Hitches
/I received a few emails in recent days asking my opinion on this trick, CelibriKey.
I think there is interest in the effect because a good effect that you can carry around on your key-ring, is more valuable than just your average “good effect.” The convenience of having it on you at all times would make it much more appealing. Imagine if condoms required you to get them tailor-fit to your penis before you had sex with one on. No one would use condoms. It’s not that a latex barrier over your genitals is such a great solution, but the fact you can carry one around with you in your wallet makes it an attractive option. A convenient, everyday-carry magic option is similarly attractive (even if imperfect).
I don’t have a whole lot to say about CelibriKey, nor do I have a presentation I would use with it. I think it’s certainly possible to fool people with it. The reason why it’s not something I’ll buy and use is because it violates a new performing philosophy/concept I’ve been exploring recently. It hasn’t completely solidified in my mind yet so this post might not be 100% clear.
The philosophy is this:
The most compelling magic has the fewest mental Hitches for the spectator to deal with.
And by “Hitch” I mean anything that might come off as odd or unusual to the spectator. Any type of questionable action, premise, or prop.
I’ll explain with some examples…
No Hitches - I ask you if you can remember a favorite photo from your childhood. You tell me about a picture of you and your siblings jumping on the bed at your grandma’s house. I tell you to turn around, and behind you on the wall is a picture frame with that photo inside. That’s a very direct trick. And it’s a completely “hitchless” trick. Nothing needs to be explained or justified. You thought of a picture and that was on the wall in a frame (a frame on a wall being a perfectly logical place to find a picture).
One Hitch - You think of any playing card. I tell you turn around and on the wall behind you is a picture frame with that playing card inside.
There is a Hitch here. Why is the playing card in a picture frame? You may decide this is something that does or doesn’t need to be explained. You may think a framed card is an obvious presentational flourish that doesn’t need addressing. Or you may come up with a story about it. “My grandfather was the man who originally illustrated the back design for Bicycle playing cards. Most of us in the family have a framed card in our house in honor of him.” Now when that card turns out to be their thought-of card, or their signed-card, that “Hitch” has been justified. Almost as if you were foreshadowing what was to come.
Some Hitches need explanations. Some don’t. But by definition (since I made up the term), a Hitch is something that would make some sense to explain. It may not be necessary, but it makes sense. It makes sense why you would explain a framed card. It doesn’t make sense to explain framed photographs. “We put photographs in frames to protect them and to make for a nicer presentation!” Like, okay you goofy bitch, we get that. You don’t need to explain it.
Two Hitches - You ask someone to think of a playing card. Then you tell them to look on the wall behind them and they see that in a frame on the wall is their playing card. And that frame is made from an origami-folded cereal box.
Now we have the Hitch of a card being in a frame, and the Hitch of the frame being made out of a folded cereal box.
Now, method-wise, maybe the reason the card is in a frame is because the card can’t just be lying on the table, because you need to switch in the right card and the process of taking it from the frame allows you to do that. And the reason for the cereal box is that the folded frame creates the slot for you to insert the card and the stiffness of the cereal box is ideal. Or whatever.
My point being is that while you can understand the method might require these two Hitches, can you also see how kind of convoluted it feels to the audience even with just these two things to deal with? The effect, while still understandably impossible, is getting clunky.
You might argue, “Okay, but a cereal box picture frame is a pretty bizarre thing to deal with.”
No, not really. Let’s look at a One Hitch trick again.
One Hitch - I ask you to tell me about a photo from your youth. You tell me about a picture of you and your siblings jumping on the bed at your grandma’s house. I tell you to turn around, and behind you on the wall is a picture frame made of a folded cereal box with that photo inside.
See? We’ve gone back to one Hitch and that weird frame hardly seems like such an issue. Now it’s just a picture in a quirky frame, hanging on the wall. The one Hitch is much easier to overlook.
Now, let’s go back to Celbrikey.
“You’re going to choose a super-hero and I’m going to make their profile appear on this key.”
That’s your first Hitch. Batman is appearing on the key not because it makes any sense, but because you’re set up to make a superhero appear on a key. If we regularly cut keys into silhouettes, that would be one thing, but we don’t.
Can you come up with a rationale for why you’re revealing their chosen superhero on a key? Sure. But then you have Hitch #2.
This is not what keys look like…
That’s what a magic prop looks like.
So you will at least have these three Hitches in the effect:
The premise: Why are you revealing a chosen superhero on a key?
The prop: Why does the key look like that?
The force: Why did I have to name a random number (or flip through a book) to choose a superhero? If such a basic superhero as Batman was on the table, why not just let me name any superhero?
Now, that doesn’t mean the trick won’t fool people, and it doesn’t mean they won’t be entertained. For this concept to be useful to you, it’s important to understand this: Hitches are a way to identify flaws in an effect beyond the typical ones we think of like, “This won’t work,” or, “This won’t fool people,” or, “This is boring.”
In my experience, Hitches tend to make a trick less affecting and less vital. When I have a trick with a good premise that fools the audience, but doesn’t seem to capture them, I start looking for Hitches. What are the questionable elements or actions of this trick? Usually what I find is that the trick has more than a couple Hitches and that’s what’s causing people not to connect with it.
If a trick has a lot of Hitches they are either going to be unaddressed (which can leave the spectator with a lot of questions) or, if you do try to address them all, the effect can feel kind of forced and unnatural, not effortless.
Imagine this. I give you an uncut key and have you hold it in a fist. I then have you name any friend in town or local business. After that I squeeze your first gently with my hands. When you open your hand the key is now cut. We drive to the friend’s house you selected and the key opens the front door.
This, technically, is the exact same effect as CelebriKey. The magician physically alters a key held in the spectator’s hand based on a (supposedly) free selection. But I think you can see how this would likely hit much harder than a random superhero. From the moment the uncut key is introduced, every part of the trick naturally follows. It’s like a ball rolling down hill.
Of course, CelebriKey has the not-insignificant advantage of being a trick you could actually do. But you could do this too. No, not in a walk-around performance. But you could do it in a casual situation. You’d need to work out a key switch, and force a location which you could fairly easily do from a gimmicked address book or using a map or contact list on your phone. These processes might introduce their own Hitches, but I think you would find them much easier to navigate than the ones in CelibriKey. (Not all Hitches are created equal.)
I just wanted to take this post to introduce the Hitch concept. I don’t want to sound like I’m shitting on this trick. I’m not. As I said, I think it will likely fool people and entertain people, I just don’t see it really connecting with people.
I like to imagine people describing the effect to a friend afterwards. What is the takeaway? “I chose Batman, and then he appeared on a key I examined!” Is that a story someone would pass on? And would the person they’re telling it to respond with anything other than, “Wait… what?”
When it comes down to it, CelibriKey is a reveal for a forced superhero. But one that has a couple inherent Hitches in it. It also presupposes you have a workable, fooling way to force a superhero. And if you have that, is having that hero appear on a key really what you would want to use it for?
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