Salvage Yard: The Two Tenners

Okey-dokey, here’s where I kick into shape the trick I dumped on yesterday, The Two Tenners by Alexander Marsh.

My goals were these:

1. To justify the marking of your bill. (If you’re suggesting it’s just part of a wager, why are you marking it or making note of its serial number? It’s nonsensical.)

2. To give some purpose to the opening “wager” effect.

3. To tie that wager part into the serial divination presentationally (not just arbitrarily).

4. To remove the Easy Answer that you just peeked at the serial number at some point.

Here’s what it would look like, with notes in bold.

“Do you have a dollar on you? I’m going to show you a game I used to play in elementary school.”

As the spectator is grabbing their bill you are reaching into your pocket to get one of your own.

At this point, ideally you would be some distance from your spectator.

Ask them to hold the bill with the portrait facing them, and to fold it in half, then in half again, and again. You demonstrate the same thing with your own bill.

“I’m going to put an X on mine, so we can tell them apart.” You pull out your sharpie to make the X on your bill and then put it away.

“This is a game we would play with our lunch money. For the last half of fifth grade we would play almost every day. Here’s how it works.”

You walk over to the spectator and take their bill from them (and do what needs to be done at that point).

“You’re going to take the bills behind your back, mix them around and bring them out in your fists like this.” You demonstrate holding both fists out in front of you.

Don’t actually put your hands behind your back during any of this. That’s too sketchy.

“I have to try and guess which hand has my bill in it. If I get it right 2 out of 3 times, I win both bills. If I don’t, you win both bills. In fact, I’ll give you better odds. If I don’t get all three guess correct you can keep both bills. Deal? I’ll be honest with you. I played this game a lot and I never lost my money.”

Then you go ahead and play the game. There is no method here. You just play it for real.

Either you’ll get them all right, or you’ll miss one or more. If you get them all correct, that’s a pretty strong trick in itself.

If you miss one or two, still play all three rounds, “Just to see how it would go.”

If you get all three rounds correct: “That’s somewhat impressive, but that’s the sort of thing I was doing back in fifth grade. Now I’ve honed my senses of perception to a much more impossible…,” And you go into the serial number divination.

If you don’t get all three rounds correct: “Well… shit! But to be fair, I didn’t say I never lost the game. I said I never lost my money. And that’s because when i did lose the game, I would offer to show them a cool trick if they gave me back my dollar. Are you willing to make that deal? My dollar for a trick?” They will agree and hand you back your dollar.

Those who have the trick will understand the power of this moment and what it psychologically reinforces.

“I can’t believe I lost all three rounds,” you say to yourself. “Well… actually… I sort of can believe it. You see, I wrote something on this bill besides the X before we started playing.”

You unfold the bill and it says, “I will lose all three rounds.”

This is accomplished with three outs. Three bills in your pocket:

• “I will lose three rounds.”

• ”You will win two rounds, I’ll win one.”

• ”I will win two rounds, you will win one.”

After you play the game, you know which prediction to bring out and have finger palmed. When you take back your bill you will do a shuttle pass or any other type of switch, and then, after a few moments, reveal your prediction. I wouldn’t suspect there would be much heat on this switch (it’s your bill, after all). And showing this prediction written on the bill reinforces again the central lie that make the serial number divination work.

(You could have more bills in an index and give an exact prediction, i.e., “I will win the first round, lose the second, and win the third.” I don’t think it’s necessary because you’re really just setting them up for the final effect. I think it’s okay if this preliminary effect is just “okay.”)

“I’ll admit, that could have been luck. Are you willing to give me your dollar to see something truly impossible?”

The’ll likely agree (if not, offer to show it to them as an act of charity).

“Don’t give me your bill just yet. Keep it in your hand. When you were over there and you first took your bill out and folded it up, did you happen to notice the serial number?” They will say no. ““Okay, and the way the bill is folded it’s impossible for me to see the serial number now, correct?”

Here you are subtly but firmly making it clear that the serial number was hidden at the beginning of the effect. Before you were near them.

At this point you either divine the serial number directly, or ask them to look at it and “read their mind.”

