Mailbag #80

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With all the talk of sock-puppet accounts and secret identities, do you worry about your identity being outed?—LM

Not really, no.

I’ve explained this before but it’s hard to go into detail without giving away too much. But there’s a fundamental misconception behind the search for who writes this site. So asking me if I’m worried if someone is going to find out who I am would be like asking me, “Look at those burglars in your house. Are you worried they’re going to find your stash of gold?” And my answer is, “All my money is in silver. And that’s not my house.”

So no, I’m not concerned. You can do detective work, and that will bring you—at best— to people who help run the site. But it would be hard to get much further than that.

Plus, this isn’t like uncovering Erdnase. He claimed to be an “expert” at gambling and sleight-of-hand. I can understand the desire to track down this famous expert.

But I’ve said, “I’m nobody you’ve ever heard of. I’m an amateur magician who performs socially. These are my personal conclusions from performing in that environment.” If anyone did somehow track me down, they would discover… I’m an amateur magician who performs socially that they’ve never heard of. It wouldn’t be quite the revelation some might hope. And it would make the person “uncovering” me look corny—it wouldn’t make me look bad at all.

I’ve had various reasons for using a pseudonym throughout the years I’ve been writing about magic. But the primary one now is that I want to be able to engage with the people in my life and show them tricks without them saying or thinking, “Oh, are you going to write up this incident for one of your little books or blogs?” My ability to get honest reactions and genuine interactions would be gone at that point.

You were well represented at Magifest last week. I saw a few GLOMM pins and shirts. One guy did a trick for [our bartender and waitress] where a deck that was invisible became visible and vice versa and it destroyed them. He said it was your trick. Someone else did the most impossibly hands-off ACAAN I’ve ever seen which he credited to you. Another guy did a really interesting sponge ball presentation which he credited to you. Are these on your site or in your books? —PE

The first trick is from a book of mine which is now out of print.

I believe the ACAAN you’re talking about is something I was discussing over email with the person you saw perform it. It’s not my trick. There’s an effect called F.A.S.T. that I’ve been playing around with for a couple months. It’s frustrating because half the people I’ve tested it on were incredibly fooled by it and the other half literally walked me through step-by-step how it’s done. What you saw was my attempt to address the parts of the trick people we’re seeing through. My additions make it entirely hands off and far more difficult to figure out, but there are also drawbacks which make the trick less convenient. There’s a good chance my changes will be in a future newsletter where I can delve into the trick a little more deeply, but without giving too much away because it’s not my trick.

The sponge ball thing… the guy was either fucking with you or I just don’t remember it.

I can’t find the messages at the moment, but last year I received a couple emails asking me what type of bag I use. I’ve mentioned in the past I carry my computer with me when I’m out doing work and I usually have some magic items in there.

For the most part I use a messenger bag that has some interior pockets in which I can store effects.

The one I have is similar to this.

If I’m doing something a bit more active than just walking from my car into a cafe, I sometimes use a Fjällräven Kånken laptop backpack…

with an interior organizer like this…

Obviously this just comes down to personal style. But what I’m looking for is something that has different pockets so I can keep my magic stuff separate from my other work stuff. But I’m not looking for something that you look at and say, “Wow, that’s got a lot of pockets!”

Dustings #78

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I want to keep you all in the loop on a fun show coming up at the Smoke and Mirrors Magic Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 1st.

“Can you guess which one of these guys is a lawyer?” Haha, good stuff, good stuff.

Can you guess which one is a child molester? It’s the one on the left.

On the page for upcoming shows, they don’t list the names of these “two superb comedy & mystery” performers. I’m going to guess it’s because if you google Jeffrey Leach, Jeff Carson, Ron Geoffries or whatever other name the guy on the left is performing under, you’re going to find his sex offender profile which details his crime:

OFFENDER INAPPROPRIATELY TOUCHED VICTIM AND HAD VICTIM TOUCH HIM INAPPROPRIATELY OVER A 6 YEAR PERIOD.

Or you’ll find articles giving information such as this:

According to the indictment, he was accused of molesting a girl more than a dozen times, starting when she was 10. In that indictment, Leach was accused of “placing or rubbing his penis against her,” “having the victim touch his penis for the purpose of sexually arousing or sexually gratifying himself or to humiliate or degrade” her, “showing videotaped pornographic images of adults engaging in sexual behavior” to her, and “masturbating in view” of her.

Sounds like a fun guy! I wonder what zany antics he has cooked up for the April Fools day show! This guy’s got a MILLION jokes. Like when he gains your trust in order to get alone with your child and then molests them for six years! April Fools! 🤣🤣🤣 He got you so bad! You thought he WASN’T a pathetic pervert when really… he is! That’s classic Jeff Carson for you! (or classic Ron Geoffries, or classic Jeffrey Leach).

Please note that the show is 18 and over only.

Here’s a shot of Jeff Carson when he learned that.

I will be adding “The April Fools” to Jeff’s listing on the GLOMM website. Jeff, tell your lawyer friend there not to worry, I’ll include the trademark symbol so everyone knows it’s the official April Fools. Not some people just trying to coast on your name.

