Mailbag #141

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I have no other place to bitch about this so I figured your inbox is fine. The extremely obvious AI writing in Penguin Magic's new copywriting is very annoying. Em dashes, "It's not x, it's y", and rules of three used eight times each in every description. Am I the only one that cares about this? Are we doomed of 

"You shit your pants. It smells. You'll have to change." 

 type AI slop for the rest of time? YOU'RE IN THE BUSINESS OF A FUCKING "ART" AS THEY WANT IT TO BE CALLED, HIRE A MONKEY TO WRITE THREE PARAGRAPHS. —JM

I get what you’re saying. I think we’re in a weird transitional period. For some of us, the AI “voice” is so obvious that it just feels cheap and cold when we read it. But others, who aren’t as familiar with it yet, can still read that same copy and think it’s well written. It feels better than what they might write, so they assume it must be good.

But as that style becomes more ubiquitous, it’s going to start feeling inauthentic and generic to more and more people.

Think of dandelions.

Dandelions grow everywhere, with no effort. So we call them weeds. But if they only bloomed on the side of one specific mountain every eight years, we’d treasure them like rare orchids.

The problem with AI writing isn’t that it’s always bad—it’s that it comes too easily. And when something is that easy, it becomes impossible to value. It’s fine if you’re writing a letter to your landlord asking to be let out of your lease two months early. But it’s not great if you’re trying to connect with an audience.

I think a lot of magic companies view ad copy as a nuisance to get over with. And maybe for most customers, it is. But for me, when I read obviously non-human writing, it turns off the part of my brain that is persuadable. So sure, you filled up the ad space. But it doesn’t do what you wanted it to do. At least not for me. And I don’t think I’m alone.

Honestly, I’d be more convinced to buy a new release by a bad writer genuinely expressing his excitement for a trick.

I know people think AI “art” is going to replace the human kind. But I don’t buy it.

It reminds me of an argument I had with someone who thought VR goggles would replace skiing. “Why would anyone go to their local hill when they can experience the greatest slopes in the world from their living room?”

I don’t think that guy understood why people go skiing.

And I don’t think the people churning out AI-written slop understand why moves people in writing or other forms of art.

Not that magic ad copy was ever “art.” It’s always been deceptively worded, over-the-top nonsense. But now it’s those things, written by something that’s never once been fooled by—or fooled someone with—the trick it’s writing about.

(Please note: I’ve been using em-dashes on this site since the beginning. I can’t give them up, no matter how fucked out they get by our robot overlords.)

Loved your post: The Power of The “Narrative How”. It was exactly what I needed to read today.

Man, this perfectly sums up what I’ve been experiencing since I started following your style. People just stopped interrupting me or trying to figure out the secret. Something funny actually happened the other day — I was at a bar with some friends, and they asked me to show something. I started telling a really absurd story, and there were a few new people there. One of them asked, “wait, is he being serious?” — and I didn’t even have to say anything. The others cut him off and said, “yeah, it’s true.” And the craziest part? They started asking open-ended questions, even though they knew it was just a magic premise.—DM

This was representative of some of the emails I received after I wrote about the “Narrative How.” If you missed it or skimmed past it, I’d encourage you to take another look. If the ideas on this site resonate with you, that post lays out a foundational concept—one that I believe can create longer-lasting interest than the standard approach to magic.

Hey, just wondering—have you ever tested how many people can actually do a riffle shuffle? I got excited to pick up the Savant Deck after reading your Mailbag #140 cause i liked your approach to math tricks. I learned it and tried it on three different people, but none of them could do a riffle shuffle, so the trick kinda bombed. (If you don’t know it only works if the spectator does a real riffle shuffle. Stuff like the Rosetta doesn’t work. And without the shuffle it’s not really worth doing.) Just curious if you’ve ever looked into how many people still know how to do that type of shuffle? —ST

We never specifically tested that, no. Although it’s an interesting question. If I had to estimate, in my experience performing for friends and acquaintances, and also testing card tricks for strangers, I would say probably 25-30% of people can do a clean riffle shuffle. That number shifts higher the older they are.

I would definitely not pull out the Savant Deck for someone whose shuffling abilities I didn’t know. Stopping someone from doing an overhand shuffle or just smooshing the cards around on the table would be an awkward moment that doesn’t say “magic” so much as it says, “special deck I need you to shuffle a specific way.”