Either way you have a routine that is pretty cohesive and builds nicely, and all the actions are pretty well justified.

It’s not really the sort of thing I do, so I probably won’t perform it myself, but I’ve run it by a few people who do things that are more in this style and they seem to really like it. So hopefully some of you will get something from it as well.

If I wanted to do a serial number divination here is what it would have to look like:

The spectator takes out any bill of any denomination from her wallet. With your head turned away she folds the bill up so the serial number is completely hidden away. You never touch the bill—nobody other than the spectator touches the bill—and yet you’re able to tell her what the serial number is.

That would seem impossible if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen my friend do that exact trick about half a dozen times. Unlike the routine described above, this version is designed for social, one-on-one performing and in those situations it’s a really strong effect. I’ll share it with you next month.

An Example of a Broken Trick

There’s a new serial number divination trick available on Penguin called The Two Tenners by Alexander Marsh. It’s got a method that’s interesting, although I don’t think the routine as a whole is great for a serial number divination. I think openly introducing a second bill into the proceedings hints at the method, or—at the very least—complicates what should be a simple effect. And there is an opening interaction which is meant to make the use of the bills meaningful in some way (they’re a wager), but that part is so perfunctory and unrelated to the main effect that it feels tacked on. And on top of that, one of the methods used requires you to do something completely unmotivated with your bill—and you can’t really get around it because it’s the heart of that method.

But the biggest sin of the routine (at least as it’s written up in Marsh’s earlier work, I haven’t seen this download) is that you handle the spectator’s bill long before you tell them what’s going to happen. That gives them one big Easy Answer when the time comes for you to “divine” the serial number. “Well… I guess he must have looked at it and memorized it.” That’s not the method used, but it’s easy for someone to assume it is.

Now, you might say, No, they won’t think I memorized it when I just held the bill for a few seconds and I wasn’t even really looking at it. Oh… yes they will. They have no idea how long you were holding it, they have no idea how much you were looking at it, because you never told them this would be important. In fact, in this routine, you go out of your way to suggest it’s not important—that the money is just a wager—so why would they give a shit how much you handle it or look at it? Only later, after you’ve gone on a bit of a detour, do you say, “Oh, and now I’ll tell you the serial number of your bill.”

It’s not a good structure, but it’s a very common one in magic/mentalism. I’ve talked about it before when I wrote about Broken Tricks. These are tricks where the method that is used prevents you from establishing the conditions that are needed for the trick to be seen as truly impossible.

This routine demands people rely on their memory to be impressed. “Did he look at the bill long enough to memorize the serial number? Hmmm… I don’t think he did. But… I don’t know, maybe? I guess I’m impressed. Sure, I’m impressed.” That’s not going to garner the reactions you would hope.

It would be like if you came back from the grocery store and found a pineapple in your grocery bag that you didn’t buy. You wouldn’t say, “Holy Christ! A pineapple magically appeared in my bag!” You would assume there was some sort of mix-up and the cashier accidentally put it in the bag. Sure, you don’t remember her putting a pineapple in the bag, but you weren’t looking for such a thing. However if I told you to watch very carefully when she was bagging your groceries, and to make sure the bags were empty to start with, and to pay close attention to everything that goes in the bag. Well, then if a pineapple shows up, you have something significantly more inexplicable.

You need to cut off Easy Answers. Sure, the notion that you could flash-memorize a serial number in a few seconds is perhaps a far-fetched method. But it’s much more reasonable than what you’re asking them to believe: that you are somehow intuiting the number with the power of your mind. So you need to eliminate that as a method.

Now, all that being said, the trick is just $10. And the “subconscious switch” used in the effect has some merit. And I believe I’ve come up with some structural and presentational touches that address all the weaknesses mentioned above. So you may still want to pick it up because in tomorrow’s post we will salvage The Two Tenners.

Déjà Vu

Yesterday’s post was supposed to be the final post for this month, with the new schedule being daily posts from the 1st-20th of each month.

But with all that’s going on I figured I’d continue to stop in daily through the end of this month. Just to say hello. Hello!

