Mailbag #134

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I saw a show from the local magic circle. Most of the material was 9 linking rings, Rocky Raccoon with Davis Williamson’s script and stage proofed jokes "No, the clean hand".

But the audience liked it.

So why investing thoughts, time and energy in an immersive experience for the audience?

Isn't "Good enough" - "Good enough"?

What are your thoughts on this?—SD

I think with no talent, no creativity, and very little effort, you could perform a platform magic show that would be “good enough” by copying the work of those who came before you.

I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. I don’t think it’s the same as a comedian who steals people’s jokes because—unfortunately—most people seeing a magician in this setting aren’t really expecting anything new or original.

And while it might be “good enough” for a baseline level of entertainment, and is maybe something you could supplement your income with—it’s not “good enough” if you want to express part of yourself or achieve any level of notoriety.

It’s even worse for the casual magician performing for friends and family. If you’re doing standard tricks with standard lines, you’re going to come off as a complete lunatic to the people in your life. Sure, you could probably get away with doing that once a year for the neighborhood Christmas party. But if you want to regularly include magic in your interactions, then you need to do something that feels personal and unscripted and like a genuine human interaction.

There’s no version of the linking rings at a dinner party with your friends that is “good enough.” There’s only “Why is Craig doing this?” and “Should we be worried about him?”

Been catching up on the Carefree post and had a question: Do you think there is a separation of a lack of tension from natural actions? Natural actions usually lead to a lack of tension. But as someone who used to study some hard sleight of hand, there are some moves I've practiced enough, specifically to do so without tension, that I think could be Carefree for me at this point.

So are there certain sleights that qualify as Carefree? Or do you yourself make a sleight Carefree? —CR

First, there’s no sleight so easy that some magician isn’t out there fucking it up somewhere. (That’s another one for The Jerx Complete Quotes: A Compendium of Magical Wisdom)

Second, while there’s likely some magician who has mastered even the most difficult sleight—to the point where they can execute it with no visible tension or thought—99 times out of 100, it’s the opposite. The magician thinks he’s doing something invisibly, but there’s some giveaway in his actions or body language that feels off to people.

The problem is, you are in the worst position to judge this.

Another magician isn’t much better. They’ll say your move looks good, when what they really mean is: “As a magician, I know you’re doing something funny there. But that’s because I have special magic knowledge. A normal non-magician would never know.” But he’s overestimating what he’s picking up because of his magic knowledge—assuming it’s invisible to a layperson just because he knows exactly why it looks off.

So how do you know if your move is invisible?

Here’s how (you’re never going to do this, but this is how you would):

Record a video of yourself doing the move—say, a Double Lift and turnover.

Now record a video of yourself doing what that move is supposed to emulate: just turning over the top card.

Ask people if they can spot the difference between the two videos, or if they look like the same action. Tell them that in one video you’re doing sleight-of-hand, in the other you’re not. If people are guessing more or less equally, then you’ve probably got an undetectable sleight. If most people are calling out the sleight video as looking “off,” then you know it’s not truly tension-free and normal-looking.

It might still be good enough for most performances, but you don’t have to lie to yourself that comes off completely Carefree.

As for the mental effort it takes to pull off a move? Only you can know if it feels truly Carefree.

In your last post you said this regarding Steve Brooks:

I always thought the best storyline for the Jerx would involve us collaborating in some way.

I’m intrigued by this 😆 what would a jerx/cafe/steve brooks collaboration look like???—DD

One of the oldest drafts in my blog is titled Saving the Magic Café.

Years ago, I worked with a web designer, a UX specialist, and a brand strategist to create mock-ups for a completely reimagined version of that site—one with real functionality, community features, and modern usability. It would have made the Café indispensable for magicians, magic suppliers, and companies alike, while creating meaningful revenue streams for Steve beyond just static banner ads that never change and no one clicks.