You might ask, “Andy, didn’t you say in Wednesday’s post that you weren’t going to be posting on controversial topics? And then this is the lead off to your Friday post?”

Well, no, not exactly. I said not to expect me to dip into every controversy, especially the morally grey ones. Expect me just to go after the true scourges of the magic community like sex criminals and Joshua Jay.

I did ask myself if I really wanted to post about this. I don’t see it as my job to follow around sex criminals for the rest of their lives and make sure everyone knows what they’re up to. I wouldn’t even say everyone on the GLOMM boot list is a horrible person. They may have made a horrible decision and cleaned up their life afterwards. I can’t always judge. That’s why the GLOMM list is just binary. “Were you convicted of a sex crime—yes or no?”

On this site, however, I have different standards. I do a little more editorializing on this site. I’m not going follow every move made by some 20-year-old idiot who convinced a 15-year-old to send him nudes for the rest of his life. I’ll chalk that up to youthful stupidity. But I’m not sure a guy who was in his 40s, molesting someone for six years, deserves any grace. Jeff Carson may have paid his dues to the legal system, but my heart goes out to the kid. I can’t help but think of the 10-year-old who has to live with this face in their nightmares.

That’s a life sentence that they don’t deserve.

I’m not saying he should never be able to perform again. I’m not saying the theater should cancel the show. I’m sure they know his history; they’re free to do whatever they want. He’s certainly allowed to pursue his art (if you consider the card duck or the Chinese sticks to be “art”). I’m allowed to pursue my art too: talking shit about creeps.

I had never heard of the Smoke & Mirrors Magic Theater before this. That’s cool that there’s a theater devoted to magic. I’m not too far away and I look forward to checking out a show there at some point. Not this show, of course. But maybe a different show in the future. With someone who didn’t coerce a kid into playing with his dick. Do you have any of those coming up?

Changing subjects completely—although still in the general realm of “controversy” talk—when the Petty/Weber situation came to light a week ago, I didn’t immediately know if Craig Petty was being brave or foolish with his claims.

With his latest attack though, I know for sure that he’s not acting brave or foolish.

He’s acting dangerously reckless.

When you go after Michael Weber, you’ll probably piss him off and some of his buddies in magic’s old guard. Who gives a shit. That’s a small portion of the magic community.

But in this recent video on how to act at the Blackpool Magic Convention, he takes aim at a full 98% of the magic community when he cautions them…

You’re on your own here, Craig. I’m not going to alienate most of magic by taking a stand like this. I actually like your average magic convention attendee’s scent. The breath that smells like they’ve been sucking on a blue cheese lozenge, the unscrubbed armpits, the butthole that has had almost a full 60% of the fecal matter from their last bowel movement cleaned away, and whatever that cologne is that they wear (I think it might be soy sauce). I think it’s great. This is Craig’s war to fight. Please don’t drag me into this.

Mailbag #79

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I have a date with this girl I met on Hinge on Tuesday and I feel like I'm set up perfectly to do some sort of trick for her. We've had multiple instances in the past couple days now where she would type something as I'm typing it, almost word for word. She said it was "pretty magical" so I feel like this is a great opportunity to go into some sort of trick along those lines.

I will point out that I did tell her I'm into magic, her bio says she's an atheist, and she mentioned that she doesn't believe in the Law of Attraction/Manifesting. I was worried it might come across as manipulative to imply there's some kind of supernatural connection between us if she actually believes in that sort of thing but it seems like I'd be in the clear on that. However, I also feel like it would still come across weird to do something like that on the first date anyway. So maybe, if this goes anywhere, I'll wait until it happens again in person and then use that as an opportunity to go into a trick. I'm not sure. What do you think?—AO

Yeah, your instincts are right here. That’s a sketchy situation. You don’t want to toy with the idea of your “connection” too early.

There are only two ways that can play out:

  1. She really believes that this magical thing that just occurred was caused by some unusual “connection” between you two. In which case, that’s really emotionally manipulative.

  2. She doesn’t really believe that this magical thing that just occurred was caused by some unusual “connection” between you two. But she thinks that’s what you want her to think. In which case you come off as a completely corny douchebag.

Now, once you’re actually in a serious relationship with someone, you can play around with the idea that maybe something happened because of your connection.

Do you see the difference?

Once you actually have a connection, then it can be fun or flirty or sweet to suggest that what happened might be because of that connection.

But what you don’t want it to look like is that you’re trying to establish a connection by using a trick. Then you’re just socially awkward at best and a conman or incel at worst.

In your blog post of November 7, 2022, you mentioned that people often believe that the explanation for the Ambitious Card effect(s) is a trick deck/trick cards, and that they entertain similar suspicions regarding other props (e.g. sponge balls or coins), ascribing what they’ve seen to the prop(s) being a trick whatever.

My question is, do have your participants examine the cards (when they are not gaffed of course) and/or other props you use? Also, it seems to me that if a prop is examinable, it would be more desirable to have it examined prior to the magical effect, rather than after. What are your thoughts on this? —AD

I’ll answer your last question first.

