Mail: It's Not a Black Card, Is It?

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I wanted to react to an old post you recently referred to [This post on the verbal ploy of saying, “It’s not a black card, is it?” (or something similar) during a fishing sequence.]

I agree with what you say, but having seen a mentalist friend using the ploy with what seems like success to me, I was wondering if we couldn't think a bit further. 

Taking the example of what my friend does:

Situation 1:

- it's not a black card, is it?

- no

- no because you would've had more energy but here it was like a dull 'no'

Situation 2:

- it's not a black card, is it?

- yes

- yes as you have opened your eyes a little when I mentioned black

What my friend suspects is that the spectator thinks this: "he had elements pointing to the right direction, but not enough to be 100% sure, and that's why he asserted something in the form of a question."

Any thoughts? —DE

Yes. I appreciate your friend’s attempt to salvage this verbal gambit. And I think what he’s doing is better than just saying, “I knew it!” regardless of their response to the question.

But I still think it’s a bad, semi-transparent technique.

One that’s obvious enough to draw laughter…

I’m not saying this never works. I’m saying that leaving the spectator somewhat confused on what you’re saying and what you mean isn’t good technique. And this gambit is predicated on them not being 100% certain of what you’re saying.

Magicians think they’re being sneaky. They’re not. This stuff stands out to people.

Imagine you went to a used car dealership. “I saw your ad for the 2016 Jeep. Can I get a look at it?”

“Sure,” the used car salesman says. “Walk into this room and look through this slit in the wall. The Jeep is on the other side of the wall. You can look at it through the slit.”

Would you say, “Oh, okay. Thanks. I’ll just look through this slit then.” Or would you wonder what the used car salesman was trying to hide from you? Why can’t you just go and look at the car by standing right next to it?

When you’re showing someone a piece of magic or mind-reading, you are trusted less than a used car salesman. If you say or do something that’s confusing to people, they’re not going to see that as innocent, and they’re not going to interpret that as a “hit.” We need to strive for apparent clarity with what we say and do. People are on the lookout for anything else.

But if you think this technique actually does work well, I suggest ramping it up a bit like this. It allows you to accurately determine any one of 52 cards. Have them think of a card and then say:

"Would it not be considered unfair to never state that the card you might not be thinking of isn't not lacking a red color? And isn't the suit not dissimilar to the suit that it wouldn't be if it were not opposite to a heart, is that not inaccurate? And if I am not incorrect in my presumption, the value isn't not an 8, isn't it?"

Now, if they say they’re thinking of the Jack of Clubs, you reply: “Just as I said!”

Until July...

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This is the final post of June. Posting will resume July 1st. The next newsletter will come out for supporters on the 30th.

For July (at least) this blog will be shifting to the MCJ schedule. What is that? MCJ refers to my 20+ year old blog that some of you were around for. Back then, the posts were usually shorter (and stupider) and not really on any schedule. That’s the plan for next month too.

The reason I started having a schedule for posts in the first place was so people wouldn’t feel the need to stop back just to check if something had been posted. You still shouldn’t feel that need. Check back every couple of days or once a week. I promise you won’t miss out on anything that’s time-sensitive. It won’t be like: “Anyone who responds within the next 24 hours will be eligible to win a trip for two for them and the 16-year-old of their choice to go to David Copperfield’s island.”

You can just continue to check back on whatever schedule you normally do.

DFB X was released by Marc Kerstein this week. Marc made the original DFB app for the creators Nick Einhorn and Craig Squires, and now he’s come to an agreement with them where he can release his own version of the app which has a ton more features. And, more importantly, this is now Marc’s app to do with as he pleases, which means you can be sure there will be continued support and many more features added over time. So if you’re at all interested, now is probably the time to get it. It’s not cheap. But it won’t be getting cheaper.

When I asked Marc why he wanted to release his own version of DFB, he told me: “I just hate Android users so much, I wanted to take one of the few good apps that’s available to them and make a better version that they can’t get for their phone.”

Okay, that’s weird. But whatever the motivation was, I’m glad this new version exists.

Trumbull, Connecticut

August 8th, 1963

Mr. Fitzpatrick: Alright, gentlemen, settle down. We need to decide what products we’re going to advertise in the next issue of the Unknown Worlds. Ideas? Milty?

Wallace Milton: I’m thinking multiplying billiard balls. It’s a great trick. It never fails to bring roars of surprise and enthusiastic applause from your audience.

Mr. Fitzpatrick: Smart. Anyone else.

Langston Murphy: What about Nickels to Dimes? It’s so easy a monkey could do it. Or perhaps even a woman! Just cover the nickels with the Magic Cap and P-R-E-S-T-O… you got dimes! Now that’s what I call easy money!

Mr. Fitzpatrick: I don’t like it… I love it. Great job, Murphy. Who else?

