Force of Hearts

Here’s a quick idea for a Valentine’s Day trick.

But, Andy, Valentine’s Day isn’t until next month.

Yes, I know. I’m giving you a head-start so you can prepare and do it during the Valentine’s Day season.

It’s always weird to me when magic companies will put out a trick that’s “perfect for Halloween” and they put it out on Oct. 26th.

Or this email I got on Christmas Eve at 8pm.

Merry Christmas Eve!

 As you prepare for a night of festivities, family, and food, we wanted to send a quick note of holiday cheer and a way to make your gift-giving a little more miraculous tonight.

Gee, thanks. I was going to read my kid, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. But fuck him because I’ve got an instant download to watch and gimmick to make.

Even Penguin releasing their Christmas special on Christmas seems weird to me. If you’re watching a Penguin Live on Christmas day, you better hope you’re Jewish. If the Ghost of Christmas Future took me to someone’s house to show me how they were celebrating Christmas in the years to come and I peeked in their window and saw them at their computer watching Craig Petty, I’d be distraught. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say it isn’t so!”

This is just to say… get with it, magic companies. Release your holiday magic in time to allow us to enjoy it during the season.

So here’s my Valentine’s Day idea…

You get a clear force bag and a couple of bags of conversation hearts.

Create one (or more, depending on how many chambers your force bag has) pile of hearts with matching phrases on them and load that in one of the sections. Put mixed hearts in the other.

Have your friend reach in and remove some at random, read the messages, and have them drop them back in. Shake up the bag. Close your eyes, turn your head away, blindfold yourself or whatever (fully gouge out your eyes if there are any true skeptics in the audience).

Now open the force chamber, have them remove a heart, read it to themselves and toss it in your mouth where you chew it and tell them what it says.

If you have something like Blake Vogt’s Fource Bag, you can repeat this two more times.

“My tongue is sensitive enough to read the ink on candy hearts” is a stupid enough power that it won’t come off like you’re trying to impress them. So they can just enjoy the absurdity and impossibility of it.

I had this idea years ago while watching an episode of Community.