It’s more important to have an item examined after an effect than before it. The issue is, before an effect, people don’t know what they’re supposed to be looking for. It happens all the time that you can let someone examine an object, do something magical with it, and then they want to look at it again.

If you only let them examine it beforehand, they’ll think along these lines, “Oh, I didn’t know what to look for. I must have missed something originally. If I could get a look at that quarter [or whatever the object is] now, then I’d definitely see what’s going on with it.” The trick ends and you put the object away. “Oh… he’s not going to let me look at it? I knew it, there’s something weird about it.”

If you only let them examine it afterward, they’ll think along these lines, “Oh, there must be something unusual about that quarter. If I could get a look at that, then I’d know how it was done. Wait… he’s going to let me see it? Well, now I have no idea.”

So I always allow someone to look at something at the end. And often at the beginning as well. However, sometimes I want to increase the suspicion around an item. In that case I won’t have it looked at before the trick.

In general, when it comes to social magic, I avoid using the term “examine.” It’s too formal and clinical. I may say, “Check this out,” or, “Look at this.” But even that is unnecessary most of the time. If I hand you a quarter and say, “Here, I want to try something with this.” You’re going to naturally take a quick look at it. And at the end, if I hand it back to you, you’re going to feel compelled to examine it without me saying anything. But throwing around the word “examine,” is going to make this feel more like a challenge—which is not the vibe I think you generally want to go for in a social interaction.

Dispassion, Thieves and Bullying

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Okay, guys. I’m done talking about the ethics of receipt-based magic effects.

I’m going to be honest with you… I don’t find this sort of content super exciting.

When I was writing the Magic Circle Jerk, I was working a desk job, so I spent a lot of time digging around on the Magic Cafe and giving my thoughts on things going on there. That’s because I had no choice but to be at a desk for 8 hours a day and talking shit about magic dullards and their petty issues was a fun way to pass the time when I was stuck at a desk.

These days I work for myself. I work on magic. I work in other creative industries. I’m never just sitting at a desk with nothing to do killing time, waiting for my day to be over.

In this post, I discuss how I use the Magic Cafe, which involves checking in there once or twice a week and looking at the threads for tricks I’m interested in. That’s the extent of my interaction with the Magic Cafe. I’m not active on Facebook. I don’t follow the drama or the controversies in the magic world unless someone brings them to my attention.

There is a chunk of my time that I can devote to magic-related things week to week and my favorite thing to do with that time is show people a trick, or test out an idea, or think up new concepts or premises. I also like writing this site, because the supporters of this site afford me the time to do more of those things in the previous sentence.

Now, while I enjoy hearing about magic controversies and gossip, I have no real passion for these issues. So writing posts about them takes three times longer than writing a post about something I’m really excited to talk about. It reminds me of when I would have to write a thank you letter for the new shirt my grandma got me for Christmas. I’d write a sentence, walk around my room, flop on my bed, pet my dog, go get a glass of orange juice. Try to think of another sentence. And so on. Four sentences later, 90 minutes will have passed.

That’s what writing these posts have been like. It’s hard to write fun, interesting posts, while also trying to stay balanced. It’s easy to write wildly biased posts, but that’s not really fair to do when you’re dealing with a nuanced issue.

The type of emails I get when I’m talking about performance ideas and presentational concepts are so much more interesting to me than the ones I get when I’m writing about these magic arguments. These types of debates bring a weird element to my email box.

I got a bizarrely unhinged email this weekend from someone who was pretending to be a fan of the site who was now angry with me for not hopping on the Weber/Petty fiasco sooner. Why wasn’t I reporting on Weber’s sock-puppet account being outed?

He said, “As someone who seems to know every move made on the Magic Cafe, it sure seems weird that you didn't mention the massive controversy going on there with Weber and Trono.”

Now, of course, it would be hard for me to comment on these things given that I hadn’t written a post since this “massive controversy” went down. My last post of the week went up on Friday, but it was written Thursday night (the sections on Picture Consequences and ISO were written even further back). This dolt literally thought I write the posts in real time right before posting them. He thought I had written 1500 regularly scheduled posts over almost 8 years and that there wasn’t any sort of planning involved. That I would write for an afternoon deadline that afternoon. And beyond that, he thought that a controversy would come up Friday morning and I’d write about it immediately without reaching out to the people involved. No amount of rational thought could convince this dumbfuck that maybe he was misreading the situation.

BTW, if you want to pretend to be a fan of my site, don’t suggest it seems like I “know every move made on the Magic Cafe.” Before this week, 2 of the 1500 posts on this site were specifically about something happening at the Cafe. I’ve written as many posts on how not to shit your pants.

This dude who wrote in had all sorts of fascinating theories. He believed I was paid to write negative reviews. (People are paying for that?) I asked him to tell me anything I’ve ever said about a product that wasn’t factually true or a reasonable opinion. His answer was the moron’s go-to: ”Let’s agree to disagree.”

He suggested that making a judgment about a magic trick after watching the demo would be like making a judgment on a movie after watching the trailer. When I informed him that’s literally the only thing people do with movie trailers, he jumped to some other weird criticism or conspiracy theory.