It’s a weird time to be alive. And I know a lot of you look to me as a friend. Your best friend. Your only friend. A leader. A guru. A god. These are the labels you give me… and yes, I suppose I’ve earned them. It wasn’t my intention to be the sole shining beacon of joy in your life, but these things happen.

If you want my honest opinion on this, I think the coronavirus will be devastating to the individuals who are directly affected (obviously). But societally, I just don’t buy the most dire predictions. In fact, I never buy the most dire predictions about anything. They’re never right.

That’s about the extent of my analysis on the situation.

I’ll continue to pop in daily for the rest of the month to share a quick note or some sexy selfies with you.

So You Want To Be A Famous Internet Magician

This video from Rick Lax currently has 218 million views on facebook. It got 175 million views in the first month alone.

If you asked Rick to speak candidly about this video, I’m sure he’d say, “I’m so proud of this incredible artistic achievement. Please embed a video screen on my tombstone so it may run on a loop there for all eternity.”

No, I’m sure he understands that this is profoundly stupid, but it cracked the code of how people want to engage with magic on the internet in the early part of 2020. In months this will change, if it hasn’t changed already. And Rick will have to evolve as well if he wants to keep up. Which I’m sure he will. That’s the game he’s playing. He’s trying out different things, chasing people’s interest and then riding that wave until it crashes. Then trying something else out.

Here’s an idea that sounds logical, but actually is wildly flawed: “I’m going to be the best magician and perform the finest magic so I can become a viral internet magician.”

Those things have little to do with each other.

Rick Lax can do better magic than dousing his groceries in energy drink. But no one wants to see him doing his rendition of Cups and Balls. That’s not the sort of thing that grabs people. And that’s because the internet is not the right venue for what we would typically think of as “good” magic in the traditional sense. (Yes, occasionally an amazing routine by an amazing performer will go viral, but that’s the exception rather than the rule. And often they go viral because people are very impressed by the skill, not necessarily very fooled by the magic.) If you do a trick that fools people very badly, it will be exposed in the comments within four minutes. So the internet doesn’t necessarily reward “fooling” magic. As of now, at least, you’re better off approaching the magic aspect indirectly. As one magician with a strong internet presence told me just recently:

Traditional magic videos get swiped by and skipped so we’ve had to shift to TRICKING people into watching magic so that the viewer is 3 minutes in before they realize, “Shit! I just watched a magic trick.” We’ve done this by hiding the magic within fake science, pranks, riddles, bets, tutorials and puzzles.

Here’s how things break-down:

If you want to do the most affecting magic, then perform amateur/social magic for just a few people at most.

If you want to build your own persona and your own legend and express yourself artistically, then perform professionally. Perhaps with a goal of your own theater show or television specials.

If you want to reach the most people, then perform for the internet and let their somewhat fickle interests guide the material you produce.

Rick Lax will get hundreds of millions of views on his videos, but he won’t have the mystique or aura about him that Blaine or Derren Brown do. People don’t want mystique and aura from their internet celebrities.

Similarly, I can take someone to see Penn and Teller, Derren Brown, or Copperfield and that person may really enjoy the show and find it incredibly entertaining. But I will take them home and have them more enchanted and enthralled with something I show them that I learned when I was fourteen. That’s just the nature of a one-on-one experience done well. But there’s no fame or money in that.

It’s all a series of trade-offs depending on what your ambitions are. You can possibly do it all, but you just can’t do it all at the same time. “I’m going to perform magic that is a pure artistic expression that also generates an intimate connection with everyone who watches and will garner me 100 million views on tik tok.” It ain’t happenin.

Killing the Time Occupiers

On this non-magic Sunday, I have a small piece of life advice that is probably only useful to a tiny percentage of you. But it may have broader implications as well.

One of the wisest decisions I ever made for myself was to remove most games from my phone. Puzzle games (like Candy Crush) and word games (like Wordscapes) are designed to be addictive. And yet, for me at least, they provide absolutely no long-term pleasure.