So it was always my intention to come full circle and try to help revitalize the Café—because that was the site that, unintentionally, gave me my start in the magic community by kicking me out all those years ago. But Steve and others at the Café were committed to maintaining an adversarial relationship (which I’m perfectly okay with) so the project never moved forward.

Until April...

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A quarter of the year has passed. Incredible.

I will see you all back here on Monday, April 7th. The next issue of the newsletter will be sent Sunday, April 6th.

The increasingly irrelevant Magic Café, which as of right now doesn’t have enough people reading it to field a baseball team…

still doesn’t allow people to mention this site, even in passing.

There were two threads on new products in the Latest and Greatest section that I had an interest in—both threads briefly mentioned something I wrote. I wonder if this will last? I thought. Nope! Both got edited.

This is 20+ years since I used to bash the Café regularly. Sure, I pointed out that Steve Brooks desperate lobbying for a meaningless FISM award is pathetic a week or so ago. But I haven’t talked about how small and disgusting his genitals are in literally decades.

I’ve convinced myself it’s not Steve making these decisions. It’s this other dunce—Dave Scribner—the “assistant manager” of the message board. I don’t have any proof of that. But in my heart, I want to believe Steve isn’t that fucking corny. I always thought the best storyline for the Jerx would involve us collaborating in some way. As I’ve said before, I have a weird affection for the guy.

But Scribner? Scribner’s a full-blown sad-sack. Sure, Steve may be a guy whose sole accomplishment in the art he loves is registering a domain name—but Dave is that guy’s toadie. Imagine being the deputy lackey to a man whose legacy is an abandoned relic of the early-2000s online magic scene. The most recent “Guest of Honor” was a tumbleweed. And Dave… he’s the man behind the man behind that.

Seriously, children—never devote your time and energy to something so pitiable it sounds like an old Jewish curse: “May he become assistant manager of a magic message board!”

I will happily amplify any message that gets deleted or censored on the Café, whether it has anything to do with me or not (assuming you’re not trying to incite a race war or something).

One of the recent posts they edited because it mentioned me was something I had written to Timon Krause about his recent book on cold reading, which was:

“I ended up enjoying this book much more than I imagined I would. I don't really have much use for traditional cold-reading, since I’m most often performing for people I know. So I loved that this book offered almost a ‘social style’ of cold-reading. There are a few things I'm going to add to my mental rolodex of techniques. Starting with the 15-second personality test.”

If you have any interest in cold-reading—whether for performing or just as a conversational technique—I encourage you to get Timon’s book. You can find it here.

The other mention of me was in a thread for Tim Trono’s Impossible magic kit. I don’t remember what the mention was there precisely—it was regarding something I wrote which Tim had the absolute temerity to casually reference without a full trigger warning for the fragile Café staff.

I’ve only recently had a chance to look through Tim’s new kit, and I think it’s great. There are a few tricks that were completely new to me, along with a bunch of clever updates, modifications, and variations on classics you probably shelved years ago, that make them feel fresh again—and well worth revisiting

While it’s marketed as a beginner’s kit, I’d keep it for myself—or only gift it to someone if I knew they had a real, lasting interest in magic. No need to burn strong material on a passing phase.

And make sure you read the book that comes with it—there are some really good ideas and effects in there that aren’t covered in the video instructions.

While I’m in the mode of somewhat endorsing things...

Back in February, I put a few endorsements up for sale. One of them read:

“When I saw that ping-pong ball get sucked up into the bottle, I was pretty impressed. But when Bobby said, ‘And you can keep that as a souvenir’—MY JAW DROPPED!!! Best trick of Magic Live.” —Andy (The Jerx)

At the time, I wrote:

“This one is pretty cheap. And it’s really only suited if your name is Bobby and you have a trick where a ping-pong ball gets sucked into a bottle. If that’s the case, you’re making out like a bandit. But even if you’re selling an e-book on the Three Shell Game, you could still buy it and put it in your ad. Maybe the sheer weirdness of the endorsement would draw more eyes to your product.”