You know how when you argue with a dumb person and they’re like, “You tracked mud all through the house!” And you’re like, “You’re the only one who has gone outside today.” And instead of apologizing they’re like, “Okay, well. I guess we’ll never know.” That’s what it was like going back and forth emailing with him.

He was by far the stupidest person who emailed about this subject, but he certainly wasn’t the only one. When this week’s posts went up, I had more emails from people asking why I didn’t get into more details about “Craig Petty’s lies.” Or more details about “Weber’s bullying.”

Because I’m not the fucking magic police. Okay?

You want me to go after Craig Petty, or Michael Weber, or Lloyd Barnes, or Rick Lax, or whoever you have an issue with…it’s probably not going to happen. Because I don’t really give a shit about these issues the way a lot of you do. You think I’m going to follow along with a thread on the Magic Cafe about a trick I have no interest in… on a FRIDAY?!?!?! What kind of life do you think I lead?

I get that people like it when I step into the fray. I know it brings more visitors to this site. But this site already has too many visitors. I’m not looking for more traffic. I want less.

This site was built around me writing about whatever I happened to be interested in writing about at the time and that’s how it’s going to continue. I like talking about the beautiful aspects of this art. And for me, those are the aspects that come from performing for real people and experimenting with new ideas. So if I don’t happen to write about whatever squabble you're concerned with, it’s not because I’m on someone’s side or in someone’s pocket. It’s just because these subjects are generally not interesting to me.

“So you don’t care about proper crediting?”

No, I care very much about that. But I’m not an expert on the history of magic and crediting. And I recognize that frequently these issues aren’t all black and white. So if I were to comment on all the issues that came up, it would be a lot of, “Well, I can see both sides.”

“So you don’t care about bullying and threats?”

Hey, listen to me. I’m going to empower you.

You’re an adult. No one can bully you unless you allow them to.

Do you know what I would do if Michael Weber “threatened” me and told me not to release something because it was too close to something that was released before? First, I’d do an honest assessment and ask myself if he was right. If so, I’d agree with him and not release it. But if he’s making an unreasonable “threat,” then I’d tell him to fuck off. I’d say, “Beat it, Lurch.”

If you’re in the right, and you’re a reasonable person, you will find it nearly impossible to be controlled, bullied, or threatened by someone else. Not your parents. Not your boss. Not your spouse. All you need is to have a “fuck off” chambered. Just don’t play their game.

In magic there are no gatekeepers anymore. I got censored on the Magic Cafe 20 years ago. I told them to fuck off and now I’m the most widely read writer in magic. I never thought of Steve Brooks as a bully. I just thought of him as a douchebag.

How is Michael Weber or anyone else going to bully or control you if you’re in the right? This isn’t 1992. You have the means to make your case so everyone can hear it. Do what Petty did and make it public. If you’re on the right side of things, people will back you.

Here’s What I WILL Always Publish On This Site

I’m more than happy to shine a light on clear-cut cases of stolen tricks or other intellectual property.

I’m also very willing to call out genuine bullies who are pushing around anyone who’s powerless to fight back.

If you’re being unreasonably censored on the Cafe or somewhere else, I’m always happy to amplify your message on this site.

And if there’s a disagreement that both sides are willing to have me mediate, I’d definitely be down to do that.

Beyond that, I’ll comment on the disputes for which I feel I have something to add. But don’t expect me to have an opinion on every dopey debate in the magic community. Someone told me in an email that I have a duty to comment on these things because of the “platform” I have. Yes, I have a platform. But I built that platform on my joy of performing and experimenting with magic. I’m not going to be a truffle pig seeking out controversy so I can feign outrage over stuff that otherwise would never cross my mind. If you need that nerd-shit, seek it elsewhere.

How to Respond When Your Sock-Puppet Account is Revealed On the Magic Cafe.

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When I wrote the Magic Circle Jerk blog back 20 years ago, I had a mole inside the Magic Cafe who would send me their backroom discussions where they were panicking about me and scheming ways to get the site taken down.

One day, about a year after my site started, he sent me an email with a list of 40 or so known magicians and their sock-puppet accounts on the Magic Cafe, thinking I might want to publish it. All your favorite magicians were on there.

I don’t quite remember my thought process at the time and why I chose not to. I may just not have been able to come up with a good angle for how to write about it. Or I might just not have thought it was necessary to bust people on secret identities. It would maybe be seen as hypocritical of me, given that I was writing that blog (and now this one) anonymously and no one knew that I was really Tony Hassini.

I’ve had people ask me if I have an account—sock-puppet or otherwise—on the Magic Cafe at the moment. Believe it or not, once I got booted from the Cafe I never created an account again. I didn’t have to, because I had a few friends who gave me their passwords if there was something I wanted to post or a restricted area of the Cafe I wanted to look at. I’ve posted on the Cafe using those accounts throughout the years, but I’ve never made a single post about this site or any of my other work on there (or anywhere else). So I wouldn’t say I have any “sock puppet” accounts. Just accounts my friends let me use when I need to post in the “Clowning Around” section to ask what face-paint people are using these days.