So, here are your options:

  1. Perform for magicians (if you’re a dork)

  2. Save this trick for someone you know can riffle shuffle. (I’m going to pick this up and that’s what I’ll end up doing with it.)

  3. If you perform for groups of people, you can ask, “Who plays cards? I need someone who is really good at shuffling so we can be certain the deck is in a completely random order.” I’ve never found someone who says they’re good at shuffling when they’re not. And this request makes it feel like you’re being more fair.

Until July...

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This is the final post for June. Regular posting resumes Monday, July 7th. The next issue of the Love Letters newsletter for supporters comes out Sunday, July 6th.

Sex-criminal, Michel Salmon, aka Cyril Hubert, from Belgium has been kicked out of the Global League of Magicians and Mentalists.

Michel/Cyril was a karate instructor when he raped a pre-teen girl. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2008. He had also been accused of sexually assaulting others, including his daughter.

This doughy little shithead has accusations against him going as far a back as 1989.

And, honestly, from looking at him, I can’t imagine he brought much to the table as a karate instructor other than a profoundly punchable face.

When not sexually assaulting children, he enjoys holding Rubik’s Cubes, at least that’s what I gather from his dull Facebook profile.

Also from his facebook page:

”Ma passion, c'est de jouer au magicien pour divertir adultes et enfants durant vos événements!”

”My passion is performing as a magician to entertain both adults and children at your events!”

Oh, I don’t doubt your “passion” for “les enfants.” That’s precisely the problem.

For those of you who are in the “just write about magic—leave that other stuff to the justice system” crowd, I don’t think you get it. I am writing about magic. I’m writing about magician Cyril Hubert, whose real name is Michel Salmon, who is a child rapist and likes Rubik’s Cubes.

I will leave you with these two quotes from two different articles about the man. One from 2008 and the other 2018. Together, they’re kind of chilling. And they’re precisely the reason I’ll continue to report on these cases and call out these people who have managed to hide their history from the internet and use magic as an excuse to get close to kids.

[Vanessa was 11 years old when she began taking classes with a pedophile karate instructor in Havelange. She is now on her third suicide attempt.]

Switching gears,

Jonathan S., draws my attention to this article:

He writes:

This Atlantic article is about a sport I had no idea existed: people around the world playing competitive "Which Hand" games, but for real. Experts can figure out who's telling the truth and who's bluffing with startling accuracy. 

This seems like an amazing premise for any Which Hand type routine.

Yes, but… remember to take the premise up a notch. “I can actually do it blindfolded.” Or, “I’m the only player in the world that can predict in advance which hand you’ll choose, round after round.”

Because if your premise is just, “Look at this game that genuinely exists. I’m actually really good at it.” Then you’re veering very close to just pointing out a real thing and then lying about your skill at it. That’s not exactly magic.

Learn this and other techniques in Oz Pearlman’s second Penguin Live lecture devoted entirely to techniques for getting more gigs.

New ideas/tools in the Digital Appendix for The Test, Breakfast With You, and The Enigmatic Card.

See you all back here in July. The year is almost half over. Summer is here. Don’t let it pass you by. Go to the beach with your boys and check out the babes.

The Power of The “Narrative How”

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Last Thursday I wrote.

Next week, I’ll talk about why you might want to use [unbelievable premises]. The “why” I’m going to share has been eye-opening for the people I’ve discussed it with, and I think it offers a fresh way to think about the kinds of presentations you choose.

Well, now is next week. Or, I mean, relative to last week’s this week, when this week was last week, now this week is last week’s next week. Which is now.

For years now, I’ve noticed that when I embed a trick in an interesting immersive narrative, the responses are not only stronger, but the heat on the method itself becomes lesser.

I always assumed this is because the person gets caught up in the story and just becomes less focused on the secret of the trick.

But I have a new theory.

Imagine this:

I say, “I’m going to move this stuffed mouse across the table with my mind.” I concentrate. The mouse suddenly shoots across the table.

Now contrast that with this:

I say, “I have an invisible cat. He’s real frisky.” I set a stuffed mouse on the table and call out, “Get it, Mittens!” The mouse flies off the edge. I reach down to pick up Mittens. “That’s a good boy.”

