Mailbag #150

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Thanks to everyone who took part in the Jerx Attic Sale this weekend. Everything sold out within a few minutes of the emails going out. I didn’t expect that. I assumed since it was going out to a limited mailing list, and that mailing list already had the opportunity to purchase most of these things recently, that things would stick around a little longer. That’s why I estimated they’d last about in hour in my final post before the break.

I often think of the group of supporters for this site as small, but passionate. I was remembering the “small” part but not considering the “but passionate” part when estimating how long the items would last. I’ll keep that in mind next time.

One other thing I learned from this is that email is not always immediate. Perhaps that should have dawned on me in the three decades of using it, but I genuinely had no clue. The announcement email was sent exactly at noon, but it looks like most people didn’t get it until a few minutes later. I don’t know why that happens, but if the delay cost you a shot at something, I’m sorry about that.

In the future, if I do another time-sensitive drop like this, I’ll send the email in advance and then just have the store go live at the designated time. That’s a better solution.

Can you explain Craig Petty to me? I dropped out of magic for about a decade and last I knew he was half of a product review show. Now he’s on youtube giving advice and lecturing how to do magic? What did I miss? Can you show me a single performance of his that is in any way worthy of emulating? I’m confused. And it seems now he’s started reading AI drafted copy on different subjects. Who watches this? —DE

For years now I’ve felt like people have been quietly urging me to make Craig Petty my nemesis. Sort of the way I went after Steve Brooks twenty-plus years ago on my first magic blog. But I think people misremember that blog a little. I wasn’t destroying Steve Brooks with my words. It was more like taking a Wiffle-ball bat to his doughy buttocks. Yes, it was meant to sting a little. But I didn’t care enough about Steve to want to “destroy” him.

My issue with him was the corny way he wielded his power back when running the Magic Café actually was a position of power. It was the most popular place for online magic discussion, but it was being strangled by bizarre moderation and a total lack of vision. Instead of improving the site as the internet evolved, they just kept adding new forums so they could cram more shitty banner ads between them.

Do you know how many forums the Magic Café has? Eighty. They’ve split the conversation into eighty different subsections, which means most of the forums have withered up and died completely.

Actually, I lied. It’s not eighty. It’s 160. My point being that they have twice as many as a number that already sounded ridiculous. Of those 160, there are only a few that are healthy and regularly active. Some haven’t been used in literally decades.

Steve used to say it was his site, his rules. Fair enough. But that also made him fair game for critique, because those “rules” were shaping what was, at the time, the central hub for the magic community.

Craig’s different. It’s easy to avoid his YouTube videos if you don’t like him or don’t think he has anything to offer. So there wouldn’t be a reason to go after him even if he did bother me. I do mention his content from time to time. Primarily as a springboard to talk about certain ideas, because what he says often highlights the difference between his expertise (professional performing) and my interest (social performing).

The original writer asked if I could “explain Craig Petty” to him. Why does he have a following? Because he has a great work ethic. He puts out new videos like clockwork. It’s not that people were clamoring to perform like Craig Petty so he had to start a YouTube channel. He started a YouTube channel and slowly built an audience who either agreed with his performance philosophy or got something from the videos.

You could do the same thing and build your own YouTube channel to a good niche audience of 1000 or so regular viewers if you posted daily for five years. You just won’t do it.

To be fair, I think my natural inclination would be to tease Craig more on this site—since he’s made himself such a well-known figure in the art. But I’m not sure that he’s someone who appreciates being teased. He seems a little on edge at times.

Which is fine. When I need someone to joke about, I always have Josh Jay. I know he doesn’t care. Which is why I can say things like I was going to in the introduction to this post when I said, “I often think of the group of supporters for this site as small, but passionate.” To which I was going to add, “Not to be confused with the way Joshua Jay describes his penis on Grindr: Small. Butt passionate.”

Regarding the post: The Power of the Narrative How

Another possibility for this observation.

