Spont In Your Pocket

I received this email recently from Colin C.

I'm a fan of this Spont: set a reminder on your phone to go off in two minutes and turn the volume on. Then go start a conversation with the person you want to show something to. The reminder interrupts the conversation. Then you glance at your phone and say, "oh, hmm, do you mind helping me with something?" And off you go.  This is appropriate for something like the "Protection Spell" trick you posted or any trick that has a presentational aspect of a regular or repeating action. It gives the experience a tiny push to start it all.

Your phone is an excellent Spont tool. Phones constantly interrupt us and change the direction of what we’re thinking or doing. So it’s perfectly natural-seeming to allow the phone to direct you into a performance.

Colin’s idea is a good one. You’ll want to play it off like you totally forgot you needed to do this thing. But… since they’re here… would they mind helping?

You can also use a fake call or fake text app to spur you into a magic trick as well.

I don’t usually use one of those apps, I just set an alarm and make it sound like a call or text message. The phone is in my pocket or on the table face-down, the alarm goes off, and I either excuse myself to “take the call” or act like I’m reading the text.

“Sorry. It’s this guy who wants me to test a magic trick for him. I told him I’d do it by the end of the week, but I guess he’s getting impatient.”

This usually generates questions. “Who is this guy?” “You test tricks?” And quite often they will directly offer to be the subject for the trick. If not they will almost always happily agree to watch the trick if you ask.

The phone is great for a “spontaneous” third-party magic trick. I’ll answer the phone (supposedly) and have a quick chat with someone and then direct the person I’m with through a trick as if I’m being directed by someone else on the line.

This works well for something like a very procedural, self-working card trick. Like a card location. They can’t really question the procedure because it’s not me telling them what to do. It’s this other guy on the phone.

Then I can act incredulous and really emphasize the impossibility of what’s going to happen. [Into the phone.] “No way. That’s bullshit… pause… okay, sure. Fifty bucks if you can.” [To my friend.'] “He says if you hold the deck up toward my phone he’ll be able to tell you how far down your card is. [Into the phone.] “Okay, she’s doing it. So where is it. 34th card down? No fucking way.”

This takes a card location, which can come off sort of dull even when it works, and turn it into a very different magical experience, as you are seemingly transmitting the information back and forth between the parties. It doesn’t necessarily make the trick stronger. But it makes it unique and memorable, which in turn will make the experience stronger.

I’m sure there are other possibilities insofar as how your phone can lead you into an effect. I’ll probably think of/collect other ideas for a future post.

[Note: Here’s Tommy Wonder doing something similar on his old L&L videos. This is, once again, an example of the vast difference of doing something in a formal show versus in a casual setting. In a formal show, this comes off as sort of a “cute bit.” It’s part of the “presentation.” But in a casual setting, it can be the sort of thing that grounds a trick. It enmeshes the trick in the real world.]