Dustings #60
/In keeping with some recent discussion on the site, there is a new GLOMM booting to announce. Jordan Parton from Wales has been kicked out of the Global League of Magicians and Mentalists.
Jordan Parton also performed under the name Crazy Clown Balloons—which, along with his taste in playing cards, should have been a tip-off that something was wrong with this dude. Crazy Clown Balloons isn’t a name. It’s just three somewhat related words. It would be like calling yourself Fun Magician Card-box.
Incredibly, the pictures below were not the most unsavory photos found on Justin’s computer…
You see, his crime involved posing as a 15-year-old boy online to get sexual images from girls over snapchat and then using those images to blackmail the girls into performing sex acts online which he would record.
Now, the GLOMM has recently come under attack by the WKPB (the White Knights of the Pedo Brigade). So I want to make sure I address their concerns.
Yes, this is a real person who was really convicted of these acts. No, it’s not just my neighbor who plays his music too loud and this is my way of getting back at him.
Yes, there is supporting data online. You can find it with a google search. Here is a link to get you started because I know you’re confused how google works.
No, I’m not suggesting “vigilanteism.” He is paying the legal price for what he did. And he’s paying the magic price by landing an eternal spot on the GLOMM's list.
Yes, I realize you could argue that there are worse crimes than grooming and blackmailing girls for the purposes of child porn. But this isn’t a FISM category where I’m trying to find the one World’s Most Monstrous Sex Criminal Magician.
This is not Jordan’s first run in with the law. Nine years ago he made up a bullshit story about being attacked on the street. I mean, there’s no follow-up to this story, but it’s clearly fiction. You don’t get punched and kicked for five minutes, as he claimed to be, and be left “uninjured.” That’s literally not how punching and kicking works. He clearly just dropped his Blackberry and had to come up with some excuse because he’s scared of his mom.
Well, regardless, Jordan Parton, once the youngest member of the Cardiff Magic Society (and as far as I know, still a member in good standing today), is the newest person to be kicked out of the GLOMM.
If you’re releasing a download teaching a trick that requires a lot of sleight of hand or specific hand positioning—like rubber-band effects, most coin tricks, many card effects—I think the right ratio is for about 90% of the video to come from the performer’s perspective, and 10% to be the audience view.
However, if one of the big magic companies wants to create the ultimate video teaching tool, they should have a video control panel specifically made for learning magic. And it should have the feature where, at any point, you can swap from the performer’s perspective to the audience’s view. Perhaps one view is always inset in the corner, and by clicking on it, that becomes the main view, swapping with the other.
In addition there should be a simple speed slider so you can increase and decrease speed easily. And a button that flips the image for people learning who are left-handed if the performer is right-handed (and vice-versa, of course).
There are probably other features that would be helpful too, but I’ve given you a start.
You would need one definitive downloadable version of the instruction video, but the interactive one could live on your site. Of course not every trick requires that level of clarity in teaching, but for those that do, it could be quite useful.
This is the trick you got if you were a member of the Society of American Magicians this past year.
“Attached is my gift to you for making it through the challenges of the past year.”
Did the continuing global pandemic cause you to lose your job or a loved one? If so, this trick is your gift for making it through that challenge.
Okay, okay… let’s try and dissect the many layers of this brilliant trick.
First you have the very common and modern conceit of a “wooden nickel.”
But it’s not just that. It also includes the very funny joke that if you put the word “tuit” on something that’s round you can then refer to it as “a round tuit,” which sound hilariously like the phrase “around to it.” Now we’re having fun!
It’s also includes the inspiring message, “We do more together.”
And finally, it say 4 of ❤️’s. Which is an interesting use of the possessive S. But with how well thought out this trick is, I’m sure there’s a reason behind it.
So just imagine the power of this trick. You force the 4 of Hearts on someone and then you hit them with what I consider the greatest, most logical, line in the history of magic. Just imagine how your spectator will react when they hear those three beautiful unrelated clauses jammed into a single sentence: “I knew you would pick the 4 of Hearts because we do more together when we get a round TUIT.”
