Mailbag #135
/On the Tornado Bottle...
Tricks of this genre to my mind have the strong potential for your audience to want to keep the twisted item as a souvenir. If I could really so easily do this, why wouldn't I cheerfully give it away? It strikes me that at best it's a close-up effect for a roomful of strangers, none of whom feels entitled to ask for it. And is the magician supposed to put it back in the kitbag following examination? At $100 it's an expensive way to impress a booker, if this is the context.—BL
You’re correct: “I’m going to twist this normal, everyday bottle. And now I’m going to go home with it.” Is not something that any person who had the “magic” ability to twist bottles would do. It is what someone would do if they had a special $100 bottle they bought to do a trick with.
In a parlor situation, you could get away with just setting it aside. But it doesn’t strike me as a great parlor trick.
When wouldn’t you give something like this away? Maybe if you frame it as a moment that even you didn’t expect—something you’ve been trying for years, and it finally worked. Then it makes sense to keep it as your own souvenir. You could invoke some old judo technique that lets you “become one with the glass” and bend it to your will through breathing technique and application of precise pressure. (“Glass is technically a liquid,” you add.) If you act stunned—“Holy shit, I can’t believe it finally worked!”—then keeping it feels justified.
Otherwise, yeah—you’ll need to look into refill bottles so you can give one away.
Though that still leaves you with a twisted souvenir proudly labeled Baduueiser.
“Ah yes, my favorite. Baduueiser—the Kong of Bērs. For all that you do… this Bad’s for you.”
Re: Presenting Coincidences
So back in 2018 when you did that post, I went and got a shelf, put it by my door and had a deck there, just like you said, I figured I'd try it. (I would make a great cult member. you say do it, i'll do it)
Over the years I've had a bunch of people name a card, shuffle, turn over the card.
A few weeks ago, it actually worked. A friend came over, named a card, shuffled and turned over the top card. She thought I had something to do with it. I assured her, no, it was straight up coincidence, I wasn't winking, I was being dead serious, she did NOT believe me. She really thought I had something to do with it.
I didn't even follow it up with anything, I was too stunned.
The cool part about it all was I was genuinely excited for it, it was magic to ME, I may have gotten more out of it than she did. I KNEW it was a coincidence. —GC
Let this be a lesson.
This is a perfect example of a magical moment with no method. She named a card, shuffled the deck, turned over the top card—and it was the one she named. It all happened in her hands. The deck was shuffled, normal, examinable.
And yet… she still thought it was a trick.
There is no level of purity you can reach with an effect where someone won’t still assume it’s a trick.
All you can do is strip away anything that screams “method.”
Then, you give them a story—one that lingers, if you’re lucky. One that makes them think: Wait… could that actually have not been a trick?
The best case, when presenting magic, is this: the charm and romance of the story nestle in their head or heart just enough that they can’t fully dismiss the moment. They know it had to be a trick. But something about it—some subtle echo in how the experience felt—keeps tugging at their mind.
Re: An article in The Love Letters newsletter #34
Just a short email to let you know that Derren Brown's Notes From a Fellow Traveller contains an effect basically identical to Key Flightless, down to the idea of throwing a similar sounding / looking metallic object.—ND
Now, I don’t think anyone assumes I lifted something from a book by our most prominent practitione that was released just a couple of years ago, but I wanted to say a few words about it, if only to acknowledge that I’m aware of the similarity.
I own Notes From a Fellow Traveller, but I haven’t read it yet. I ordered it when it came out, but before it even arrived, people were already messaging me to say it sounded like something I’d write.
And honestly, hearing that made me not want to read it—at least while I’m still actively doing this site. I don’t want to be influenced by things that are too similar to my own approach.
The method for the trick I described in the newsletter came together back in 2020, through an email exchange with Steve Thompson (creator of Flite). That conversation was sparked by Marc Kerstein sending him a segment from this post, where I first started toying with the idea of doing Ring Flight with a key.
[One of the other things discussed in that exchange was a version where their key appears on your keyring, and your key appears on theirs. And the method actually seems pretty workable. I’ll let you know if anything ever comes of that.]
To be clear, I’m not trying to claim ownership of the concept. I doubt I was the first person to think of doing Ring Flight with keys. And throwing a coin somewhere unreachable has long been a way to “vanish” a ring in routines like this.
I just wanted to note that if you enjoyed the idea from the newsletter, you should check out Derren’s book. I imagine his version is conceptually far more layered. While my premise was a straightforward magical transformation—your house key turning into theirs—Derren’s version apparently involves a forgotten previous reality, which sounds fascinating.
Okay… maybe I’ll finally go read that part now.