I figured if someone bought it, they’d just slap it onto an unrelated trick and hope the confusion sparked curiosity.

But Landon Stark, in a genuine act of high-agency, bought the endorsement—and then created a trick to match it. It’s in his new book, One Trick Pony. And for something reverse-engineered from a fake testimonial? It’s… surprisingly not bad. I’d love to see if it actually plays convincingly in performance.

Here’s an addendum to Wednesday’s post…

Re. The TOXIC Force - “Wondering what your work around is for this now with iOS 18 or have you abandoned ship for now? Many of the methods seem…not carefree to say the least.” —ZA

I’ve been asked this a lot. I haven’t been keeping up with the alternatives people have come up with for dealing with this. If you know of any good options, let me know, and I’ll assemble a post (or a paragraph) about them in the future.

See you all back here on April 7th as we kick off our month-long celebration of Canine Fitness Month.

Get ready to load up your dog’s kibble with anabolic steroids, creatine, and HGH. I’m sick of looking at that bitch’s flabby ass. It’s time to get that puppy SHREDDED.

Coming Soon: The Lucid ACAAN

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I promised you an ACAAN this month. It’s coming, but probably early next month. There’s a part of it I want to refine a bit more for you, but it’s taking longer than expected.

I’ve performed a prototype version of the effect and it was super strong. So much so, I’d normally save it for a book. But since I already promised to publish it on the site, I’ll dish it up here when it’s ready.

Remember the conditions:

  • The card is never named (or written down) by the spectator.

  • The number is never named (or written down) by the spectator

  • It uses a borrowed, shuffled deck.

  • No difficult sleights.

  • The spectator deals and you genuinely don’t know where they’ll stop.

  • Works 100% of the time, they can think of any card, and any number from 1 to 52 (including 1 and 52).

Now, obviously there has to be some method here—some kind of compromise—that makes this work, but that compromise is pretty invisible. I’m not using “ad writing” to make it sound better than it is.

It’s not like when I say, “The card is never named (or written down) by the spectator,” that I’m hiding some process where each card is associated with a type of bird and the spectator does write down the type of bird, and then you use a center tear, and blah, blah, blah.

It’s not something you’ll do in a walkaround situation. You could, but the premise and the handling lend themselves to a more… ugh, “Jerxian” style of performance. You’ll see soon.

More thoughts on the Philosopher’s ACAAN from last week.

“I tried your Philosopher’s ACAAN last night and got a hit on my first attempt. I’m almost scared to do it another time in case it works again.” —DW

“I’m an ACAAN collector so I’ve been loving all the ACAAN talk recently around magic. I know [the Philosopher’s ACAAN] isn’t technically a trick, but if I had to guess I would say it’s the only one of the recent releases that anyone will still be doing 10 years from now.”—JT

“I also think it's not stupid. Maybe I am, and that's why I think it's not. But I really think it's a great intro to the ‘plot’ of ACAAN.

If it hits, great. It's perfect.

If it doesn't, you make the spectator think about why it's not that impressive even though the two have the same probabilities. And I think this goes on a different direction from the "math-focused" presentations, where the magician tells (or sometimes even lies) about the probabilities of a card being in a certain place. The probabilities are not astronomical. They are 1 in 52.

I think the feeling of the ACAAN can (and maybe should) go beyond the rational aspect to it. Essentially it's the same trick, at least where the math is concerned, as the spectator cutting to a selected card, an open prediction, a classic force as a means to a reveal and even a spelling trick. All of those have a 1:52 probability of happening. But some are a lot more fun and impressive than others. For some of those, I feel getting the number right on the roulette feels more impressive, even with better probabilities (1 in 37).

But while reading the Philosopher's ACAAN, I felt that by downplaying it and making the contrast with any other card at that position, the spectator will be compelled to tell you it's not the same thing. And will appreciate it more when you show something that hits the target.