Frederick Little: I believe we should go with the Dancing Hank. I think we all agree it’s truly a miracle. A big surprise. And very uncanny. But I also think it’s a socially responsible trick. Kid’s today…. ehh…I don’t know. With their loud music and louder cars. If they just had something to take their mind off mischief, I think we could recapture a more innocent frame of mind. And I think this Dancing Hank is just the thing to do it! Oh sure, it dances. But in a way that’s wholesome. Not overly erotic.

Mr. Fitzpatrick: Excellent point. Any other ideas?

Conrad Colton: Now listen, fellas. Hear me out. We think, “We’re selling to magicians, so we must sell magic tricks.” But what if we didn’t limit ourselves to that? What if we also sold other things your typical “magician” might want.

Frederick Little: What do you mean?

Conrad Colton: Well, think of the sort of guy who gets into magic. Picture him. Is he not also the type of guy who would like a double-sided mirror so he could spy on women??? You know darn well he is! So maybe in addition to magic tricks we should sell a mirror you can see through to watch a lady put on lipstick. And when I say “lipstick,” what I really mean is “a brassiere.”

Langston Murphy: A brassiere! Wow-wee!

Mr. Fitzpatrick: Colton, you magnificent son of a bitch, you’ve done it again. You sure know our audience.

See you back here in July! Get out there and enjoy summer. It will be over before you know it. If you don’t go to at least one beach party this year, I will be disappointed in you.

Becoming A Generalist

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One of the least productive things I think you can do in amateur magic is specialize.

What I mean is, if you’re a professional magician, and you just do gambling routines, or mind-reading, or some shtick where you use “deductive reasoning to mimic having supernatural powers,” that’s fine. People are going to see you for one night and probably never again.

But as an amateur, you’re going to be in these people’s lives for (hopefully) years to come. Magic is already a niche enough way to entertain your friends and family. Limiting it down further seems insane to me. “I just do coin tricks.” Really? I promise you, anybody who has seen more than a few tricks from you probably has almost no distinct memory of any trick you’ve ever shown them.

In the early days of testing, we brought a couple small groups of six people (I believe) in to watch the performances from one of Michael Ammar’s money magic videos. Afterward, we had them describe the tricks they saw. For the most part, they were able to differentiate the tricks with coins from the tricks with bills. But beyond that, there was very little nuance to what they described. We didn’t do extensive testing of this. Just a dozen people or so. It took too long, and it wasn’t that fun for us. And the responses were pretty clear. But even though we didn’t look at a lot of people, I’m pretty confident in my takeaways from this.  If you think people understand the distinctions between Coins Across and Hanging Coins five minutes after they see them (much less five days or five months), you’re deluding yourself.

Douching tricks out of your repertoire with similar premises is essential. You just don’t need a ton of different tricks where cards switch places with other cards. Or where you “influence” your spectator. Or where you read their mind. 

“I can read your mind of what playing card you’re thinking of.”

“I can read your mind of what word you’re thinking of.”

“I can read your mind of what film from the AFI’s top 100 films you’re thinking of.”

We get it. It’s still impossible. But by definition, the more you see the same impossible thing, the less impressive and interesting it will become. 

It’s the same with mind reading as it would be with regular reading. If a kid tells you he can read, and he picks up a book and starts reading, you might say, “Wow. You’re a good reader.”

“I can also read the newspaper,” he says, flipping through the Wall Street Journal and then telling you about the inflation rate.

“Yup. There you go,” you say.

“I can also read a cookbook. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease the pan.”

“Okay, I get it. That’s how reading works.”

The only way that watching someone demonstrate mind-reading over and over is interesting is if the nature of the interaction is one where you’re like, “Try to catch what I’m doing as I pretend to read minds.” 

(Perhaps counterintuitively, if your presentation is bad, you can use the same premise over and over without wearing it out. Because people aren’t paying much attention to the premise in the first place.)

I’m currently in the process of blowing up my repertoire and rebuilding it with the Carefree magic philosophy more in mind, and limiting the number of tricks with the same premise.

As I’m rebuilding the repertoire, I’m creating a database and tracking the premise of each trick in one of the columns. It helps me notice when I’m accumulating too many tricks that might seem different to me, but will possibly feel very similar to the people I perform for regularly.

Try to remember that most laypeople’s understanding of the nuances of magic tricks is like your understanding of something that doesn’t naturally fascinate you. (Go to youtube and look up the top Mariachi songs of all time and see how good you are at telling them apart.) This is helpful in some ways, because it means you can use the same methodology for different premises, and they will rarely catch on. But if you’re using different methodologies for similar premises, you will burn out an audience much quicker.