I’m not anti-gaming. I just want to avoid games that are simply addictive time occupiers. I can look back and remember enjoying Mario Odyssey. But I don’t have a single memory of the hours of my life I wasted on fucking Candy Crush. It never happens that someone looks over to me and sees me smiling wistfully, asks what’s on my mind and I reply, “Oh… I was just remembrering Level 1512 of Candy Crush. What a joy! My favorite part was when I crushed the candy!”

I’m not suggesting that all gaming is worthless (I’ll give you a game recommendation at the end of this post). And I’m not saying that you have to always be doing something productive with your time. But I feel like if you’re doing something for pleasure, then it should be something you can look back on and say, “That was fun.” That’s not been my experience with these types of games.

I’m not lecturing you. I’m lecturing myself. I spent way too much time on these games. I didn’t learn anything. I didn’t experience anything. They didn’t make me laugh. They barely made me think. It was just a waste of my goddamn time.

If you can limit yourself to a few minutes a day, then it probably doesn’t matter. But if you find yourself getting sucked in and suddenly an hour has passed, I recommend just deleting it from your phone. You have a few minutes to kill? Read an ebook. Pull out some cards or coins and work on something. Magic is a hobby that you can indulge in while requiring very little pocket space—it’s not, like, archery or something—might as well take advantage of that. Worried you might look like a dork practicing your Elmsley Count while waiting for your prescription to be filled? Get over yourself. No one cares about what you’re doing. Yes, if you’re sitting in a bar by yourself, executing card flourishes for attention, you look like a douchebag. But if you’re minding your own business and working on your own shit, nobody really cares.

Now, what did I mean at the top of this when I said it may have “broader implications”? Well, you can extrapolate out from this mindset beyond video games. Are there other things in your life that are time occupiers but you don’t look back on with any sort of fondness? Do you drink every night because you really enjoy it and you’re having an absolute blast getting tipsy and raucous with people you care about? Or are you—as that Modest Mouse song says—trying to “drink away the part of the day that you cannot sleep away”? When you look back on the past month with your wife, do you remember enjoying it? Or is she just some woman you liked 18 years ago, and now you’re miserably muddling through life together?

“Hey, I don’t come onto a magic blog to be reminded of how miserable I am!”

I get it. I won’t push the subject.

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One game I’ve enjoyed recently is Sayonara Wild Hearts on the iphone (and maybe elsewhere). They call it a “pop album video game” and it is just as much an album as it is a video game. If you don’t like the style of music (a kind of ethereal dream pop) it doesn’t make much sense to play it. But as a combination album/game/surrealistic experience, I find it to be very enjoyable.

One tip I would have is to change the settings on the game so that the controls are extra-sensitive. I find it makes the game much more playable.

The Juxe: Family Tree - that dog.

Family Tree is a Juxe feature I may or may not return to in the future, where I start with one band I like and then spin-off and talk about some related groups/musicians.

We’re going to start with the 90s band that dog. (That’s how they would write it. Lowercase, with a period, but I won’t keep that up through this.)

That Dog was a mid-90s rock group from LA with punk and power-pop influences (especially in their early records), What differentiated them from most of their contemporaries were stunning harmonies and the fact that in the four-piece band, one of those pieces was a violinist.

The band consisted of Rachel Haden (on the left), Anna Waronker (in the middle), and Petra Haden (on the right). And a guy. But nobody was listening to the band for the guy.

The only thing close they had to a breakout hit was the song Never Say Never in 1997. The video features that bold, late-90s music video color palette, and Anna Waronker looking—to me, as a horny young man at the time—like she had been plucked from some forgotten wet dream. What a fox.

You can hear their harmonies particularly well on this cover of Midnight at the Oasis. A song which was a hit in the 70s for Maria Muldaur and was produced by Larry Waronker, Anna’s father.

During this time in the 90s, the Haden sisters were also regularly performing with The Rentals. In the video for the song, Waiting, Petra Haden flies in at the 2 minute mark for her violin part.

In that video you also see another member you might recognize, future Saturday Night Live star, Maya Rudolph. Maya is the daughter if Minnie Ripperton who was famous for the song “Lovin’ You” in the 70s. (Maya was also the original drummer for That Dog.)