The conclusion I got from this is that the effect is not a card being at a specific position, rather than the spectator making his selection process to the right card and position. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but while there are lots of methods to ACAAN, the presentations don't seem to have that much variety. And this trick can benefit from the spectator thinking about it for a little bit, and having a bit more focus on the selection process.”—RD

Whoops! Hehehe

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GT writes:

Over the last several years or so I've noticed I'm not performing as much due to concerns about failing. Not sure why exactly, but it's probably at least in part related to taking a break from magic before that and having limited rehearsal time. Given the amount of performances you go through in your daily life, I thought I would ask you how you deal with failing and the fear of failing.

Here is how I handle messing up a magic trick. But it’s really the secret to handling failure in general. It’s the secret to life and confidence and it’s in this video…

If you react as if the baby was hurt, the baby feels hurt.

If you react as if it’s no big deal, the baby laughs it off.

You can do this with grown-ups too. You can define what happened by how you react to it.

But more importantly, you can do this with yourself. You have a baby inside of you. What is your parenting style for that baby? Are you going to be overprotective and overreact to every negative thing? Or are you going to teach it to brush off mistakes and missteps, so long as there’s no significant damage?

Screwing up a magic trick is inconsequential. Tell yourself in advance that you’ll smile and shrug it off if it happens. “Oh no. I fucked this up. Whoops! Hehehe.” Build that reaction into your identity.

“But I can’t control my emotional reaction.”

Look, for better or for worse, that’s all you can control.

I get it. That answer can feel kind of frustrating. “How do I deal with failure?” You just... choose not to care about failure.

But once you get in the habit of laughing it off—even if you’re faking it at first—you will eventually just become that person. Because in the process of pretending it’s not a big deal, you’ll realize… it really isn’t.

ʇxǝʇdʎɹɔ

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Yesterday’s mailbag had me thinking of Cryptext. Before I get to a new idea I had, I want to reiterate a point I’ve made before.

[Taken from an old post…]

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about how to use Cryptext.

Here's Lior Suchard botching it on a recent performance for Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. You only really need to see one still image from the video to make the point.

That's supposed to be Lior revealing his prediction of a number, 38079. But, of course, it doesn't look like a number. It looks like an upside-down word. And that is, in fact, what Kelly is pointing at right there. Lior has to cover up the number partially and then quickly do the final reveal because it's so obvious what is about to happen. 

"But it gets a good reaction." Well, Kelly and Ryan give a good "tv presenter" reaction as they are paid to do.  But if you look at that video and it looks like a strong human reaction, then you may have a disorder that prevents you from understanding human emotions. (Similarly, pay attention to how much of a dud the pre-show stuff is too. He suggests he's able to get the image of her making-out with a plastic head of Farrah Fawcett and her reaction is, "Hmm... yup.")

Cryptext will always get a good reaction, because it's a fun reveal. But it's a much stronger reveal when the audience doesn't see it coming. 

With that in mind, you want your initial word or number to look as genuine as possible. You need to prioritize the look of the first display. Yes, you want the reveal to be as easy to "see" as possible, but not to the extent that they're ahead of you and the ending is blown.

Here’s an example. Here are the numbers written normally.

And here it is flipped over. Perfectly understandable as GLOBE (especially in conext). The numbers didn’t have to be written in some weird, janky style.

I would even suggest it’s actually more fun for the participant to “find” the word in the overturned letters, rather than have it be 100% obvious. It’s completely okay if the reveal looks frankensteined together. That’s what makes it enjoyable. No one will say, “Well, I would have liked it if the number formed my word when it was turned over, but only if it had been presented with proper capitalization and fine calligraphy.”

A reader sent me a spectacularly bad example of Cryptext where the number is essentially indecipherable, and it generated this idea…

This will be great if you’re a guy and you have a long-time girlfriend.