In the first version, the person watching thinks: Wait… how did he move that mouse? Did he blow on it? Was there a string? Is it gimmicked in some way?

Their entire attention is fixed on the how of the effect—because that’s the only mystery I’ve presented.

But in the second version, something else happens.

When I tell people I know, “I have an invisible cat, and he loves to play,” my friends have learned not to think I’m crazy. Instead they think, “How will this play out? Hmm… an invisible cat. Okay, what am I about to see?”

Any unbelievable premise can create similar questions.

“This stone can generate coincidences.”

“I want you to slap me as hard as you can. I’m able to something weird when I’m in a pain state.”

“My grandmother was a witch. This is her old necklace.”

Anything like this will generate the question, “Okay, how will this play out?”

What’s kind of coincidence is this stone going to generate?

What power does he have in a “pain state”?

What weird thing is going to happen sitting around in this darkened room, late at night, with this witch’s necklace?

Do you see what’s happening here?

At the climax of the effect, they’re getting an answer.

Normally, the climax of a trick creates questions. It builds tension and leaves the spectator needing to resolve something. How did he do that? All the weight of the mystery is on that question.

But when you lead with an unbelievable premise, the climax of the trick can actually relieve tension.

It doesn’t answer the method question—“How did he do that?”—but it does answer the narrative one you planted earlier: “How is this going to play out?”

That’s what I mean by, the Narrative How.

I’m not suggesting they won’t still wonder how the stuffed mouse really flew off the table. But the need to “figure it out” is lessened—because you’ve already delivered a kind of answer. You gave them a resolution—a payoff.

You’re not just endlessly feeding into the dynamic where you know something they don’t know. You’ve posed a mystery—and provided a resolution. Yes, the resolution is impossible. But it’s still satisfying, because it answers the story question, not the method question.

But keep in mind, this only works if you commit to the premise. If you say, “This is my grandma’s necklace. She was a witch,” and then move on without setting up any atmosphere, tone, the premise feels hollow. There’s no tension to relieve at the end because you never really built any in the first place.

The power of creating narrative questions—and then answering them—is that it never gets old.

You offer an unbelievable premise—and then you seemingly prove it’s real. That dynamic is endlessly engaging. Different premises (or even the same premise with different proof) will always spark curiosity, because people love getting answers. They love watching something resolve. It’s like setting up a joke and giving them the punchline.

On the other hand, when everything hinges on how you did it, you're denying them any resolution. You’re inviting them to figure it out. And they will—either successfully, which weakens the moment… or unsuccessfully, which leaves them frustrated.

But you can distract that impulse with narrative resolution. You can redirect their curiosity somewhere where they will at least get some sort of satisfying answer.

Being fooled can be fun. It can be novel. But over time, the novelty fades—and with it, the enjoyment.

But a simple, crazy story that wraps up with a little bow—”He told me he had an invisible cat… and then something I couldn’t see swatted the cat-toy off the table!”—never loses its charm.

And I find, after a while, most people decide to just enjoy that part of the experience rather than waste their energy trying to find out how you did it.

😮

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Here’s a fun game for your next magic club gathering.

YouTube Magic Review Thumbnail or Sex Doll

Which one is registering shock, and which one is inviting you to shove your genitals into their mouth?

Bonus Question

One of these pics is Penguin pitchman, Nick Locapo. The other is the Gladiator Full Size Inflatable Doll (With Dong). Can you spot which is which?

Andy Saves the Day: Xeno Choreography

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Xeno by Marc Kerstein—possibly my most-used app after the Jerx App—just got a major overhaul, adding a bunch of new functionality. I haven’t had a chance to dive into the latest updates yet, so I can’t speak to those, but I can speak to the app as it’s existed for years now.

At its core, Xeno lets you see what a spectator is viewing on their phone (or computer) on your own phone.

I’ve shared ideas for using Xeno in various places over the years, including:

Lucid ACAAN

The Project on Word Transmission

Delayed ESP

Call Me By Your Name

Over on the Facebook page for Xeno, someone asked this question:

“It does not make sense to me!”

Relax, sweetie. I got you. Let’s make this make sense.

