No Sidetracking

Here’s a video of Craig Petty performing some shitty key prediction trick. (It’s not his trick.)

The trick itself is wildly flawed. Unless you have late-stage Parkinson’s disease, there would never be that much pen movement involved with writing down a number.

And you end up with the goofiest reveal in the history of magic. A digital read out sticker (with clearly markered-out lines) on the back of a wooden key tag.

This trick has TWAT nomination all over it.

While the trick is obviously room-temperature dog vomit, I want to talk about his presentation, because he does something I see magicians do a lot. I have no idea if Craig would perform it like this in real life. Probably not. But it’s illustrative of something I have seen people do in real life, and I think it goes against what you’re striving for with magic.

Well, I can’t really say that, can I? I can only say that it goes against what I’M shooting for with my magic.

So Craig starts off the trick and then 45 seconds in, he veers off into a three-minute story about some shitty place he stayed at once and kid’s underwear. (I think? I didn’t quite follow it.)

He tries to bring it back around to the trick at the end by saying, “The reason I'm telling you that is because this place actually used um these old-fashioned style keys.”

That’s a very tenuous (some would say nonexistent) connection between the trick and the story.

You might think, “Well, it’s a funny story. So who cares if it has anything to do with the trick. People like funny stories.”

Yes, okay. And if you’ve been hired to be “The Entertainer,” then mixing your tricks with stories and jokes may be the way to go.

But social performing is not about being an entertainer. It’s about the experience, the mystery, the interaction, the interesting or fascinating object or idea. When it becomes about you, that’s when it starts to feel a little desperate. (Whereas in a professional performing environment it is about you.)

I think some people think that since it’s meant to be casual, then of course you might go off on a tangential story, or tell a joke, or dig deep into their opinions about things.

But what I’ve found is that if you want people to feel like what you’re showing them is fascinating, then you need to present it like you’re showing them something fascinated.

Think of it like this… If I had video evidence of a ghost on my phone, and I started showing it to you, and I was making jokes and commenting on the wallpaper in the video and pausing and saying, “What about you? Have you ever seen a ghost?” It would be difficult to get you truly enthralled in THE THING I’M SHOWING YOU.

But if I was quiet and focused and treated it like it was something that I found legitimately creepy, then you would find yourself feeling that way too. You can’t help it.

I’m certainly not always serious when I perform. I rarely am. But I’m never sidetracked (unless it’s a situation where the magic moment is coming as a total surprise to me as well).

Be as focused on the trick as you want them to be. The moment you start doing shtick is the moment they feel, “Oh, I guess whatever he has to show me isn’t that interesting.”