Luck and Four Levels of Presentation

In last Friday’s post I mentioned the idea of an Imp using a “luck absorbing crystal,” after which I received the following email.

Of course, the converse with the stone is that some people are vulnerable to having their luck drained, so maybe I have my luck drained and then somehow give it to you?

Could I give someone else my bad luck, too? —AB

Definitely. I like any premise that treats “luck” like an actual natural resource that can be collected, manipulated, re-routed etc.

I would definitely routine it in a way that any trick ends with the spectator feeling like they’re leaving with more luck than they came in with. Not because the audience is really believing any of this, but just because… why not?

This is a good opportunity to look at four different levels of presentation, using “luck” as the subject of the presentation.

Level One - No presentation

Maybe the spectator deals out some cards and they mysteriously are able to match up cards of the same value. There is no stated presentation here.

In my experience, people will often enjoy tricks like this as they are happening, but they will remember very little about the tricks the next day. And if they’ve seen a few different card tricks from you, it doesn’t take long at all for this to blend in with all the others.

Level Two - The Bookends

This is what I see a lot of magicians doing, and frankly I think it’s probably worse than no presentation at all.

They’ll pull out a deck of cards and say, “Do you believe in the power of luck? I think you’re probably a lucky person.”

Then at the end when the cards match they’ll say, “See! I told you. You’re lucky!”

I hate this kind of thing. There’s something I find displeasing about “the least possible amount of effort” even more-so than “no effort at all.”

If you’re not going to put any effort into the presentation then just do the trick without a presentation. Adding a couple of lines to the beginning and end of a trick don’t make it any more enjoyable or memorable.

Level Three - Context

Context is a story within which the trick exists. If you do a ctrl+F for “context” you’ll find a bunch of posts with titles that start with “Presentation vs Context,” where this idea is explored more fully.

In this instance the “context” might involve me removing the stone, telling the story of how I acquired it, explaining how it supposedly works, going through the process to “invoke” the power of the stone, and then finally testing it with “a simple game.” The trick now really only makes complete sense in relation to the context. The cards matching up is a demonstration of the luck generated by this stone. (I’m not suggesting this is a brilliant context, just using it as an example.)

A context immediately ups the memorability of the experience of a trick. It’s like taking random notes and putting them into a melody.

Level Four - Immersion

Immersion happens when the context and real life start to overlap and blur a little bit, using the extra-presentational techniques I’ve written about over the course of this site.

Imagine a trick where I transfer some of my luck over to you via some sort of process. At the end of the trick—as a demonstration of this luck—you’re able to match up cards in a game we play. So you’ve absorbed my luck.

Now, the trick is over. But think of what could happen afterwards in terms of Reps. How can we extend the absurd premise as if it’s real? Since I’ve given away a bunch of my good luck I should have an excess of bad luck in my system. I’m unbalanced. So when I go to put the cards away I knock them off the table and all over the floor. As I pick them up, I smack my head against the underside of the table. I get up and stub my toe. I break a glass. Etc.

Perhaps I tell you there’s one way to “burn off” the bad luck and to do that I place a bunch of low-dollar wagers on some baseball games happening that night. At the end of the night we look and see that all my teams lost. (So this would just be some type of headline/sports prediction. But I would be picking all the losers rather than all the winners.) In reality this is an unrelated trick, but it gets wrapped up in the same premise (earlier I transferred some of my luck to my friend) extending that premise beyond the trick.

Immersive presentations aren’t things you can or would necessarily want to do all the time. But if you’re looking to create a lasting memory with a particular trick, this is the best way I’ve found to do so consistently.