Spont: Spectator Bingo

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This is another Oliver Meech idea that is related to the one I wrote about last Thursday. He originally wrote me:

Non-tech challenges: do magic versions of existing 'mini quests' that people do. E.g. Like you get printable tick-box charts for a 30/60-day Press Ups challenge (or so I've heard from friends who actually work out!), you could make up something similar magic. Or initial bingo (doing tricks for people whose first names have those initials) - like a broader version of Justin Willman's Magic For Susans. Or location bingo (doing tricks at a range of locations). I like the idea of people helping you to complete your 'bingo card' (or at least a line of it) that's almost full.

I was in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and I was sitting in the lounge/lobby of the hotel I was staying at, and I struck up a conversation with a woman seated near me. We were talking about how we liked the hotel and our takes on Toronto in general. My take was that it reminded me a lot of New York City, except without the really bad aspects and without the really good aspects. It’s like Mid York City.

After chatting for a couple of minutes she told me her name was Dasha. I told her I liked that name.

“Wait…,” I said, “Uhm, do you mind telling me what your last initial is?”

She told me it was G.

In my bag was a folded piece of paper. I pulled it out and said, “Oh, I need that one… Sorry, this is a little odd, but do you have a couple of minutes to help me with something I’m working on. It’s really easy.”

And from there, I rolled into the trick.

The paper I pulled out looked like this…

Except a bunch of the boxes had Xs through them and signatures in them.

I explained to her that the top row consisted of the most popular first initials and the side column had the most common last name initials.

“I’m part of a group that’s testing something out. It’s kind of a magic trick. But it’s more like a psychology game… like a mind-reading game.”

And I mention how this chart is part of the way that we’re tracking the testing, by testing for people with these initials.

She was interested and agreed to help and I went on to show her a Jerx App trick which crushed her.

When we were done, I X’d the box and asked her to sign her name there.

“How often does that work?” she asked.

“Uhm…,” I counted the Xs on my sheet. “Well, out of the 23 times I’ve done it, it worked that well just this once.”

I put a star in the corner of that box, as if to remind myself of how well it worked. Hopefully letting her feel a little special about this experience, despite the premise being that I’m testing this out a lot.

A few times people have asked what the point is of the chart. Like, they get the idea that I’m testing something out a number of times, but why with the initials?

I have two answers.

The first is that it’s just a way to game-ify the testing process. See who can fill out more of the chart. That sort of thing.

The other is that this is a simplified way to get a good cross-section of people since “certain initials are more common within specific ethnic backgrounds and age groups. So researchers often aim for a wide range of initials to approximate a diverse group of respondents without going deep into demographic data. You wouldn’t do it like this for rigorous scientific research. But for our purposes it works.”

The nice thing about this is that if their initials are on the chart, they feel like they’re helping you complete something. But even if they’re not, or that square is already filled in, you can still use the chart as a way of getting into the effect.

You just bring out the chart to check if their initials are ones you need. Even if not, you still get to explain what you’re doing and set the hook from there and show them the trick regardless.

You can download the chart here.

Fill in a few to begin with, so the chart looks a little “lived in.”

The chart is specifically vague. I don’t have one trick I use this with. I just have it in my bag and know that it’s just one more way I can use to roll into a trick when I feel it would work.

Scattershot Technique

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The question I probably get the most is: What do you say when you want to show someone a trick?

I perform semi-frequently for people I don’t know. People who just happen to be near me at a coffee-shop or in some other social environment. I’ll strike up a conversation and at some point transition into a trick.

It’s that transition that people ask about. They can’t imagine me just saying, “Want to see a magic trick?!”

Out of 1000 magicians, maybe 201 are completely comfortable just saying, “Want to see a magic trick?” to someone they don’t really know. One of those people is just so self-possessed that he can deliver that line without a trace of self-consciousness. The other two hundred are just so socially awkward and clueless that they don’t realize how that statement might be ill-received by people.

The most natural transition is just to talk with people, and then when the subject of what our hobbies or interests are comes up, I can plant some seeds there, and if they show interest, I can follow that up by offering to show them something. But this works best when I can count on a longer conversation.

Sponts are another transition technique. Sponts are these little things that let you introduce a trick by coming at it indirectly. (Ctrl+F and search for “Sponts” to see other posts on the subject.)

Ideally, they will open the door for a performance based on something they say. If they say something about: astrology, psychology, games, or anything “mystical,” I can capitalize on that.

But if I’m Spont-less and no doors are opened during conversation, then my go-to technique is to ask for their assistance with something I’m working on. “It will just take a minute.” When you ask someone generically for help, you need to make it clear they're not going to be committing 45 minutes or two-hours.

I usually say something like:

“I’m testing out an idea for something I’m working on. It’s kind of a magic trick. But it’s more like a psychology game… like a mind-reading game.”