There is a trick i have done a few times that involves a facetime call with someone where you “send them” an m&m through video call.

I have done it a few times to notice another thing that might be happening. I know there are a few of my friends that actually figured out the method… but even if they did, when we are out with other people that havent seen me do magic they would bring it up in terms of: “yeah this guy actually sent me an m&m through videocall !!!! “

So even if they had figured it out, they actually sound proud of having this cool story to “showoff” to other people.

I think thats another benefit of giving cool narratives. Its just more interesting for them to tell this cool story than to destroy it.—JFC

Yes, I’ve noticed this as well. In a more broader sense. My belief is that stories are stickier than methods. Methods are usually tied to the procedure the spectator goes through. And we know people don’t remember procedures very well.

“This guy told me a word I was just thinking of!” someone might tell a friend months after a performance. And you think, Well… not exactly. You wrote it down. I put it in my wallet. There were like nine steps in between. But those details vanish.

And that’s good news. If you give your trick a meaningful or imaginative story, six months later that’s what remains—the feeling and the narrative arc, not the sequence of moves that might remind them of the method. Even if they figured out a trick (or thought they figured it out) it’s likely that what lingers is the experience they had.

The story that played out was, “We travelled to a parallel universe.” Being a character in that fiction is much more memorable than: “He turned over two cards as one.” (For example.)

So even if someone is aware of both of these things, one is much more likely to remain with them over time than the other.

I’m not suggesting you be any less protective about the method. I’m just pointing out how important the story they experience is, to the point where even if the method does get exposed, there is still frequently something for them to hold onto in the experience. Something that will be around longer than the method. This is not true if your trick is solely about fooling them. If it’s just about fooling them, and they figure it out, there’s no memorable experience for them to look back on. Other than the memorable experience of figuring out your dumb trick.

Until October... and the Jerx Attic Sale

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This is the final post for September. Regular posting resumes, Monday, October 6th. The next issue of the newsletter will be sent Sunday, October 5th.

The Jerx Attic Sale

Whenever I produce a book or other item for sale, I need to order a few extra in case things get lost or damaged in the mail. My friend who handles most of the mailings has held onto these extra items for the past few years. However, he is moving soon and I want to get these off his hands and into the hands of people who want them.

So, on Saturday, October 4th, at noon New York time an email will go out to current supporters with a link to the Jerx Attic Sale.

What will be available?

There are a few copies of the most recent book. Anyone who picks up one of these will also open up a slot for themselves in the Rich Uncle Millionaire support tier if they want it.

There are a few copies of the hardcover version of my monograph The Amateur at the Kitchen Table.

There are a few copies of the E.D.A.S trick I released a couple of years ago.

The very last of the stock of Jerx Decks (only 2 or 3 of each are available, I believe).

A few sets of the Twickle Hands will be available, with the profits going to charity.

I will have some GLOMM pins available as well.

There will also be a couple of one-off collectible items available. They will likely go quickly.

I don’t think you need to be there immediately at noon to pick up the other items since:

A) This sale is only open to supporters.

and

B) Most supporters who wanted these items in the past would have already picked them up.

That being said, I wouldn’t wait too long. I would expect the one-off items to be gone in minutes and everything else to be gone within an hour or so.

These items will sell at the original price supporters paid at the time. There won’t be a mark-up because they’re the last pieces.

So if you’re interested, set a reminder or an alarm. Or really get into it and wake up at 4am and camp out in front of Walmart like it’s Black Friday. A few hours later, when the doors open and people ask, “What are you doing?” Say, “I’m in line for the Jerx Attic Sale,” like that’s a sentence that makes sense. At 11:58am, rush into the store, unnecessarily trampling people on your way to the computer section so you can hop on a laptop for the noon email

In the last Love Letters newsletter, I wrote briefly about the Invisible Harmonica trick from Penguin.

I’ve seen a lot of bad performances of this which look like you fiddling with something underneath an object, then you blowing into it and making the harmonica sound, then you fiddling with the thing in your hand again.

