Sponts
/If you’ve followed this site for some time, you’ve probably noticed that I like to categorize techniques. Things like: Imps, Reps, Hooks, Performance Styles, Buy-Ins, Cast, etc. I even created a category for these categories: Extra-Presentational Techniques—meaning the things that you can add to a trick that enhance it other than just the presentation. It’s “extra” in the sense of going “beyond” the trick’s presentation. (Not “extra-presentational” like “very very presentational.”)
The reason I like categorizing such things is that I think it helps me to identify other similar techniques that might slip by me otherwise.
I’ve come up with a new category of techniques, but I haven’t come up with a name for it yet.
Part of the reason I’m having a hard time naming the technique is because I’m having a hard time stating simply what they do. Essentially, they’re designed to make a trick feel more vital, timely, and relevant. Something that makes a trick feel more “of the moment.”
If I pull a book out of my bag and ask you to think of a word from it, that’s one thing. If we’re walking, and we come across a Little Free Library and I do the same trick, I think that has a significantly different feel to it.
In this case, the Little Free Library aspect of it would be an example of the technique. It’s not really a “Hook” so much. At least not in my vernacular. A hook is something that causes the spectator to initiate the conversation that naturally leads to a trick. The hook might be designed to lead to one specific trick, or a conversation that leads to talking about magic generally. (The greatest hook of all time, I’m convinced by hearing from others, is this shirt from the Dumb Houdini store. Wear it out to a bar or gathering, and you will have all the opportunities you want to perform. The background being that this was the shirt you received when participating in this event.)
But what I’m talking about today isn’t really a Hook. It’s a simple thing you can add to a trick to make it seem more spontaneous. (Perhaps I’ll call this group of techniques Sponts. I’m not sure.)
Here’s the example I want to share with you today. It’s good for anyone who carries a messenger bag or computer bag. Or you can carry it in the backseat of your car. Or leave it inside your house near your front door.
All it is, is a mailing envelope addressed to you, in which you place the prop you need for a trick you want to perform.
It may seem like an insignificant thing, but I think it can add greatly to the experience.
Going back to the book test example. If I pull a book out of my bag and ask you to think of a word in it and I read your mind, that’s a good trick. But do you see how it can feel different if I’m arranging stuff in my bag and I pull out the padded envelope and drop it on the table as I’m putting my laptop back in and as I go to put the envelope back in, I’m like, “I just got this interesting book…oh wait… maybe we could try something…”?
Or an interesting crystal.
Or an interesting deck of cards.
Or an interesting picture.
Or even an “interesting old magic trick.”
In fact, it doesn’t need to even be “interesting.” It’s just a book you got in the mail today, or a deck of cards, or whatever. Maybe it’s something you bought yourself. Or something a friend bought for you. Or something this guy you barely know sent along because he saw it and thought of you.
The envelope I use looks something like this.
The return address is BH Curiosities. Which is a generic enough company that I could conceivably receive pretty much anything in the mail from, old or new. There’s no telling if it’s something I ordered for myself or someone ordered for me. So I can spin any story that way. The name suggests potentially an unusual place, but not necessarily. It’s not like, “The Emporium of Wonderful Magical Artifacts” or something. And the address is too complicated to likely be memorized by anyone taking a quick look at it. (Not that anyone will, really.)
The envelope is open. I don’t act like I don’t know what’s inside (although that’s a way you could go too). I just act as if this is something that came to me recently, and it ended up in my bag (or on a table near my front door).
You might say, “I don’t get it. I don’t see how that adds anything to the trick.” Well, I’m not going to try and convince you. It might not be the sort of thing that works for you. But it’s been working for me.
Think of it like this… Remember back to the days when you used to get your pictures developed at the store. Okay, so imagine it’s 1998. We meet up in a coffee shop. At some point I’m looking through my bag, and say, “Oh, I got some film developed today.” We look through the pictures together and a few of them are me, greased up in my Speedo, getting ready for a bodybuilding competition.
Now compare that to us meeting up at the coffee shop and I open up my bag and take out three framed pictures of myself, greased up in my Speedo, getting ready for a bodybuilding competition.
Let’s say my intention was the same in both situations: I wanted you to look at my oily beefcake physique. So the intention is the same, the pictures are the same, the environment is the same, your erection is the same.
The only thing that’s different is that they were in an envelope with other photos. And yet that completely changes the dynamic of the interaction. One feels casual and off-handed. The other feels desperate and pathetic.
Ideally, the feeling we’re going for is this…
Instead of them thinking, “He carries around that thing around with him so he can show people a trick.”
We want to nudge them toward thinking, “He has that thing with him because he just got it in the mail. And because I happened to be here with him now, he wanted to show what he just got to me.”
A trick that evolves out of the second thought is, generally, going to feel more raw and spontaneous (and therefore more personal and “of this very moment”) to the spectator. It adds a bit more serendipity to the encounter—”Oh, he happened to have just got this thing in the mail around the time we happened to be spending some time together.” And a little more serendipity is never a bad thing.
Sure, there are some tricks that have to be presented as “Here’s something I’ve been working on for a little while.” You don’t just “spontaneously” decide to create four piles of three cards and an Ace, or something like that. But there are a lot of tricks that benefit from feeling more unplanned. That can be hard to do when you’re carrying an object around with you. The Mailing Envelope Spont (?🤷♂️) is just a way to add a bit more of that element back in.
I’ll share more of these ideas in the future.
