Friday the 13th in Context
/An email from Joe M.
There are 1.7 Friday the 13ths each year (on average).
I think Friday the 13th is an interesting day to perform magic, since you have an inbuilt folklore to bounce off.
One idea is this. You tell the spectator you are worried about attempting a card trick on Friday the 13th.
You then force the Joker in a deck filled with 51 Queen of Clubs.
You show the prediction is THE QUEEN OF CLUBS.
The spectator tells you that you are wrong.
You then ask her to show her card.
It is the Joker.
You then turn over the rest of the deck (showing 51 identical Queen of Clubs) and say: 'I knew I shouldn't have performed card tricks today. This is the fifth one in a row to go wrong!'
I always like those tricks where you apparently fail - but the subtext is that you did something even more impressive.
I wonder if there are other themes suggested by Friday the 13th that could be used in a magic trick? — JM
I’m printing this email (which came to me last September) because this Friday is a Friday the 13th. I don’t know the extent to which other countries have the folklore of Friday the 13th being bad luck (I know Joe is writing from England, so it at least exists outside of the U.S.) but if you’re somewhere that does have that superstition, it is a nice “natural” presentational hook that is just laying out there for you. In modern Western society we don’t have a ton of days with any “mystical” element to them. So taking advantage of Friday the 13th makes sense when they do roll around.
So the trick mentioned in the email is that you make a prediction and the spectator chooses the one card in the deck that isn’t your prediction. This is a fairly classic trick, and it clearly fits in with a bad luck or Friday the 13th presentation. In a traditional type of performance situation, I think it works well. But it’s a little difficult to do much more with it, because it’s a trick with too much of a punchline. Clearly the only reason you have this deck of 51 matching cards and one odd card is so that you can fail. You might as well play this sound effect at the end..
because that’s how performative the failure is.
A few years ago I did a series of posts on Presentation vs Context.
From that original post:
Presentation: Is a motif or subject matter that is laid over a trick.
Context: Is a situation into which a trick is placed.
As described, the trick in the email above has a light “Friday the 13th” presentation.
How might it look with a more long-form Friday the 13th context?
Well, what if that morning you ask your roommate, friend, spouse, lover, child, etc., (I’m not saying ask all of these people, I’m saying choose one) to select a card from a deck of cards. You open your prediction which says, “You will choose the 10 of Clubs.” They turn over their card. It’s a red ace. “Okay, that’s not surprising, I guess. I may want to try this with you again later.”
Later that evening you grab your roommate, friend, spouse, lover, child (maybe you’re lucky and these are all the same person) and you ask them again to help you out.
“So I’ve been trying this trick all day and the results have been kind of fascinating. You know it’s Friday the 13th, right? So it’s supposed to be a day of bad luck. Generally that’s not something I really believe in, but I’ve been conducting an experiment today that’s kind of changing my mind.
“You see, in magic there are tricks that are done with gimmicks—like special decks of cards or fake coins or something. And there are tricks that are done with sleight-of-hand. But then there are certain tricks that rely on more unusual—almost kind of paranormal—methods. You won’t find these tricks on youtube.
“I have an interest in these kinds of tricks, but they’re very difficult to make work. The methods are very abstract and theoretical. But while they’re very difficult to pull off successfully, given the right circumstances, you can demonstrate the ability to fail at these tricks in an a way that is almost kind of unimaginable. Especially on a day like Friday the 13th which is notoriously a day of bad luck. A lot of these types of tricks that I’m talking about have methods that are supposed to work by harnessing the power of fate, or good fortune, or synchronicity. And whether those are forces that exist or not is kind of questionable. But if they do exist, then ‘bad luck,’ is on the same spectrum… but pushing in the opposite way. So if I perform a trick that only works by harnessing good luck, on a day that is famous for bad luck, then it has the chance of failing spectacularly. It would be like trying to build a house of cards—which requires great stability—during an earthquake. That’s just not the time to do that.
“Remember this morning I asked you to pick a card and I predicted you would choose the 10 of Clubs, and I got it wrong? Well, I’ve been doing that trick all day. At work, and on my lunch break and with anyone I could find. I’ve done it about 50 times and it didn’t work all day. Even though I’ve been taking steps to increase my odds each time I do it. I want to try one last time with you and see if we can witness some tremendous bad luck.”