Here’s a handling tip I didn’t mention in that write-up that helps disguise some of that.

I like to use a folded napkin. It blurs the line of believability—“Wait… folded edges of a napkin can’t produce a harmonica sound… could they?”—in a way that, say, blowing into a banana doesn’t. With a banana, the audience just thinks, “Okay, where’s he hiding the mini-harmonica?”

But it also has the added benefit that getting the edges of the napkin “just right” accounts for fiddling needed to get the gimmick in place.

To clean up, I bring the napkin and my hands from my mouth down to chest level and take a shallow bow. That little motion helps mask whatever my hands are doing to clean up.

As I said a week or so ago, this site isn’t going to become an anti-AI or anti-online-magic space. But I am leaning more and more into the idea that the most potent usage of magic is as a tool for real-world connection. Which means that when I come across writing about the value of human interaction, I see that as magic content—even if the author didn’t mean it that way. Because to me, those reminders of presence and human connection are as much a part of magic as sleight of hand.

Take, for example, this bit from Kurt Vonnegut.

See you all back here in October where I will give you helpful tips for your spooky season shows. I’m the Martha Stewart of Halloween magic. Maybe try drawing jack-o-lantern faces on orange sponge balls for added spooky cheer. Or doing the Mummy’s Finger illusion by placing your little weenie in the hole in the box for a fun Halloween thrill.

Uglying Effects

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When you do a well-polished, lovingly-structured effect for people in social situations, they can’t help but picture you practicing this and refining it before you show it to them. You, sitting in front of a mirror, counting coins into a little brass box doesn’t make them think “mystery” and “wonder.” It makes them think, “dork” and “no prom date.”

Frequently, one of the strongest things you can do for a trick is to ugly it up.

I’ve hit on this a lot in the past when talking about patter. If your story is too smooth, it comes off as rehearsed. And that’s not helpful if you’re trying to create a feeling of “we don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

But it goes beyond patter. That feeling of things being too “clean” can be baked into the structure of a trick as well.

Today I’m going to show you a specific example of how I messed up the structure of a trick I liked to make it markedly more powerful for social situations.

You’re going to need a few minutes to watch a video to understand this, so if you’re at work or mid-funeral or something, circle back later.

The trick is called The Pink Lotus, and it comes from the Charms Deck project by Nikolas Mavresis & David Jonathan. You can see the performance on the product page for the effect (third video) or watch it below.


The trick uses a deck of good luck charm cards and a few bad luck cards.

In the original handling, the deck is cut at the beginning. Then five good luck charms are mixed with five bad luck charms. The spectator separates the cards face-down, and it’s revealed they’ve separated the good luck charms from the bad luck charms. Then we reveal the card they cut to earlier is actually spelled out by the imagery on the good luck cards.

It’s a strong reveal, but structurally the trick is a little too “tidy” for it to come off as anything other than, “this is how it was always going to play out,” which undermines the strength of the effect in my opinion.

Here’s how I uglied it up for social performances.

The setup

The “LOTUS” spelling cards are face-down in the box. On top of them, five bad luck cards face-up. Then the rest of the deck above that.

I bring out the deck and remove everything above the bad luck stack.

I show it to be a deck of good luck charms. And explain how it’s designed as a deck that allows you to find a good luck charm for yourself and then test it to see if it really works.

I start by forcing the Lotus card on them. This can be done through an extended procedure or just by having them touch a card. Instead of waiting to the end to reveal this card, I reveal it up front. I give it a purpose. We are going to test if this is a genuine lucky charm for them.

“Okay, so you were drawn to the Lotus. Now the next step is to test this. We need five other random cards. It doesn’t matter what they are. Just touch any five.”

I have them touch any five cards, which I strip out and place on top of the deck (still face down).

“We’re also going to use five bad luck cards.”

I dump the cards from the box onto the deck face-up, which secretly brings the LOTUS stack into play under the bad luck cards.