Sock-Puppet accounts are on people’s minds recently because Michael Weber got busted for his on the Cafe. His alter-ego “newguy” has been around for 20 years now.

Now, I don’t begrudge any known magician who wants to post in a public forum under a different name. But here’s the problem…You may start off with the best intentions. Maybe you just want to take part in the discussions while still maintaining some privacy. I get that. But the temptation to add some information about yourself and your products where it’s applicable will be too strong. And that will transition into complimenting yourself and your work. And that will soon transition into this:

And when you get to that point your actions are shady at best and unethical at worst. So Weber deserves the hits he’s taking on this.

As “newguy,” Michael cleverly hid his identity and created a rich alternative life where he could get lost in the character of… someone who was a Michael Weber fan and happened to know every detail of his business dealings. Look, I don’t want to take away anything from the people who exposed Weber here… it was a good catch. But he didn’t do the world’s greatest job of disguising his identity. If you read three newguy posts you will come to the conclusion: Either this is Michael Weber or he has an enthusiastic, gay stalker who intends to “Talented-Mr-Ripley” his ass and take over his life. The detective work needed to unmask Weber could have been done by this guy.

So what should you do if your sock-puppet account is revealed on the Magic Cafe? You can’t really run from it or deny it. It’s usually just too obvious. I think you have to embrace it.

Using Weber as an example, the best way to handle it would be to go comically sock-puppet. Start posting in threads for tricks that have nothing to do with you: “I wonder if Michael Weber has a version of this? I bet that would be killer. He’s a genius!” Or go into the section for kid’s magic and say something like, “Did you read that article about the kid’s show Michael Weber performed in 1992? They followed those kids’ lives for the next 30 years and now they’re all CEOs. How does Weber do it?”

When someone calls out your true identity, you violently deny it while still praising yourself.

“I’m Michael Weber?!?!?!?! Uhm… yeah… sure. I wish! First off, I’m a lady. But thanks for assuming my gender and my identity. But it’s actually very complimentary that you think I’m him. I wish I had even half his brains. Not to mention his charisma! What aspect of being Weber would I not want? His history of putting out amazing effects? His successful career in and outside of magic? The way animals and children adore him? His kindness towards the elderly? And, as a woman—which I most definitely am—what I wouldn’t give to get my hands on that famously girthy cock! 💦”

Then change your profile picture to this:

Here Comes the Jerx: Petty v. Weber

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There’s lots of excitement in the magic community as the battle heats up between Craig Petty and Michael Weber. As one of the few prominent names in the magic community who gives a shit about none of you, it has come down to me again to pass judgment on who’s in the right in this debate over the new release EDCeipt.

If you are blessedly out of the loop on this controversy, here is the rundown:

  1. Craig Petty is releasing an effect called EDCeipt. The basic effect is that someone thinks of an item from a group of receipts and you’re able to tell them what that item is.

  2. Michael Weber (and Tim Trono) had a trick back in 2012 called Age Receipts. The basic effect is that someone thinks of an item from a group of receipts and you’re able to tell them what that item is.

Weber believes this new version shouldn’t be released. Petty, obviously, thinks otherwise.

As your judge, I think I should disclaim any potential biases.

  1. Weber and Trono are supporters of this site, but I don’t know either of them personally. In the past, I’ve described them as “generous” because they usually send me their new releases for free without expecting anything in return. (I will happily describe anyone else as “generous” if they want to do the same.)

  2. I don’t have any relationship with Craig Petty. I like a number of his releases (my first review in Love Letters was praising Chop), but I’m neither a fanboy nor a detractor.

“Aha! Weber and Trono are supporters! He can’t be a fair judge!”

Wrong, dum-dum. Being a supporter doesn’t give anyone editorial control. I’m my own voice in the magic community. If I upset anyone with my opinions and they stop supporting the site, there is a long waitlist of people to take their place. So I don’t really give a shit.

I purposely set up my site this way. I don’t rely on advertisers. I have no relationship with any magic companies. I have no friends who are professional magicians. I’m beholden to no one.

Here are the facts in evidence:

Stipulation #1: The tricks are the same.

In the sense that they use the same method with the same types of props to achieve the same effect. If you showed someone Weber’s trick one day, came back a week later and started showing them Petty’s trick, they would say, “We just did this.”

Stipulation #2: You’re getting many more variations and ideas with the new release than you got with the original release.

The original release was a page of instructions where as the new version has hours of video teaching.

Arguments and Evidence

You can see Craig’s argument in his video here. It gets a little confusing because he reads a transcript of some emails and multiple effects get mentioned. The only thing to really keep in mind is that Real Secrets released an effect called Age Receipts in 2012 and it’s the same basic method and effect as EDCeipt.

I reached out to Weber and Trono a few days ago to see if they wanted to give their side, but they declined. Then, Sunday night, they provided me with a copy of all the communication that went back and forth between themselves, Craig and Murphy’s.