Here’s exactly what I do:

  1. Pull out my phone and go into the Xeno app.

  2. As I’m doing this I say, “I’m going to have you look at a list of the most popular boys names.” (Or whatever the premise of the effect is.)

  3. I pause. “Actually, just bring it up on your phone. Go to [I tell them the URL].”

  4. If I need to pair by swiping (which you don’t really need to do anymore), I stand side-by-side with them, looking at their screen and talking about what we’re looking at while I swipe down at my side on my phone.

  5. The phone is now in my hand where it can hang casually during the performance. Or I can put it in my breast pocket where I can get a peek later. Or set it down somewhere. Or place it in my lap if we’re seated. Or pocket it and take it out later if I go in another room while they settle on something.

Notice, initially, you’re seemingly going to have them look at something on your phone.

Then you do something that feels more free and fair and say, “Actually, go ahead and bring it up on your phone.”

This justifies why you brought your phone out initially, but then gets it out of the way in a way adds an even greater lack of guile to the proceedings.

In casual situations, the phone can just be held in your hand at your side the rest of the interaction. That’s perfectly normal. Half the people you interact with during the day are holding a phone. No one cares. Or you can put it away and work a moment into your performance to get the peek. Either way is fine.

Notice how the sequence plays out:

At first, it seems like I’m going to have them look something up on my phone.
Then, in what feels like a freer, more open choice, I pivot:
“Actually, go ahead and bring it up on your phone.”

That shift does two things:

  1. It justifies why I pulled out my phone in the first place.

  2. It makes the whole interaction feel more fair—more hands-off, less guided.

And from there? In casual settings, it’s totally normal to have a phone in your hand. Half the people you talk to every day are holding a phone while they’re talking. No one thinks twice about it. I can keep it at my side, set it down, pocket it, or put it away and work a moment into my performance later to get the peek. Whatever works.

By the way, I know I’ve said this before, but reading Facebook groups for magic apps really makes me appreciate my situation here.

I get to chat with you all, explore ideas, dick around, write a book now and then. People email me to say nice things. Maybe share some ideas. Folks coming here expect they’ll actually have to read something and give it some thought. If I make a mistake, it’s usually easy to fix—even with a book, I can update it in the Digital Appendix. It’s all very chill. Cordial. Friendly.

But magic app creators? That’s a different world. You’re constantly worried about updates breaking the app, being questioned by people who didn’t read the instructions, or getting yelled at because there’s no Android version. Yeah, no thanks.

We passed the 10-year mark on this site recently. If I had started in magic by making apps, I wouldn’t have made it ten months. The people living in my apartment today would still be wondering what that faint pink hue in the living room is from where I took matters into my own hands and my brains splattered against the wall.

Mailbag #140

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So I am currently learning fast math from Secrets of Mental Math by Arthur Benjamin, both the video series and the book. Awesome!

Here's what I'm trying to think about: how can I make the performance of that something besides "Look what a special smart boy I am!" I love the participatory and Carefree nature of having people get out their calculator apps and then give me a math test, but it still feels so mathemagician centric, you know?

Here's a thought: what if it's like a reverse hypnosis routine? "You've heard of people who are naturally really susceptible to hypnosis? I'm one of those people, but what they don't tell you is some people are also natural hypnotists! Now, I can tell that you're a naturally persuasive person..." then they put me under and command me to do crazy multiplication stuff. Something like that?

What do you think? Any ideas on how I can make my fast math skills work a little more Jerx style?—RG

Yeah, that’s a tricky one. It’s hard to make fast math anything other than show-off-y. And you’re showing off in a way that—in a previous era—would’ve made you the dork of the school. “Oh, you can do math in your head? Great! Now we’re going to dunk your head in the toilet.”

I think your proposed premise is too confusing.

This is something I see a lot when people send me premise ideas: they’ll go from A to B to C to D. But what you really want is a one-step solution to the effect. Just go from A to B.

“I think you might have natural hypnotism abilities.” That’s good.

“I think you might have natural hypnotism abilities, so now hypnotize me to do math”? That’s convoluted. Math isn't something we associate with being hypnotized, so the connection feels forced.

If the goal is to take the power out of your hands—to make it feel like this isn’t just you showing off—then frame the ability as something strange, uncanny external thing that gives you these temporary abilities.