I show the bad luck charms, describe them quickly, then flash the five good luck charms they “chose” as well. I don’t bother to explain each one because my attitude is that it doesn’t matter what they are. This prevents the notion of a switch coming to them, since I don’t seem to even care what those cards are.

I “mix-up” the good and bad luck cards and we test their chosen card (the Lotus) by seeing how “lucky” they are at separating the good cards from the bad cards while they rest their hand on the Lotus card. At the end, it’s revealed they separated them perfectly

“That’s crazy,” I say. “I’ve never had it work out that well. I’m going to take a picture of this”

I snap a photo of the layout.

And… that’s the end.

What has happened here? They were drawn to one good luck charm card. We tested it. And it proved to actually be lucky for them.

Story-wise, this is actually much simpler and more straightforward (and hence, stronger) than the original version. Story-wise we’re cleaner. It’s effect-wise where it’s going to get uglier and less structured in a moment.

TWO DAYS LATER

The original routine is a tidy little four-minute package.

What I’ve done is cleave it in two, left the climax dangling, and let it resolve itself days later.

It’s definitely a messier structure—“uglier” by design—but it’s also more powerful. And as a social performer, that’s the only metric that matters.

The original feels like a clever trick. But even if people don’t consciously recognize it, on some level it’s obvious that the only reason that card was cut to at the beginning was so you could show the other cards spell it at the end. It’s a neat moment. But it’s a very magic-trick-y logic and structure.

By uglying it up, that climax feels fully unplanned. It resonates as an aftershock of genuine weirdness or coincidence—the kind of thing people keep thinking about long after the moment.

And that’s the bigger point: the “prettiest” tricks are usually the easiest to dismiss. Their edges are too neat, too defined. People can pack them away in their minds as a harmless little puzzle.

Ugly tricks can be much harder to shake for people

A pretty trick is like your dog leaving one solid turd on the hardwood floor: something to deal with, but easy enough to scoop and forget. An ugly trick is more like doggy diarrhea smeared deep into the shag carpet. It lingers. It stays with you.

The Paper Gameboard: A Quinta Concept

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When Demian Max wrote me about his Quinta Trainer which I posted last week, he also mentioned using The Pointer Principle (as explained in this trick) with Quinta.

I liked the idea, but really only thought it would be good for situations where you already have a deck of cards in play.

But after giving it more thought, I came up with this framing for Quinta.

It’s the most neatly constructed way to present the Quinta concept that I’ve ever come up with. All the “pieces” make sense, nothing has to be justified, and everything seems to be under the spectator’s control. And it’s fully impromptu. (You will need to know Quinta for this to make complete sense.)

Here’s the general idea…

You ask for a sheet of paper and a pen.

You fold the paper and tear it into these pieces. (The letters are just there for reference. They’re not there in performance.)

Fold piece B in half the long way, and ask them to tear out a little paper doll human from it.

While they do that, you write the potential options for the selection procedure on pieces D, E, F, G and H, the force object on piece D, which is the slightly larger corner piece (exaggerated in the image above). Place those face-down on the table.

When they’re done, give them piece A and tell them to crumple it into a ball.

While they do that, draw an arrow on piece C, pointing towards the rough edge.

When they’re done, ask them to mix up the smaller pieces face-down on the table. After they’re mixed, place them in a straight line, with the force piece (obvious because it’s the larger corner piece) in the force position.

Now you explain everything.

“Okay, what we’ve done is made a little gameboard here. These pieces are the spaces you can land on. This little man is your game piece. This arrow is the spinner. And this ball is one of those big 50-sided dice. We’ll use the die to determine how many spaces you move, and the spinner to decide which side you start on.”

Have them roll the ball and tell you what number they imagine they rolled.

You now know where they need to start from.

“This arrow doesn’t really spin, of course, so I’ll just turn it over and rotate it a few times….”

Turn the arrow face-down and rotate it a few times, stopping with the untorn-edge facing the end you need to start the counting from.

