Spont: Wallet Cards

I’m trying to think the best way to introduce this idea to you. If I tell you how much I’ve been getting out of this idea recently, your expectations are going to be raised and when you read it you’ll say, “Huh? That’s it?”

But if I don’t hype it up for you somewhat, I think you’ll underestimate the idea.

It’s definitely a small idea.

It’s possibly something that other people are already doing without thinking too much about it. But I just stumbled on it myself recently.

It’s a Spont.

What’s a Spont?

A Spont is a concept I wrote about a few weeks ago. At that time, Spont was a placeholder name, but now I’m sticking with it.

Sponts are techniques you can use to make a trick feel more spontaneous. They make the interaction feel less planned. And they lower the friction between performing and not performing.

This is a Spont for use with wallet card magic.

As you probably know, wallet card magic is magic that’s done with a card you keep in your wallet (and if you didn’t know that, I’m sure you could have surmised that).

Some examples that I have carried around are Chroma by Mark Lemon or Pictionary by Michael Weber.

Contact by Rick Lax is a that uses a single playing card you can keep in your wallet.

Paul Carnazzo has a whole series of them. (I’m not familiar with his work, so I can’t comment on them, good or bad.)

The best thing about wallet card tricks is that you can carry them around in your wallet. Very convenient.

The worst thing about wallet card tricks is the, “hold on, let me get my special little card I carry with me to show you a trick” moment.

There’s really no way to naturally stumble into the trick. The card is hidden away in your wallet. Sure, I guess if someone says to me, “I was just thinking about the subject of color cognition,” I can pull out Mark Lemon’s Chroma and say, “Oh, I just happen to have a card on me that tests such things.” But sadly, it’s a subject that rarely comes up.

So there’s always that moment between our normal conversation, and the point where I’m digging in my wallet to get a card to show you a trick.

I know most performers don’t care. Most magicians would say, “Just tell them you want to show them a trick and reach in your wallet and pull out the card. What’s the big deal?”

I get it. But that moment—that moment where they go from a normal interaction to being the audience for a magic trick—is my least favorite moment in casual magic. The more abrupt it is, the less natural it feels, the more their guard is up. Sanding the edges off that moment is an essential element of social magic.

Okay… enough build up. So what’s the technique I’m talking about?

I don’t keep wallet cards in my wallet.

Instead, I use them as bookmarks.

Underwhelmed? That’s fair.

But I’m telling you, it feels so much better to get into one of these tricks this way, rather than pulling the card out of my wallet.

I can have the book out when I’m at a café or elsewhere in public where I might interact with people.

I can have it sitting on my coffee table or my night stand. On the passenger seat of my car. On my desk at my co-working space. Anywhere where people might see it.

Sometimes they’ll spot the bookmark and ask what it is.

Sometimes they’ll ask about the book. I’ll flip through it as I talk about the plot and casually set the bookmark on the table. At this point, they may notice the card and ask me about it.

Sometimes I’ll just be talking to someone, and I’ll absentmindedly be flicking the edge of the bookmark with my thumb. Then, I focus on it as if I’m just taking in what it is myself, I say, “Oh, could I try something with you?”

So even if they don’t notice the card or comment on it, the card is already in the world, and it’s serving a purpose other than being this thing that I carry around in order to do a magic trick with. It’s not something that’s been squirreled away in my wallet. If they don’t happen to notice it, then I can notice it. And my attitude is, “Oh, yeah. I have this with me. It might be fun to try [whatever].” That’s still perfectly normal. It does not feel forced. If I was using a coupon for adult diapers as a bookmark and I happened to notice it and mention, “Oh yeah, I don’t know if I told you, but I’ve been shitting my pants recently.” That would feel like a natural moment. You wouldn’t think, “I bet he uses that as a bookmark because he WANTS to tell me about his fecal incontinence.”

This is especially good for tricks that use a single playing card like Contact. It’s actually less normal to carry around a single playing card in your wallet than it is to carry around a full deck of cards in your pocket. So if someone asks to see a trick and you say, “Ah, I don’t have anything. Well, actually, I have this single card in my wallet,” then that card is already suspect, and your actions clearly pre-planned.

But a playing card as a bookmark? This isn’t uncommon. You can genuinely play this as if you’re caught off guard. “Sorry. I don’t have anything on me… well, actually….”

My appreciation for this little idea might not resonate with you. But I’ve already gotten a lot out of it in just a matter of weeks since I started doing it.

(In my obituary, please make sure it says: “To get a feel for his intellect, in middle school, he struggled to write one page about the American Revolution. As an adult, he wrote the equivalent of a four-page essay on using wallet card magic tricks as bookmarks. He will not be missed.”)