An Example of a Broken Trick

There’s a new serial number divination trick available on Penguin called The Two Tenners by Alexander Marsh. It’s got a method that’s interesting, although I don’t think the routine as a whole is great for a serial number divination. I think openly introducing a second bill into the proceedings hints at the method, or—at the very least—complicates what should be a simple effect. And there is an opening interaction which is meant to make the use of the bills meaningful in some way (they’re a wager), but that part is so perfunctory and unrelated to the main effect that it feels tacked on. And on top of that, one of the methods used requires you to do something completely unmotivated with your bill—and you can’t really get around it because it’s the heart of that method.

But the biggest sin of the routine (at least as it’s written up in Marsh’s earlier work, I haven’t seen this download) is that you handle the spectator’s bill long before you tell them what’s going to happen. That gives them one big Easy Answer when the time comes for you to “divine” the serial number. “Well… I guess he must have looked at it and memorized it.” That’s not the method used, but it’s easy for someone to assume it is.

Now, you might say, No, they won’t think I memorized it when I just held the bill for a few seconds and I wasn’t even really looking at it. Oh… yes they will. They have no idea how long you were holding it, they have no idea how much you were looking at it, because you never told them this would be important. In fact, in this routine, you go out of your way to suggest it’s not important—that the money is just a wager—so why would they give a shit how much you handle it or look at it? Only later, after you’ve gone on a bit of a detour, do you say, “Oh, and now I’ll tell you the serial number of your bill.”

It’s not a good structure, but it’s a very common one in magic/mentalism. I’ve talked about it before when I wrote about Broken Tricks. These are tricks where the method that is used prevents you from establishing the conditions that are needed for the trick to be seen as truly impossible.

This routine demands people rely on their memory to be impressed. “Did he look at the bill long enough to memorize the serial number? Hmmm… I don’t think he did. But… I don’t know, maybe? I guess I’m impressed. Sure, I’m impressed.” That’s not going to garner the reactions you would hope.

It would be like if you came back from the grocery store and found a pineapple in your grocery bag that you didn’t buy. You wouldn’t say, “Holy Christ! A pineapple magically appeared in my bag!” You would assume there was some sort of mix-up and the cashier accidentally put it in the bag. Sure, you don’t remember her putting a pineapple in the bag, but you weren’t looking for such a thing. However if I told you to watch very carefully when she was bagging your groceries, and to make sure the bags were empty to start with, and to pay close attention to everything that goes in the bag. Well, then if a pineapple shows up, you have something significantly more inexplicable.

You need to cut off Easy Answers. Sure, the notion that you could flash-memorize a serial number in a few seconds is perhaps a far-fetched method. But it’s much more reasonable than what you’re asking them to believe: that you are somehow intuiting the number with the power of your mind. So you need to eliminate that as a method.

Now, all that being said, the trick is just $10. And the “subconscious switch” used in the effect has some merit. And I believe I’ve come up with some structural and presentational touches that address all the weaknesses mentioned above. So you may still want to pick it up because in tomorrow’s post we will salvage The Two Tenners.