The quirky blonde, Cherielynn Westrich, who was the main female vocalist on The Rental’s first album had a decent mid-90s band called Supersport 2000 for a minute. And now she, apparently, builds cars and RVs and appears on shows with names like “Overhaulin’” and “Rock My RV.”

The Rentals were lead by Matt Sharp who was the bassist for Weezer’s first two albums. Bringing it back to That Dog, Rachel Haden sings the lead on the Weezer song, “I Just Threw Out The Love of My Dreams.” One of their early songs that is most beloved by their hardcore fans.

That Dog broke up in 1997 (they reunited recently). The girls went on to work on a number of different projects. My favorite is Petra Haden’s a cappella work where she takes a song and does all the parts herself (both the singing and the instrumentation). Below is a Bach Prelude and an amazing version of the Beach Boys, God Only Knows (her vocal version of the flutes trilling always gets me).

Petra and Rachel Haden have two siblings. One, Tanya, is their triplet (and Jack Black’s wife). They also have a brother, Josh Haden, who leads a group called Spain. Put, “Nobody Has To Know” on your make-out mix. I don’t know what it is about this song, but I’ve had more than woman pause when this comes on and be like, “Oh…who is this?”

The drums on that song were played by Joey Waronker, Anna’s brother. He also played for Beck and REM, but you don’t need me to tell you about Beck or REM.

The Haden triplets have a band as well called, unsurprisingly, The Haden Triplets. They play stripped-down Americana/old-time country music.

Okay, I’m about to bring it all around now. The Haden’s father is Charles Haden. A famous jazz bassist, and also a country and folk musician. He passed away in 2014. At the memorial service they played his song, Shenandoah. Anna Waronker, who was at the service, was very moved by it and ended up writing a song inspired by it called Old LP.

Last year they put out a mini-documentary about the recording of that song. I’ve always liked watching things about session musicians and studio bands, so I enjoyed seeing the group they put together to record this song.

Here are some more That Dog favorites. One from each of their four albums.

Family Functions from their first album, that dog.

Ms. Wrong from their second album, Totally Crushed Out!

Gagged and Tied from their third album, Retreat From the Sun (the title track is great as well).

Drip Drops from their latest album, 2019’s, Old LP. (Violinist, Petra Haden is no longer in the band.)

Dustings of Woofle #24

The ebook was sent out around 5:30pm ET yesterday. See yesterday’s post if you expected to get it but didn’t, or if you have no idea what I’m talking about and you want a copy.

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Mac King has always been known for his brilliant comedy magic and his bold sartorial choices. Recently he demonstrated both in a livestream lecture where he wore his GLOMM Elite membership t-shirt.

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David Milne, who made the Ostin Clip suggestion in Monday’s post, writes in with this idea, which I think would be a pretty impressive video chat effect. Below is his write-up.

So, you’ve done the prediction using the Ostin Clip. They liked it, and a couple of days later you’re on another Skype call. They’re wondering if you’re going to do a follow up? The clip isn’t there but there’s a small thin parcel (about the size of a folded over playing card). You ask them to think of a drink, but nothing fizzy. You asked them why they chose that drink, and then calmly produce it out of the impossibly thin package.

This is a reworking of Eugene Burger’s shot glass surprise (you can find it in his Chicago Visions and From Beyond). You have eight different liquids, packaged up in shot glasses in front of you. [“In front of you” off camera, he means.]

1. Tea (works also as whisky)
2. Coffee with milk (also works as tea with milk)
3. Orange juice (covers mango juice)
4. Water (works as gin & vodka - just have a lemon ready to put on the side)
5. Red wine
6. White wine
7. Tomato juice
8. Milk

I use 5” Qualatex balloons with their ends cut off, but if you’ve got someone working with you, you can have the drinks on a separate table with no pre-prepping and a virtually unlimited possibility of drinks!

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So it’s a shot glass production combined with an Any Drink Called For premise. That would be hard to do in person, but over webcam it seems very doable.

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Good job, guys.