First, Louis CK

I can’t properly credit this, because I heard it from a friend who heard it on a podcast by someone who was quoting Louis. I’ve looked up some keywords but can’t find the quote. So he may have never said this. Or he may have said something similar but not exactly this thing, but the general idea behind what he said was this:

There is reciting, and there is talking/communicating, and those two things occur on opposite sides of your brain.

Now, whether this is scientifically true doesn’t really matter to me. It’s effectively true.

When you are reciting patter, you are not in communication mode.

Social magic should feel like communication, not a lecture.

When it comes to the “patter” for an effect, I spend a lot of time thinking:

What is the story I want to convey?

I spend ZERO time thinking:

What are the words I want to say?

I see a lot of magicians who have clearly memorized the words they want to say, only to say some bland bullshit nobody cares about. They’re focusing on the wrong part of “scripting.” They’re focused on the words, not the point.

Once you know the point you want to convey, the words will work themselves out.

Now, you might say, “But I’m not comfortable speaking extemporaneously.”

Okay, so what? The goal—in social magic— isn’t for your patter to be clever and well-spoken. The goal is for it to be congruent with what speaking to you normally is like. That way, when you go into a trick, it doesn’t feel like…

Do you script out all your other conversations? No. Do you trust yourself to tell the story of how UPS delivered the package to the wrong house, and you paid for insurance, but the sender says you need to work it out with UPS, and UPS says you need to work it out with the sender? Okay. Well, if you can tell that story without scripting it out, you can tell the story of the weird ring you bought at the garage sale without scripting that out.

This way, rather than engaging the part of your brain that is concerned with remembering words, you can use the part of your brain that is focused on connecting and communicating.

Fat Fuck Bloodhound

Imagine

This weekend, I went to a rec-league basketball game for kids aged 6-11 with my friend Eric. You might consider this an odd, if not downright creepy, thing for two childless middle-aged men to do but… well… there is no but there, I guess. It’s definitely a little odd. But our motivation is pure. And it’s not like I’m standing behind a pillar, pressing my genitals up against it and taking creep-shots of the kids. We don’t hide our presence. In fact, we’re probably the most noticeable people there. With shouts of “Let’s GOOOOOO!” and some G-rated trash-talk, we’re hard to miss.

Really it’s just an excuse to get together, eat some deliciously-garbage concession stand pizza, and bet $100 on a game of 8-year-olds chucking airballs.

So, it’s Saturday, I’m sitting on the back-row of the bleachers with Eric, and he goes to grab some snacks. He asks if I want anything. I tell him to get me a pack of peanut M&Ms.

When he returns, I tell him I want to try something and I ask him to hold out the M&Ms. I bend toward the bag and inhale deeply, eyes closed. Not just a quick whiff, but a long intake of air. (Picture Josh inhaling the scent of Andi’s boxer-briefs after he just jogged a 10k for charity.)

I pull back. Look up. Tilt my head left, then right, as if I’m calculating.

“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” I say. “They may have changed some stuff around.”

I reach into my messenger bag and pull out a pencil and a piece of junk mail. On the back of the envelope I start writing something. Then I pause, have him hold up the peanut M&Ms again and take another big inhale.

“I think I’ll be close,” I say and finish writing on the envelope. I hand the pencil to Eric to initial the envelope.

I unfold a napkin and put it on the bench between us.

“Dump them out and count them up,” I say. He starts doing this. “Separate them by color. I don’t want to touch them.”

When he’s done we tally them up.

0 Reds, 7 Oranges, 5 Yellows, 6 Greens, 4 Blues, 1 Brown.

I tell Eric to turn over the envelope on the seat between us…

Not one to live in wonder for too long, Eric immediately starts dissecting the trick. He eventually settles on…

“All packages must have the same color distribution,’ he says.

“Damn!” I say. “You got me? How did you know? Yes. They all have the exact same colors in them. Red peanut M&Ms are just a myth.”

Realizing that’s probably unlikely to be the case—but unwilling to give it up completely—he hops down the bleacher steps to buy another pack just to test this hypothesis.

This pack has 3 Reds, 7 Oranges, 4 Yellows, 11 Greens, 1 Blue, and 1 Brown. Not only a completely different color distribution but a completely different number of M&Ms.

“Okay. Fuck me. I have no clue,” he says.

Method

The method is… exactly what you think it is. It’s the subtleties of that method, which I wrote up for last month’s newsletter, that make this what it is. This variation of that trick (on pages 3-7 of the newsletter), allows it to be something you can do when you’re out and about and haven’t asked your spectator to bring anything specific with them. I prefer this presentation, I think. The notion that you can somehow smell the amounts and colors of M&Ms is a more interesting premise than the traditional one that I was writing about there.