“Now it’s up to you. Do you want to turn the paper over to the left or to the right. Wherever the arrow ends up pointing is the side we’ll start from.”

Due to Paul Harris’ Pointer Anomaly, it doesn’t matter which way the arrow is turned over.

You now take the game piece and set it on the first piece on that end or just outside of it, depending on what you need.

Verify the number and then count, using the game piece, to that position on the gameboard and it will be the force outcome.

You can, and probably should, emphasize that they mixed up the pieces, “rolled” the number, and determined which side to start from.

You’ll need to find the broader presentation for this yourself. This works great with Phill Smith’s Nameless Example patter in the Quinta Ebook. Or you can use it to force the one good option in a sea of bad. Or the one bad option in a sea of good.

You don’t need to be doing a presentation based on “games” for this to make sense. Ultimately, this can be seen as just a more fun and “random” way to select one of five possibilities. So whatever your premise is, you can potentially fit this version of the force in it. It is, of course, a rather leisurely way to force one in five items. So the pacing would be a more important consideration than whether the “game” concept is thematically consistent with the rest of the trick.

The value of the Paper Gameboard presentation is in these elements:

  1. That it stretches out the selection procedure (which is usually what I want).

  2. That it turns that procedure into a more recognizable process (counting along a game board is something people have done since they were three).

  3. That it makes the process more interactive and fun than just naming a number. The paperdoll they tear out is frequently an abomination and good for a laugh by itself.

  4. That it adds more randomization elements.

  5. That it’s fully impromptu.

  6. That it smooths out the Quinta “rough spots.” (How you count and which end you start on.)

Baseline Magic

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One of the questions I get most often is:

“I like this trick a lot. The reactions have been so-so. How do I make it stronger?”

And then they’ll link me to some Tenyo-esque nonsense or some garbage where you draw a stickman on a card and he jumps around to different cards or something like that.

Here’s the thing, you can’t take every goofball magic trick that appeals to the 13-year-old in you and make it some overwhelming mystery.

The good news is: you don’t have to.

It’s fine to have stuff in your repertoire that are just obvious “magic tricks.”

In fact, I recommend it.

My overarching narrative is that I’m “into magic.” As part of that interest, I’ve gone down some bizarre paths, explored unusual techniques, and wandered into subjects only loosely connected to magic. That’s the true(ish) story behind my interest in magic and the more obscure concepts that I’ve learned about.

But my narrative never suggests I gave up on standard tricks. Showing someone a straightforward effect doesn’t undermine the more unreal or immersive material I might share later.

And having part of my repertoire devoted to just regular “magic tricks” gives me something to perform when I don’t feel like doing anything substantial—or when I know the people I’m with wouldn’t appreciate the heavier material.

Plus it allows for interactions like this…

Them: Do you have any new tricks?

Me: Not really. I haven’t been focusing on magic much the past few weeks. I got sucked down this weird rabbit hole recently. Actually… can I try something with you?

This allows me to use basic/baseline magic they’ve seen from me in the past as a standard and springboard to present them with something stranger or more interesting.

I’ve always aimed to create presentations that work best as a contrast to standard magic. But most people don’t have a magician in their life. So it’s up to me to establish the baseline with fun, lightweight, maybe forgettable material—so that later I can come back and blow their minds.

This is not only a strong long-term way to share magic. It also means there’s room in your repertoire for anything you enjoy.

Mailbag #149

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When you were starting to explore weird presentations, Presentations that are so over the top that they “self disclaim”… what helped you get used to keeping a straight face and treating it like a “fact” (inside the fiction)?

I find that depending on the premise, its very hard for me to always keep a straight face.