“Oh, I’m terrible at math too. I’m actually thinking about investing in this start-up a friend from college is working on. Let me see if I still have the file… okay, yeah, here it is. So they give you this simple test—like 10 or 12 questions—and use AI to analyze how you solve basic problems. Then it builds this custom sound pattern—they call it…uhm… a ‘sonic key’— that fits the way your brain works. When you listen to it, it opens up this weird little fast lane in your working memory for math. It’s not permanent—just a few minutes—but it’s kind of like hypnosis. Like hypnotizing yourself into being good at math for a little bit. I’ll show you…”

And then you play a file of white noise, or EDM music, or some gibberish or whatever.

Have you considered laying out a path for magic creators in a more serious manner for them to contemplate how to balance the real risk of exposure AI is bringing.  Whatever we thought YouTube and social media would do is literally a drop in the ocean relative to what AI is doing and will do.  I know you’re done some of this and I realize it’s complicated when the goal of creating and selling is to basically maximize sales.  Maybe there’s no solution other than your amateur’s playbook.

I suspect it would be really good for the industry if you really honed back on this and generated pressure/consideration…—SK

This question was prompted after the person who wrote this email put the URL of a magic video into ChatGPT, asked it to explain what was happening in the video, and it spat out a semi-plausible explanation to all the tricks.

Look, there’s going to be a time—and honestly, we’re already at the early edge of it—when everyone’s going to have smart glasses or some kind of implant, and anything they watch, they’ll be able to ask AI to explain in real time.

This would seem to be the death of magic. At least the kind of magic I’m into, where I hope to leave someone with a nagging sense of mystery—of something they can’t fully explain.

But I’m more optimistic than that.

The magician’s job has always been to take the world as it is—and then stay one step ahead of what people imagine is possible. That hasn’t changed. What is changing is the baseline.It will require new techniques and ways of approaching magic, which we’ll develop as things evolve.

If your trick is just a puzzle with one solution, then yeah—AI’s probably going to crack it faster than a layperson ever could.

But the performers who care will find a way around this. Burying a trick in a more immersive, long-form experience is not only going to make it more difficult to unravel and figure out, but it’s going to make people less inclined to want to.

As for how we distribute methods and ideas: yeah, we’ll probably see more print-only material, intentionally vague descriptions, private channels. But I think the more important shift won’t be in how we transmit secrets—it’ll be in how we present them.

Dustings #126

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The GLOMM needs help from Jerx: Belgium.

I don’t want to throw around names without confirmation, but I assume the Belgian magic scene isn’t so vast that someone there wouldn’t know. Can anyone there confirm that there’s someone behind a magic club in Belgium who is also… this fuckup? A guy whose excuse for raping an 11-year-old was that he “fell in love” with her.

(BTW, “love” requires emotional and intellectual reciprocity. So saying you “fell in love” with an 11-year-old is not the justification for having sex with a child you might imagine it to be. It’s like saying, “Hey, I’m not just some monster. I’m also a fucking moron too.”)

Anyway, I’d like confirmation that this is definitely the same guy before I tee off on him more. From the one person who tipped me off to this, the Belgian Magic Federation is well aware of this guy’s past, and yet he has also been “coaching children” for them. So I’m having a hard time reconciling this information.

No, Really Fool Us

I had an idea for a tv show. It would be like Fool Us, but instead of Penn & Teller, the judges would just be two reasonably intelligent adults. The goal would not to be just to fool them, but to perform a trick that left them with no workable theory about what you might have done. So they wouldn’t be able to write it off as sleight-of-hand or gimmicked objects. I believe this would be significantly more difficult than fooling Penn & Teller.

A number of people have written in to suggest something like this for the Twickle trick from Tuesday.

Sets like these can be found on Amazon for just a few dollars, and you could easily melt or glue the hands into the positions needed.

I think it’s a good option. Part of me prefers the visual of the full arm creeping out, as in the Little Hand effect. (You don’t need five of those gimmicks, because you don’t need the embedded magnet and coin. You just need five doll arms, which must be available though some craft store or something.)

But the nice thing about these is they’re readily available, and the number of fingers pointing out would be more immediately obvious than the small doll arm.