Dustings #124
/If you have a Rich Uncle Millionaire supporter slot I will be sending you your gift in the mail this month. In order to do that, I need you to pay your shipping fee (it’s just $1) which will pull your most current address from paypal and put it in the system so I can send it to you.
I sent you an email about this on Sunday at 5:34 pm with the link. If you haven’t paid yet, check that email.
I’ve had an influx recently of people asking me if I’d like them to send me their new magic release. The answer to this is always: Of course, yes. But I don’t like being in the position where it’s my decision whether you send me something or not. So if you want to send me something, feel free to just do it.
If it’s a digital product, you have my email address. If it’s physical, you can find that address here.
If you’d rather not send it for free, that’s totally fine too. Just let me know about the release. If it sounds like something I’ll enjoy, I’m happy to buy it myself.
As a reminder, most things that are given to me, I never end up writing about. But at the same time, the majority of the things I end up writing about (in my review newsletter) are things that were given to me. So do with that what you will.
The only real benefit of sending me something is that you can be assured I’ll definitely take a look at it at some point. Whether I end up using it regularly and writing it up for the newsletter, or whether I have any worthwhile thoughts about it (I usually don’t) is nothing you can plan on.
On a related point, I’ve now started blocking off some time each week to take a look at the stuff people send me. That doesn’t mean I’ll get to it immediately. It still might take a few weeks. But that’s better than I used to be. It used to be literally years. So…progress.
I’ve received a ton of positive feedback about Wednesday’s post, much of it along these lines:
“You did it. You came up with the ultimate version of the Toxic Force. It solves every issue I had with the original and with I.C.F. and the other variations that came after. I can’t believe you gave it away for free.”—SC
Well, to be fair, I was building on the I.C.F. framework and was further inspired by a Michael Murray idea in the same release.
Every version of the number force I looked at required some sort of get-ready, touching the screen when you shouldn’t be, hiding the screen unnecessarily at certain points, remote controls, apps, etc. My goal was to eliminate all of that.
But, if you can’t or don’t want to go the route I suggested, but you still like the I.C.F. methodology, let me recommend this way of holding the phone while the spectator does their tapping.
So the phone is facing you and you’re holding it from the top, while they reach around and blindly tap from the other side. This feels much more fair to me than holding the phone face-down with your hang gripped around it.
GIF courtesy of Markus B., who was the first person to suggest this to me.
I created a trick called Dead Goose back in 2023. I wanted to provide this follow-up showing the prop A.O. created for the effect. It looks great.
This isn’t magic-related—just a general recommendation.
I wouldn’t say baseball is my favorite sport. Not to watch, really. And definitely not to play. But it is my favorite sport to experience in person and to casually follow throughout the season.
A baseball game is on my shortlist of essential summer outings—right up there with a beach day, a county fair, and a drive-in double feature. Without them, summer feels incomplete. (Yeah, yeah, I sound like an old man. Much older than I even am. You’re young. You don’t want to spend time doing the same stuff they were doing in the middle of the 20th century. You’ve got TikTok. You’ve got an AI girlfriend whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Mazel tov. Just remember: your generation’s suicide rate is 600% what it was in 1950. So sure, you’re thriving… right up until you blow your fucking head off.)
I just like how strange the sport is. There are a million little elements you can dive into. The superstitions, the pranks, the fights, the bat flips, the trickery (the hidden-ball trick, pick-offs, “deke’ing”), the walk-off celebrations, rain-delay antics, mascots, the unique stadium elements, the fan interference moments, the unwritten rules, random animal appearances, crazy promotional gimmicks, and the insane things that can happen when a ball traveling 100 miles-per-hour flies into a crowd of people.
There’s no time limit. Games can go into the wee hours of the morning. The fields aren’t even standardized—each stadium has its own odd dimensions and personality. There’s no definitive baseball player. You can be an all-time great player and look like you’ve never seen a treadmill or a salad.
And the action isn’t confined to the field. Stuff happens in the crowd, the dugout, the bullpen, the clubhouse, the announcers’ booth. It’s a sprawling, unpredictable little circus.
It’s a leisurely game, played over a leisurely season (each team plays 162 games a year—at least). I just love the energy of it.
Did you know a baseball player once lit a rival’s foot on fire? Just kidding. It didn’t happen once. It’s a longstanding tradition in the sport. And not to rivals—to teammates. For laughs and camaraderie. How can you not love a sport where that is part of the culture?
If you’re in a country where baseball isn’t really a thing, I think it’s worthwhile to spend 5 minutes learning the basic rules so you can follow along with it.
If you’re a fan, or if you just want to go down a rabbit-hole, the Not-So-Serious Baseball series on youtube is a great place to explore all the weird moments baseball provides that you just don’t find in any other sport.