I have noticed i can keep a straight face if there is a “logic” that I can understand and follow. For example: if i imagine something, is it in my head or is it a window to another dimension? (To me this has a “logic”, even if its weird. The logic would be that if there are multiple dimensions that also means that whatever i imagine is necesarily happening in some other dimension… so imagining something could be just a window to it)

On the other hand lets say i dont have a logic that to me “makes sense”.
For example. Another idea im trying to play with: so there is this ritual that the CIA discovered when they were experimenting with remote viewing. The problem with it was the middle step of this ritual involved palm reading the targets. So they planted multiple gypsy agents that could “offer” palm readings to the targets they wanted to spy on. Obviously it wasnt a real palm read, but it acted as a bridge…(Unless i actually say that this story is horseshit im actually not confortable keeping a straight face. I just end up laughing myself)

So, how do you keep a straight face when you are trying to have fun but also be convincing and not break the fiction for them? Even when they know its all made up. You dont actually want to be the one that takes them out of it.

It might just be too big of a jump for me right now. Maybe i just have to build to it more. —JFC

Honestly, this never really came up for me. Mostly because I wasn’t following anyone else’s blueprint by reading about it on a blog. I was just doing what felt natural, so I wasn’t pushing myself past my comfort zone in that way.

It sounds to me like you have a hard time keeping a straight face when you can’t manage to fully buy-in to your presentation. It’s not like you’re just “so amused” that you’re compelled to laugh. It’s more like you’re lacking confidence in the premise and “breaking” is your way to lower the tension in that moment.

This is very common with magicians. They often do things “with a wink” or “with tongue in cheek” as a way to say, “Relax, I’m not taking this too seriously.”

It’s human nature to do that when we’re not fully confident. Playing it off like you’re just screwing around lowers the stakes. That’s why guys are usually more comfortable tossing out a corny pick-up line than walking up to a woman and saying, “I just had to say you look incredible in that dress.”

That being said, I think you have three options.

1. Filter it. Use your inability to keep a straight-face as a filtering system. If you don’t have the confidence in the premise to play it straight, then it just doesn’t make the cut for your repertoire.

2. Frame it. Explain early on in your presentation that the premise sounds ridiculous. “I can barely keep a straight face when I think about it. But apparently it’s true. Or, at least, there are a lot of people who believe it.” In this way, you’ve “framed” your inability to keep a straight face in the narrative of the presentation.

3. Sit in it. If you’re letting yourself smile or laugh as a sort of “escape-valve” to break the tension—as a way to say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m in on it too’—just realize you don’t need to do that, because magic has a built-in escape-valve: the climax of the trick.

Try to practice sitting in the tension at least until that point. Afterward, you can drop all the pretense and make it clear it was all bullshit. “Yeah, I was just messing around.” But train yourself to sit in the discomfort without needing to let them in on it at least until that point.

Re: The last item in this Creep Update

The venue (House of Magic) that hosts the SAM#4 and Jeff Carson is owned and operated by Marc Desouza who should know better, he's currently Vice President of the SAM and a multi time national award winner. Yes, the SAM that just months ago (May 2025) had a cover story about Youth Protection in Magic in their MUM magazine. 

The Theater (Smoke and Mirrors, inside the Venue is owned and operated by Danny Archer and Marty Martin). 

Those 3 plus former SAM president [Mike Miller] and Jeff Carson/Leach/Ron Geoffries used to run  "The East Coast Magic Spectacular" together. They are all close which is why Jeff continues to be welcome at SAM #4 events and that venue. I prefer to be anonymous but a google search will turn up those names all over the place together.—XX

Hmmm… okay. That sort of explains things. I was wondering why this essentially unkonwn performer was even being asked to lecture at this place, given his history.

Here’s that “history” courtesy of Philly Mag.

According to the indictment, he was accused of molesting a girl more than a dozen times, starting when she was 10. In that indictment, Leach was accused of “placing or rubbing his penis against her,” “having the victim touch his penis for the purpose of sexually arousing or sexually gratifying himself or to humiliate or degrade” her, “showing videotaped pornographic images of adults engaging in sexual behavior” to her, and “masturbating in view” of her. Because Carson pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, there was no trial and no judicial determination that those were the specific acts in which he had actually engaged.