Precedent

Legally, Murphy’s Magic and Craig Petty are completely in the clear. You can take anybody’s trick and release a version of it yourself. You don’t need to ask permission. You don’t need to give them a cut of the profits. Obviously, this is frowned upon and can make you a pariah in the industry, so generally it’s not something people do.

The “gentleman’s agreement” in the magic industry is that if you’re the first person to put something out, that trick is “yours.” And if someone wants to release their own version they should work it out with you first.

As someone releasing a product, you’re not expected to know everything that has come out beforehand. But when someone does come and say, “Hey, I already released that.” You’re generally expected to either pull the product or work it out with them and get permission (and perhaps give them a cut of the profits). Even if you never saw the original. Even if it was only in a niche publication with 30 subscribers.

I don’t think this is a standard we want to get too far away from. The ethical standard can’t be, “I can release this because I didn’t know about your version,” or, “I can release this because I’ve added much more to your version.” Because that standard would be too easily gamed by people with ill intent.

My Sympathies

I can sympathize with everyone in this situation. I can sympathize with Weber and Trono because the core of the trick is theirs. And if they were planning on updating/re-releasing it as they say, then this version kind of steals their thunder (and money). From Craig’s video, it looks like he doesn’t believe they were really going to do that. But I do know they have other releases in the pipeline that were originally published via Real Secrets. So it doesn’t seem out of the question to me.

But I can also sympathize with Craig and Murphy’s. They’ve invested significant time and money into this. And it does expand on the idea as presented in the original. Assuming they had no knowledge of Weber’s version, it’s difficult to say they should just have to bury this project altogether.

What Really Happened

I think I now have more insight into this situation than possibly anyone else. I’ve exchanged emails with Craig, with Michael and Tim, with an insider at Murphy’s, as well as a couple of other tangential figures in this story who have asked not to be named. I’ve seen the correspondence that went back and forth between the parties involved. And I’ve seen the instructions for both releases.

In addition, I have something in short supply in the magic industry: emotional intelligence. So I can give you what I think is a pretty accurate accounting of how things went down (although anyone involved can feel free to correct me).

To understand why it played out the way it did, you need to remember the RED situation. RED was a trick released by Craig Petty in 2013 that was a rip-off of a Bob King effect. Everyone, including Craig, acknowledges that now. Craig and Weber/Trono were on opposite sides during that situation. The whole ordeal caused Craig to drop out of the magic community for many years. If you have seen Craig talk about this situation, it’s clear that it was traumatizing for him. “Traumatizing? But it was all his fault?” Yes, it was. But you don’t have to be victimized by someone else to be traumatized. Cratering your own reputation can fuck you up just as much, I’m sure.

Many years later, Craig has come back. He’s a changed person. I genuinely believe he feels that way. Having kids probably makes you drop a lot of your bullshit. He’s doing what he can to try and give more than he takes from magic. He’s still polarizing and gets a lot of shit, but that comes with the territory of making yourself a prominent person in magic.

Now this situation with the Age Receipts/EDCeipt controversy comes up, and it’s about to trigger his trauma response.

On January 30th, Weber and Trono are advised of the existence of EDCeipt. They watch the trailer and send Craig an email that lets him know that this is not original to him and ask him not to release it. This email isn’t particularly friendly, nor is it adversarial. It’s fairly straightforward.

Craig doesn’t respond to this. I think that was a mistake. In fact, Craig has never responded to Michael or Tim directly about this issue. Maybe he feels they wouldn’t be receptive to what he has to say. Whatever the case, he passes the issue along to Murphy’s to handle.

This begins a series of emails between Weber and Murphy’s where they’re attempting to sort out the situation. This is another moment where communication suffered. Instead of just saying, “Here are the instructions for Age Receipts. You’ll see it’s the same trick,” they get into talking about other tricks and other variations that they published and it ends up diluting the argument and confusing the issue.

I’ve read through all the emails and they’re very fraught. It was clear to me this wasn’t going to reach a happy conclusion. Craig never chimes in, so we don’t get his side of the story. Weber/Trono use some language that comes off cold or perhaps legalistic—language like “Craig’s unauthorized copy” of their trick, which make his actions sound willful in a way they probably weren’t. And they don’t seem really open to anything other than the product being pulled. And Murphy’s just plays stupid. They’re like, “Huh? What? How are these tricks similar?”

I wonder how things might have gone if Craig had come to the table and said, “Shit. I really looked into this but this slipped under my radar.” If Weber and Trono had come to the table more open to some kind of compromise. And if Murphy’s had at least admitted, “Oh, yeah, these are pretty much the same trick. Short of pulling this product, what can we do to make this right?”

Then comes the turning point. In an email to Murphy’s, Michael concludes by saying:

“The facts do not favor Craig in this case and I sincerely would prefer that he gracefully step away from releasing this effect. It would be tragic for this to end up being another RED situation for him after all his hard work.”

This is the statement that Craig refers to as harassment and bullying. Because to him it’s a threat. Was it intended as a threat? I have to say, as an outsider reading the entire email exchange, it doesn’t read like a threat in the context of the emails. I think it was a genuine statement. They felt this situation would reflect poorly on him, similar to the RED ordeal. And that he would be undermining the work he’s done to restore his reputation.