You take the deck and have her select “any” card, but tell her not to look at it. You open your prediction. “You will select the 10 of Clubs.” You turn over the deck and spread them… all 10 of Clubs.
“Every time someone selected a card today I replaced it with a 10 of Clubs. Giving myself better and better odds each time. It would take tremendously bad luck for this to never work with a deck of cards that is all the 10 of Clubs except for….”
You gesture to their card, they turn it over. “The Jack of Diamonds,” you say, as they reveal that card.
In this version of the trick, you plant the seed in the morning, and later in the evening you say this is something you’ve been doing since then. So you’re building this story of a trick that failed over and over and over, all day. You’re taking a 2-minute moment of magic and inflating it into something that took place over 12+hours.
What you lose here is the surprise of a deck that is all the same card at the conclusion of the effect. In this version you tip that earlier on. (You don’t have to. You could change around the way you reveal everything at the end. This is just what I prefer.) I don’t mind losing that surprise. To me it’s not a huge magical moment. People will react to it, but a big factor in that is just because they’re not used to seeing a deck of all the same card. So you still get that interesting object and a laugh there when they see that and see the prediction. But now the reveal of the actual card they picked also gets a reaction.
I haven’t tried this out yet. I’ll do it this Friday and report back if anything unexpected happens.
Another long-form series of effects around a Friday the 13th/Bad Luck theme.
“I don’t think of myself as an unlucky person, but I am bizarrely susceptive to unlucky influences. Bad luck talismans. Black cats crossing my path. Friday the 13th. These things all seem to affect me an unusual amount. It sounds ridiculous, but I’ll show you.”
You then can demonstrate your bad luck over the course of the day. How? Well… any trick that is seemingly 50/50 but you can make yourself win is also a trick that you could make yourself lose, over and over. The 10 Card Poker Deal. HIT by Luke Jermay. Those sorts of things.
Can you control a coin toss? Bet them a dollar per toss and have them call the coin in the air. Just blaze through a bunch of tosses losing over and over. It would be funny.
“Heads.”
“You win.
“Heads”
“You win.”
“Tails.”
“You win.”
“Heads.”
“You win.”
Play a game of “cut to the high card” and always cut to a two.
That sort of thing.
Friday the 13th is a day you can use to justify any nonsensical trick you might have.
“And your bill has vanished and it will reappear in my wallet. Exactly where a bill should reappear. Wait… what the hell? Your bill isn’t here. But why is this lemon seed in here? Oh shit. Is today the 13th? Friday the 13th. This is exactly why I don’t usually perform on this day. Nothing ever goes right. Hmm… well… I guess let me see if I have a lemon in my fridge. Let’s check that out.”
“Bad luck,” when it comes to a magic trick, can be defined as anything weird happening.
Maybe you offer to show them a coin vanish. You try it once and nothing happens.
Come back a couple hours later and this time just a piece of the coin vanishes. (Just grind off a small part of the coin. You can hide that and do the “vanish” of part of a coin without even doing a switch. Just hide the missing part when you originally display it.)
An hour later you return. “I think I got it this time!” And the coin turns into a strawberry.
“The fuck is going on? A strawberry? Sorry, I’ll try it again with you tomorrow.” The next day you come around and finally vanish the coin.
That coin to strawberry trick is pretty, but purely arbitrary. Putting it into the context of an actual day that people understand to be a day where things go wrong gives meaning to the meaninglessness.
“Wait… is today Friday the 13?” you ask your friend.
“Uhmm…. yeah… it is.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just I had a trick I really wanted to show Emma tonight. But I have incredibly bad luck with tricks on Friday the 13th.”
“Just do it. Who cares.”
“I just don’t want it to go wrong. It’s a really special trick I have planned. I take these three red sponge balls and place them in her hand and when she opens her hand, they’ve turned into the shape of a heart. I wanted to do something special because her parents are going to be joining all of us at dinner and I want to make a good impression. Ah, what the hell. I’ll do it. You’ll have my back if it goes wrong. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Cut to 6 hours later. A red sponge ding-dong is popping out of Emma’s hand. The balls having transformed into something you said you “want to give her.” Her mom has fainted on the couch. Her dad is punching you in the goddamn neck. “I should have waited until tomorrow!” you sputter to your friend.