You force an 8-digit number on her via TOXIC or forcing a string of UNO cards or whatever. You have to do it in some manner where you seemingly don’t know what the number is.

Then you say, “I’m going to try and read your mind and figure out the number…. 598… no? Hmm. Okay… uhm… 3303-something-something? That’s not right? Dammit. I guess I screwed that up.”

Then you say, “Oh wait. There’s something I want to show you.” You get down on one knee and pull a hand-made sign out from under the couch. You show it to your long-term girlfriend.

With any luck she will scream with happiness.

You respond: “I’m glad you like the trick.”

She gets confused. You look at her, and then the sign.

“Oh shoot, that’s upside-down…

”Was that your number?” you say, with a big ta-dah gesture,

2-4-1-5-1-1-0-4-1

Then she—likely—beats the shit out of you.

The trick hits harder the longer you’ve been leading her on in this relationship.

Here’s the thing, it’s impossible to surprise someone with “marry me” with that particular font of Cryptext. If you brought that out saying it was numbers, it would just confuse everyone. It’s clearly a word upside down. So instead, go the opposite way and convince your girlfriend/boyfriend you’re proposing.

If you don’t have a significant other, you could “find” a piece of paper with this written on it at a restaurant or something. Then say to your friend, “Someone must have proposed here or something,” and toss it aside.

Later on, ask your friend to test the math skills you’re working on and have him multiply together three 3-digit numbers and to call them out as he does. You concentrate and start writing down the sum you’re getting (forced via Toxic) on a nearby piece of paper (the “marry me” paper), then you stop yourself and say. “Oh, wait. It’s already on here: 241511041.”

Mailbag #133

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Do you have any tips for not coming off as a smug prick when revealing Cryptext in a formal show?

I know when you use it it’s generally something you discover with the audience, but in a show that doesn’t really work. Or does it?—YG

It doesn’t, no.

You’re right—in formal shows, the typical Cryptext reveal often comes off like this:

I predicted you would get that number… aren’t I clever?

Actually, I’m even more cleverly clever than you knew—because if you flip that number over…

So if playing it as something you planned makes you sound like a “smug prick” (as you put it)…

And if playing it as something you didn’t expect feels phony…

Then maybe the route is to play it as something you hoped for.

Not “I knew this would happen,” but “I hoped this would happen.”

That won’t work for every Cryptext routine, but it will work for a lot of them.

Usually, the audience generates a number, you show you predicted it, then you do the Cryptext reveal. But what if, instead of calling it a prediction, you frame it as a kind of “wisdom of crowds” experiment? A moment where the audience is trying—together—to land on the number you wrote down earlier that day.

So when the final number matches, you’re relieved. You’re happy for them that they got it right. “Because if anyone had been even one number off, the result would’ve been totally different.”

Then maybe you say:

But you might be thinking: it has to be a trick. Even working together, how could you have come up with the number I wrote down? None of us is psychic. So how did your number match mine?

Well… maybe because you weren’t matching a number.

Remember when I asked you to focus on why we’re here tonight—at Chris and Kathy’s rehearsal dinner?

There was a thought I wanted you to land on. A thought you don’t have to be psychic to recognize. Something that describes the reason we’re all here—in two words.

Words I hoped you’d arrive at. Even though I only gave you numbers to ‘speak’ with.

The reason we’re here tonight… is True Love.

And then you turn the paper, and the numbers say TRUE LOVE.

Or something like that. I’m just spitballing. Obviously, that example is for a wedding/rehearsal dinner situation. But I think you could find a way to do something similar with many other events or corporate situations.

Re: The full color-blind test presentation from the video in this post

I find this happens often with some participants. The premise of the effect sends them off on a rambling anecdote and one must either indulge them or impatiently hurry them on. I generally don't mind this happening as it shows engagement and takes some heat of the fact that I'm performing rather than just showing something weird. However, it can be distracting. Do you have any advice on how you might handle that situation —AB

The standard advice when someone interjects with a story during your performance is to engage them—listen, respond, don’t keep your head buried in your cards or coins. And I think that’s generally sound.