Mailbag #111

I wonder if you find that your friends seem to struggle with differentiating between a performance and a normal conversation when you interact with them. I imagine if I were to adopt your style, my friends would constantly be on edge about whether I’m about to go into another trick.

Just as a casual hobbyist there have been moments where I’ve prompted a conversation and people have asked me whether I was introducing a trick, as though they were trying to figure out how they should respond. —AT

No, I think this is an unfounded fear people have. There is a safety that comes with presenting magic in a sort of standard tongue-in-cheek, jokey way. This style is copmletely bereft of mystique, but at least you don’t have to worry about someone believing you, or thinking you want them to believe you, or getting confused about when you are or are not serious.

This is, for the most part, a non-issue. People use it as an excuse to stick to the standard “Dad Magic”-style of performing. In the same way some people will say, “I want to get healthier, but I don’t want to lift weights. I don’t want to end up looking like some muscle-bound freak body-builder.” As if that can just happen casually.

If people know you, then they will generally know what’s a trick and what’s not a trick. You would have to try really, really hard to genuinely confuse them about the issue. It won’t just happen casually.

Will there be some times when there’s a little confusion? Perhaps. But I consider that to be a good thing. It’s only going to happen with the most trivial matters.

It’s not like I walk into the room and say, “My dad has cancer.” And people think, “Okay… where is this going… this HAS to be some kind of trick.” People don’t feel the need to constantly be on guard around me. Remember that you’re getting a peek at one slim part of my interactions with these people. 95-99.9% of the time I’m around most of the people in my life, I’m not doing anything related to magic at all. I’m just a normal friend, relative, lover, acquaintance who has a somewhat interesting hobby. When I go into a trick, they’re neither expecting it nor are they completely thrown by it.

They have a little hint when I say, “I want to try something with you,” or “the strangest thing keeps happening,” or whatever, because these are not phrases that come up for me in real life outside of magic that often.

If there is some confusion, it’s only momentary. And I don’t really care about it. It’s only an issue if people are truly believing something ridiculous I’m saying, or if they’re disregarding something serious because they think it’s some sort of trick. And neither has ever really happened to me.

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When using [Digital Force Bag] do you bother trying to hide the look of the fake apps on the swiping screens in some way? I don’t know if I’m being overly concerned, but they just don’t look like apps that are on my phone. —JS

You’re not being overly concerned, you’re being unnecessarily concerned. Those screens are on your phone when anyone is paying attention for, literally, about half a second each. The time it takes you to do two swipes with your thumb. It’s not really possible to see those apps when performed correctly.

Don’t hide the phone from them during that part of the trick. But at the same time, you don’t display it to them. From their perspective, they see you open your phone and swipe through a couple of app screens, and tap on your Notes icon. Your goal here shouldn’t be to show them exactly what you’re doing, but for them to see enough of the screen to realize you’re not “doing” anything.

I think some magicians think, Well, since I am doing something sneaky here, I need to make it look as fair as possible. And they have this attitude which is like: “Make sure I don’t do anything funny. I’m just going to swipe over to my notes. Look, one simple, normal swipe. And now another simple, normal swipe. And now I’m just pressing the genuine Notes app icon.”

Just be a normal human. Give your patter. Get their number. Mention the note on your phone. Swipe to the Notes app and hand them the phone. Allow them to go into the note and scroll to their number. In other words, do what you would do in reality.

Some things in magic you need to be explicit about. If you’re going to make a card appear in your pocket, you need it to be explicitly obvious that your hand is empty before it goes in the pocket. Or else people will rewind in their head and think, “Ah, he must have had the card in his hand when he reached in his pocket.”

But if you draw attention to the “cleanliness” of you swiping through the app screens, then you’re drawing attention to something they would otherwise not remember. Swiping over to an app is an everyday action that will be forgotten. Allow it to be forgotten. If they are someone who is liable to think, “I bet when he swiped the screen, he was secretly coding a number into the phone so that a force object would appear by my chosen number in a fake Notes app.” Then it doesn’t matter how clean and how openly you do the swiping—your ass is busted regardless.

Dustings #105*

I was asked recently if I could think of a trick that could be used to present someone with a new iPhone. The person was looking for some kind of immersive, experiential trick, and no… I didn’t have any good ideas for him.

But here’s a decent idea for a sort of dumb way to do it.

At some point when they’re not in the room, turn off their current phone. And dump a little water on the table where their phone was.

When they get back in the room, act upset. You spilled water on their phone, and it won’t turn on anymore. Act like you want to urgently address the situation and place their phone in a bowl and cover it with rice.

A few minutes later you check on the phone to see how it’s doing, and you pull from the bowl a brand-new iPhone shrink-wrapped in its box. “Wow, that works really well,” you say.

