Monday Mailbag #62
/Lately, anytime I'm tempted to buy the latest and greatest trick or prop, I show the trailer or a performance video to laymen that I know and get their opinions on it. Mainly to see if they can distinguish the method right away.
The latest example is "Thin Air" by Ignacio Lopez
Every person I showed came to the instant conclusion that there's a flap. One person pointed out in the trailer that he lowers one corner but picks up on the corner beneath it. I think this is a great standard to implement on deciding what to buy. This should be the last step in "The Jerx Purchasing Principle".... Show to at least 3 laymen... —CH
Yes, this is the purpose of the Virtual Focus Group, to get demos in front of laypeople. I sent this one out to a half-dozen people and all of their “best guesses” involved there being something going on with the silk. Even though I had edited the demo down to just one effect (so they weren’t seeing the silk in action over and over again).
When used as an appearance or a vanish, this is the sort of trick that might look "magical,” but won’t be very fooling. Usually I’m concerned about the inverse of this. A boring card effect, for example, that might fool people but doesn’t seem very magical. Here I think you have the opposite. Seeing something appear or disappear will give a little magical thrill, but there’s just too obvious an explanation of where the thing came from or went. So you just have the “Surprise” reaction, and then it quickly fades. (The Surprise Fizzle.)
That being said, I think it becomes less obvious when using this prop for an invisible switch. For example, having a borrowed dollar bill folded up and covered with the silk and then you divine its serial number. But I feel like even in that situation the use of the silk itself will raise eyebrows. It’s going to look out of place in most situations that aren’t your Magic Castle set, or something along those lines.
If I had to try and jam this prop into a more casual setting, maybe I’d have a small brass bowl wrapped in the silk or sitting on it in some sort of Wonder Room area of my house. Then I’d go through some ritual where something gets secretly written down on a piece of paper which is folded up, that paper gets burned in the bowl, and then at some point later in the night, that word, or name, or object that was written on the paper, manifests itself in some manner.
In that case I’d have to come up with the choreography for when/why the billet is placed on the silk and covered. If I could come up with something that makes sense, then the benefit of this—over just manually switching and burning a dummy billet—is that I can claim to “never touch it.” Then, of course, their actual billet would just be hidden in the silk for me to get later in the evening and set it up so their word appears in the steam on the bathroom mirror during their shower or whatever.
Playing cards are ubiquitous, but playing games with playing cards is sort of disappearing--except with old guys like me. But the proliferation of magicians who whip out a deck of cards is enormous (Larry Haas has published the final two books of Eugene Burger's magic; he tells me that the penultimate book did okay, but the final one is flying off the shelves because it is all card magic--magicians love cards).
So here's the thing. Even if we notice a pack of playing cards in someone's silverware drawer--I don't know why she keeps them there--and say, hey, I want to try something, the immediate thought is always "magic trick." Because, what? You're going to show them a variation of Hearts? I know that if our casual friends know we do magic, this isn't really a problem, but I know you also approach strangers in coffee shops.
So my question is--do you ever whip out a deck of cards in such settings [and if so, how]? I suspect that the "can you help me with this? I'm working on something," might work, but I have not done that [yet].
I don’t often bring out a deck of cards and show something to a complete stranger in a setting like a coffee shop. At least I don’t spring it on them just out of the blue. If it’s going to happen then it’s likely to happen because the subject of magic (or gambling or psychology or something) comes up in conversation while talking to them—because I’m talking about my interests, or something I was doing the other day. Once that subject comes up, it’s very likely they’re going to latch onto it because that’s what people do. At least people who are interested in talking to you. So once they take the bait, it’s easy to say, “Oh yeah… actually, there’s something I’ve been working on. Could I get your help with it?” And then I might remove some cards from my computer bag. So that’s how I would get to that point. That’s not the first thing I say to them, it’s the thing that links the discussion we’re already having to the trick.
Now, I also happen to be in a unique situation where I can go into any of a dozen coffee shops around me and there is an 80% chance that one of the regular customers or employees has seen me do something in the past and knows that I’m always “working on” something so it’s very likely they’re going to ask if I have anything new I’m playing around with. This is one of the benefits of being the world’s only professional amateur magician. I’ve created a whole bunch of locations I can go to where I see people regularly enough for them to know who I am and what I’m into, but infrequently enough that they aren’t burnt out on seeing “something weird” or “something interesting” or “a new trick I was reading about.”
Now, let’s say you’re out at a public place where you don’t know anyone. And for some reason you’re desperate to show someone a particular card trick. Here are two methods you can use to approach someone sitting next to you without saying, “Can I show you a trick?”
Both of these methods rely on making that person feel helpful in a concrete way. If you just say, “Do me a favor, watch me do a magic trick.” That’s almost going to feel like, “Do me a favor, give me some validation.” Because that’s what it would feel like if someone offered to “entertain” you out of the blue, in any situation really.
So here are a couple of tactics you can use. One for a more procedural trick, and one for a visual trick.
Procedural
Have your deck of cards out and a notebook. Do some cutting and dealing or some actions similar to what your trick entails. And every now and then make a note in your notebook (or on your laptop if you have that). Do this for 5-10 minutes or so as you drink your coffee. A couple of times, mutter under your breath, “What the heck?” Or, “Hmmm… wait a sec” Or something like that. Don’t be overly theatrical with it.
At some point, turn to the person next to you and say, “Excuse me. Could I get your help with something? It will only take a second—I just need someone else’s input because I think I’ve looked at this too much myself.” Or whatever. You’re not saying, “Can I show you something?” Or, “Would you like to see something?” Instead you’re asking for their help. And this works because, generally, people like to be helpful. Now you go through the trick with them. You may say it’s “a trick” you’re working on, or you may say it’s something else, “I’m testing some blackjack probabilities” or whatever, I don’t know. It’s going to depend on what your trick is.
So you walk through the trick with no presentation. And at the end you reach the climax of the trick and you turn over the top four cards to show the four aces (for example). You don’t say, “ta-daa!” You just go back to your notebook and make a couple more notes and shake your head and mutter, “I…just…don’t…get…it.” You thank them for their help and then turn back to your own work. You can then let them engage with you as much as they want or don’t want to afterwards. I would say 4 our of 5 times they want to engage more and talk about what just happened. But even if they don’t, assuming the trick is solid, it’s going to gnaw at their mind a little. And because you didn’t go in looking for their adulation, it’s going to make them wonder a little bit exactly what it was they just saw.
Visual
With a visual trick you’re going to create another area of need for them to help out with. You take out your phone and turn on the camera and try and prop the phone up against your coffee cup or whatever as you show something to the camera. Essentially you want it to look like you’re practicing something and recording it.
Now you turn to the person next to you and ask them if you could get their help quickly. Ask them to hold your phone and record your hands. They’re going to watch the trick, but they’re going to do so by watching it through a screen. Seeing a trick on a screen would normally dullen its impact. But it’s a much different situation when they’re the one capturing the magic on the screen themselves.
Almost every time I’ve done something like this (and it works for any visual trick, not just a card trick, of course), they’ve asked me to text them the video. So it’s a great way to potentially open the lines of communication beyond just this moment, if you’re so inclined.
But the real purpose of both of these techniques is to remove the “ask” of saying “Do you want to see a trick?” or “Can I show you something interesting.” Instead you turn the ask into a simple task, “Could you name a card and a number for me?” or “Could you record this for me.”
If I was going to pull a card trick on a stranger in that kind of environment, that’s likely the approach I would use.