But Craig—for whom the RED situation was not just a crediting debacle, but a cause of major distress in his life—understandably is much more sensitive to this and interprets it as harassment. It’s a trauma response. The same way someone who is attacked by a dog will be on edge around dogs for the rest of their life, someone who was devastated by a crediting “scandal” is going to be hyper-sensitive about another potential crediting scandal.

For them to invoke the RED controversy feels highly manipulative to Craig because in his mind there was one situation where he was completely in the wrong, and then this situation where he feels he tried to do everything right. He feels they aren’t comparable. So bringing it up seems like bullying.

Imagine you’re a 19-year-old gang-banger and you killed a woman in cold blood. Then you turn your life around and try and be a productive member of society. You’re feeling good about yourself. And then, one day in the future, a woman dies by accident in your presence, and maybe you could have prevented it. If someone goes and compares that accident to the murder, it’s going to feel like an attack. Because you’re going to interpret that as them saying that you haven’t changed, you haven’t grown, you’re still the younger piece-of-shit version of yourself.

So Craig makes a video that goes on the offensive. Essentially saying, “How dare you try and bully and harass me.”

Now cut back to Weber and Trono’s position. They don’t feel they’re bullying or threatening anyone. Threats don’t often begin with, “I sincerely would prefer.” They weren’t standing outside a local market in dark clothes, smacking a baseball bat against their palm and saying, “Sure would be a shame if something happened to your plate-glass window.” They were just comparing this situation to another crediting issue from his past. I don’t think they were taking into account the emotional impact of that comparison on Craig. So they see Craig’s video and see him so upset about something they feel they didn’t do, and they think he’s full of shit. They see it as performative. Using victimhood as a marketing tactic.

In reality, I think they’re both misreading the situation.

Craig was wrong to think that sentence was intended as a threat.

And Michael and Tim were wrong to think Craig didn’t genuinely feel it was a threat.

So now we have two parties operating under incorrect assumptions about each other and then continuing to push the issue based on those incorrect assumptions.

Verdict

By all traditional magic business standards, Weber and Trono have the ethical high ground regarding this release. It’s undeniable that they did put out essentially the same trick a decade ago.

That being said, looking at EDCeipt, this is clearly not a money grab where they just stole an idea and rushed out their own version. This isn’t a floating match situation.

It’s also hard to say that Craig and/or Murphy’s “should have known” about this previous version. There’s really no easy way to find information about the original trick because it was intentionally released in a relatively low-key manner.

I don’t think this is another RED situation for Craig. I think he did his due diligence and genuinely didn’t find information about this effect. Given that, I think it’s too punitive to say, “No, you can’t release that,” when they are this far along.

In an ideal world, I think Craig and Murphy’s should give credit and some financial considerations to Weber/Trono. (Someone with a better understanding of magic business financials could determine what’s fair there.)

In an ideal world, I think Weber and Trono should say, “Okay, this is unfortunate. But we’ll take you at your word that it was unintentional.” And not necessarily frame it as something nefarious.

You, as the potential purchaser, can make the decision if Murphy’s should have pulled this product once they were aware of the history behind the trick. It’s a moral grey area, so it comes down to your personal conscience.

In my utopia, when everyone found out about this issue, they would have collaborated together to try and bring all the good ideas regarding this trick into one package. The cover art would have an image of Petty and Weber holding hands skipping through a daisy field together. EveryDayChums.

The Wisdom of Solomon

But none of the parties are going to give a shit about what I feel about this, so I’m going to split the baby down the middle and say…do you really want to do this trick?

One thing to consider for the social performer…

Imagine I told you I had a trick that would be good for casual performing situations because it used “everyday objects.”

And you said, “Oh, yeah? What does it use?”

And I responded, “112 nickels.”

Quantity affects the “everydayness” of an object. Having one grocery receipt on you is pretty standard. But five?

Is this you?

I’m just saying, if you’re going to try and pass this off as a “casual” moment of magic, you’re going to have to come up with a rationale for why you “casually” have five grocery store receipts on you.

As I mentioned in a previous post. I used to do the Real Secrets version, and I could pass the receipts off as restaurants I visited on a work trip and was planning to expense. But that was 10 years ago. I don’t know that I’d do the same today. If I wanted to read someone’s mind of a word they were “just thinking of,” I’d use the Xeno app in some form.

Okay, do you hear that Craig, Michael, Tim, Murphy’s? Turn your ire towards me. I’m not the biggest fan of multiple-receipt-based-mind-reading. Let me be your common enemy.

Postscript

I received a number of emails saying, “Can you believe Michael Weber was posting on the Cafe under a different name?” (This was uncovered in the EDCeipt thread.)

Yes. There is nothing that makes more sense to me in the world than that. I’m not shocked in the least that Weber would want to get certain things out there but not have to deal with the Cafe riff-raff as himself. That wasn’t as much of an explosive revelation to me as it seemed to be for others. The way that information was revealed on the Cafe thread, I thought it was going to come out that he was the Zodiac killer.