But okay, I guess this clears things up. The people behind the scenes are buddies with the guy. So they’re cool with it.

Let’s just hope they’re not that cool with it.

I mean, the last theater that hosted Jeff Carson was this one…

Which was run by this guy…

Do you still do the focus group testing of magic tricks and moves and all of that? I’ve missed reading those posts. —CA

Yes and no.

The friends I started testing with years ago and I still get together a couple times a year. These days, most of that work is contracted testing for a performer we’ve been collaborating with.

Part of the reason you don’t see as much testing written up here is:

1. It’s really expensive.

Which I’m fine with, but also…

2. We’ve already tested most of the “big” questions that have a real impact on performance.

I don’t want to test stuff just to test stuff. I want results that either answer a fundamental question or give us data that’s broadly useful. Things like: which forces are most deceptive, whether audiences inherently understand invisible thread, if conditions should be stated or implied, whether props need to be examined, what triggers suspicion… those felt worth the time and financial investment.

But once the question becomes, “Does this specific move in this specific trick fool people?” the return on investment drops off.

All of that is to say, yes, the infrastructure to do the testing is still in place. We’re just waiting for the right questions to test.

Dustings #131

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GLOMM Lodge #1 has finally been established. (See here for how the GLOMM Lodges started.)

Lodges are local chapters of the GLOMM. (See how to start your own chapter here.)

You might ask, “Are these real organizations?” Well, much like true love or Bigfoot, they’re as real as you want them to be. Do they have meetings and dues? Not as far as I know. Unless they want to. People are free to run their Lodges however they like.

We currently have four recognized branches:

GLOMM Lodge #1
West Lafayette, Indiana

GLOMM Lodge #2: The Mastodons
Melbourne, Australia

GLOMM Lodge #3: The Coyotes
Eugene, Oregon

GLOMM Lodge #4: The Otters
Sacramento, California

If you’re in one of those areas and want to “join,” let me know and I’ll connect you with the contact person for that branch.

GLOMM Lodge #1’s mascot is The Does

Doe? A deer? A female deer?

Yes. This name references West Lafayette’s white-tailed deer population.

It’s also a nod to the fact that Lodge #1 currently has two female members and one male, marking the first time in magic history that a magic organization organically had more women than men.

(Not counting the all-female groups that feel suspiciously like they were dreamed up by men to keep women out of the “real” clubs. You know, like the Brilliant Order Of Bewitching Sorceresses. Or the Koven of Illusionists, Thaumaturges, Conjurers, Heroines, Enchantresses & Necromancers, with their telling slogan: “Are you a woman in magic? You belong in the K.I.T.C.H.E.N.”)

Any men in the West Lafayette Lodge will be known as Gentleman Does.

But that doesn’t make any—

Zip it. The South Carolina women’s basketball team was the Lady Gamecocks. There’s precedent here. Plus, the Gentleman Does is a dope name.

From Demian Max:

I’ve updated the Quinta Trainer with some great suggestions:

  1. You can now adjust the difficulty by choosing the timing in Adaptive Settings.

  2. You can also use audio — someone says a number, and you need to identify which side to start from in Speak Number. This makes the training much closer to real-life conditions.

  3. And the best one: instead of clicking in three different places (left, right, basic, or bounce), now you just tap the side you start from — by clicking on 1 or 5 — with the new Fast Tap mode.

Look, I don’t promote my stuff here (or anywhere, for that matter). And I don’t encourage others to do so either.

But, that being said, if you have the Jerx App and you haven’t been using the Echo Sync trick, you’re missing out. I know if you already had the app when this dropped, it might feel like a “freebie” and easy to shrug off. But just imagine you paid $60 for it instead. It’s that strong.

For the past month, I was pairing it as a lead-in to Christian Grace’s excellent SAM app. But I had to stop because Echo Sync was consistently hitting just as hard, if not harder. At a certain point, it didn’t make sense to stack them.

When they can see themselves on video reading your mind, it’s incredibly strong.