What's the Worst Thing About: 1$TNR

A couple years ago this month I offered free advertising at the Jerx. I did that because a lot of people were offering to send me their products to talk about on the site, but I knew that wouldn’t go well. I’d just end up giving things positive reviews because I got them for free. You can see this on a number of youtube “review” channels. You might think, “Well, that’s not how it would work for me. I would definitely be able to be objective, even if I got something for free.” Okay, maybe. You’re better than me then.

So I offered a type of advertising where, if someone wanted, they could send me a product and I would detail the worst aspects of that product. That way, their product gets a little more exposure. I don’t feel bad about tearing it apart. And it’s still a somewhat valuable critique of the product. I’m not going to make up stuff that’s not good about it. I’m going to point out the genuine flaws in it, from my perspective. And if you don’t find those flaws too significant, then you could take that as a positive review of the product.

Unsurprisingly, this has not been very popular with magic creators. However it has served the purpose I wanted, which was to cause people to be less likely to offer to send me their stuff. You wouldn’t think this would be a hassle, but it is when you have the normal human instinct of reciprocation. When I do recommend something (usually in the newsletter where I do reviews), I want people to know I genuinely like it. And you lose that when your “reviews” become just a magic payola situation.

Now, for only the second time since introducing this feature, someone has taken me up on it the offer. Carl Irwin has sent along his One Dollar Torn and Restored effect for me to point out what I feel are its weaknesses.

Now, this is called the One Dollar Torn and Restored, not just because you’re tearing and restoring a dollar, but also because the trick costs one dollar. Yes, one dollar. (Or five easy payments of 20 cents.)

It’s kind of difficult to assess a trick that cost one dollar. Whatever issues you might have with it, the obvious response is, “Well… what did you expect? It was a dollar.”

The truth is, if I picked up a prostitute and she said it was one dollar for some oral action, and then all she did was elbow me in the junk, I still wouldn’t be like, “I want my dollar back!” That’s how little my expectations are for a dollar.

So, this might sound like faint praise, but 1$TNR is worth the price.

The effect is simply a torn and restored bill, card, post-it, or other small piece of paper. It is not impromptu, but the gimmicks could be carried with you fairly easily. It can be done sitting or standing. Other than having the gimmicks with you, there are no other performance requirements that I can think of. And at the end, you’re left with an examinable signed bill. You can see the trick in action here…

The basic method seems like something that should have existed before, because it’s not so far removed from other methods in magic. But I don’t recall having seen it (although I’m not an expert on this sort of thing). It could be completely original. Either way, it seems like enough thought was put into this download to justify it as its own release. Even if you understand the general idea, I can confidently assure you that there are aspects to the handling that you haven’t considered which are gone over in the download.

So what are the bad things about this trick?

Well, first, the royalty-free music used in the demo and on the download made me want to shoot myself in the fucking head.

But other than that, the worst thing about this trick is borne of its strengths. The strength is that it’s a signed bill that can be examined at the end. But because it’s signed and because it can be examined, that requires a method that fails to generate what the most truly hard-hitting effects have: conviction. For a torn and restored trick to be most effect and most affective, you need to generate conviction that this is their one and only bill that’s clearly being torn, and whose pieces are clearly being melded back together. This is, of course, a huge bar to clear in torn and restored effects, and most won’t get close to that goal. But still, that’s the weakness with this effect. You can’t generate enough conviction with it that you could really focus everyone’s attention on the clarity of the tearing, or the cleanliness of the restoration. At least not in the way you would need to for the most powerful type of magic.

I sent the performance video out to 8 laymen and got their thoughts on the effect and none of them nailed the method. But a number did say something like they’d want to see the pieces or the restoration more closely, which I think goes towards the lack of conviction that it was genuinely the same dollar being torn and then restored from those pieces.

However, for a quick, casual moment, I think this method will work pretty well. And for that reason I probably wouldn’t have the bill signed. Signing the bill makes it seem you’re taking extra precautions to be fair, which I don’t think makes a ton of sense with the nature of the tearing and restoring sequence, which isn’t explicitly fair. So unless you can have the bill marked for some other purpose, I would probably just borrow it, tear it up, restore it and hand it out. I wouldn’t put too much more into the effect than that.

How would I perform this? Hmmm… I would likely just ask people if they wanted to see something cool and then ask to borrow a bill (it can be any denomination). The people who know me would expect I’d have a trick to show them. Instead I’d tear up the bill while saying, “I’ve realized we can strike a blow against those pig capitalists, and release ourselves from the shackles of corporate oppression just by destroying money and taking it out of circulation. Isn’t that cool?” I’d then notice the look on the face of the person who lent me the dollar. “What’s the problem? Are you not down with the cause?” I’d look at the them incredulously. “You disgust me.” Then I’d restore the bill and toss it to them. “There’s your precious money. Go suckle at the teat of Walmart and Coca-Cola you corporate slave.”

I think this method is well suited to that type of performance. It’s a legitimate, workable method for a quick WTF moment, and well worth the meager asking price.