That said, it’s too late for Weber now, but for all the other well-known magicians writing under a pseudonym on the Cafe, check back tomorrow for my post: How to Respond When Your Sock-Puppet Account is Revealed On the Magic Cafe.

New Release Round-Up #5

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Time for more uneducated opinions on new releases based primarily on the advertising copy and first impressions.

EDCeipt by Craig Petty

I saw this recent release from Murphy’s Magic. It uses receipts to perform an effect like the Magic Age Cards except instead of thinking of a number, people are asked to think of a food item.

This seemed very familiar to me and I remembered that Real Secrets put this same effect out back around 2012 and I kept it in my wallet for a while back then.

As far as the benefits of this version, I’m sure Craig’s release goes into much more detail and variations than the original did. (Real Secret’s instructions were intentionally minimalist, like the magic instructions of old). And it looks like there’s an added receipt so there are more potential choices. And I’m intrigued that the receipts are made of Tyvek. That will definitely add to the longevity, but it seems like that wouldn’t really feel like a receipt, you know? But maybe they have a different type of Tyvek than I’m familiar with.

At first, I thought it was better that they went with national brands. But now I’m not so sure. I don’t love the stores they’ve chosen for the receipts with this release. It looks like primarily grocery stores with California addresses? I don’t know why I’d be carrying receipts from grocery stores. Especially ones that are 3000 miles away from me. (And the prices that are visible in the demo seem bizarrely low.) I’m not suggesting everyone is automatically going to pay attention to these details, but when you’re 100s of miles from the nearest Safeway, it’s going to be weird to be carrying around a receipt from one of their stores. “Yes, I kept this Safeway receipt in case my Doritos are defective and I want to drive 12 hours to return them.”

When you’re doing a trick with receipts, you want it to come off as a purely spontaneous moment. The reason you’re using receipts is because that’s what you “just happen to have on you.” You certainly don’t want it to seem like you’re providing your “special” receipts that you brought with you for this purpose. The nice thing about the Real Secrets receipts was they looked like local places that could conceivably be found anywhere. They consisted of restaurants and food marts so—if anyone asked—I could pass them off as places I visited while on a business trip and I was holding onto the receipts so I could expense them.

If I was sitting on a plane or train with someone, or randomly met up with them somewhere, I would find it much more natural to “find” a few restaurant/small market receipts in my wallet, than I would to have five large grocery receipts on me. Mainly because I don’t know anyone who hangs onto grocery store receipts, nor do I know anyone who shops at five different grocery stores (for essentially the same items).

That being said, perhaps these issues are covered in the instructions for EDceipt. From performing the original version, I know this can be a good bit of casual magic. I doubt I’ll be picking this version up. I just don’t feel I’d have a great excuse to be carrying around receipts that look like this. So it’s not ideal for me.

Picture Consequences by Joel Dickinson

In this effect, the spectator chooses a head, body, and legs from a set of picture cards to create a person/creature. You then reveal that you predicted they would choose those particular “pieces” when forming their person.

This is one I actually have seen in person, as a friend of mine has it and I saw a couple of performances.

The reactions were stronger than I anticipated. It really feels like there must be more possible outcomes than there actually are. And all the outs involved are pretty good.

I’ll be picking this up for myself, although I do have some concerns about it.

  1. I’m not sure what the story of the trick is supposed to be. Is it a children’s game that you’re using as a psychological experiment? Or is it a psychological experiment that you disguised as a children’s game? I wish the story was a little clearer in that sense.

  2. Also, I don’t think the “influence” aspect of it really works that well. You’re supposed to suggest they were “influenced” because they saw dots of certain colors on the instructions or on the box. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Okay. I just don’t find that to be a compelling demonstration of “influence,” so I’d probably leave that out.

  3. And finally, please, people… I beg of you: Stop printing the name a trick is marketed under on the trick itself. The box says “Picture Consequences.” Google that and you find the trick for sale. That’s not great. And the more someone is intrigued by the trick, the more likely they are to wonder if they can find more information about the game or the psychological experiment.

Beyond those concerns, I still like the trick. Creating the image has a feeling of something you’ve done as a child. And it’s one of the better uses of multiple-outs that I’ve seen.

ISO by Marc Kerstein and Noel Qualter

I’m psyched about this one. I got a chance to see the app in action, and I get the feeling people are going to come up with a lot of good uses for this. My mind is still working on a couple ideas, which I think will either solidify or evaporate once I see the full instructional video.

It’s a utility app. It’s iPhone only, and I think the spectator has to be using an iPhone as well. So if you don’t have an iphone, and don’t tend to perform around people who do, then this won’t be for you. If you do I think it will allow you to do some cool things.

The effect with which the app was originally demonstrated for me was a bill-to-impossible-location. You borrow a bill. Take a picture of the bill on the spectator’s phone. Vanish or destroy the bill. Then remove the bill from wherever you like. They can verify from the picture on their phone it’s the same bill.

(Maybe force them to crumple up the bill and swallow it, but then remove it from your own asshole. This proves to your spectator that you two have a “special connection.”)

It’s going to be interesting to see what people come up with for this app.