Obviously, this wouldn’t work for Cups & Balls, but it’s the type of general statement I could make work for a lot of the types of tricks I do casually. “Mind-reading game” is, I’ve found, a very intriguing yet nonthreatening way to phrase it. And when dealing with a virtual stranger, intriguing and nonthreatening is what you need to emphasize for their comfort.

If there’s no “mind-reading” element, I can throw in another word, “fortune-telling game,” “personal development game,” “a color-perception game.” It can be very vague and doesn’t even need to be hyper-accurate. You can also just stop at “psychology game.”

If there’s no possible psychological element to the trick, you can just say: “It’s kind of a magic trick… more like a game.”

This isn’t something I memorize. I’m sure I’ve never said that exact sentence in bold above, but that’s the general idea of what I say.

If it sounds a little unfocused and vague, that’s intentional. The reason I call it the Scattershot Technique is that I’m throwing out a bunch of words and hoping that there’s one of them that captures their attention. Usually they’ll focus on that and ignore everything else.

So they may be intrigued by:

  • magic

  • mind-reading

  • psychology

  • games

  • “helping”

Or, if they’ve decided they like me by that point of the conversation, just seeing “something I’m working on” may be enough to intrigue them.

The idea is simply to verbally cast the widest possible net, and allow them to catch themselves in it.

For me, this works far better than directly asking them if they want to see a trick. Of course, if it’s someone who has been in my life a while and knows what to expect, then I can be more direct if I choose to be.

Mailbag #120

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Your posts about examination (a topic magicians don't think about enough) reminds me of something I might have mentioned before.

There are lots of simple sleight-of-hand ways to apparently show a deck of cards all consisting of the same card. And then you turn everything back to normal by spreading the deck face-up.

I always thought it would be interesting to do a Svengali deck routine.

Then switch in the regular deck - and apparently continue the Svengali routine with some all-alike displays.

And then finish by showing the deck is back to normal.

You then leave the deck out to be examined - as you leave to go the bathroom.

A Svengali deck is one of the few routines where you can shift the focus by still apparently having the gaffed deck in play AFTER the deck has been switched out.

That is a powerful place to be.

I think what often confuses magicians about examinability is this. If a magic dealer (or another magician) shows you a trick - it is considered rude to examine the deck before asking. Particularly when in a magic shop - since it can lead to the magician learning the secret for "free" and thus ruining a potential sale.

Laypeople don't think like that. Why would they?—JM

Yeah, I like this, especially if you have someone in your life who is hyper-interested in the secrets to tricks.

You tell them you got a new “Trick Deck” in the mail. You demonstrate how the deck can be shown normal, or how it can be shown to be all the same cards. Don’t get into the details (short cards/long cards) just show how it can switch back and forth.

“Of course, you wouldn’t want to just do it like that, or they’ll know it’s a trick deck. But you can use it in more subtle ways too. Like always knowing what card they cut to.”

Have them cut the deck. Slide off the top card toward them. As they take a look at the card they cut to, switch the deck for a duplicate deck in your lap that doesn’t have the Svengali force card in it.

Put the card back on the deck, overhand shuffle it to the bottom, then cut the deck and riffle force it on yourself, showing how convenient it is because the card is “anywhere you cut to”. Then do the Hindu shuffle thing or one of those other proving techniques, casually, as you talk about the coolest part of the deck. It’s voice activated. “Hey Deck. Normal Mode,” you say, as if you’re speaking to a Siri or Alexa.

The deck can now be immediately handed out for examination. While that happens, you jam the deck in your lap in your pocket or whatever.

Two downsides:

  1. There’s one short-card in the normal deck. I don’t know how much of an issue that is. It doesn’t really explain much of anything. But you can buy a reverse Svengali, and figure out a handling with that, and you wouldn’t have that issue.

  2. If they genuinely buy what you show them, they’ll never trust any deck you do something with ever again.

I really like the 30-Day Challenge idea and how it gives laypeople a glimpse into a totally fake process of learning magic.

You mentioned using it for something like vanishing a coin. What kind of steps would you use along that process other than the shrinking coins? —HF

Hmmm… it’s going to depend on how “mechanical” you imagine vanishing a coin to be. In my mind, it’s sort of a process of visualization and then being able to lay that visualization on top of the real world.

So the first steps can just be holding a coin for increasingly long periods of time. As if you need to train your hand to memorize the feel of a coin.

The next step may involve carrying a coin with you in your hand until you forget you’re holding onto it for longer and longer periods of time. As if part of vanishing a coin is “forgetting” about it.

Then there would be steps where you do visualization exercises of the coin shrinking or dissolving or whatever.

Then there would be steps where you’re trying to vanish smaller, less dense objects. A tiny tab of paper. A drop of water.

Finally, you move onto coins. And you would build up to vanishing a piece of a coin, or shrinking a coin, or vanishing some of the mass of the coin (so it weighs slightly less). And so on.

That’s the type of trajectory I’d use.