How do you do it? I don’t know. I’d probably just switch bowls if you had a large rice bag, you could probably switch them under the bag itself. Maybe you could create a mirror jar of sorts and put the old phone in one side and the new phone on the other. Or some sort of change bag, so you’re dumping the rice in a bag? I don’t know. I don’t know that you have to waste a great method on this, since you’re going to have to eventually give them back their old phone to transfer onto the new phone. So it will be a pretty short-lived moment of magical weirdness regardless.

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Here was the other “moral” to the Old/New Coin story from earlier this week. This lesson comes from the fact that the initial reactions to the effect were similar between the Copper/Silver version and the more elaborate Time Travel/Willow Tree version. But it was the latter performance that seemed to really stick with people in the long run.

Here is what I wrote (and cut out of) Wednesday’s post…

The longer I perform, the more and more I realize that you can’t just rely on the initial reaction to a trick. Magic that’s really affecting to people often doesn’t have a big “pop” at the climax. In fact, it can often mess with them to the point that they just churn it over in their mind and almost forget to give you any reaction at all.

Similarly, oftentimes, a “wow” or a “no way” at the climax is just a courtesy reaction. It’s like a laugh to a joke. Sure, sometimes a laugh is genuine. But sometimes people will laugh just as an acknowledgement that someone said a joke, and now it’s thankfully over.

I’m not saying I ignore the spectator’s immediate reaction, but I’ve definitely tried to become more and more attuned to their reaction in the long-term. I’ve mentioned in the past that when I track my performances, I keep track of a trick’s memorability. That is, how long after the trick was performed did someone still mention it to me. I also keep track of a trick’s initial reaction. And what I’ve learned is there’s almost no relationship between that initial reaction, and how memorable the trick is. Sure, if it’s a bad trick it won’t have much of an initial reaction OR be memorable. But there are good tricks that get really “big” initial reactions, and there are good tricks that get really long-lasting reactions, and they’re not necessarily the same. I try to be cognizant of both, so I have a repertoire that gives people a variety of experiences.

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Last month I wrote about my difficulty getting AI to write a poem that would work as “influence” for Joshua Quinn’s trick from the Christmas party.

Les T. wrote one that works and almost makes sense.

Here’s how you could use it.

You bring out a folded piece of paper.

Unfold the paper and read the poem (or have them read it). Ask them to really try and absorb the words and the meaning of the poem. Re-fold the paper.

Switch over to the word list on your phone and have them name a number and note the random object at that number.

“What’s the object? A paper plane? Impossible to predict that,” you say as you look down at your hands where the poem has been refolded into a paper plane.

You then explain the “influence” that went into the effect (as per Joshua’s original).

You would have to have the paper pre-folded with the paper airplane creases, so you could refold it casually as if you’re just putting it away.

By the way, if you position the influence words carefully, you could have it so those are the only words that show at one point during the unfolding process. (Sort of like the picture below, but in the picture, the poem hadn’t been written on the page with this idea in mind.)

Then you can bring them back to this moment. “You might not remember earlier, but I paused when unfolding this poem and it looked like this. For a few moments there were only five words you could see.” And so on…

UPDATE

Here are some more details from Les regarding the specifics he uses with this trick…

A couple refinements that I think tighten this up a bit. 

BTW, The title of the poem is a play on the influence theme that can be drawn attention to in the reveal, other than just turbulence experienced on a flight. 

My hook is that I used to love Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey on SNL, and believe he was the most underrated poet of his time. He continues to be an inspiration…

“I recently started writing poems myself.” Offer to have them read my latest creation and give honest feedback.

They react unimpressed, and confused which sets me up to explain my process. 

“I have a list of random things on my phone. I am always adding more ideas to the list In order to challenge my creativity.”

Show list on phone briefly, and draw attention to the total number of items. 

I roll a die in order to generate a 2 digit number, and whatever I end up with I have to write a poem about in under 2 minutes. 

Could use mental die, or just have them roll an imaginary die and say the digit after each roll. I offer to let them choose which number goes where in order to make the 2 digit number. 

Proceed with DFB, and challenge them to make a poem.

They struggle, or succeed, then tell them you haven’t been totally honest, and reveal a la Keyser Söze. 

Few points on the paper plane. 

The “nose” of the plane is at the bottom of the page rather than the top which is a little more subtle. It also allows the key words which were initially in view upon unfolding, to appear on the wing of the plane at the end so you can bring it full circle.

I should also note that instead of the grammatically incorrect “pickup,” you could just have it say “pick up.” You lose the “influence” of it being just the last word in each line, but you still have the influence that they saw these words isolated at some point earlier when you were unfolding.