But context matters. If I’m going for a casual, conversational vibe, then audience interjections are expected—and often welcomed.

But if the tone I’m setting is more focused—like, “I’ve got this wild thing I want to show you”—and someone cuts in with a tangent about 4th grade gym class, that’s a sign something’s off. Either my presentation didn’t land, or they’re just not that into it.

Imagine someone says, “Hey, I’ve got something cool to show you,” and your immediate response is a personal anecdote that derails the moment. That’s not a great signal.

So my rule of thumb is: if the interjection feels like a natural part of the interaction, I lean into it. But if it cuts across the momentum I’m building, I might take it as a cue to wrap up or disengage. (To be clear, I haven’t actually had this happen.) It’s not about punishing them—it’s just reading the room. If they’re not interested, that’s fine. I just prefer to save it for someone who is.

I have to laugh when creators on facebook or the Magic Cafe tell critics to “look at the demo and you’ll see how strong the trick is”. I worked with [company withheld] for almost 5 years and was always involved in shooting the demo videos. We’d film multiple performances and always pick the best takes. And before rolling, we’d even coach spectators to amp up their reactions for the camera. And even then, we often had to sweeten those reactions in the edit lol. And these performers know this! So it’s really disingenuous to say “LoOk At ThE dEmO”!

I think that’s why you’re seeing more demo videos with magicians performing for other magicians or. Those guys already know how to fake the reactions we want.

If you use this email, please don’t even us my real initials. I want to continue to work with magicians.—XX

I'm not surprised at all. In fact, what surprises me more is that, despite everything you do to get strong reactions, some of them still end up being so weak.

Sadly, magic demos aren’t great for gauging spectator reactions. YouTube reviewers are almost equally useless because if they perform at all, it’s usually to their full-time spectators, who are nothing like real humans anymore. (Of course, you can’t expect them to go out and find different people to perform a constant stream of new tricks on.)

I’m at the point where I put no weight on the demo video reactions. I put a little weight into my own judgment of the trick. But mainly I just need to get it in front of real people, in the types of scenarios I actually perform, to know if it’s going to work.

Dustings #122

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Imagine you worked for years on a trick. Spent a bunch of time polishing the handling. Or a bunch of money on a prototype. You’re super excited to roll out your new effect. Maybe this will be your breakout? You go to Blackpool. Lloyd films your trick. One week later… it’s not in this video.

Do you comfort yourself by saying, “While I didn’t meet his strict 87 trick cut-off, I’m sure I was probably number 88.”

Or do you just throw yourself off the Blackpool Tower?

“The Philosopher’s ACAAN is brilliant. You undersold it. It’s truly a great way to introduce the idea, lower expectations, give the trick context, and occasionally perform a miracle. I work at a restaurant and will be using this as the intro to any ACAAN I do going forward. I should get a ‘hit’ with it once a week or so.” —MC

Thank you. I got a lot of kind words about this one. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

I thought I’d share this with you as finding a wall mounted display cases specifically for playing cards proved more difficult than I expected (TCC used to sell a good looking one but discontinued it years ago). Anyway, the one I found was made by these guys and I’m really pleased with the quality (in case you wanted to share this with your readers) – they’re US based but shipped to me in the UK with no issues at all:—JBP

That does look good. And the price is better than what I’ve seen for similar cases.

I’m not sure how I feel about such a formal “display.” I sort of flip-flop on the idea—sometimes thinking it’s better just to have the decks piled up on the shelf in an unassuming way.

But regardless, these are a good find.

Excuse me, dipshit, I’m trying to get to the dining car.

Oddly enough, I’m actually in this picture.

There’s me in the back.

What? Joshua Jay is teaching magic up there? Uhm… that’s okay. I have this headrest I want to stare at.